GUEST POST BY JOSH SINTON
Is there anything you didn’t properly explain in our last conversation?
Well, lots. Most of it I’d say.
Can you keep it to just one thing?
Hmmm, I’d have to say it’s that the methodology the band’s following is one I observed Steve using.
And that would be?
A kind of concrete materialism.
Ummm, can’t say I’m following.
Continue reading "Breath for Men to Draw From as They Will" »
GUEST POST BY JOSH SINTON
STOP! If you’re sick ‘n tired of reading more words about Steve Lacy, I have a recommendation for a healthy alternative. This Sunday, June the 13th of 2010, Ideal Bread will present a musical rendition of these same ideas. You’ll be able to find us at 6:40 P.M. performing at Kenny's Castaways in the West Village of New York City as part of the Undead Jazz Festival. But if you find yourself wanting yet another pamphlet about Mr. Lacy, read on.
Consonance is the sine qua non of today’s jazz discourse. No matter how thorny/atonal/disruptive the chord or melody note, today’s jazz musicians by and large work mightily to integrate all their utterances into a seamless fabric of sound. If they don’t, then often times said musician’s product is thought to be lacking. And if it’s not the product, then the musician himself is thought to be missing some information. So it would seem from my previous post that Steve Lacy somehow missed something in his training. He didn’t demonstrate any clear knowledge of consonance in those five selections. This post will rectify any lingering doubts about his abilities with more consonant sounds.
GUEST POST BY JOSH SINTON
"The only thing important in music, as in anything else, is life and death. Any kind of style, any kind of way is valid if it's alive. Life and interest are two things I equate...If it's alive, I'm for it. In my own case, I don't want to be put to sleep, so I don't want to put others to sleep." Steve Lacy as interviewed by Brian Case in 1979.
Dissonance is not popular among jazz musicians today, at least not in any broad sense. Think of other musics where twenty somethings are a vital audience (rock, hip hop, techno, the various metal musics, r&b and even pop to an extent) and that makes jazz an anomaly. For the most part, dissonance in jazz is either used in the traditional way (as a dynamic way of returning to consonance) or it’s softened by couching it in reverberating timbres (think of most of the ECM records of the past 25 years). Where dissonance does exist by itself, it’s often played LOUDLY and rarely does it contrast with less dissonant textures. This is where I think Steve Lacy made some pretty thoughtful (and profound) contributions. Building on the precedence of Monk (and before that Ellington, and before that James P. Johnson and contemporaneous with that Sidney Bechet), Lacy heard dissonance as a sound, a fairly compelling one and something that didn’t need much in the way of softening.
[N.B. ‘Dissonance’ is a word that gets bandied about a fair bit without any real clarity of meaning. Of course, like any frequently used word, it has a lot of meanings. For the purposes of this essay, I’m using dissonance to mean this, this or this (scroll down to “Quality” and click on Minor second, Major second, Tritone, Minor seventh or Major seventh).]
I’ve selected five of what I consider some of Lacy’s most dissonant pieces. I left plenty out, but these are pieces that range from the cryptically strange to the downright harrowing. What they all share is that they are clearly the work of an exceptionally musical mind that has as deep an understanding of dissonance and its expressive possibilities as it does consonance.
Continue reading "A Deathless Valley of Mysterious Motherhood" »
Photo by Guy Le Querrec
GUEST POST BY JOSH SINTON
"Hi Josh,
Whatever you want to do w/r/t cross-posting stuff is fine!
Cheers,
- DJA"
[O.K. Darcy. 'preciate that and hopefully this all works out.]
Greetings. My name's Josh Sinton. I play baritone saxophone and bass clarinet in the Secret Society. Darcy has very graciously opened the floor of his beloved blog to allow me to post a few words regarding a band called Ideal Bread that I've been running for five years.
In 2004 I started work on what I thought would be a relatively simple project: come to grips with Steve Lacy's music by playing Steve Lacy's music. I called up stranger and friends to play his music in informal jam sessions, I played his music on nyc subway platforms, I listened to his CD's. I got lucky. I met three other very generous souls (Kirk Knuffke, Reuben Radding and Tomas Fujiwara) who were also very interested in his music. We started playing Steve's music regularly, then we got a gig (at Barbes no less!) then another gig, then an offer to make a CD, etc.... Now I find myself in the happy position of being able to say we're on the cusp of releasing our second CD. On June 8th "Transmit" will be released on Cuneiform Records. In honor of all this, I've decide to post some words and music every week from now until the end of June on my website (www.joshsinton.com) that relates to either Steve Lacy, Ideal Bread or repertory. Below the fold, you'll find the first post that went up this past Friday. It's the fifth in what I call a selfterview (yeah, I know it's an awkward name, but it explains itself quickly). Even if you're not interested in my words, I promise you'll be interested to hear the music that I've posted.
p.s. Ideal Bread will be playing some nyc shows throughout the year starting in June. You can check my website to get that info.
SETLIST
(click to listen; right-click/ctrl-click to download)
1) MP3: Phobos
Solos: Jon Wikan, cajon; Mark Small, tenor sax
2) MP3: Zeno
Solo: Ryan Keberle, trombone
3) MP3: Redeye
Solo: Sebastian Noelle, guitar
4) MP3: Obsidian Flow
Solo: Erica vonKleist, alto sax
5) ENCORE - MP3: Transit
Solo: Ingrid Jensen, trumpet
Deepest thanks to WDR 3, Bernd Hoffmann (producer), Georg Niehusmann (recording supervisor), Rolf Lingenberg & Ron Ruiten (sound engineers), and everyone at the Moers Festival for making this recording possible.
As always, if you enjoy, please consider making a donation:
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Darcy James Argue's Secret Society is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Darcy James Argue's Secret Society may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
MP3: "Egna Ot Waog" - Andrew D'Angelo (click to listen/right/ctrl-click to download)
I picked up Andrew D'Angelo's new trio record (with Trevor Dunn, bass and Jim Black, drums) at the Tea Lounge benefit on Friday night. It came with two free beers. I am of the opinion that more CDs should be sold in this manner.
It's a really great record, and quite different from anything else in Andrew's catalog. It is both incredibly varied and tightly focused -- all but one tune is under five minutes long, and most of them either sustain or slowly develop a single, simple idea for the duration. Andrew is known for his jugular-attacking intensity and that's certainly in evidence in tunes like "Bo Bee Bo Bee Bee" and "25 Hits" (which you can sample over at Feast of Music), but what I've always loved about Andrew is that he combines that take-no-prisoners freepunk swagger with warmth, humor, and a composerly sense of form and scale. Some of the best moments on this record are the more intimate ones -- the haunting subtones that open "Fichtik," the chamberlike bass-clarinet-arco bass counterpoint on "Rutloosic," the heart-on-sleeve diatonic Ornetteish balladry of "Fam Hana." But my favorite track so far is "Egna Ot Waog," a sinister, trancelike piece that, like Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men, doesn't need gunpowder to make an impression.
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You can buy Skadra Degis from Skirl Records. All proceeds go to help pay for Andrew's medical bills. Thanks to Skirl for permission to post the MP3.
Also: Secret Society co-conspirator Josh Sinton is playing a benefit show for Andrew tonight (Tuesday 26 Feb) at the Bowery Poetry Club with his band Holus-Bolus.
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