after love, especially heavy

dave burrell - after love - america records - 1970

roscoe mitchell - reeds
alan silva - cello, electric cello, violin
dave burrell - piano
ron miller - double bass, madolin
michel gladieux - double bass
bertrand gauthier, ron moye - drums

recorded 1970 in paris

after love set about examining the possibilities of an especially heavy and steady drum line beneath the improvising string and woodwind instruments.
from notes for release by robert levin

bösendorfer

2 radio interviews with cecil taylor and max roach from
cecil taylor & max roach - historic concerts:
mc millin theatre columbia u. new york december 15, 1979
soul note - 1984

unknown before he plays it

steve lacy - two, five & six. blinks - hat art - 1997

(recorded live in zürich 1983)

steve lacy - sopranosaxophone
steve potts - alto- & sopranosaxophone
bobby few - piano (on the whammies only)
irène aebi - cello, violin & voice
jean-jaques avenel - bass
oliver johnson - percussion

"ornette coleman told me one day: 'lacy, seems like you don't know what you're going to play before you play it.' i said: 'yeah, that's right.' and he was shocked by that because he has a clear conception of a phrase before he plays it, but at the time i was deeply into the unknown, i didn't know what is was going to find. two different manners of working, both valid; tow different premises."
from notes for release

hungarian folk tunes

béla bartók - bartók plays bartók - pearl - 1995

rose-croix

erik satie (yuji takahashi) - pièces pour piano 1 - denon - 1985
recorded 1976

supersilent & terje rypdal - moers jazz festival 12 mai 2008

****

(via unavisenpassant)

madness stalked him for twenty years

komitas - the voice of komitas vardapet - traditional crossroads - 1995
recorded in paris, 1912

via memory

guitar music

(m)iddle end and wh(o) pe(r)sian ci(t)y cl(o)ud uncertai(n)

morton feldman - for john cage (1982) - alm records/kojima recordings inc. - 1993
yasushi toyoshima - violin, aki takahashi - piano

so powerful are these late works that a few notes suffice to identify their singular sound-world: they are at once intimate and monumental. in the late works of beethoven, there is often a passage near the end where all harmonic motion slows to a standstill, usually suspended on a trill, while reminiscences of earlier moments are heard. this is the place where feldman's late works all begin.
from notes for release by raphael mostel

gerhard richter from elbe, 31 monotypes, 1957

title from john cage's scenario for m.f.

des étoiles, de la planète à l'anneau, des anges, des saints, du chant des oiseaux

olivier messiaen - visions de l'amen pour deux pianos
disques adès - 1962/1988
yvonne loriod et olivier messiaen, written in 1943

via memory

angus maclise + tony conrad - chumlum - 1964
(from the ron rice film)

une sublime musique de chambre

j.s bach (gidon kremer) - 3 sonate e 3 partite per violino solo
bwv 1001-1006
philips - 1980

"musical mode" is a group of sounds corresponding to a specific emotional climate

ram narayan - inde du nord, l'art du sarangi - ocora radio france - 1998
recorded june 1979

title refers to the raga, from the notes by tran van khe

seven come eleven, bukka white use to call them sky songs cause he'd reach up and pull'em out of the sky

townes van zandt - nashville sessions (seven come eleven)
tomato records - 1993
recorded 1972

he began playing guitar at 15, and he learned his second chord at 21

swing meaning the traditional coloring of the energy that moves the music

cecil taylor - the complete candid recordings
of cecil taylor and buell neidlinger - mosaic - 1989

with buell neidlinger, billy higgins, dennis charles, sunny murray, charles davis, steve lacy, archie shepp, roswell rudd, clark terry

(title from a spellman's four lives in the bebob business)

la vraie musique des sphères

john cage - sixty-eight / quartets I-VIII - hat hut records - 1995
(lucas vis & radio-sinfonie-orchester frankfurt)

écoutez la musique religieusement, comme si ses accents étaient les derniers que vous dussiez entendre
- henry david thoreau - journal

les sons sont des bulles à la surface du silence. elles éclatent. la question est de savoir combien de bulles il y a sur le silence.
- john cage - silence
from notes for release; la vraie musique des sphères by franck mallet

(listen religiously, as if its accent were the last that you would ever her)
(the sounds are bubbles on the surface of silence. the burst. the question is to know how many bubbles there are on silence)

to express a novel with a single gesture

anton webern - the complete string trios and quartets - auvidis montaigne - 1994
(arditti string quartet)

one may consider the restraint required to express oneself so concisely. into each glance is compressed a whole poem; into each sigh, an entire novel. but; to express a novel with a single gesture, to express utter joy with a single breath; the presence of such concentration can only be found where there is a corresponding absence of indulgent self-pity.
arnold schoenberg - from his introduction to webern's bagatelle published in 1924

the central region (for michael snow)

evan parker lawrence casserley - solar wind - touch - 1997
photography by karen mirza

michael snow - la région centrale - 1971

dissolved in sound

luigi nono - prometeo - emi - 1995

no less important was the ability of these texts to act as a catalyst in generating purely musical structures. the meaning of the words was literally dissolved in sound.
- jürg stenzl - notes for release

polar night

thomas köner - kaamos - mille plateaux - 1988

images from jürgen reble's chicago - 1996

marked by layers of residue, shifting abstract surfaces, chemical traces, scratches and blotches, as though a virus has infected the image, distorting its tone and colour, imbuing it with unusual textures and a strange aura. in these films destructive processes are the creative aesthetic agent.
- steven ball * on the work of jürgen reble, which could also work for kaamos, especially the track with reble; tabula smaragdina

endlessly playing the same note

giacinto scelsi - oeuvre intégrale pour choeur
et orchestre symphonique
accord - 1988, 1989, 1990
direction jürg wyttenbach et orchestre et chœur
de la radio-télévision polonaise de cracovie


quattro pezzi (1959), anahit (1965), uaxuctum (1966)

hurqualia (1960), hymnos (1963), chukrum (1963)

aion (1961), pfhat (1974), konx-om-pax (1969)

scelsi had already composed about thirty pieces, when, towards the end of the war, he underwent a serious crisis, calling for years of hospitalisation. whilst in the nursing home, he found his own therapy: he would spend hours at the keyboard, endlessly playing the same note and immersed in concentrated and intense listening, thus renewing experiences going back to early childhood. this saved him, and from 1952 onwards he started composing again, but in the entirely new and different language which allowed him to create about a hundred works within thirty years.
- harry halbreich - notes for release

pedal-points and bell-notes

marianne schroeder - lasciando, un'evocazione
produktion jecklin musikhaus - 1992
live recording july 1991

making strings vibrate and sing by stroking, plucking or beating them; tower up overtones on the basis of the fundamental tones; placing pure and tempered intervals in intermediate states; making basso continuo, sub-basses, pedal-points and bell-notes ring out; stirring and mixing basic tone colours; hammering multiple sounds into harmonies; playing the organ with a bourbon; building up notes then letting them die away.......
- jürg erni's suggestions - notes for release