June 12, 1979: New Music New York - day 5
Robert Palmer, Garrett List, Stanley Crouch & Eric Saltzman ● Barbara Benary ● Joseph Celli ● Don Cherry ● Tom Johnson ● Jeanne Lee & Gunter Hampel ● Phill Niblock & Arthur Stidfole ● Mary Jane Leach
Robert Palmer, Garrett List, Stanley Crouch and Eric Saltzman
panel: Jazz and Experimental Music
Barbara Benary Exchanges
Joseph Celli Some Transformational Improvisation
Don Cherry
Tom Johnson Simple Arithmetic, Three Secret Songs
Jeanne Lee and Gunter Hampel
Phill Niblock and Arthur Stidfole Four Arthurs
Phill Niblock and Joseph Celli Two Octaves and a Fifth
A. Spencer Barefield
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Happy birthday to a friend I made forever back in the eighties! Mary Jane Leach’s home page with lots to dig into: mjleach.com
Though it would be only in 1987 that we’d get a chance to hear MJ’s works, she had been around for a few years as a participant and organizer for the New Music America festivals. As it showed in the program note, the work 4BC though none of us realized it would be played in a very echoey site (well, she might have given she’s used to multiples!)
4BC (1984) is for four bass clarinets playing in a small range (a fifth) emphasizing the third partial. It is written for the partials as well as the fundamentals, creating combination and difference tones. … [4BC] was the code I used on the manuscript, and I decided it sounded a little primordial, so I used it for the title.
- Mary Jane Leach, y2b liner notes
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Mary Jane and Phill Niblock and Stewart Boesalager and I that afternoon, walking around Fairmount Park trying to get a clear capture of Leif Brush’s FM broadcast from the trunk of a tree: A few hundred loops, and this becomes music as well!
♪ 1989 New Music America New York City
At New Music America 1989, she was one of the featured performer/composers during an evening at Phill Niblock’s Experimental Intermedia. I have a recording of that and it includes four works: "Trio for Duo" (with Maria Blondeel), "Green Mountain Madrigal", "Pipe Dreams", "Bruckstuck".
She subtitled that performance “Singing and songing, hemming and hawing, slipping and sliding” but as I recall she was quite poised throughout.
My recordings from the Experimental Intermedia - I had a monoaural professional dictaphone which sometimes created glitch sounds…
Trio for Duo (this one has some bad cuts):
Green Mountain Madrigal:
Green Mountain Madrigal into Pipe Dreams intermission
Pipe Dreams:
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At the New York festival, Mary Jane Leach had four trombonists from the Downtown Ensemble perform a work she had not yet titled - I’m not sure if I have a recording of that but I’ll check - my “Downtown Ensemble” tape has only Hellerman and Goode’s works listed. To be verified and I’ll get back to you on it when I know for sure, such is the beauty of the substack’s textual fluidity…
♪
I am blessed to be able to follow Mary Jane via facebook and so I have a few updates over the last year - and I am also fortunate to have her as a follower for these substacks, according to stats provided by the substack-counterbot!
When I wrote some of this last year, it was still a couple of weeks before the release of her solo album Woodwind Multiples featuring “pieces for multiples of bass flutes (4), oboes (9), clarinets (9), and bassoons (7)”. Hear it/order it here:
https://boomkat.com/products/woodwind-multiples
The bad news is as a month ago or so, the vinyl has been sold out, so sorry about the enticement! On the other hand, digitals are still available.
Bradford Bailey review for Soundohm, or as MJ put it: “A very enthusiastic write-up, too good not to share”!
https://www.soundohm.com/article/mary-jane-leach
World of Echo’s review:
https://worldofechomusic.com/products/mary-jane-leach-woodwind-multiples
Peter Margasak’s substack review:
And we get to see her and hear her in this interview from last September:
And here we get to see her in a rare performance setting in Belgrade for her work Lake Eden:
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June 12, 1979 New Music New York Day 5
Critics Panel: Robert Palmer with Garrett List, Stanley Crouch and Eric Saltzman - “Jazz and Experimental Music”
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- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”, guerrilla criticism of ‘New Music New York’ (26 pages), June 1979
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Some participants asked why this collection of experimental music did not include more work from the jazz tradition, much of which is as innovative as anything in the classical avant-garde. Despite the performances by Cherry, Jeanne Lee, and George Lewis, the festival was clearly weighted toward white musicians, but the reasoning seems to me to have more to do with recent history than with overt racism. As I see it the black-dominated loft jazz scene has evolved right alongside the white-dominated experimental scene throughout this decade. Loft jazz has been quite visible and successful in its own way, and for an institution like the Kitchen to attempt to take this genre under its own wing woud be far more patronizing than constructive. Moveover, I am beginning to feel that the most important racial issues go beyond black Americans vs. white Americans to involve a lot of other groups. A truly ecumenical festival of new music in New York would have to include some of the klezmer musicians I wrote about two weeks ago, along with shakuhachi players, khamanchech players, Irish groups, Balkan groups and so on.
- Tom Johnson, Village Voice July 2, 1979, on the lack of Black representation at the gathering
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George Lewis on the lack of Black representation from his 2008 book: AACM: A Power Stronger Than Itself, pp. 388-390. (available for loan via archive.org - free signup required and can be loaned in hour long segments)
https://archive.org/details/powerstrongertha0000lewi/page/n775/mode/2up
The high point of this early diversity movement produced the New Music America Festival, perhaps one of the first attempts to codify, in a performance network, an avant-garde that drew from a wide variety of sources. The festival’s immediate predecessor was 1979’s ‘New Music, New York,’ a week-long series of concerts and symposia sponsored by the Kitchen during composer Rhys Chatham’s tenure as music curator. Beginning in 1989, the New Music America Festival sought to expand on the success of ‘New Music, New York,” aiming at the creation of nothing less than an annual national showcase for experimental music. Over the fourteen-year lifespan of the festival, large-scale festivals were held in such major cities as Chicago, San Francisco, Miami, and Montreal.
While a 1992 monograph summarizing New Music America’s history is suitably multicultural in tone and presentation, it could well be said that the reality of inclusion never quite caught up to the rhetoric. The fifty-four composers listed in advertisements for the original ‘New Music, New York’ constituted a veritable catalog of Downtown I artists; just three, however, were African American: Don Cherry, Leo Smith and myself.
Thus at several of the panel discussions accompanying the New York festival, criticisms were made concerning the overwhelming whiteness of the version of experimental music being presented as “diverse.” The few nonwhite composers featured, however, exercised influence far out of proportion to their numbers, not least because for perhaps the very first time, their presence obliged the ‘downtown’ art world to touch upon, however gingerly, the complex relationship between race, culture, music, method, and art world rewards. Describing the furor, Voice reviewer Johnson, while admitting that ‘the festival was clearly weighted toward white musicians,’ felt nonetheless that this had “more to do with recent history than with overt racism.
Johnson’s acknowledgement that ‘the black-dominated loft jazz scene has evolved right alongside the white-dominated experimental scene throughout this decade’ was perhaps one of the few such admissions to appear in any New York paper. For Johnson, however, an attempt by the Kitchen to engage with this black experimental music ‘would be far more patronizing than constructive … a truly ecumenical festival of new music in New York would have to include some of the klezmer musicians… along with shakuhachi players, kamancheh players, Irish groups, Balkan groups, and so on.’
The strategy of unfurling the banners of pluralism and color-blindness to mask this astonishing conflation of diverse musics under the heading of “Other” begs questions of affinity, collaboration, and competition between black and white experimentalism that were already being articulated all over New York, right under the noses of media commentators supposedly ‘representing’ both camps.
In any event, AACM and BAG artists constituted a clear majority of the very few African American composers featured in New Music America events over the succeeding years. For NMA 1980 in Minneapolis, the only African Americans invited were Douglas Ewart, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, a duo of Oliver Lake and Leroy Jenkins, and former SUNY Buffalo Creative Associate Julius Eastman, out of forty-seven events listed. Despite the presence of two AACM members (Douglas Ewart and me) on the advisory board of the Chicago-based 1982 NMA festival, just four performances by African Americans were featured, of the approximately sixty-five presented. These included an orchestral work by Muhal Richard Abrams, and chamber works by Douglas Ewart and Roscoe Mitchell. Particularly telling, in the founding city of the AACM itself, with an African American population of over 40 percent, was a panel discussion, titled “New Music and Our Changing Culture,” in which all the participants – David Behrman, John Cage, Dan Graham, Ben Johnston, Marjorie Perloff, and Christian Wolff – were white.
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Barbara Benary Exchanges
(note there is a recording in the Kitchen archive cd from 2004)
From the Kitchen album though this posting on Soundcloud doesn’t seem to be coming from the Kitchen folks…
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Barbara Benary’s 1971 Exchanges had three violins on one pitch, then one slid up and anothr slid down and the first note continued and was decorated, turned, trilled, and some etheric tunes grew out of it. The resulting triads were satisfying. The formal unity of the piece resulted from the alternation between improvisatory decoration and the steady droning.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
From the same report, by the author known as “Tin Ear”:
[Don Cherry’s]… combination of new old new old new old new. [By comparison, Barbara Benary’s Triads were trying.
From the same report, short, snort and snappy interview with Joseph D. McLellan of the ‘Washington Post’ by editor:
Q: Did you like Don Cherry’s piece?
A: He used less than 10% of his talent.
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Joseph Celli Some Transformational Improvisation
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In the evening of the concert, Joe Celli played oboe. He played in a beautiful way and developed his solo, breathing in an interesting way throughout. He produced a sound near the end that was new to me – kind of voiced-tone stoppage. Mr. Celli took his sound into the audience and faded away into the office area.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
From the same report, by the author known as “Tin Ear”:
[Don Cherry’s]… combination of new old new old new old new. [By comparison] Joe Celli’s Transformation was basic breath.
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Don Cherry
recording from 1979 in Paris
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Some of the ideas that worked, for me, included… Don Cherry, known earlier for his work with saxophonist Ornette Coleman, played an exciting set on the Duzon Goni (an African hunter’s guitar) that showed clearly the stylistic dependencies of many of the festival’s American works.
- Charles Ward, Houston Chronicle July 24, 1979
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It is not really a question of accessibility. … if Don Cherry was able to please just about everyone with his friendly manner as he sang and accompanied himself on an African stringed instrument, Peter Gordon, 28, reached everyone with a good old-fashioned tenor sax solo, played against a hard-rocking pretaped accompaniment with idiosyncratic chord changes.
- Tom Johnson, Village Voice July 2, 1979
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Don Cherry played African hunter’s harp and talked/sang/disappeared/ did something related to text-sound and knocked everyone out! He said: “There are so many possibilities with the voice – say ah, not hah – think about your belly button and say ah-“ (and we all said ah). The audience sang his chant and he decorated it and kept playing. Light metal and rhythmic strings. He said: “And then they clap like this… clap… clap… (and we all clapped and he decorated that, rhythmically). A good relationship. One audience comment that was repeated to me was: “I guess they never heard a good African hunter’s harp player.” I guess that didn’t matter – even if it might be true.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
From the same report by someone known as “Tin Ear”:
Don Cherry played the Duzon Goni (african hunter’s guitar) and spoke sung crouched over a hip high ike in a posture to instruct elves or infants. On the backdrop wall the hunched shadow appeared wired to a spade. A startling combination of new old new old new old new.
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Tom Johnson
Simple Arithmetic, Three Secret Songs
(it’s on the kitchen cd which I don’t have but keep mentioning it until one drops into my lap or laptop… but I did find the bandcamp today of his recording with Charlie Morrow!)
his bandcamp notes:
The "Secret Songs" begin with a short piece called "Lolmo", which i wrote when I was 19. As a college sophomore in the late fifties, I had never even heard of sound poetry, but I got interested in playing around with phonemes and syllables anyway, and I wrote that piece. One of my friends at that time was another Yale student, an aspiring poet named Jareb Carter, and I remember that we had some long discussions about "Lolmo." Was it poetry? Was it music? Was it valid? What should I do with it? I didn't really know, and Jeb didn't either, and my music teachers at the time weren't interested, so I went on to other concerns, and "Lolmo," along with a number of similar experiments, sat in a trunk for about 15 years.
By the mid-70's, the term sound poetry was well known, the possibilities were being widely explored. It was even clear that the idiom had a history and that similar sorts of work could be traced even into the 19th century.
Gradually my interest in this sort of material was renewed, and I began to find all sorts of sound poems that I wanted to work on. Most of these were completed by 1976, when I presented the first performances of "Secret Songs", though a few have been added since. released April 21, 1981
reviews
Tom Johnson’s Secret Songs was kind of soft most of the time. Since some of these have been published in EAR magazine, we’ve had a chance to see them as process pieces. Either Mr. Johnson has managed to memorize his phonemes or he was doing an improvisatory version last night. He works in codes, but told us what they meant so as not to be secretive. Once he did a tongue pop (I realize that a literal description may give a sillier impression than the reality deserves). What took real guts was for Mr. Johnson, who also writes criticism for The Voice, to stand in the spotlight and repeat Dodo. The pieces performed belong to the genra of text-sound.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
From the same report, by the author known as “Tin Ear”:
[Don Cherry’s]… combination of new old new old new old new. Tom Johnson’s simple secret songs was pale.
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Jeanne Lee and Gunter Hampel
A 1971 collaboration:
An album named Oasis was released closer to the performance, recorded in 1978.
https://www.discogs.com/release/2402149-Gunter-Hampel-Jeanne-Lee-Oasis
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Jeanne Lee collaborated with Gunter Hampel in what began as a prephonemic improvisation with key-clicking flute, grew into full voice and all-out flute with Ms. Lee moving to center floor reaching further and further out in body gesture and music. Mr. Hampel moved to the corner and was a great deal more inwardly oriented. He eventually played vibes and piano and Lee began to use words in an echoy way and to extend them.
“All in all it was a performance ritual of meaning, a give-and-take between people who understand each other, and a full ‘dance of life’.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
From the same report, by the author known as “Tin Ear”:
[Don Cherry’s]… combination of new old new old new old new. Jeanne Lee’s Collaboration [in comparison] was flowery…
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Phill Niblock & Arthur Stidfole Four Arthurs
2009 recording
Phill Niblock with Joseph Celli Two Octaves and a Fifth
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To this taste, the ‘best’ pieces were by Phill Niblock, Charles Dodge, David Behrman, Rhys Chatham, Frankie Mann and Laurie Anderson. Mr. Niblock did a piece for live bassoon, oboe and overlapping four-track tapes of the same instruments sustaining mournful drones. The result sounded like the inside of some cosmic organ.
- John Rockwell post festival wrap up review, New York Times June 18, 1979
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Laurie Spiegel’s taped synthesizer composition and Phill Niblock’s combination of tape with live bassoon and oboe were extraordinary explorations into sound as texture and mass. Both filled The Kitchen with an almost visible presence and weight.
- Keith Roether, Alburquerque Tribune “Criticism is Wishful Narcissism”, June 27
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Some of the ideas that worked, for me, included Phill Niblock’s superimposition of Four Arthurs for bassoon with Two Octaves and a Fifth for oboe. Two performers circulated in the room holding single notes against taped versions of equally long notes. The tiny discrepencies between live and recorded sound became a focal point of the work along with the spatial relationship between an instrument playing in your ear and the taped sound several feet away. The resonance of the sound was lustrous.
- Charles Ward, Houston Chronicle July 24, 1979
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Phill Niblock’s music came off extremely well. Eight tracks of prerecorded oboe and bassoon tones, all slightly out of phase, beat wildly against the live oboeist and bassoonist who wandered around the space. Niblock’s music is purely sonic, with no actual melodies, harmonies, or rhythms, and the importance of these massive sonorities is becoming clearer and clearer.
- Tom Johnson, Village Voice July 2, 1979
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And now to Phill Niblock and the simultaneous performance of Four Arthurs and Two Octaves and a Fifth (literal titles). They were exactly as promised: ‘four channel tapes’ with ‘the musicians playing acoustically in the space’. Mr. Stidfole and Celli wandered about giving individuals a closer hearing. Perhaps in response to this reviewer’s cry for the continuation of hearing, the audience was warned to move away from the speakers, but the amplitude never became painful. This is very clean, very plain music that some might call muscular and others might call muscle-bound. It gives you the chance to think of ways to entertain yourself and alternate ways of listening/moving your ears/moving your whole body around the room. You can’t let yourself be passive with it or it will go right under you. Once you’ve got it, it’s always ‘there’ for you. You can really count on it.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
From the same report by Beth Anderson:
Joseph D. McLellan interview (by the editor – he’s from the Washington Post…)
Q: What do you think of the music?
A: Tom Johnson’s ‘pokalockadukala’ piece sounds like the opening scene in The Music Man. Scott Johnson’s crying track was the most interesting part of his piece.
From the same report, by the author known as “Tin Ear”:
[Don Cherry’s]… combination of new old new old new old new. {by comparison] Phill Niblock had the final note to end all. When Don Cherry left the stage, the audience forgot where they were and found themselves drone clapping for an encore. No luck, intermission lights brought everyone back.
From the same report:
‘ENO TALKS ABOUT NIBLOCK’
“I wasn’t moved and I wanted to be because I had heard good (performances) before. It’s more fun if you’re lying down.”
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Screen shots of the original New Music New York 1979 program were from a downloadable photocopied pdf available from the site of the late Michael Galbreth. Direct link to the downloadable program here:
https://www.michaelgalbreth.com/_files/ugd/b4072f_e5d11c9f076542479f8a38108565980a.pdf