OUR NEXT NEW MUSIC CIRCLE EVENT!

Morton Subotnick
Until Spring Revisited
Saturday, Nov. 22, 2008 – 7:30 p.m.
Co-sponsored by Forest Park Community College
Mildred Bastian Theater
5600 Oakland Ave.

The internationally acclaimed Morton Subotnick is a pioneer in the development of electronic music and an innovator in works involving instruments and other media.  Most of Subotnick’s music calls for a computer part, or live electronic processing; his oeuvre utilizes many of the important technological breakthroughs in the history of the genre.  A highly decorated talent, Subotnick has received multiple Rockefeller Grants, the Guggenheim Grant, and ASCAP’s John Cage Award among many others.  Co-sponsored by Forest Park Community College, Subotnick will perform, Until Spring Revisited, a combination electronic music and video composition.

Subotnick’s work, Silver Apples of the Moon brought celebrity in 1967.  The piece contains synthesized tone colors, striking for its day, and a control over pitch that many other contemporary electronic composers had relinquished. The record was an American bestseller in the classical music category, an extremely unusual occurrence for any contemporary concert music at the time.  In addition to music in the electronic medium, Subotnick has written for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, theater, and multimedia productions.  His “staged tone poem,” The Double Life of Amphibians, a collaboration with director Lee Breuer and visual artist Irving Petlin, premiered at the 1984 Olympics Arts Festival in Los Angeles.

My wife, Odile, and I have just returned from quite an experience at the Aspen Music Festival (http://www.aspenmusicfestival.com). If you like to receive your aural medication in multiple doses then this is where to come, at least for next summer. This season is almost over, but during the course of one week in early August, we went to an average of 1.5 concerts a day, several open rehearsals and 2 lectures at the Aspen Institute. We never made it to a master class, but our timing was good for the mini-festival to celebrate the 100th birthday of Olivier Messiaen, featuring many works, such as Quartet For The End Of Time and the seldom performed, 2 hour solo piano work, Vingt Regards Sur L’Enfant Jésus. (As an aside, our New Music Circle here in St. Louis - http://www.newmusiccircle.org - brought in the pianist, Roger Muraro, to perform it a few years ago, so….. get ready for lots of surprises in ‘08-’09, our 50th Anniversary Season!).

For those who might be worried about the cost of Aspen Music Festival concerts, know that many events are at a reduced rate, and accomodations outside of Aspen are reasonable. Hope to see you there next summer! Oops, did I mention sports? Everyday: hiking up beautiful mountains, biking, many other sports and activities……sorry, no skiing, not even at A-Basin.

I’m most of the way through writing that piano trio piece I was telling you about, remember, the one with “NO RHYTHM SECTION”?

However…..since I do like to experiment with special techniques (judiciously, of course), I decided to consult with the violinist, Manuela Kaymakanova. It turned out that I had written a few errant double stops that needed to be reined in a bit and a “saltando” that was getting way out of hand.  Also, she gave me advanced warning that most string players don’t like to play “col ‘legno”(tapping the strings with the wood of the bow), and if they see that effect written too frequently, they will flip the bow back over when the composer’s not looking.

As you have been tuning in to my MP3 Jukebox, you may have run across a few sample pieces which I recorded with St. Louis poet, Michael Castro. Well, Michael has recently had two of his own CDs released on the Freedonia Music label, collaborating with two marvelous multi-instrumentalists, J.D. Parran (”Kokopilau”) and the late Joe Catalano (”Endless Root”). Both are really fine albums, and I especially enjoyed comparing Catalano’s interpretations of Michael’s poems to my own - completely different settings, but many interpretive similarities. So enjoy!……and go straight to the Freedonia site, ASAP - http://www.freedoniamusic.org

As promised, here is my latest piece, “Textures”, which you can listen to right now by clicking on the MP3 Player under “Blogroll” in the menu on the right, or just use this link, http://www.tompkinsjazz.com/jukebox, to get you straight to the MP3 Player page. I have also uploaded a relatively new piece, “Voices” and inserted an older work, “Open Green” in between, just for variety. [Actually, the real professionals at Pixel IQ (http://www.pixeliq.com) did the uploads for me, and Charlie Dent mastered “Textures” & “Voices”]

With “Textures”, I have been trying to expand my range of synthesizer sounds, even to the point of employing sampled percussion instruments to create a drum sound. In the process, I hope I was able to mold the effects into a concise and meaningful work. Let me know.

“Open Green” is a short vocal work that we performed frequently in my
group, The Fred Tompkins Poetry & Music Ensemble. I haven’t tried to display the words to any of my vocal pieces here online, but I hope you can understand them ok.

The two halves of “Voices” are almost like two short, separate works, but I tend to hear the 2nd half as a kind of resolution of the 1st. In the first half, I combine the sound of flute multiphonics (producing several notes simultaneously) and sing/play double stops with various synthesizer sounds, sometimes in dialog and sometimes as a chord. With all of this experimentation, I still try to maintain a sense of continuity, so let me know if you think I’m successful. I can always use that imput for my next endeavor.
The 2nd half of this piece holds a special meaning for me. It was written around the time, recently, when we lost several friends who were close to the St. Louis community, and I kept thinking of them as I was playing it.
This movement also makes me think of the real courage it takes to go on in life while battling a serious illness or personal loss.

If you are familiar with my approach to making music (if not, just click on the MP3 Player in the right hand menu under “Blogroll” and have a listen), you probably realize that I tend to focus my efforts on establishing a rhythmic dialog between my notated or composed parts and an improvised drum part.

Well, my latest two projects will venture into somewhat unfamiliar territory: On a synthesizer piece, called “Textures”, I am playing all the drum parts myself with sampled instruments (not that I could ever duplicate the beautiful flow of a Gary Sykes, Charlie Dent or Elvin Jones, but my “Soundfonts” do provide some very natural percussion sounds, and my own artistic goals for a synthesized drum part are somewhat different anyway). I’ll post the piece on my MP3 Player page when it’s done, and you can let me know what you think.

For another project, I’ve been asked to write a work for the Trinity Trio here in St. Louis. It’s a marvelous classical piano trio (piano, violin and cello) w/ NO RHYTHM SECTION. That’s fine with me, because I welcome the challenge of creating ideas conceived within my own rhythmic style but expanded to enjoy all the idiomatically expressive qualities of this new ensemble.

So wish me luck, or at least get back to me with advise for the present and/or possible ways to stay out of trouble in the future.

I’ve just finished recording my piece, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (music set to poetry by John Keats), and it has been a wonderful experience working with these four players - left to right: Dave Black, Gary Sykes, Paul DeMarinis and Debby Lennon. If you’d like, you can listen to it by clicking on the MP3 Player in the right hand menu, under Blogroll (If you don’t see the menu at first, click on the “blog” link at top of this page, or scroll down to the bottom of the page until you see it.); then just click on “Ode….” on the MP3 Player and let me know what you think.

With classic Paul Horn/Lalo Schifrin and Dizzy Gillespie/Lalo Schifrin collaborations, I’ve added two more great examples of Third Stream Music recordings to our list, under “Pages”/ “Other Artists Whom I Admire”. (If you don’t see a menu to the right, click on the “blog “ link above the banner.)
And…… you don’t have to be a St. Louisan to enjoy the two latest additions to my Blogroll:
St. Louis Jazz Notes is a site filled with interesting articles about musicians, photos, links to recordings/sites and exciting new music videos.
And…….New Music Circle (for which I serve as a board member) is a St. Louis organization which sponsors many local events and brings in Avant-Garde touring groups from around the world. Our newly renovated site will tell you about its history and mission. You can read thought provoking articles, look at our calendar of up-coming events and purchase “new music” CDs and other material (presents?) in the NMC Shop.
You’ve got lots of clicking to do, so get to work (It’s really more like play), and I’ll see you next time.

Third Stream compositions on blog feature Elvin Jones, David Liebman and many great players with links to Gunther Schuller, Eric Dolply & more:

Based upon my mission statement and the musical examples on my MP3 Player (If you don’t see a menu to the right, just click on the “blog” link at the top of the page.), I would love to know what you think of my music and how it relates to your own approach to playing, composing or just attentive listening. If you prefer to keep your comments private, be sure to indicate that in your message, and we can converse solely by e-mail.

Recently, I saw a review of what appears to be an exciting new jazz film, called My Name is Albert Ayler , a documentary portrait by Swedish director, Kaspar Collin, shedding new light on the controversial, avant-garde saxophonist. Screenings appear to be limited, but I’ve heard that it will be out on DVD soon. (for more info, go to: http://www.mynameisalbertayler.com). I can’t wait to see the film, myself, but meanwhile I’ll have to be satisfied with my own fond memories of the man.

One memory involved an encounter with Elvin Jones at Slug’s Saloon, a jazz club in downtown Manhattan: I was lucky enough to get a front row table to hear Elvin’s group that night, but at the end of the set, as the players were walking off the stand, Albert Ayler popped up out of nowhere and asked if he could play a piece, solely as a duo with Elvin Jones. So Elvin, being keenly aware of Albert Ayler’s reputation as a brash egomaniac, made the somewhat defensive and sarcastic remark, “OK, Albert, just come on up here and play all night.”

The music which then ensued was some of the most inspiring that I’ve ever heard. You would almost have to classify it as a kind of internal Third Stream music, within the jazz avant-garde idiom. Albert counted off a medium-up tempo and both of them started swinging furiously with Albert playing basically in his style of tonal wailing and harmonic abandon while Elvin built up waves of driving rhythm behind him.

Well, the piece didn’t last all night. In fact it was rather well contained, and when it wound down with just one, final cymbal crash, Elvin looked up at Albert with a big smile and said,
“Hey, Albert, that was really good!”

Moral of story: Never be afraid to experiment with a new idea, especially in the unpredictable field of music, you never know when grace will happen, and………be sure to see the new documentary film about alto saxophonist, Albert Ayler.