Secret Society

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.)

Dancing about urban planning

Sufjan Stevens to apostrophize the BQE in song at BAM this fall:

The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is a stretch of road that any vehicle-owning New Yorker (or anybody who's ever taken the bus to/from La Guardia) probably knows well...from being stuck in traffic on it for hours and hours. But, apparently, it's also a source of inspiration for one Mr. Sufjan Stevens, who has been commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music to write a "music and film work" titled "The BQE", which will make its world premiere at BAM's Next Wave festival November 1-3.

Read the rest. (I love how the headline drips condescension for Sufjan "going high art" -- as opposed to what, the lowbrow guilty pleasures of his albums?)

While I was out

In case you hadn't already heard, Michael Brecker's final recording dropped last week. Here's Nate Chinen with the capsule review.

Up on getting up, I'm down on what I got up for

All About Jazz has a nice profile of drummer, bandleader, Secret Society co-conspirator, and upstart label owner Kendrick Scott:

When Scott made the decision it was time to record, he went for it. “It seems like everyone is sitting around waiting for a record. I felt that vibe from a lot of people. I didn’t want to do that. So I said that when I do this record, I’m just going to do it on my own. I’m not going to worry about producers or worry about trying to get signed with a record company. I just wanted to put the CD out and put the music out. It also led me to start my label, World Culture Music, which is a collective label. We’re all making our CDs the way we want to make them. We’re all bringing them together under World Culture Music. It’s not a traditional record label.”

Unlike most artist-created labels these days, World Culture Music is more than just a vehicle for Kendrick's own record. The initial roster also includes Mike Moreno, Julie Hardy, and Nick Vargenas.

The article also contains a remarkable list of People I Did Not Know Were From Houston:

“The record is amazing because the guys on the record have come from all parts of my life, new periods and early periods,” he says. “Robert Glasper [piano], Walter Smith [sax], Mike Moreno [guitar], we went to high school together at a school called the Houston School for Performing and Visual Arts. The school is very significant in that Jason Moran went there. Brian Michael Cox went there, he’s a famous producer now, with Mary J. Blige and Usher, and writing songs for them. Also Beyonce Knowles went there. Texas is very fertile with talent.”

A couple of other choice excerpts:

The high school was also an introduction to the real music world. “Our teacher actually went out and got gigs for us. We were playing gigs maybe three times a week. If we kept our grades straight, we actually played some gigs and make a little bit of money too,” he chuckles. “That was more incentive to be on it with the grades, and also be on it musically. Our best combo would be the one to be doing all the gigs. We would do parties and functions. If you think about just the experience of going to a gig, being on time, being dressed, being ready to go. Also speaking with people, and everything, when you get there. We had those experiences in high school, and some people don’t even have that when they get out of college. Those were great experiences.”

[...]

“I’m not even talking about jazz. I’m talking about having arts in schools. Kids being exposed to classical music. I don’t want to take hip-hop away from anybody. I don’t want to take rock away from anybody. I actually want to give everybody everything. Kids should be hearing what klezmer music sounds like. They should know classical music. They should hear a little Miles in elementary school. They should hear whatever. It’s the lack of them hearing everything that makes them closed-minded when they get older.”

Read the whole thing.

Gigs I should have gone to

Angry Citizen has a guest post up on Brooklyn Vegan RE: the Mos Def Highline Ballroom hit:

The real fun and show stopper came when Mos brought out special guest, Q-Tip. Tip led the crowd through the chorus of 'Lyrics To Go' as well as 'Bonita Applebum' before jumping into 'Check the Rhime', with Mos picking up Phife’s lines. You on point Mos? All the time Tip!

You. Are. Shitting. Me.

Damn.

Sigh.

You can't hide forever from these streets

This is huge -- Galapagos is leaving Williamsburg:

In a move that has greater symbolic significance than mere real estate hopscotch, Galapagos Art Space, the pioneering bar and performing arts space that helped put Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on the cultural map, is moving a few neighborhoods down the East River, to Dumbo.

Galapagos, which has played host to a broad array of New York's musicians, dancers, theater artists, performance artists, fine artists and burlesque dancers during its 12-year existence, is scheduled to move into the space, a 102-year-old, 10,000-square-foot former horse stable at 16 Main Street, in the spring or summer of 2008.

Read the rest. DUMBO (that's Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, for you non-New Yorkers) was a haven for artists in the 1970's, until rising rents forced them out. With the same pattern now repeating itself in Williamsburg, it's more than a bit ironic that the real estate giant most associated with DUMBO's gentrification is now poaching arts venues from Williamsburg.

That said, with spaces for creative music and arts in NYC rapidly going extinct, it's reassuring to learn that Galapagos will adapt, not die.

UPDATE: It's worth mentioning that the people behind Galapagos are on the front lines of arts advocacy in New York. From their "Galapagos is moving to DUMBO" FAQ:

Last summer two developers walked into the North Brooklyn apartment of our friend and told him he had nothing to worry about - they weren't going to tear down the building he was living in for at least another year. Our friend, a filmmaker, thinks he can't possibly afford to stay in New York, and he's not alone.

The canaries in New York City's real estate gold mine -- its emerging and mid career artists -- are no longer talking about the next show they hope to land, they're talking about an affordable city they can land in once their current lease runs out.

If artists and the best young cultural thinkers think they can't possibly afford to live here then we'd better find ways to make them think they can't possibly afford to live anywhere else.

The only message that can effectively cut through cost is opportunity.

New York's development and cultural policies must become linked. Someone needs to find ways to make partners out of the people building the buildings, and the cultural uses the City needs in them. If we don't incentivize the replacement of the emerging and mid career arts infrastructure that's evaporating in our white-hot real estate market, it won't be built.

Uncontrollable notes

I didin't know Flea was a band geek in high school either, but it's not that surprising -- he had to develop his appetite for flashy virtuosity (and the chops to back it up) somewhere, and that's not something he would have gotten from the early eighties LA punk scene. But anyway, good on him for stepping up with this:

After sitting by chance beside Fairfax's music teacher at a Knicks game in New York several years ago, the rocker decided to revisit his alma mater -- and found its music program decimated by budget cuts: "Everything was gone. I couldn't believe it," he says. "When I went, you could pick any instrument. You want to play in an orchestra? No problem. When I went back, it was a volunteer teacher, a couple of acoustic guitars. It was this shell of this thing that was still alive while I was there."

Flea says he put up "a few hundred thousand dollars" to open the Silverlake Conservatory with high school friend-turned-music teacher Keith Barry, who is the school's dean.

Flea actually teaches there when he's in town, and apparently his trumpet chops are still strong enough to allow him to give lessons on that instrument in addition to bass. This almost makes me want to forgive him for inflicting Jewel on us.

We're separated at birth, that’s demonstrated in the verse

Kyle Gann, 2007:

Someday someone will appear who has analyzed more minimalist-influenced music from the 1980s and '90s than I have, and if that person feels that I have divided my era into categories inappropriately, I will be glad to listen to her argument. So far, I've gotten plenty of argument, but only from people who don't come anywhere close to fitting that description.

[...]

Now, don't write in and tell me you don't like these pieces. Who cares if you like these pieces? Do I care if you like these pieces? Do I, Kyle Gann, personally give a shit whether you like these pieces? No. No, my friend. I do not give a shit whether you like these pieces.

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Milton Babbitt, 1958:

It often has been remarked that only in politics and the "arts" does the layman regard himself as an expert, with the right to have his opinion heard. In the realm of politics he knows that this right, in the form of a vote, is guaranteed by fiat. Comparably, in the realm of public music, the concertgoer is secure in the knowledge that the amenities of concert going protect his firmly stated "I didn't like it" from further scrutiny. Imagine, if you can, a layman chancing upon a lecture on "Pointwise Periodic Homeomorphisms." At the conclusion, he announces: "I didn't like it," Social conventions being what they are in such circles, someone might dare inquire: "Why not?" Under duress, our layman discloses precise reasons for his failure to enjoy himself; he found the hall chilly, the lecturer's voice unpleasant, and he was suffering the digestive aftermath of a poor dinner. His interlocutor understandably disqualifies these reasons as irrelevant to the content and value of the lecture, and the development of mathematics is left undisturbed. If the concertgoer is at all versed in the ways of musical lifesmanship, he also will offer reasons for his "I didn't like it" - in the form of assertions that the work in question is "inexpressive," "undramatic," "lacking in poetry," etc., etc., tapping that store of vacuous equivalents hallowed by time for: "I don't like it, and I cannot or will not state why." The concertgoer's critical authority is established beyond the possibility of further inquiry.

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Okay, I keed, I keed. Babbittian crankiness aside, Kyle's Postminimalism: Chapter One, Metaphorically Speaking is a first-rate piece of analysis, tracing some specific commonalities between composers whose music sounds very different indeed and making some incisive observations about postminimalism as a kind of do-over of serialism, but without all the Germanic angst. He also hosts audio of one of the pieces under discussion -- Belinda Reynolds's "Cover." While it breaks my heart to know that Kyle Gann does not, personally, give a shit whether I like this piece, I like this piece. A lot. It's pretty kickass, actually.

Anyway, never mind the occasional cantankerous outburst, just go read. It's worth it, I promise. Or if you just want to hear the MP3 of "Cover," scroll down to just before the string of asterisks. This is, BTW, the title track from Belinda's most recent CD, which you can get here.

(As an aside, am I the only one having nightmares about this picture of Unca Milt?)

Ain't it bleak when you got so much nothin'

The headline rather understates the case:

Despite costly efforts to build buzz around new talent and thwart piracy, CD sales have plunged more than 20 percent this year, far outweighing any gains made by digital sales at iTunes and similar services. Aram Sinnreich, a media industry consultant at Radar Research in Los Angeles, said the CD format, introduced in the United States 24 years ago, is in its death throes. “Everyone in the industry thinks of this Christmas as the last big holiday season for CD sales,” Mr. Sinnreich said, “and then everything goes kaput.”

We all knew this was coming, that the CD was rapidly going the way of vinyl. And it's true that the major labels have done just about everything in their power to fuck up the transition to a viable 21st-century model of music-selling -- I got your Exhibit A right here -- but when the majors begin to phase out the CD, we have a problem.

Rivers - Holland - Altschul @ Miller Theatre - 25 May 2007

I should probably admit up front that Sam Rivers is an embarrassing blind spot in my record collection. He's someone that for whatever reason, I never really got around to checking out. At various points in my development, I heard, but never acquired, Miles in Tokyo and Conference of the Birds. And I'm afraid I've never even heard his 1960's Blue Notes, even though like everyone else, I've played "Beatrice" at a million jam sessions. But anyway, my first real exposure to Sam Rivers's music came at last year's Vision Fest, where he was being honored with a Lifetime Recognition thingy.

First up at last year's hit was Rivers's Florida-based big band, the RivBea Orchestra, which was... well... not the kind of thing I like to hear from a large ensemble. The cavernous sound at Angel Orensanz (a former synagogue with a very high vaulted ceiling) didn't do those dense, heavy clusters and thickened lines any favors. I tried listening from several different vantage points during their set, but the music never resolved itself into anything more than an indistinct blur. I've since heard a few recordings of Rivers's big band works, and those have all been tight and sharp, so I don't know quite what happened last year -- it's very possible that the players were just as stymied by the poor sound as the audience, and couldn't hear each other any better than we could hear them. But anyway, I knew Rivers would be up at the end of the night with his regular trio (with Doug Matthews and Anthony Cole) and I decided to stick it out in the hopes that a smaller group would fare better against the room's reverberant wash.

I'm glad I did. The trio's music was everything the big band set wasn't -- intimate, interactive, personable, and lyrical. And if you got in really close, you could hear the music well enough that it was possible to tune out the endless echoing. I started to get a sense of what I'd been missing by not checking out Sam Rivers earlier -- but despite that, I still ended up splitting mid-set, to my everlasting shame. My only defense is that it was coming up on midnight and I hadn't eaten a thing all day, so my brain had literally stopped being able to process any kind of sound at all. I knew I'd kick myself for it later -- Rivers was 82 and lives down in Florida and figured I probably wouldn't have another opportunity to see him perform. But I'm not sure the judge would have considered that sufficient cause for killing and eating the person sitting next to me.

But lo, here we are one year later and Sam Rivers is still going strong. Columbia's WKCR organized a reunion of Rivers's beloved (by Destination: Out readers, at least) 1970's trio with Dave Holland and Barry Altschul (i.e., the Conference of the Birds band sans Braxton). This was awesome -- another, hopefully better-fed opportunity to hear Rivers, this time in a venue that doesn't sound like the inside of an aircraft hangar. And together again with Dave and Barry -- damn!

Let's talk about those guys a little bit. First off, Barry Altschul -- where the hell have you been? Paul Bley claims to have discovered Barry when he was working as a janitor in a recording studio -- that's probably not quite true, but Barry is definitely a good example of an unorthodox self-taught drummer really shaking things up. I love his playing on those 1960's Paul Bley records, and he hasn't lost his whimsical touch -- at one point, when Dave Holland reached for his bow, Barry whipped out a bow of his own and started scraping on the tines of a Sputnik-like percussion instrument. His time is light, tight, and precise -- the antithesis of Elvin's loose-limbed wide-open feel -- but when they went into an "Equinox"-like vamp, or a Billy Higgins-ish swinging Latin beat, the groove was never in question. He's a master at the brilliantly unexpected choices that make this kind of free interplay work over the long haul -- he would do stuff like creep in with a subtly funky hihat beat underneath what had previously been shaping up to be a plaintive loping ballad. One drum solo ended with a pulp-worthy cliffhanger, and I found myself actually holding my breath waiting to see what would happen next. And his hookup with Dave -- another mercilessly precise player -- was outstanding.

Dave Holland doesn't play this kind of open-ended music very much anymore -- the stuff he writes for his small and large groups these days requires him to be more of an anchor and less of an instigator, but on Friday he was free to roam. His roaming is never quite casual, though -- he's much too much of a methodical player for that. His soloing, with its relentless working-out of all the iterations of a particular motive or idea, owes a lot to Coltrane, and Dave is one of the few bass players capable of approaching Coltrane-like levels of disciplined intensity on the bass. At first, I though his playing sounded a bit stiff and serious next to Barry's impish impulsiveness, but once he had his first showstopping solo under his belt, Dave seemed to relax a bit and settle into the natural ebb and flow of the evening. He and Barry are very good at pacing themselves, hinting at a new idea long before they actually bring it in. By the end of the first set, their transitions had become effortlessly supple.

But there was no doubt that Sam was the emotional core of the night. He's now 83, thin and small, and when he plays, he is very still, barely moving except for his fingers. But what you hear is the voice of someone who's spent a lifetime blurring the boundaries between tradition and innovation, inside and outside, melodicism and chromaticism, groove and rhythmic absraction. What surprised me the most hearing him this time was how different he sounded on each of his instruments. His tenor sound is pure old-school, dark and round in a way that you never hear anymore. He didn't so much float over the time as engage in a somewhat cryptic dialogue with the time -- it's like, he heard what Dave and Barry were saying, but he didn't want his own responses to reveal too much. There was an awful lot going on underneath the surface (as saxophonist Dan Blake observed after the show). By contrast, on soprano he seemed more playfully conversational and engaging, on flute his sound was breathy but  articulated and emphatic, and on piano he tended towards a flowing impressionism. I found this chimerical approach to playing multiple instruments fascinating -- it's the polar opposite of someone like Eric Dolphy, whose musical identity is unmistakable no matter what axe he's playing.

My favorite moments were the quiet, intimate sections where Rivers allowed himself to play some long lyrical lines, or just let a single note hang -- it was unsentimental and heartbreaking. But even when things moved along at a brighter clip, his reflexes seem undiminished by time and he listened like a demon, instantly picking up on fragmentary ideas suggested by Dave and Barry and throwing out his own spin on them. It was also remarkable to hear how well they all remembered what had come before -- at various points in the second set, there were clear allusions to some of the stuff they'd played in the first. The whole thing was thrilling and very deeply moving. And generously long, too -- but this time around, I was able to grab a quick slice between sets. Now all I need to do is fill those Sam Rivers-shaped holes in my record collection.

[Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the only recorded document of the Rivers - Holland - Altschul trio is Paragon, which I don't think has ever made it to CD... ? Someone should really record these guys now.]

My photos from the hit are here.

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PS As the FSM is my witness, I swear that I did not compare notes on the show with Nate Chinen, whose own review also just went up.

Rivers - Holland - Altschul @ Miller Theatre

A full writeup is forthcoming -- right now, I'm off to check out the final Wordless Music hit this season, but until then, here are some photos to tide you over.

More pics below the fold...

Industrial rhythms all around

Andrew Durkin on the Industrial Jazz Group's Dutch tour (which included some Society co-conspirators):

European newbie that I was, I immediately noted a few things about our temporary home-away-from-home: 1. Everyone speaks English to some degree. Even the TV is primarily in English. 2. It is not unusual to find beer in vending machines. Heineken is the beer of choice in said machines. (Okay, so the system isn't perfect.) 3. Everyone smokes. A lot. It's like they don't believe in cancer. 4. The coffee, which is exquisite, comes in very small doses. (And incidentally, I didn't see a single Starbucks the entire time I was in-country.) Anyway, we made our various introductions (this special international version of the group [personnel here] included west coasters, east coasters, and Europeans) and then set off to our first show, a half-hourish "preview" thing designed to pique people's interest in the festival proper. It was free, it was outdoors (somewhere in the midst of a fun little shopping area of the city), and it was windy as fuck. At one point during the performance I watched in horror as some of Wolter Wierbos's music blew clear across the stage and under the drum kit. Given those conditions, and the fact that we had a few brand-new folks on board, I was genuinely surprised when we made it to the end of the set without any train wrecks. Now, it's always difficult for me to judge the reaction of any given IJG audience, seeing as how my back is to them most of the time during a show. Of course I was well aware going into this that Europe in general has a fantastical reputation amongst jazz musicians as a fairytale haven of "true jazz lovers." But I have also always wondered how much of that is exaggerated, fed by a level of rejection-by-one's-home-country so telling as to make even the slightest appreciation abroad appear much more significant than it is. I suppose there must be a pretty broad range of experiences out there, but as for the reception we got -- well, it started out great and only got better. This first show had a pretty good crowd going -- it was, after all, outside, and people just got swept up in what we were doing as they were out running errands or whatever. The fact that we didn't scare folks off -- the reaction we probably would have had given a similar public performance situation in the states -- suggests a real difference in the everyday relationship that Dutch people have with the arts. While we have our street fairs, of course, the music is usually that which, by virtue of its commercial viability, most complements the sea of commerce in which it is situated.

Read the whole thing -- it features, among other things, the latest inside poop on the guys from Spyro Gyra.

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.)

This sort of thing is my bag, baby

[In which your humble narrator briefly ponders if enough time has passed since the Austin Powers franchise was thoroughly, mercilessly run into the ground that it's okay to quote from it again... ]

Mike Baggetta on Ran Blake:

What I can tell you about him is that he plays the piano like no one else alive that I know of. Another thing I can tell you is that he seems extremely focused and in the moment while maintaining a strong sense of humility and servitude to the music. I kept having a thought while I was listening at the concert that was something like "this is the closest thing I will ever witness to Thelonious Monk playing solo piano..." I think that my idea has a lot to do with his unapologetic touch for the notes he plays, as well as a strong confidence in his own phrasing of the melodies. Ideally we all have this, but something he had seemed so akin to the solo Thelonious albums I have listened to hundreds of times. (If you don't have the London and San Francisco solo stuff, you're missing out big time!) Mr. Blake definitely has a strong mastery over using the pedals of the piano too. This is especially evident in his, what I can only describe as, sforzando chords, as well as in a whole array of other sounds I have never heard come out of any other piano in my life with such intensity. His mastery was applied to two sets of music of his own written and improvised material and songs written by Dominique Eade, Cole Porter, Mary Lou Williams and Gunther Schuller, among others. All of this accompanied by some very insightful program notes by Mr. Blake, and I think that gives you one of the best concerts of the year!

It really was a tremendous performance -- Ran is looking and sounding very good these days. This kind of off-the-beaten path, low-key gig in Brooklyn (where he gets to pick the room lighting and there happens to be an exit extremely close to the piano bench -- these things are important to Ran) is just the kind of environment that brings out the best in his playing. The comparison to Monk might sound like hyperbole if you've never heard Ran play, but it's actually extraordinarily apt, especially since Monk and Ran had a complex but close personal relationship. At one point, Ran actually took a piano lesson from Monk -- can you imagine asking for a lesson with Monk? Can you imagine Monk giving one? The mind boggles. Ran also used to babysit for Monk's daughter Barbara (the "Boo Boo" of "Boo Boo's Birthday") and one of Ran's most-recorded and performed pieces is his dedication to her, "The Short Life of Barbara Monk."

[In the same post, Mike also blogs about his experience performing with some wanker in a morning coat last Saturday.]

Secret Society co-conspirator Josh Sinton probably knows as much about Ran's music as anyone out there. He also delivers the best Ran Blake impression, hands-down. He's offered to contribute a guest post on Ran's music at some point, which I very much look forward to sharing with you.

It was on the Bowery when it was time to go

SETLIST (click to listen/download)

1) Ritual
Solos: Ryan Keberle, trombone; Mike Baggetta, guitar

2) Phobos
Solos: Jon Wikan, cajon; Mark Small, tenor sax

3) Induction Effect
Solo: Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet

4) Drift
Solo: Jason Rigby, tenor sax

5) Transit
Solo: Ingrid Jensen, fluegelhorn

6) Habeas Corpus
Solo: Christian Pincock, trombone

Download All (ZIP archive)

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What a kick to have the evening open up with a set by Kyle Saulnier's Awakening Orchestra. This band hasn't been around all that long, but they are already impressively tight, executing Kyle's demanding and varied music with sensitivity, grace, and pinpoint precision. Kyle's music is very different than mine -- he is much more likely to reach for the jarring juxtapositions, abrupt transitions, extreme contrasts, but the results are very hip, personable and refreshing. It's nice to have occasional reminders that there are other people out there shooting for the same stars. It makes you feel less delusional... although, like a gathering of self-reinforcing conspiracy nuts, there's no guarantee that we aren't actually all of us barking loons.

That being the case, I don't think I'll let myself be institutionalized quite yet. Especially if there can be more nights like Saturday's big band double-bill. It's always a thrill to see how players I've grown used to hearing in completely different contexts sound when sucked into the Society vortex for the first time. Check Mike Baggetta's slashing sound constructs on "Ritual" (also augmented by some authentic lungcore low end, courtesy of Alex Hamelin on bari), and Jonathan Finlayson's intimate and fragile solo opening on "Induction Effect." Christian Pincock has played with us on a couple of previous occasions, but has never before had the chance to stretch out with a solo turn -- check his plaintive contribution to "Habeas Corpus." Jason Rigby was on our third-ever hit back in November 2005 -- you can, if you are so inclined, compare his solo on "Drift" back then to the one he blew Saturday night. This is not to neglect the reliably great Mark Small, Ingrid Jensen, and Ryan Keberle -- on "Phobos," "Transit," and "Ritual," respectively.

While this blog may be finally back from hiatus, the band is going to take a little break, whilst I try to come up with some new music, and also hopefully devising some new strategems for getting the music out there. (Perhaps the spirit of the late Rev. Falwell will offer up some tips from beyond the grave on developing one's evangelism chops.) At any rate, thanks again to Kyle and his crew for sharing the night with us, and thanks especially to all who came out to hear us. You guys are the best. See you again this fall.

POSTSCRIPT: As mentioned at the gig, this will be Society trumpet player Dave Rezek's last appearance with the group. Dave is one of the finest trumpet players I have ever worked with. He first began playing my music back in Boston, when we were both at NEC, and since we both moved to New York, he has made every single Secret Society hit save one -- and he only subbed out of that one because that was the week his wife was due. But Dave, Lori, and their 18-month old baby Seth will be leaving Gotham this summer for good, to return to their hometown of Des Moines, Iowa. I wish the three of them all the very best.

And he's the one who likes all our pretty songs

Part One of Destination: Out's "We Love The Nineties" poll is out. As a bit of a followup to last year's infamous 1973-1990 extravaganza, Proprietors Chilly Jay Chill and Prof. Drew LeDrew have asked a number of critics, bloggers and musicians (including Gary Giddins, centrifuge, Matt Durutti, and yrs trly) to submit their list of Top 10 jazz albums for 1990-2000. The consensus favorite so far is Dave Douglas's Tiny Bell Trio outing Constellations, which was not on my list but could easily have been. Instead, I went with Stargazer -- his Wayne Shorter tribute, and the first Dave Douglas record I ever bought -- and Convergence, the last and strongest record with his "string band" -- Mark Feldman on violin, Erik Friedlander on cello, Drew Gress on bass, and Michael Sarin on drums.

Of course, it's no surprise that Douglas is represented on everyone's list since he kept coming out with, like, a record a week during the nineties, each one with a different band, on a different label, with a different concept animating the music. And, with few exceptions, they were ridiculously killing -- that run of 15 Douglas-led sessions (counting New and Used) from 1994's Parallel Worlds through  1999's Songs For Wandering Souls looks even more impressive in retrospect.

And it makes me wonder... has the decline and fall of the label system made that kind of sustained creative output impossible? It costs a lot of money to make a record, especially a studio record with the kind of sound quality and production values that those Joe Ferla-engineered Douglas joints embodied. Now that there's no such thing as a recording budget anymore, artists are left to foot the entire bill themselves, and if there was an emerging jazz musician today going through a Douglas-like explosion of creativity and wanting to document it and release it, they would quickly find themselves at the mercy of MBNA's debt collectors. (That is, if they had not already gone broke just trying to keep their head above water in the New New York.)

But while studio recording costs have not fallen, and the burden of paying them has shifted almost entirely to the artist, and the continuing collapse of the CD sales market makes it incredibly difficult for anyone to ever break even on their record, the flip side is that if you go the digital route, the distribution costs have dropped to almost zero. It's become much more difficult to actually make a record, but much, much easier to release it, and release it quickly -- almost as soon as it's recorded.

Speaking of which, the audio from Saturday's Bowery Poetry Club hit will be up real soon. (Pat Donaher has a writeup.) As always, I'm incredibly happy just to have you listen. I still marvel that an unsigned, underground big band without a studio recording can have a frickin' international following (of sorts). But should you ever feel the urge to offer more... tangible support, I would like to once again humbly direct you to the

button. Your continued support is what keeps us going, in a starkly literal sense.

Ten years ago, no one would have known about Secret Society except the people who actually came to our gigs. Now, it's all there for anyone to download, and has allowed me to reach people I'd never imagined would hear my music. Whenever this path starts to feel like a long, hard slog that can only end in heartbreak, I try to remember that.

Thanks also to all for your patience during my recent break from blogdonia. Regular blogging will resume starting now-ish. It's good to be back.

The cruelest cut

Who knew a multimeasure rest could be so cold-hearted?

The laugh that floats on a summer night that you can never quite recall

Ran Blake is making a rare NYC solo piano appearance at CIM on Thursday night. You really have no excuse to miss this -- Ran's solo piano record All That Is Tied was among the of the best releases of 2006, but Ran live is another thing entirely. It's no secret that Ran is personally and musically mercurial, but when he is on he is unreal. No one has a surer command of dynamics and pedal effects -- Ran has built up an entire vocabulary around extracting impossible-to-replicate sounds from the piano. His gift for daring harmonic juxtapositions and elliptic musical storytelling is unmatched. There is absolutely no one like him, and if you've never heard him play in person, you, uh, really need to fix that. My music sounds nothing like Ran's -- no one else's music could ever sound anything like Ran's -- but his cinematic approach to musical structure is a huge inspiration. Not to mention his big ears and big heart.

May 17, 8:30 PM, CIM. $15/$10 students.

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."

Secret Society @ The Bowery Poetry Club, 19 May 2007 (with Kyle Saulnier's Awakening Orchestra)

Ever since our previous double-engagement on the Bow'ry back in January, in which Secret Society joined forces with the Industrial Jazz Group, the local bounders, cads, and ne'er-do-wells -- leastwise, those who have not yet been cleans'd from the area -- have been agitating for more big band, preferably of the steampunk variety.

On May 19, we will attempt to slake their fierce and fiery thirst, with the assistance of young Kyle Saulnier's 18-piece Awakening Orchestra. Mgr. Saulnier will inaugurate the proceedings at 7 o'clock sharp with a sound best described as a "thunderous convergence." Secret Society shall follow close upon at 8 in the P.M., once again bringing our acclaim'd euphonious spectacle to the Bow'ry stage, this time with the invaluable participation of Steve Coleman associate Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet), Jerseyband's own Alex Hamelin (bari sax/bass clarinet), and TIN/BAG co-leader Mike Baggetta (guitar), all appearing under Society auspices for the first time. We also welcome return appearances by multi-reedmen Ben Kono and Dan Willis and bassist nonpareil Thomson Kneeland, alongside all your favorite Secret Society stalwarts -- among which you surely count the inestimable Ingrid Jensen (trumpet) and the peerless Ryan Keberle (trombone).

A mere $12 will secure your entrance for both groups. You shall scarcely find another opportunity to hear so many musicians for so little coin.

(I should add that this will be the last Secret Society gig for a little while -- I plan to spend the summer writing new material for the band, something I've not had the opportunity to do recently.)

SECRET SOCIETY

REEDS

Ben Kono

Rob Wilkerson

Dan Willis

Mark Small

Alex Hamelin

TRUMPETS

Ingrid Jensen

Jonathan Finlayson

Tom Goering

Dave Rezek

Marc Osseror

TROMBONES

Christian Pincock

Ryan Keberle

Mike Fahie

Darrell Hendricks

RHYTHM

Mike Baggetta

Mike Holober

Thomson Kneeland

Jon Wikan

COMPOSER, CONDUCTOR, RINGLEADER

Darcy James Argue

with

Kyle Saulnier's Awakening Orchestra