July 3, 1984 - New Music America Hartford - Day 3 - - NMA birthday: Thomas Mapfumo
Peace Train - Shockabilly - Niblock - Kuivila - Fulkerson - Bruce - Montague - Subotnick - Moss - Pomeroy - Brown - Karr - Johnson - Relâche - Goldstein - Abrams - BD=Mapfumo
10:00 New Music Alliance Meetings at the University of Hartford
10:00-17:00 Old State House - Video series day 2
Peace Train's All Star Breakers & Poppers with Circulation
Eugene Chadborne and Shockabilly
I remember only the break dancers in the opening set, and this was on a cement floor and they had to protect their backs with old pieces of cardboard as they were spinning. And by this time of course, break dancing was already passé.
Stew remembers Chadborne: they did blow out an office window during soundcheck, and this set the stage for the performance. He was with Kramer, and David Licht on drums.
I think that when they got out the plunger, first he did a bunch of the white noise tricks and getting the mileage out of that, went into the first song medley which included Hall and Oates Maneater using a plunger as a violin. Many office people having lunch stayed during that part, but it was probably the last thing that they expected to see in their lives. Chadbourne was down in the front, and one of the secretary types went walking by with a foot and a half tall box of cracker jacks that she was eating. Eugene yells "does that one really have a big prize in it?"
- Georges Dupuis from my diary notes
There is a lunchtime outdoor series in back of the Old State house, which today included the manic, good-humored Eugene Chadbourne and his Shockabilly band. Mr. Chadbourne performs what he calls "hits o the world," meaning a crazed collage of uptempo rock versions of Western and third-world music.
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- John Rockwell, New York Times July 3, 1984
Among the performers on the well-attended free events eld every morning on the public square behind Hartford's Old State House was a parody rock band called Shockabilly, led by an apostage "outside" electric-guitar player who says he returned to his pop-music roots after he realized he had been exchanging the music he most enjoyed for "a shaky membership in some elite which really exists only [in] the minds of a few intellectual pundits."
James Wierzbicki, St. Louis Globe-Democrat July 14, 1984 “A comeback for the musical avant-garde?”
Shockabilly, one year later
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Phill Niblock Meet the Composer talk and greet “films and music” installation at Christ Church Auditorium
Phill Niblock's magnificent visual and sound show combined film of men at work (in Brazil, Peru, and Portugal) with a single sustained tone. The setting of Christ Church auditorium fit the solemnity and tranquility of both music and moving images.
- Brooke Wentz High Fidelity November 1984
Outside the performance hall, Phill Niblock's installations using film and drone music were both demanding and rewarding.
- Paul de Berros Philadelphia Inquirer, July 7, 1984
Phill Niblock had an installation ... silent, comforting films of people working in Asia and Africa; pulsing sound that, joined to the films, turned unexpectedly exciting.
- Geoffrey Stokes, "Trade Fare - Footnotes to New Music America", Village Voice July 31
Phill Niblock at the time was working on a series of films about "work", containing long scenes focused on hands of workers from various cultures in close-up shots executing rituals of tying knots or pulling on ropes attached to fishing nets. The films are compelling, strengthened by the sound scores Phill composed for the ensemble that were performed live with the films. The combined effect of film and live performance was mesmerizing.
- Joe Franklin, Settling Scores
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Workshop at Hartford Arts Center by various European presenters talking about composer opportunities.
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Ron Kuivila Meet the Composer
re Untitled (Revision) talk and greet Hartford Arts Centre
Ron Kuivila's installation, downstairs at the Hartford Arts Center, untitled (revision); Kuivila: "an interesting installation.. to make the music auditor/ participant self-conscious.. not music, but fragments of music" Movement within an area containing three supersonic oscillators and a microphone, triggered some digital equipment to produce pleasant (harmonically-generated) sounds; slower movements caused slower sound-envelopes; (shards of sharp glass, on the floor to keep one from coming too close, seemed gratuitous, even to the composer); I liked it best when he turned on the system during his lecture: the sound became a stylized music-shadow of the Kuivilaspeak, a playful gremlin playing a child's echo-game; Soundnuanced Talkgestures.
- David Hicks, "A Cross Country Music Tour" Perpectives of New Music Vol 22 no. 1-2 Autumn 1983 pp. 519-531
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In another installation, Ron Kuivila converted observers' movements into sound - creating, in effect, an instrument the audience took part in.
- Brooke Wentz report for High Fidelity November 1984
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Ron Kuivila's installation, which he calls "untitled (revision)". You walked into a darkened room, and there it was. Three metal circles on long metal stalks, which everyone took to be sensors of some kind, but in fact were loudspeakers. The real sensor was on a wall in the back. Walk toward it through the stalks and you'd changed the sound the installation made. You had to try your luck, of course; maybe you waved your hand, or jumped, or spun around.
Once I found three people doing an eerie, soundless dance - "soundless" because the buzzing darkness of the installation upstaged the sound of their feet and made them seem silent.
But the best part was the broken glass on the floor. It lay against the far wall, under the sensor; above it was a sign saying something like "Please don't step on the glass." Why was it there?
To keep us from getting too close to the sensor. Did it work? No; that's why Kuivila added the sign. But what a gesture! Shards of broken glass to keep us away from something we'd better not touch.
Why not put up a fence? Because the menace the glass hints at was already somehow part of the piece. Because Kuivila evidently has too strong a theatrical sense to settle fo anything purely functional.
Did the sign weaken the effect? No. It called attention to the barrier, and made the piece sharper than it woudl have been if the glass had lain there alone.
- Geoffrey Stokes, "Trade Fare - Footnotes to New Music America", Village Voice July 31
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Robert Ashley Perfect Lives (Private Parks) old state house complete three hours version
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James Fulkerson with Neely Bruce
Stephen Montague - Paramell I (1977)
For muted trombone and muted piano
Program notes: Montague’s Paramell I (1977) grew out of his several years of performing as a duo with James Fulkerson. The trombone and piano play primarily in unison or parallel motion throughout, hence the title, which is derived from the words ‘parallel’ and ‘melody’. Paramell I is dedicated to James Fulkerson.
James Fulkerson: Force fields and spaces 1981
Solo, for trombone, pre-recorded tape and tape delay system
Part 1:
(for all four parts, go to the DJ Notdeadyet Hartford collection of y2bs at
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmyw9E0_Jh8a_XcDRefD9GLAE6p1I7Wz1
James Fulkerson with Neely Bruce
Morton Subotnick: The Wild Beasts (1979)
for trombone, piano and ghost electronics
Miles Anderson recorded version
James Fulkerson created rich nasal timbres on his trombone while taped sounds of repeated tones wandered in and out.
- Brooke Wentz report for High Fidelity November 1984
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James Fulkerson, a composer and trombonist, presented the day's most stimulating recital in the Atheneum's Avery Theatre. Mr. Fulkerson's own Force Fields and Spaces (1981) for trombone, pre-recorded tape and tape-delay system proved genuinely evocative, and his account of Morton Subotnick's Wild Beasts (1979), with Mr. Subotnick's array of "ghost electonics" and the pianist Neely Bruce caught the ferocity of that title to perfection.
- John Rockwell, New York Times, July 3, 1984
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Particularly, the new virtuosi series ... has turned up a couple of stunning shows. Trombonist James Fulkerson and pianist Neely Bruce's performance of Morton Subotnick's fierce, furious The Wild Beast - with its sneers, multiphonics and roars from trombones and smash-chord piano - literally blasted the glass out of a red exit sign.
- Paul de Berros - Philadelphia Inquirer, July 7, 1984
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Everyone seemed to like James Fulkerson, who in a piece called Force Fields and Spaces conveyed (both as composer and performer) an unusual blend of modesty and authority, and also showed us - without playing a single note loudly - the true flavor of the trombone, above all when with a tape loop he created a repeated, rocking accompaniment that sounded absolutely idiomatic but which no trombonist would ever dare to play live.
Geoffrey Stokes, "New Music Back to Normal" Village Voice July 24, 1984
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David Moss Intimate Solos 6:30-7:00
Wadsworth Connecticut Room for the David Bermant Collection
David Moss spat and grunted staccato-like phrases to demonstrate the percussive qualities of the voice. Then he swivelled balls in a steel drum and brushed handmade metal sculptures to prove that any object can be percussive.
- Brooke Wentz report for High Fidelity November 1984
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The free-improvisation percussionist David Moss gave a typically inventive mini-recital at the Atheneum
- John Rockwell, New York Times July 3, 1984
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Jim Pomeroy
Listen to the Rhythm of the Reign, Excellent Music for Marble Pedestals
Wadsworth Auditorium
Jim Pomeroy's multi-media extravaganza included some beautiful "Surrealistic' slides, made to change color right before your very eyes.
- David Hicks, "A Cross Country Music Tour" Perpectives of New Music Vol 22 no. 1-2, Autumn 1983 pp. 519-531
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"New music in general is an association of mavericks. It's an outlaw club that operates under an outlaw code" - Jim Pomeroy, an artist, speaking at a seminar on music installations.
- Jeffrey Schmalz, New York Times July 6, 1984
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There was an amusing performance-art piece by Jim Pomeroy of San Francisco, cute but overlong.
- John Rockwell, New York Times July 3, 1984
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There were some klunkers, too.
Jim Pomeroy's madcap professor schtick was as boring in its own way as the constipated material played by percussion virtuoso Jan Williams.
- Paul de Berros - Philadelphia Inquirer July 7, 1984
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Chris Brown, William Winant and Jon English
Alternating Currents (1983) electro-physical motion music
Chris Brown's Alternating Currents: lots of engaging metallic chatter, gamelanish and then some; vivid and energetic the composer on keyboards and William Winant on percussion lock into something; looking into something, they find smooth, bright boulevards of communication (though Jon English, trombonist, remains always on the outskirts)... the composer leaves his hardware fortress, grabs a bow and bows a tyne or two, or ten; Winant investigates the acoustic properties of an upside-down cymbal on a timp-head; the improvisatory feel draws me in - what will happen next? - they don't know; nor do we.
- David Hicks, "A Cross Country Music Tour" Perpectives of New Music Vol 22 no. 1-2 Autumn 1983 pp. 519-531
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But the contributions of Chris Brown, Muhal Richard Adams and Malcolm Goldstein all missed fire in one way or another.
- John Rockwell, New York Times July 3, 1984
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The dovetailing, cross-hatched percussion of Chris Brown's "Alternating Current", featuring a rebuilt piano, was expertly played and was musically satisfying.
- Paul de Berros - Philadelphia Inquirer July 7, 1984
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Gary Karr - Tom Johnson: Failing
Gary Karr did a deft if too overtly comedic version of Tom Johnson's Failing (1976), which counts now as a classic repertory item for double-bassists and new-music concerts.
- John Rockwell, New York Times, July 3, 1984
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Relâche with Malcolm Goldstein
Of Sky Bright Mushrooms Bursting in My Head (1983)
Malcolm's work, written with the improvisational skills of the ensemble members in mind, featured him as a soloist. Like much of his music at that time, the piece had some truly beautiful moments but veered a bit off track when the cadenza-like sections took over. Overall, though, it was quite lovely and entered the repertoire over the next few years, Malcolm appearing with the group as guest performer.
- Joe Franklin, Settling Scores
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As part of the evening concerts, Malcolm Goldstein, barefoot and chaotic, attacked his violin strings, as members of the Philadelphia contemporary music ensemble, Relâche, tried to accompany him.
- Brooke Wentz report for High Fidelity November 1984
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But the contributions of Chris Brown, Muhal Richard Adams and Malcolm Goldstein all missed fire in one way or another. … The first of the festival's formal evening concerts, for instance, tonight at the Lincoln Theatre on the University of Hartford campus, was pretty arid.
- John Rockwell, New York Times July 3, 1984
American culture was on Malcolm Goldstein's mind, too, when he wrote Of Sky Bright Mushrooms Burstin In My Head last year for Relâche. Even without Goldstein's prefatory about struggling Central America, it would have been clear that his intense work for violin, percussion, flute, bass clainet, saxophone and piano had an urgent message.
Playing the same figure over and over on his violin until the bow shredded, Goldstein repeated this gestural sob with piano and percussion as the horns brayed long tones from various positions in the audience. Though the sound might have been better balanced, this extraordinary, if obsessive, piece was admirable for its commitment and emotional force.
The music critic for the Hartford Courant found the piece unsatisfactory, but audience response was high.
- Paul de Berros - Philadelphia Inquirer July 7, 1984
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Malcolm Goldstein - Of Sky Bright Mushrooms Bursting in My Head with members of the Relâche Ensemble (from Philadelphia) and dedicated, if I heard right to the people of Central America (?) nice skittery way to fiddle around with an opening; the composer, finding an opening, moving out on violin; shifting the gambit a piano enters bashing; yes, he and the percussionist are having a bash of a good time, endlessly crunching while now and then an offstage saxophone plays periodic peekaboos.
- David Hicks, "A Cross Country Music Tour" Perpectives of New Music Vol 22 no. 1-2 Autumn 1983 pp. 519-531
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Georges Dupuis diary notes:
I'm announcing myself as a potential composer; people do ask me "do I compose" and to tell the truth, I can't say no; I will, I believe, be composing using soundscapes and contrapunctual radio techniques before the end of the year. The craft of radio and combining my connaissance (knowledge) of linguistics and history (?) may help me to get into a course in the Banff School of Art. One dream (awake) that I've thought of having the first New Music (Middle) America festival outside of the United States. Perhaps the search for a border town could be an interesting one for simultaneous festivals.
I remember meeting two gentle women from the Southwest, and telling them that I was a writer on vacation, looking for something a bit different, but intelligent. Malcolm Goldstein was walking with us ... [and] expressed great interest that a novelist should want to discover the world of new music. I interpreted this to mean that I could bring an outsider's perception to the whole thing, since not many music critics can make sense out of the continually expanding-definition world of new music (although there are a good number throughout North America who have).
==== NEW MUSIC AMERICA BIRTHDAY JULY 3 ====
Thomas Mapfumo, 1945 Mazowe, Zimbabwe/Rhodesia
If anyone saw the most excellent series Treme, they might remember a scene where Steve Zahn (playing a DJ) comes up to Elvis Costello at a nightclub and really wants to talk with him but Elvis shoos him away, pointing out, “hey, I’m here to watch Allen Toussaint leave me alone, dude!” Well, I had that kind of a moment with Nana Vasconcelos, who I met at a dinner party in Miami in 1988 and who I ran into at the Sounds of Brazil club during the New Music America 1989 festival in New York City. Yeah, he wanted to see the Lion of Zimbabwe… and I profited grandly by being quiet and just groovin.
This is the kind of music that the Lion was presenting in 1989: