recent listening January 16-31, 2015

John Luther Adams – Four Thousand Holes
John Luther Adams – in the white silence
Kyle Gann – Nude Rolling Down an Escalator
Africa Express Presents… Terry Riley’s In C Mali
Mother Mallards Portable Masterpiece Co., 1970-1973
Frank Zappa – Uncle Meat
Frank Zappa – the Yellow Shark
Bjork – Vulnicura
John Abercrombie – While We’re Young
Norma Winstone – Mirrors
Gary Bartz – Juju Man
Pat Metheny – Question & Answer
Brand X – Unorthodox Behaviour, Moroccan Roll, Masques
Soft Machine – Live in France, Floating World Live
Allan Holdsworth – Blues for Tony

The video to accompany the latest album from Africa Express – the first African version of Riley’s minimalist classic – recorded in Bamako, Mali in October 2013.

Director Roland Hamilton takes us on a journey through the streets of the Malian capital and into the makeshift studio at local youth club Maison Des Jeunes, offering glimpses of the creative process behind ‘Africa Express Presents… Terry Riley’s In C Mali’ with local and Western musicians plus musical director André de Ridder.

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Nels Cline and Julian Lage

I included Nels Cline and Julian Lage’s Room in my Notable releases of 2014 list. It’s quite a stunning album of guitar duets. Here’s an audience video and a Fretboard Journal interview.

Nels Cline and Julian Lage
Ottawa Jazzfest 06/25/14

Fretboard Journal Live: Nels Cline and Julian Lage

“On January 14, 2015, the Fretboard Journal welcomed guitarists Julian Lage and Nels Cline (Wilco) to our headquarters for this installment of Fretboard Journal Live. Lage and Cline discuss how they met through jazz legend Jim Hall; they talk about the gear they’re using for their duo gigs (a Gibson Barney Kessel Custom for Cline; a Linda Manzer archtop for Lage); and they discuss the art of improvisation.

Cline and Lage perform three tunes from ‘Room,’ their debut album together.”

John Luther Adams: Red Arc/Blue Veil (for percussion, piano and electronics)

John Luther Adams: Red Arc/Blue Veil (for percussion, piano and electronics)

Percussion: Caitlin Cawley
Piano: Amy Koh
Video credit: Christina Manceor

John Luther Adams: Red Arc/Blue Veil (for percussion, piano and electronics) from Caitlin Cawley on Vimeo.

John Luther Adams – Become River

Become River
John Luther Adams
Composed 2012-2013

listen

Steven Schick and I were having dinner together. I was just beginning work on a large-scale piece for the Seattle Symphony. So when Steve asked me if I might be interested in composing a new piece for The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, I must have hesitated.

Deftly, Steve asked me to tell him a little about the Seattle piece.

I went on at length about the music I’d begun to imagine, finally concluding:

“It’s called Become Ocean. The title comes from a poem that John Cage wrote in honor of Lou Harrison.”

Cage observed that the breadth and variety of Harrison’s music make it “resemble a river in delta.” He concluded that:

“Listening to it we become ocean.”

“So you’re already composing a symphonic ocean,” Steve said. “Maybe for a smaller orchestra you could go ahead and compose that river in delta.”

Steve had me, and I knew it. Within a week I’d begun work on Become River.

From a single high descending line, this music gradually expands into a delta of melodic streams flowing toward the depths.

I now imagine this river and its related ocean, as part of a larger series of pieces encompassing desert, mountain, tundra, and perhaps other landscapes and waterscapes.

JOHN LUTHER ADAMS ©2013

John Luther Adams Discography

1982	songbirdsongs *	Opus One
1983	A Northern Suite/Night Peace	Opus One
1987	Forest Without Leaves	Owl Records
1993	The Far Country *	New Albion
1995	Earth and the Great Weather	New World Records
1997	Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing *	New World Records
2002	Dark Wind	Cold Blue Music
2002	The Light That Fills the World *	Cold Blue Music
2003	In the White Silence *	New World Records
2005	Strange and Sacred Noise	Mode Records
2006	The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies *	Cantaloupe Music
2007	for Lou Harrison *	New World Records
2007	red arc/blue veil *	Cold Blue Music
2009	The Place We Began *	Cold Blue Music
2011	Four Thousand Holes *	Cold Blue Music
2012	songbirdsongs *	Mode Records
2013	Inuksuit *	Cantaloupe Music
2014	Become Ocean *	Cantaloupe Music
2015	The Wind in High Places *	Cold Blue Music
2015	Just Strings, John Luther Adams, Lou Harrison *	Microfest Records
2015	Ilimaq	Cantaloupe Music
2016	The Stone People	Cantaloupe Music

* = listen

2012 – Cold Blue Two (Cold Blue artist compilation with Sky with Four Sons by John Luther Adams )

2012 – Cornelius Dufallo – Journaling (Innova, includes Three High Places by John Luther Adams with Cornelius Dufallo, Violin/Electronics)

Alex Ross’ rough diagram of Become Ocean.

recent listening January 1-15, 2015

52nd Street, NYC

Bill Evans, Jim Hall – Intermodulation
Paul Bley – Jaco
Paul Bley – Japan Suite
Sid Jacobs – Bill Evans Guitar (instructional book CD)
Steve Kuhn – Childhood is Forever
Guitar Sounds from Lenny Breau
Joe Pass – Virtuoso #2
Mick Goodrick – Biorhythms
John Abercrombie – Current Events
John Abercrombie – Animato
Karl Berger, Dave Holland, Ed Blackwell – Transit
Kenny Wheeler – Windmill Tilter
Chad Wackerman – Forty Reasons
Allan Holdsworth – Secrets
Petr Nouzovský – Mirror Reflections
Fennesz – Black Sea
John Luther Adams – the Wind in High Places

Paul Bley Trio – JAPAN SUITE I & II [1976]

Harold Budd and Mark Rothko

“I then had the good fortune to meet the abstract expressionist artist, Mark Rothko. He asked me my age. I replied, ‘In my early 40s.’ Rothko said “I didn’t make a living until I was over 50”. We sat around looking at the paintings that would eventually become Rothko Chapel in Houston. We were sitting around smoking and drinking Scotch. Morton Feldman was with us too, talking about life, booze and chicks. So I thought, ‘ok, I’ll stick it out’. Rothko gave me encouragement.” – Harold Budd, Record Collector Christmas 2013 by Paul Rigby

complete interview, here.