Darcy James Argue's Secret Society

Please don't tell me 'bout the news

I got my credentials for Netroots Nation, so tomorrow L. and I are flying down to Austin. I will report back from the massive convo of liberal bloggers, and while I'm down there I will do my level best to get a bit of a dialogue going between the legions of hardcore politics junkies in attendance and the arts blogosphere -- as represented by, uh, me. Obviously, I'll be taking in the local music scene, so if you know of any good shows happening in Austin from July 17-20, let me know.

In other news -- our LPR recording from last week turned out really great. Also: mixing a bigband recording takes roughly an order of magnitude longer than you expect. Especially since the engineer I have been working with on these tracks is about to depart for the West Coast for the remainder of the summer. So please have patience. You've heard lots of raw live recordings from this band already -- we want to bring you something different, something that will be (I hope) an order of magnitude more awesome.

So I can, so I can watch you weave

In addition to that "Listen Up!" profile I linked to before, the July edition of All About Jazz New York (PDF) also has Tom Greenland's "New York @ Night" writeup of June 13 at the New Languages Festival. (One correction -- Ingrid's solo is on "Transit" -- James Hirschfeld solos on "Habeas Corpus.")

Act fast

Want two free tickets to our July 9 hit at (Le) Poisson Rouge, courtesy of Wordless Music?

A New Venue: Le Poisson Rouge

Beginning in July, Wordless Music will present regular concerts at Le Poisson Rouge (LPR), a new venue and performance space at the corner of Bleecker and Thompson streets in Greenwich Village, at the site of the historic Village Gate.

The first 20 replies to this email with the words "Tickets" in the subject will have their choice of two free tickets to the following LPR events. Further show and venue info is available at lprnyc.com.

Saturday, June 28
Natasha Paremsky (piano) and Kate Emerman (voice)
Music of Chopin, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, and Gershwin

Tuesday, July 1
Jonathan Kane's February
Kathleen Supové (music for solo piano by Jacob TV, Carolyn Yarnell, Randall Woolf, Frederic Rzewski)
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/events/nightlife/2008/06/30/080630goni_GOAT_nightlife

Wednesday, July 9 (early show)
Darcy James Argue's Secret Society

Wednesday, July 9 (late show)
Gregor Samsa, Olafur Arnalds

Thursday, July 10
Jenny Lin
Works for piano solo by John Cage, Cornelius Dufallo, William Bolcom, John Musto, Frederic Rzewski, Daniel Felsenfeld, Raymond Scott

Tuesday, July 22
Morton Subotnick
Kathleen Supové
Morgan Packard and Joshue Ott

Saturday, July 26
Fernando Otero
Trio Tarana

But some people talk way too much

I am featured in the "Listen Up!" section of July's All About Jazz New York (link is PDF). It is reproduced below the fold.

When I wake up in the morning I pour the coffee read the paper

My age +1.

(Also, guys? Robert Moog? Still dead, I'm afraid.)

Hanging around in the lost and found

Remember how, due to catastrophic technological failiure, there was one set missing set from the MP3's I posted of our two-night, four-set stand at the Jazz Gallery last month? Well, thanks to Rio and Russell at the Gallery, it's not missing anymore.

So here it is: everything I've ever written for Secret Society, performed over two nights (including a much livelier version of Zeno -- it's a tough chart, but we are getting there).

Now I gotta write me some new shit.

You think you know me, that's your trouble

Please be advised that I will be making my legitimate music debut this Sunday, April 27 at 2 PM at the Brooklyn Museum, in the latest installment of the Music Off The Walls series (sponsored by the Brooklyn Philharmonic). I was commissioned to write a new work inspired by the artwork of Takashi Murakami, whose buzzworthy, controversial retrospective opened at the Brooklyn Museum on April 5. The piece will also be reprised that same night (8 PM) at Drom, a newish venue on the Lower East Side.

My piece, "Body Double," is for string quartet and tapan. The tapan is a Bulgarian drum that kind of sounds like a cross between a bass drum and a dumbek, except that the left-hand beater is a lightweight switch that can be held against the left drum head to create a rattling, snarelike sound when you hit the other head with the other beater. The tapan will be played by Svetoslav Stoyanov. The strings are Jennifer Choi & Suzy Perelman (violin), Sasha Rees (viola), and Joey Amini (cello). The ensemble has been rehearsing at Suzy's apartment this week and they are sounding very good.

"Body Double" begins and ends with a sonic representation of Murakami's Milk, seen above. [I have also written a piece (for Pulse) based on photographer Jeff Wall's Milk. And yet, I drink my coffee black -- black as midnight on a moonless night. Perhaps I am sonically overcompensating.] At any rate, the "canvas-as-score" is heard left-to-right at the beginning, and right-to-left (manga-style) at the end. In between are a series of representations of Murakami's ubiquitous DOB character, whose portrayals veer wildly between the cute and the grotesque. DOB's head is made out of the letters D-O-B, so it seemed appropriate to use those notes to construct the musical material. (I substituted "C" for "O", it being the closest in shape, and also conveniently located between D and B.) Writing the piece, I had fun tweaking the expectations game for both "high art" and "pop art" and I hope that comes across in the music.

I am grateful to composer Jeffery Cotton, whose Meditation, Rhapsody and Bacchanal contains a movement for violin and tapan (the "Bacchanal," natch -- which you can listen to here.) Jeffery was kind enough to send me the score, which also features a preamble which contains a wealth of useful information on the tapan.

Other works on the concert include Randy Woolf's Try To Believe for violin and electronic track, Julia Wolfe's East Broadway for toy piano [yeah, that's right, Woolf & Wolfe -- and here you thought only indie rock bands had a canis lupus fixation], Frederick Rzewksi's charming proto-minimalist game-piece Les Moutons de Panurge, and string quartet arrangements of Nobuo Uematsu's and Koji Kondo's video game music.

The concerts have been getting some nice advance blurbs in The New Yorker and Time Out New York. It is flattering to be referred to as "significant" and a "master," but with my birthday coming up hard and fast, it is even more flattering to be referred to as "young."

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Traversing the Mushroom Kingdom -- Sunday, 27 April -- 2 PM at the Brooklyn Museum, 8 PM at Drom.

You can never catch up

Been busy rehearsing this week for the April 18 & 19 hits at the Jazz Gallery. We will be premiering a brand-spankin' new tune, composed via the tried-and-true method of putting together a run of increasingly frantic and overcaffeinated all-nighters at the last possible minute. It's inspired by this and this, but also this -- like Zeno of Elea, we will rock you with our unstoppable paradox style.

I always enjoy inducting new co-conspirators into the Society, especially players on the level of Mike McGinnis, John Ellis, and Sam Hoyt -- these guys sound amazing. And this rare chance to play four sets on two consecutive nights means that we will have the opportunity to feature just about everyone, and play everything I have ever written for this band -- I guess this means that, like Lindsay Lohan, it's time for my Mid-Career Retrospective.

The pulse ripples

The Pulse blog has some shiny new content, including a vastly expanded MP3 archive. The music I write for Pulse is necessarily rather different than the stuff I write for Secret Society, but if you're curious about what my music for smaller forces sounds like. go here.

And your voice mail is off, cause I called you

I have only just now been told that for the past several weeks (eek), my voice mail has been all kinds of fucked up, and people calling me when I'm unable to pick up have been getting unceremoniously disconnected.

Now that I've finally been told there's a problem, I was able to get T-Mobile to fix the damn thing, but if you've been thwarted in your attempts to reach me by phone recently, my sincere apologies. 'S'all good now.

Disorderly conduct

It seems I have been drafted to emergency-guest-conduct the premiere of Chris Jentsch's Cycles Suite at the Kitchen tonight.

Please don't think I've left you alone

Back in Brooklyn, back into the thick of things -- there's a Pulse hit (featuring Triocracy) at the Brooklyn Lyceum tomorrow (Wed., Jan 16). Included is my piece "Spirit-Tapping," which premiered at Barbès last month. But, as any composer will tell you, premieres are not where it's at -- the second performance is always better. So come check it out tomorrow -- there will be Pulse music and Triocracy music and beer.

That's not a riot, it's a feast

Peter Matthews, of the voraciously omnivorous blog Feast of Music, has written up Sunday night's Secret Society hit. An excerpt:

My personal favorite, "Transit", was inspired by his move to New York, and is an aural picture of the city: the rumble of the subway, the hustle on Fifth Avenue, the bright lights of Times Square. It literally made me tingle from head to toe.

Peter writes authoritatively about all manner of live music in NYC -- everything from Emmanuel Ax to Múm to Japanther -- so this appreciative and insightful review is a real honor.

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A gentle reminder that our fall fundraiser is in full swing. You can help make our January tour a success by making a tax-deductible donation.

I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down

So yesterday was the reading session for the Brooklyn Philharmonic Composer Mentorship program, and I finally got to hear the fruits of my labors over the past several months. My fellow mentoree, singer Susan Oetgen, and I each had about an hour to spend with the orchestra.

I wrote a relatively concise piece (for me, at least), which allowed enough time to work out some interpretive details, and to try out some tweaks here and there to see what would happen (e.g., solo violin an octave above the firsts, having the string tremolos gradually slow up instead of stopping abruptly, etc). Brooklyn Phil composer-in-residence Randy Woolf was on hand and suggested several possibilities along these lines, as did some of the musicians in the orchestra -- which I know would have rubbed some composers the wrong way, but I actually thought it was great. In a workshop atmosphere like this, without the immediate pressure of a pending performance, why not try out a few alternate solutions? The vibe was relaxed but efficient, and conductor Michael Christie really helped us get the most out of our alloted time.

This hands-on way of working is familiar to me -- when I was studying with Brookmeyer at NEC, the school had a big band that met every week and played exclusively student compositions. You would write something, bring it in, hear it right away, get a vivid, instantaneous sense of what worked and what didn't, try out some quick-and-dirty tweaks, and then come back the next week with revisions. This is how I learned to write. I always thought it was incredibly unfortunate that classical composition majors who harbored orchestral ambitions did not have a similar setup on their side. I know many of them would have killed for a composers' workshop-type chamber orchestra that met every week to read through their stuff.

Of course, now that I've heard the work, I'd like for other people to have that opportunity as well. The piece is called Dean St. and it's loosely inspired by The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem, which is the first novel I read after moving to New York. The book that seemed like it had been custom-written just for me, especially at that point in my life. I'm very pleased with how Dean St. turned out and I'm going to be sending the score around, see if there is any interest in actually premiering the thing. Rest assured, I'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, it's time to get to work on the second portion of the mentorship program -- writing a piece for the Music Off The Walls series at the Brooklyn Museum. Details below:

TRAVERSING THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM
Sunday, April 27, 2008, at 2:00 PM

A multi-media experience featuring music by Randy Woolf, members of Brooklyn Philharmonic, musicians from Concert Artists Guild, and special guests.

In conjunction with Brooklyn Museum Takashi Murakami exhibition.

Randall Woolf: Try to Believe
Darcy James Argue: New Work (World Premiere)

I'll have post additional details about this event as we get closer to the date.

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A gentle reminder that our fall fundraiser is in full swing. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation.

I hate your blog. Your recipe for vegan eggnog is stupid.

(Yes, this is the second time I've stolen from that MC Frontalot song for a post title, but look -- genius is genius, all right?)

Time Out New York's cover feature this week is a piece exploring the sometimes contentious interrelation between Big Media arts critics and the growing network of Artists With Blogs and Bloggers Who Write About Arts. The piece itself is actually very bloggy -- after an introductory "post" by Michael Friedson, he turns it over to a bevy of commenters, including some of my favorite artsbloggers -- Tweed & sharkskin girl of the performance art blog Obscene Jester, and Isaac Butler, theatre director and proprietor of the vibrant theatre blog Parabasis.

[A digression: Isaac and I met cute -- while we were waiting for the F train one day a few years back, Isaac recognized Lindsay from her blog photo and introduced himself to us both. Later, he ended up using a couple of Secret Society tunes in a play he directed, Talk of the Walk-Up. And by some strange coincidence, one of the actors in the cast turned out to be the paralegal who had handled my latest O-1 Visa application.]

Anyway, yrs trly was amongst the bloggers contacted for this piece, and here's the bit they quoted:

Darcy James Argue, editor, music-and-culture blog Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society
One charge we’ve all heard leveled at blogs is that they are “all about the blogger.” The people making this accusation generally seem to think this is a very bad thing, but I’m not so sure.… When you follow someone’s blog, you tend to get a much more vivid sense of the writer’s values and priorities than you get from reading a traditional review. I think this is much healthier than passively accepting someone’s verdict because they happen to write for The New York Times.

Dude, I'm an editor now? Sweet! (Wait, that doesn't mean I have to start proofreading before I hit "Publish Now" from now on, does it?)

I'm also honored to have made the list of "trusted blogs," as it will make for a much more dramatic reversal when I inevitably betray that trust in a blatant sell-out.

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A gentle reminder that our fall fundraiser is in full swing. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation.

There, there, baby, it's just textbook stuff

Facebook has a new music initiative, allowing bands to create pages and host music, just like MySpace. Except it is not nearly as customizable as MySpace. Whether you view this a bug for a feature probably depends on how many eye-gougingly bad MySpace pages you've tried to navigate. Anyway, the interface so far is not so hot (for instance, I tried without success to add a picture to a band-created event), but I did put up a basic Secret Society Facebook page for those interested -- joining the illustrious ranks of other early adopters like Avril Lavigne (iLike -- do uLike?) and the Dave Matthews Band. But I'm told that every single person in Toronto is addicted Facebook, so this seemed like a good move, given our tour itinerary. Speaking of which, there's also a Group for our Winter Tour, and an Event for our Dec. 16 BPC hit, to which everyone is cordially invited, of course.

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A gentle reminder that our fall fundraiser is in full swing. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation.

I got a picture of a photograph

Carroll Park, Brooklyn, 17 March 1928:

I swear, you still see those exact same three guys hanging out in the neighborhood every day.

[Via Pardon Me For Asking. See also Lost City for more of this sort of thing.]

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A gentle reminder that our fall fundraiser is in full swing. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation.

I don't want nobody else

On Friday, Oct. 19 — which is to say, tomorrow night — at Barbès, we have Triocracy — which is to say JC Sanford on trombone and Andy Laster and Chris Bacas on reeds — presenting six brand-spakin' new tunes by the composers of Pulse — which is to say, Joe, JC, Jamie, Josh, Yumiko, and yrs trly. More info is available on the Pulse "blog".

8 PM hit.

Barbès is 376 9th Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn:

View Larger Map

Drawn to all things

Matana Roberts is bringing her blood narrative, Coin Coin, to Brooklyn's Issue Project Room tomorrow night (Thursday, Oct. 11), assisted by Jessica Pavone and Amelia Hollander (viola), Shoko Nagai (piano), Thomson Kneeland (bass), Tomas Fujiwara (drums), and Daniel Givens (video).

I will be on hand to moderate/instigate a post-concert discussion, which will no doubt touch on some of the thorny personal, political, and social issues Matana has been exploring on her amazing blog, Shadows of a People.

Coin Coin is deeply moving and personal music. Hope to see you there.

Secret Society North Winter 2008 Tour

N.B. This post will remain at the top of the blog until Jan. 12. New posts (including tour updates, I promise!) will continue to appear below. Users without RSS readers are encouraged to make with the scroll.

SECRET SOCIETY NORTH
WINTER 2008 TOUR

Tuesday, January 8th
8:00 PM
La Sala Rossa, Montreal
with Joel Miller opening

Thursday, January 10th
7:00 PM
John Bassett Theatre, Metro Toronto Convention Centre
official 2008 IAJE Conference performance

Friday, January 11th
8:00 PM
Tranzac, Toronto
with guest artist Tim Hagans
and the Chet Doxas Trio opening

Secret Society North is the Canadian cousin to my New York-based steampunk bigband, Secret Society. It began as a response to the bigband leader's dilemma -- how the hell do you go on the road with an 18-piece ensemble? I realized I could make it work if I put together a hybrid edition of Secret Society, one that augments the core of the NYC band with some of my favorite Canadian musicians, a handpicked group made up of friends and collaborators from my years on the Montreal jazz scene. I call this band Secret Society North.

Secret Society North have been invited to perform at the 2008 IAJE (International Association for Jazz Education) Conference in Toronto. This is by far the largest jazz event in the world, regularly attracting over 7,000 attendees. Our gig there is an important opportunity to present Secret Society tunes to a much wider audience, but more than that, it's a chance for us to perform fresh and forward-looking music for students and educators who too often let their focus on jazz's past obscure their view of what is happening right now.

Secret Society North will also be playing non-IAJE hits at a couple of very cool venues -- La Sala Rossa in Montreal and Tranzac in Toronto. Believe it or not, this is the first opportunity I've had to present Secret Society music in my home and native land.

While at IAJE, we will also have the great honor of premiering the 2008 ASCAP/IAJE commissioned works by Established Composer Tim Hagans and Emerging Composer Ayn Inserto. And on top of that, Tim will be joining us on Friday Jan. 11th at Tranzac -- he is someone who actually came up through the big bands, old-school (Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, the Danish Radio Big Band under Thad Jones), and that's a depth of knowledge he brings to his current gig as artistic director of the Norrbotten Big Band, so it's an incredible honor and privilege for us to perform Tim's music, and to have Tim perform my stuff as well. Ayn is someone I have known since grad school -- like me, she is a Brookmeyer protegé, and if you don't know her stuff, you should. Ayn's piece will also feature another special guest -- George Garzone on tenor sax. I'm not sayin' anything, I'm just sayin'. The commissioned works will be performed at IAJE on Jan. 10 at 2 PM, and we will reprise Tim's piece at Tranzac on Friday Jan 11.

However, we cannot do this alone. It's never easy asking for money but we really do need your help to make this mini-tour happen. Like most events of this kind, IAJE does not actually pay the bands that perform there. And we do not have the luxury of a record-company supported showcase gig -- instead, we are appealing directly to you, our loyal fans. We humbly ask for your support to help us defray the travel expenses and other costs associated with bringing our innovative and genre-defying music to audiences in Toronto and Montreal that have never heard anything quite like it before.

Thanks to the good people at Fractured Atlas, your donations are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. In fact, you can make a secure online contribution right now:

Or, if you prefer to contribute by check, that can also be arranged -- contact me for details.

Please allow me to introduce the members of Secret Society North:

REEDS
Erik Hove
Christine Jensen
Joel Miller
Chet Doxas
Carl Maraghi

TRUMPETS
Ingrid Jensen (Jan. 8 & 10)
Tim Hagans (Jan. 11)
Kevin Turcotte
Lina Allemano
Jimmy Rhodes
Jocelyn Couture

TROMBONES
Mike Fahie
Kelsley Grant
Barb Hamilton
Bob Ellis

RHYTHM
Sebastian Noelle, guitar
Gordon Webster, piano
Matt Clohesy, bass
Jon Wikan, drums

If you are not familiar with these tremendous musicians, take a moment to click through to their individual websites. It is my great honor to have them perform my music.

Please consider joining the august ranks of those who have already made a contribution to this project.

MANDATORY DISCLAIMER GOES HERE: Darcy James Argue's Secret Society North's Winter '08 Tour is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Darcy James Argue's Secret Society North may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Vote early, vote often

Otto Morgan at the Steampunk Forum invites you to rate my tunes.

I went out into the night, I went out to find some light

Back in NYC. Don't feel much like going out, but I guess I'll head on down to the Robert Glasper/DJ Logic hit in Prospect Park tonight. Heartfelt thanks to those who commented on Barry's passing, both in the thread below and on Lindsay's blog, and for those who sent sent supportive messages via other means.

Regular blogging will resume soon, though it may be a little thin on the ground -- between a new pops arrangement for the ASO, herding cats for Secret Society North, getting the ball rolling on my piece for the Brooklyn Phil, and designing the curriculum for the "Music Notation with Finale" class I'll be teaching at Queens College this fall, I've got a wee bit of catching up to do.

But don't fret, there will be new Secret Society hits and new Secret Society music -- alongside new Pulse projects -- sometime this fall.

UPDATE: So, uh, it turns out the Glasper/Logic hit was actually at Metrotech this afternoon. I don't know how I ended up putting them down in iCal as tonight's Prospect Park show. Anyway, since I was already sitting down by the bandshell by the time I realized my mistake, I decided to stay for Noche Flamenca et al. I'll have pics and a little writeup soon.

He's just trying to tell a vision

More on the Vision Festival and associated issues...

Dan Melnick flew in from Chicago to catch the last few days of VizFest. He offers a different take on Friday's music, and weighs in on some of the meta-issues (mmm, sweet, sweet meta):

Part of the issue for me gets back to the role of so-called critics, pundits, and writers. I'm less interested in opinions than I am in descriptions of the music: how it made you feel, how it sounded, etc. Mr. Olewnick's review tells me more about his own personal taste and prejudices than it does about the music made. Is it the role of a critic to dictate what a musician should or should not do? Is a critic more qualified to determine how a musician should interact or play in a band than the musicians themselves? Of course it's okay not to enjoy something, and to enjoy one thing more than another. But to make essential value judgments about musicians, their intent, and how they go about their art, to me is distasteful.

Obviously, I don't agree with the above, otherwise I wouldn't be blogging. One of the things that I like about this medium is that it doesn't pretend to be about anything other than the blogger's personal tastes and prejudices. Many Old Media writers (especially jazz and classical critics) try to wield the authority of their publication like a cudgel. They make sweeping pronouncements in a stentorian tone like they have some kind of special insight into what is Great and True about Art. But studiously avoiding the use of the first person doesn't make their opinions any less subjective and personal. I'd like it if more critics were more explicit about where they are coming from.

I also think it's a good idea for everyone to talk openly about the stuff that's going on in our scene -- what we like about it and what we don't. Disagreement and controversy are good -- they are signs that people feel passionately about this music. Because our scene is so small and marginal, it's understandable that some people want to paper over the differences and project a united front to the world: "Everything is great! Every artist is great! Every show is great! Come check out how great everything is!" But I actually think that's counterproductive -- to an outsider, that kind of boosterism looks transparently insincere.

I'm not saying people should be mean-spirited. I'd hate for the comments in the jazz blogosphere to descend into pointless, reflexive snark, like the comments on some of the bigger indie rock blogs. But people should be free to say, "I didn't like it, and here's why" without everyone else bringing the house down on them.

Obviously, this becomes even trickier when you are yourself a struggling musician trying to establish yourself in a scene that you are also blogging about. It would be a lot safer for me to never say a critical word about a fellow artist, but then this blog would be incredibly boring and no one would read it. At the same time, I also have a direct and personal sense of how hard it is to just get out there and make your music happen. So I try to temper any criticism with a sense of perspective -- I'm not trying to make any Grand Pronouncements about anyone else's art. I'm just trying to express how I responded to it.

See also Pat Donaher on Zorn/Hadju, the Vision Fest, and related issues, and also Will Friedwald (NY Sun) for yet another take on the Friday night hit. And feel free to mix it up in the comments -- bring on the aesthetic fistfights!

Welcome interstate managers

Whoa. So my liveblogging of the 2007 Bang on a Can Marathon has become something of a phenomenon. It's by far the most popular thing I've ever posted to this blog, thoroughly eclipsing the previous favorites Like I'm blowin' on a sax, blowin' my gats (a discussion of the much-maligned rock saxophone) and Miles to go before I sleep (the culmination of my blogwar polite exchange with Ethan Iverson about the merits of Miles Davis's 1970's recordings). But apparently what people really want from new music bloggers is a first-hand account of the effects of sleep deprivation.

Anyway, what this means is that there are a lot of people reading this blog for the first time, so, uh, hey everyone. Thanks for coming, make yourself at home. Gee... there sure are a lot of you all of a sudden.

You can read my press bio if you want but the short version is that I write music, most of it for my 18-piece band, Secret Society, but some of it for Pulse. Since you're here, perhaps you'd like to listen to what I do -- click the links in the "Audio (MP3)" section to your right, or if you're really curious, you can browse through an audio archive of every gig we've ever played, warts and all. These are all complete versions of each tune (not excerpts, unless there was a problem with the recording) and they are all free. We don't have a studio recording. Yet. Hint hint.

After a fairly active winter/spring, Secret Society is taking a break from gigging over the summer. Many of the players are off touring their own projects, which gives me the opportunity to write some new music for the band. We will be back in force this fall. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, just let me know.

If you have or are involved in a big band and are interested in performing any of my music, some of it is published by Really Good Music, and the rest you can obtain directly through me.

This blog started out mostly as a home for Secret Society-related information, but quickly metastasized into what you see today: a blog about creative, independent new music in NYC, irrespective of genre. That's because I think people who make qualitative judgements about art based on genre distinctions are fucking retarded. If you call yourself a film buff, but you only ever watch domestic dramas, and then go around opining that any movie that is not a domestic drama -- crime flicks, sci-fi flicks, samurai flicks, thrillers, westerns, biopics, romantic comedies, etc. -- is not only a totally different art form from domestic drama, but is also objectively inferior simply by virtue of not being a domestic drama, people would rightly think you were a complete moron. Same goes if you had a similar single-minded fixation on kung-fu movies.

That said, my focus here does tend to lean towards the stuff that's normally labeled as "jazz" and "new (classical) music" because these scenes get relatively little attention in the blogosphere compared to indie rock or hiphop. But ultimately, what I'm most interested in is artists who are trying to make something cool and new happen. It's the "cool and new" part that appeals -- I could give a shit what you call it.

If something I write upsets you and you're looking for reasons to dismiss everything I say out of hand, please allow me to help you out. First off: I'm a blogger. That's really all you need right there. But if you're coming from the classical end of things, feel free to blow me off because even though I have a graduate degree in composition from a respected conservatory, it was in jazz composition. If you're a jazzer, you can safely discount my opinions because I'm now a full-time composer and no longer active as a pianist. And if you're an indie rock fan, do you really need a reason?

If you're wondering how I trained for the 27-hour Bang on a Can marathon, my "day" gig is as a music copyist. (My music prep site is here, if you're ever looking for someone.) In this line of work, I get a lot of practice toughing out all-nighters -- in fact, I just now completed my latest all-night copying gig. Hey, I gotta finance the big band habit somehow.

If you liked the BAOC liveblogging, you may be interested in some other recent reviews I've done for the blog. Here are links to a few:

Sam Rivers, Dave Holland, and Barry Altschul at the Miller Theatre

Composer Portraits series at Miller: Frank Zappa. Edgard Varèse. Julius Hemphill.

IAJE 2007 Coverage: Day 1. Day 2. Day 3. Photos Day 2. Photos Day 3.

Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd's Still Life with Commentator

Matt Shulman, Jie Ma, Erik Friedlander at Union Hall

Keys to the Future Festival of New Piano Music

Wordless Music #1: Glenn Kotche, Nels Cline, Jenny Lin, Elliott Sharp

Thanks all for stopping by. I hope at least some of you like this place well enough to keep coming back. I try to post as regularly as my schedule allows, but if you want instant notification every time something new goes up here, the best thing to do is to subscribe to the blog's RSS feed. You can do this in Safari or Firefox or using Google Reader, but if you're a Mac type and want an easy way to keep up with multiple blogs, I highly, highly recommend Vienna.

I hate your blog. You ain’t logged in in a month and a half, and I, for one, am aghast.

I'm just waiting for the hate to start because I'm linking to something two weeks old:

Sex, Drugs, and Updating Your Blog - How the Rock and Roll Lifestyle Became a Desk Job

Actually, this piece (which is really more about how the digital age has redefined the artist-audience relationship) ran when I was busy down in Atlanta, and was brought to my attention by one of Secret Society's most loyal virtual correspondents.

(Title courtesy of MC Frontalot.)

Another year older

I did not know I shared a birthday with Robert Moog. (But psst, guys... that would be the late Robert Moog. Though his analog howl lives on, 'tis true.)

A-T-L

I'm down in the City Too Busy To Hate and just got back from my second rehearsal with Lizz Wright and the ASO, a hit for which I wrote the orchestral arrangements. I've been sweating these charts pretty much nonstop for the past several months (hence the hiatus from blogdonia), so it was an unbelievable relief when everything began to come together, as it did this afternoon. Big ups to our conductor, Jason Howland, who learned my charts inside out and always knows exactly what to say to the orchestra, and to all the fantastic musicians in the ASO -- their ensemble sound is to die for. Orchestras generally hate doing these pops gigs, so it's always a relief when the players have nice things to say about the music.

Lizz is sounding beautiful and I know this gig means a lot to her. She's from small-town Georgia and studied at GSU while cutting her teeth in the local scene, so this concert is a kind of homecoming. Her band is killing, and includes her longtime collaborators Kenny Banks and Jeff Haynes. I wish I had some juicy inside dirt for you, but the truth is, everyone involved has been absolutely, insanely great to work with.

There are hits tonight and Saturday, so if you're in Hotlanta, consider yourself invited.

For the curious, here are the tunes I arranged for these hit:

Afro Blue
Dreaming Wide Awake
Lead The Way
Old Man (bring on the CanCon, y'all)
Salt
Silence
Song For Mia
Soon As I Get Home
Wake Up, Little Sparrow
Walk With Me
When I Close My Eyes

Countdown

Just a heads-up that you can now hear interviews with all six Pulse composers (including yrs trly) along with excerpts from the pieces they are contributing to Sihr Halal, by checking out the Sihr Halal Pulsecast. This music will get its first public performance tomorrow (Saturday) night at Roulette, so if you're liking what you're hearing on the podcast, come on down and check it out in the flesh. I'm really excited about this Pulse hit -- I think the Sihr Halal project is the strongest collection of music to date.

In related news, Pulse Ensemble performer, Secret Society co-conspirator, John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble associate, and Jersey Boys regular Ben Kono has a new MySpace page. Go be his friend, so you can post a comment taunting him with a link to your karaoke rendition of "Sherri."

It's alive!

The long-dormant Pulse blog has awakened from its slumber and is already terrorizing the villagers. In case you hadn't heard, Pulse will be making our debut at Roulette next Saturday, May 5, presenting the premiere of Sihr Halal -- music for western + nonwestern/acoustic + electronic instruments. Joe Phillips has the full rundown. He also talks about his piece, "Rihla," in the first-ever Pulse podcast -- where you can also get an advance taste of the music Joe has written for this hit. And Jamie Begian tells you all about his contribution to Sihr Halal, "Worlds Apart - Together."

There will be new posts and podcasts added to the Pulse blog every day between now and May 5, so be sure to check back regularly. You will be able to hear excerpts from all of the Sihr Halal pieces before they are ever publicly performed -- how cool is that? If you like what you hear, we hope you'll come down for the Roulette hit next Saturday.

Took a year hiatus, now you wanna hate us

Well, not a whole year -- at least, I hope not -- but I am putting this blog on hold for the next couple of months as I enter crunch time for some upcoming projects. In addition to the Secret Society hits at the Jazz Gallery on April 5 and at the BPC on May 19, as well as the new Pulse project, Shir Halal (at Roulette May 5 and Makor May 7), I am deep in the throes of sweaty preparation for a couple of concerts on May 11 and 12 featuring Lizz Wright with the Atlanta Symphony, with orchestrations provided by yrs trly.

There being, I'm told, "only so many hours in the day," I'm afraid the blog will have to wait patiently for all of this activity to subside. But wait -- before you all start angrily demanding a refund, I'm leaving you in excellent hands. Behold the proud new additions to the Society's list of allied operatives, pamphleteers & advocates:

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Matana Roberts is blogging for real now -- not just on MySpace. Shadows of a People is intended as a forum for Matana to talk about issues related to her current project, the epic blood narrative Coin Coin. The new blog has only been live for a couple of days now, but already Matana has contributed several reflective, incisive, and brutally honest posts grappling with issues of race, identity, economics, culture, and jazz. This is some of the most powerful writing you will find anywhere. Check out her most recent offering, an epic post called Jazz, Blackness, Shame:

My maternal grandmother pulled me aside every chance she could get to tell me th