Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Dead Air Trio: 2nd Set at J. Michael Walker's Studio, part 2 of 4

Here's the second of the four installments of this video. Lots of bird interaction on this one. You'll also see a lot of people walking through the performance space. While this can sometimes be annoying, on this day we were happy to be part of the whole landscape with all of the people, art, and animals. Dan described it like being part of one of Stockhausen's outdoor performances.

Posted via email from ...notes written and heard...

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Dead Air Trio @ the Arroyo Arts Collective: Sunday 11/22, 2 PM

The improvising trio that I play in,  Dead Air Trio will be performing at the space of artist J Michael Walker as part of the Arroyo Arts Collective's annual self-guided tour, the "Recovery Discovery Tour". Tickets for the whole tour must be purchased, the address of the artist's space will be provided at that time. The Dead Air Trio will perform at approximately 2 PM.

The Arroyo Arts Collective/“The Recovery Discovery Tour”
Starts at the Lummis Home
200 E. Avenue 43
Highland Park CA 90031
9:30 AM to 5:00 PM (length of whole event)
$10 provides access to all artist spaces
Event Page

Posted via email from ...notes written and heard...

Sunday, November 15, 2009

DO THE MATH: Interview with Albert "Tootie" Heath

I used to live on Fifth Street between Bowery and Second Ave. Tons of musicians were on the block: Elvin Jones, Joe Farrell, John Hendricks, Ted Curson, Bobby Timmons, Lee Morgan... We used to go on the roof, get high, and have jam sessions. And around the corner on Bowery and Third was the original Five Spot, where Ornette would play every night for months. We’d walk around, smoke a couple of joints, and say, “Hey, let’s go listen to the Cold Man.” We called Coleman “the Cold Man.”

At the Five Spot, everybody in the place was high, and at first, the music seemed real out. But after awhile...Billy Higgins was the one who helped me begin to understand that: “Hey, man, these guys are actually playing together. I don’t know what it is, but they’re together.” I loved it. Ornette didn’t count off anything, didn’t tell anybody any changes, he would just do it like this: “Boom!” They’d start, and be in the song, together. I was amazed by Ornette.

I saw Sonny Rollins in there a lot, hiding in the phone booth, checking out the music but not wanting to be seen. Trane was down, Lewis from the MJQ. Everybody started coming down.

Percy was the one that kind of got me on Ornette. He brought me the record that he’s on with Ornette, saying, “This is some funny stuff these guys play!”

I loved some of the phrases Ornette played, they sounded like he was saying things, which he was, so I made up little sayings that went with the music. I know in that interview, Billy Hart said I made up words to whole songs, but that’s not really true, it was just some phrases.

But I did love Ornette, especially with Charlie Haden and Don Cherry. Blackwell and Higgins each had their special magic.

Higgins could play anybody’s drums and still sound like Higgins. It could be a huge bass drum and the wrong kind of snare, but he could sit down and start swinging right away. There was some happiness in his playing that related to his beat. He had a great ride cymbal beat that was consistent, that never stopped, no matter what else was going on.

Blackwell had the New Orleans street stuff that he could incorporate into swinging. He’d play swing for a while but then he would leave it, and with Ornette he could do that. He was a master of swinging, leaving it, and coming back to swing. One of his signature things was something that sounded Nigerian, too.

I called Blackwell alongside Cherry for that same record with Mtume. I had him on there with Don. I would have had Ornette too if I could have paid him enough!

A great reminiscence by Tootie Heath about Ornette Coleman. There are a number of great stories in this great interview with the master jazz drummer.

Posted via web from ...notes written and heard...

Friday, November 13, 2009

SoCal Creative Music: Misuzu Kitazumi @ Max & Co. Nov. 20th

From So. Cal Creative Music. I haven't heard Misuzu since we were at CalArts together and I've never heard her play koto, so I'd definitely be interested to hear how she mixes all of it.

Posted via web from ...notes written and heard...

Monday, November 9, 2009

Olmeca CD Release

Monte Carlo 76 has been asked to play on Olmeca's CD release show at Self Help Graphics on 12/4 at 8 PM. This will be a great night of hip-hop, reggae, and theater, all to celebrate the release of Olmeca's new album La Contra Cultura.

Olmeca CD Release
Friday 12/4 8 PM
Self-Help Graphics
1802 E. Cesar E. Chavez Ave.
Los Angeles CA 90063
$10/All Ages
Free Giveaways
w/ Pachamama, Las Ramonas, Nuai, DJ Dubtonez

Posted via email from ...notes written and heard...

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Avant Garde Project - 20th Century Classical, Electroacoustic, Avant Garde Music Downloads

The Avant Garde Project is a series of recordings of 20th-century classical, experimental, and electroacoustic music digitized from LPs whose music has in most cases never been released on CD, and so is effectively inaccessible to the vast majority of music listeners today.

This looks like something that I can spend a lot of time on.

Posted via web from ...notes written and heard...