In Memory of Sam Rivers

 Jonathan Freilich, Sam Rivers, Jeff Albert, Zeitgeist theater, New Orleans  The great Sam Rivers has passed and what a big loss, what a human being, what an improvisor.  And really...what do I know?  I only got to see him a handful of times but each was better than a delight; it was actually transformative.

  The first couple of times that I saw him in person was when he came out to a couple of New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars shows in Orlando, FL.  At one of them he was dancing wildly and he made sure to come over and tell us how much he liked it.  He was one of my heroes and I felt like i'd been given a fresh, strong, backbone.

When we would go down to Orlando, we were sometimes lucky to see his Rivbea orchestra; a great band- check out some of those hot clips on youtube.  

The most important memory of Sam for me, and a number of my comrades in New Orleans, was when he came down to play with the Naked Orchestra.  He had some music prepared but there had been a mixup with his management who had incorrectly communicated the Naked Orchestra's instrumentation to him.  He felt badly about it and said that he had lots of music for such a project if he'd been told what kind of band it was.  He dissolved the rehearsal and said he would have new music for us right before the gig and he did just that; the following evening he had worked up a complete piece for the orchestra.  It was a very ear opening piece of music and I wish I had a recording of that evening.

Every time you saw Sam Rivers he exuded a shocking amount of energy and his multi instrumental trio of recent years was also something else to see.  

My old friend, David Kunian wrote a poem inspired by the show that night with the Naked Orchestra .  Here it is...

 

SAM RIVERS AND THE NAKED ORCHESTRA 3/8/02 ZEITGEIST THEATRE

 

Michael Ray is his own delay.

If he were going the speed of light, 

Would he hear his instrument in the mirror?

Yeah, Einstein, I’m hearing things, All Right!

Tim Green’s blowing breath through the bass sax

Powering the band like a B-2 bomber.

Sounds like Operation Anaconda creeping 

Through the mountains and then a big BOOM 

As Eric Lucero’s trumpet and Rob Wagner’s horn 

Drop the furious atonal BOMB.  Sam the Man Rivers

Writing a new piece like a snake

Sousaphone in the hills, saxophones in the grass.

Mikiel Williams fingering like a snake charmer.

Sam has Hart McKnee adding flute 

And interpretive dance stomps.

“Ooops, I brought music for an orchestra, 

but not this kind of Orchestra.”

Maybe an Arkestra?  A Dressed Orchestra?

Michael Skinkus is the tomato conga.

Matt Perrine on sousaphone is definitely pickles.

Doug Miller no offense slathers on tenor mayo.

Jonathan Froelich’s sharp guitar tones and crazy clusters

Shreds my lettuce.

Cacophony is beautiful

Chaos is beautiful!

It makes no sense, maybe not 

Nonsense, gimme more,

More more more more Naked Sense!

Top it with Sam Rivers hip reeds, wild chords,

Flowing charts, and toothy smile.

 

Written 3/8/02

Revised 3/15/02

Thanks Sam!

 

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A few words in favor of Norco Lapalco

The following was written after a show on the weekend of Nov.16,2011 in New Orleans.

Somewhere between 1991-2 I was living in an apartment in the house of Klezmer All-Stars accordionist, Glenn Hartman. One night my friend, Ben Ellman, called to say he wanted some help to work out some lines on a cassette tape by a band he was going to do a gig with. At that time, Ben was playing with the Little Rascals Brass band. We had been hanging around some other places besides the golden Treme hotspots of that time- Pepinas, and Lucky's are particularly memorable backdrops, but there were others.

The cassette had a band called Lump on it. I remember thinking immediately that they had come up with some really wild lines. They would play in unison, fast, and the drum sound was really energetic and all over the place, but kept the energy at a fantastically manic level. They would rapidly change into these odd time slow sections and then declaim some really strange sounding stuff that I hadn't worked out yet. Ben mentioned that they were into a lot of interesting creative funk and jazz players (style naming is such a drag) that I also had special affection for- James "Blood" Ulmer etc.

Lump is in the past, yet the excitement, and particular emotional and conscious oulook they portrayed, stick firmly in the heads of those of us that used to see them- often by accident. One of the main features was the singular lyrics that spanned subjects from Deuteronomy to Delfayo Marsalis. Usually the music would suddenly move from the aforementioned instrumental outbreaks into these wild declamations penned by Lou Thevenot.

Going on about Lump is missing the point for some, who feel that you are nowhere without solid experience of some previous work of that band's members...but, I wasn't there. Some of these old, wizened, folks were in the audience at the Mermaid reunion show at Hi-Ho where Norco Lapalco showed up and became the stimulus for this ramble. The band really put those discussions of the past- in the past pretty quickly. In fact, not showing up with Lump (and it was probably requested) was a solid statement in itself, since they had been an early Mermaid Lounge scene staple. Norco Lapalco wasn't even a fleck in a dry imagination at that point in history.

If you are in New Orleans- you need to go out and see this group. Their stuff is really together. It drips authentic experience and Lou has always been a safeguard against pandering bullshit...so you are out of danger...that one anyway. This is really original music and it gets you in a mysterious part of the pelvis that hasn't been much written of in the yards of writing on rhythmic music. It's exciting in as much as it changes direction frequently, rapidly,unexpectedly, and yet the lyrics hang there mysteriously, well heard. (Did I mention the hot lead singer?) These are songs about what is actually happening and that provides a relief from the endless proliferation of solipsistic, escapist, pop-allegoricism that people seem to endlessly want to hang their songwriting clevernesses on. These are, after all, viscerally, fragmenting times and it's sad to see most young musical folks around New Orleans regurgitating music so old that it has no relevance except as a way to pull dimes out of misguided tourists.

This, on the other hand, is a band speaking from their time and place with a writer who doesn't beat around the bush with any of those folksy, saccharine singer/songwriter clevernesses, or cliche rock heroics. He plays guitar in a real interesting way too- as does the other guitarist. These days too many people are trying to play in standardized ways that descend from whomever they think is legit. (Did I mention the singers?-very penetrating...) It's time for more emotional experience. Go get it at a Norco Lapalco show.

 

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Petrassi- what a piece!

This isn't anything but a picture and the piece.  Re-posting of youtube videos is a bit cheap.

  Two written reviews of concerts are about to pop up so look out for that.

Meantime, this really is worth posting because it is the music of a composer that isn't too widely known.  Take a listen- very novel approach and beautiful- and even humorous.

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ee me & pollock thee- performances coming this weekend.

 

 

 

 

ee me & pollock thee

an opera

by Adam Falik and Jonathan Freilich

Director: Chris Kammenstein | Musical Director: Francis Scully

 An official participant of the 2011 New Orleans Fringe Festival 

Venue: The Marigny Opera House(Trinity Church on St. Ferdinand in the Marigny) 

Thursday, November 17th, 7pm

Friday, November 18th, 9pm

Saturday, November 19th, 11pm

Sunday, November 20th, 7pm

  ee me & pollock thee accounts a relationship between poet E. E. Cummings and painter Jackson Pollock.  The two artists journey to the dark heart of inspiration in this multidisciplinary extravaganza.  As poet and painter wrestle their muse, mutual obsession and mystical appropriation ensue.  This modern opera with live musical accompaniment explores the cost of great art and dangerous genius.  Dramatic scenes are interwoven with original musical compositions and operatic performance of E. E. Cummings poems.

  Goat in the Road Productions’ Chris Kamenstein will direct, and Francis Scully, conductor of the New Resonance Orchestra, will serve as musical director.

The production features: Chris Lane as Jackson Pollock, Andrew Vaught (Cripple Creek Productions) as E. E. Cummings, Kathleen Halm as Lee Krasner, and JeAnne Swinley as Rebecca Cummings.

 

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New Opera/Play: ee me & pollock thee complete and set for NO Fringe Fest Nov. 16-20

Chris Lane as Jackson PollockDont' miss this upcoming premiere of a new opera/play/melodrama by Adam Falik(Libretto/script) and Jonathan Freilich(composer).

-E.E. Cummings and Jackson Pollock journey to the dark heart of inspiration in this multidisciplinary extravaganza. As poet and painter wrestle their muse, mutual obsession and mystical appropriation ensue. This modern opera with live musical accompaniment explores the cost of great art and dangerous genius.- 

The music is now finished and the opera is in final run up towards the New Orleans Fringe Festival  It's a co- production with the librettist, Adam Falik and will feature Chris Lane as abstract expressionist painter, Jackson Pollock. Chris appaeared in my previous opera, Bang The Law and knows how to deliver this type of role.  The other cast is also exciting and as of now the music writing is novel and should provide for a really interesting creative set of performances.  The show will be under the musical guidance of conductor, Francis Scully.

ee me & pollock thee at NO Fringe fest...

I'll meet you there!

 

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Voodoo Fest and Halloween gigs coming up

Finally getting back to the land and people I love...

Flying in to New Orleans Thursday for a hat-trick of hits.

Thursday night at Bayou Beer Garden with a few noteables from The Iguanas.

Saturday 29th- with The New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars at Hi-Ho Lounge.  Double bill with the real raucous good timers, Debauche: The Russian Mafia band.

Sunday 30th, 1-2pm with The New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars on the Preservation hall Stage at the Voodoo Fest. in City Park.

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Roscoe Mitchell Trio at the REDCAT, Los Angeles- 10/2/2011

   Roscoe Mitchell!!?!!-  I am still trying to put into words what level of mind shattering sonic experience this was.  It started with a bass recorder and a whole universe came from there.  It felt like it was about the sounds inside the sounds.

What could the sounds inside the sounds mean?  

   There is a poise of delivery that can really make individual sounds have the appearance of a longer life in time.  I say the appearance of, but in terms of perception and our minds it could really be a longer life.  The mind gets closely in tune so that the delivered sound appears to sit in the consciousness longer than the time that it is really there.  This effect (and I don't mean it like a cheap veneer)thoug, is not what I am referring to in Roscoe Mitchell's presentation last night.

  This went deeper.  It was as if he was describing a more naked place where that sort of poised delivery, the one that can really help us hear,  might be arising from.  Probably for many it might have been difficult to listen to.  The initial sound palette would come across to many as screechy but if we relax and go inside of that, many other musical relations begin to unfold.  These were clearly vibrations that could be generated just as the diatonic notes can generate from a fundamental tone.  

The following day at a brief seminar I got to hear Roscoe Mitchell talk about music and some about the above mentioned music of the previous evening.  He talked about his work early on, in the 1960s on getting away from the 12 note system.  It wasn't not a matter of plain rebellion.  He pointed out a certain point that he loves tonal music when he was answering a question from a student about whether there is value in music if you want to hear it that way.  

Roscoe Mitchell is still interested in music- all facets of it.  Since he has been involved in such a deep exploration of its possibilities for so many years he has so much striking wisdom to offer.

He mentioned many intriguing things that afternoon, here are a few...

A major component of music is silence and this offers a serious challenge; since silence is always perfect, it is a difficult proposition to come up with something that fits with that perfection.  (I'm probably going to be meditating on that viewpoint for the rest of my life.)

Roscoe talked about the need and the existence of both creative musicians, and re-creative musicians.  It left me in a more positive frame of mind because these days I am so frequently agitated by the seeming over emphasis of the recreative across all the arts these days.

Best of all he said that music functions best when it is out amongst people (that they are using its techniques) and he mentioned to try to make it exciting which is something that I think gets left out of presentations of work by a good deal of the artform's explorers these days.

Roscoe just turned 71.  He's still out here with extremely vibrant contributions, real mind openers.  The other two players in his trio also completely took me apart- James Fei, and William Winant.  

Check them out.

Trio

RC show details

 

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Striving for liberation

I strive for: complete liberation from all forms
from all symbols
of cohesion and
of logic.
Thus:
away with 'motivic working out'.
Away with harmony as
cement or bricks of a building.
Harmony is expression 
and nothing else.
Then: 
Away with Pathos!
Away with protracted ten-ton scores, from erected or constructed
towers, rocks and other massive claptrap.
My music must be
brief. 
Concise! In two notes: not built, but 'expressed'!! 
And the results I wish for:
no stylized and sterile protracted emotion.
People are not like that:
it is impossible for a person to have only one sensation at a time.
One has thousands simultaneously. And these thousands can no
more readily be added than an apple and a pear.  They go
their own ways.
And this variegation, this multifariousness, this illogicality which
our senses demonstrate, the illogicality presented by their interactions,
set forth by some mounting rush of blood, by some reaction of the
senses or the nerves, this I should like to have in my music.
It should be an expression of feeling, as our feelings, which bring
us in contact with our subconscious,really are, and no false
child of feelings and "conscious logic."

-Arnold Schoenberg to Ferrucio Busoni 1909

 
 

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Conversation with creative drummer, Dave Capello

I always feel that more people should know about one of the most individual voices on drums in New Orleans.  Dave Capello is quite a unique personality and there are experiences that he clearly had that contributed on the musical level.  For a few musicians in town it's known that if you want to get a boost into the unknown with a project, and prevent the threat of staleness, then Dave is the man to call...(if you aren't afraid of the reactions of many, both musicians and audiences, who can't recognize more naked kinds of beauty in music.)


Dave Capello(dr.), Helen Gillet(cello), my Chip Wilson custom 7-string guitar(r)Part 1 up on the interviews page now.

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