In Vimeo c'è un breve estratto dal concerto di Terry Riley e John Zorn - il loro primo in assoluto in duo, anche se qui interviene Mike Patton - tenuto a San Francisco poche sere fa, nell'ambito della rassegna Bay Area Connection curata da Zorn presso il celebre club Yoshi's. In programma anche concerti del Rova, una versione di Cobra, il trio Zorn/Dunn/Wollesen con i film di Wallace Berman, il trio Frith/Zorn/Patton e il debutto del repertorio di Alhambra Love Songs.

http://vimeo.com/14486733

http://tinyurl.com/34ak8re

www.yoshis.com/sanfrancisco/jazzclub/artist/show/1374

Esce in questi giorni in vari formati - digitale, vinile, cd convenzionale e in edizione deluxe - il nuovo album di Richard Thompson, Dream Attic. Informazioni, recensioni, testi e materiali aggiuntivi sono in www.richardthompson-music.com mentre un ascolto integrale dell'album è possibile - probabilmente soltanto per qualche giorno - in http://music.aol.com/new-releases-full-cds/#/9.
Un articolo del Financial Times basato su una recente intervista a Thompson si legge in http://tinyurl.com/32uxhv3

www.richardthompson-music.com

www.properuk.com/artist-richard-thompson.html

www.richardthompsondreamattic.com

Un importante nastro con canzoni ancora in versione provvisoria registrate nel 1963 da Phil Ochs è stato recuperato dal fratello a un'asta un paio d'anni fa, quasi per caso, e ora costituisce l'album On My Way (1963 Demo Session), pubblicato da Micro Werks.

Recorded at the Florida home of future Highwayman Roy Connors, this informal 1963 session finds Ochs running through his original material, including several key titles he’d later record for studio releases, in the hope of interesting other artists (in this case Connors’ Vikings Three) in playing or recording his songs. This is a terrific package, documenting a folk troubadour early in his career, bursting with music that had something to say. In addition to the twenty-five songs, the tri-fold cardboard slipcase includes reproductions of two ads for the House of Pegasus concert run that brought Ochs to Florida in 1963, and liner notes by Michael Simmons. This is an important release for fans, and a terrific document of the folk-roots revival. It’s more spontaneous than Ochs’ studio albums, and though not as polished as his official live albums, the passion, craft and dedication that minted Ochs’ legend still burn brightly in these demos forty-seven years later.

http://phil-ochs.blogspot.com

http://tinyurl.com/3yglprh

In Point of Departure di questo mese Francesco Martinelli recensisce Fine Tuning-The Gradisca Concert, album di Lol Coxhill e Enzo Rocco tratto dal concerto in duo tenuto al festival All Frontiers due anni fa. Accompagna l'uscita del cd anche un video, in cinque parti, disponibile presso il canale YouTube del chitarrista.

www.pointofdeparture.org/PoD30/PoD30MoreMoments3.html

www.enzorocco.com

www.youtube.com/user/enzoroccochannel

www.amiranirecords.com

Il Paese di Cuccagna - per modo di dire - è su All About Jazz: John Kelman recensisce Land of Cockayne e poi anche Softs, da poco ristampati da Esoteric Recordings.

www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=37312

www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=37315

www.cherryred.co.uk/esoteric/artists/softmachine.php

Uno speciale sulla cosiddetta 'scena di Canterbury', curato da Milos Latislav, è andato in onda ieri per la radio nazionale ceca, all'interno del programma Cajovna. Lo si riascolta online dal sito dell'emittente: www.rozhlas.cz/default/default/rnp-player-2.php?id=2125914&drm=1

Což takhle poslechnout si něco z Canterbury? Sobotní Čajovna s podtitulem Britská hudební progrese na mnoho způsobů, která inspiruje nejen tamní rock & pop už přes čtyřicet let. Za tu dobu se rozprostřela do nebývalé žánrové šířky a dala světu celou řadu kultovních osobností i nahrávek. Čekejte progresivní rock, jaký jste možná ještě neslyšeli, inteligentní popové písně, trance & dance, snad i trochu jazzu a několik canterburských příběhů o tom "What's Rattling Mike Doodlage".

www.rozhlas.cz/cajovna/aktualne/_zprava/772832

Prosegue con il titolo 'Glow in the Dark' lo speciale - iniziato a luglio - che l'olandese Radio 6 'De Wissel' dedica a Magma e Christian Vander. Le conversazioni sono tra 'Stormvogel' e Aad van Nieuwkerk.

http://wissel.radio6.nl/2010/07/07/magma

http://wissel.radio6.nl/2010/08/19/magma-glow-in-the-dark

Alcune riprese amatoriali dai seminari di improvvisazione tenuti al Cafe Oto londinese da Fred Frith (17-18 luglio) e Ikue Mori (12-14 agosto) sono su YouTube.

www.youtube.com/user/photocronista

www.youtube.com/user/shuffleboil

E' in corso da inizio luglio e prosegue fino a quasi tutto settembre 2010 l'esposizione dedicata a Christian Marclay presso il Whitney Museum a New York: installazioni, sezioni interattive, sculture e partiture grafiche, ma anche un fitto calendario di seminari, relazioni, concerti e performance. Una recente composizione di Marclay, Ephemera, basata su una serie di collage pubblicitari, è stata eseguita sia in solo, da Kato Hideki, sia in quartetto, da Sylvie Courvoisier, John Zorn, Ikue Mori e Mark Nauseef. Il video integrale di quest'ultima versione si trova in http://vimeo.com/13717553, mentre ampia documentazione del programma del festival è al sito del museo: http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/ChristianMarclay

Artist/composer Christian Marclay (b. 1955) is known for his distinctive fusion of image and sound. Celebrated as a pioneer of turntablism, Marclay transforms sound and music into visual and physical forms through performance, collage, sculpture, large-scale installations, photography, and video. This groundbreaking Whitney exhibition—activated by daily concerts and continually evolving—explores Marclay’s approach to the world around him with a particular focus on his “graphic scores” for performance by musicians and vocalists. Visitors to the Whitney will be encouraged to mark up a wall-sized chalkboard, with musical staff lines, thereby creating a collective musical score which will be performed throughout the run of the show. Other Marclay scores, including the premiere of a new scrolled vocal work forty feet in length and three scores conceived as projections, will be continually on view and performed on a regular basis. World renowned musicians and vocalists, some of whom have been regular collaborators with the artist for three decades, will interpret a dozen scores, enabling museum audiences to experience a less well known aspect of Marclay’s varied art practice.

http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/ChristianMarclay

http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/ChristianMarclay/Flickr

http://vimeo.com/13717553

Un brillante ritratto dell'attuale scena italiana delle musiche di ricerca tra jazz, improvvisazione, elettroacustica ed elettronica è in un corposo box da poco pubblicato dall'etichetta Die Schachtel, Musica Improvvisa. Dieci album, libretto e poster con lavori di Ossatura + Gene Coleman & Marina Peterson (Elio Martusciello, Fabrizio Spera, Luca Venitucci, Gene Coleman, Marina Peterson); Thau (Sabina Meyer, Hans Koch, Paed Conca, Fabrizio Spera); A Spirale (Massimo Spezzaferro, Maurizio Argenziano, Mario Gabola); Amp 2 (Domenico Sciajno, Dario Sanfilippo, Antonino Secchia, Gandolfo Pagano, Andrea Valle); Tumble (Andrea Belfi, Attila Faravelli); Wintermute (Xabier Iriondo, Cristiano Calcagnile, Massimo Falascone); Amuleto (Francesco Dillon, Riccardo Wanke); An Experiment In Navigation (Xabier Iriondo, Roberto Sassi); Ligatura (Alessandro Giachero, Maurizio Rinaldi, Andrea Lamacchia, Fabrizio Saiu); Xubuxue (Cd+Dvd) (Pietro D'agostino, Marco Ariano, Elio Martusciello, Gianfranco Tedeschi).

"All'improvviso emerge un suono. Ferisce come un grido, buca come uno sparo la pelle dell'aria, oppure sussurra e accarezza. Poi tace. All'improvviso il silenzio si tende, il vuoto si fa attesa. Le sue estremità si sporgono dal bordo e si staccano, trasformandosi in risposte stranianti che aprono discorsi inattesi. In un luogo dai confini permeabili, sempre mutevoli, particelle di vita elettrica appaiono o si nascondono, disegnando la mappa del loro territorio solo mentre lo stanno percorrendo. Musica Improvvisa è un progetto di improvvisazione elettronica, un dialogo aperto tra esperienze musicali, narrazioni ed estetiche differenti, per disorientare e ri-orientare in nuovi paesaggi sonori."

Musica Improvvisa is a cutting-edge project of multi-sensorial improvisation, an open dialogue among different musical experiences, narratives and aesthetics that charters the unexplored soundscape of the telluric territory of the new Italian improvised Music. Ten groups that spans from the South to the North of Italy, from the well-known to the totally obscure, whose music goes from an harsh assault to the ear to a visionary post-electronic/post everything free-form structure.

http://www.dieschachtel.com/editions/DSIMP1.html

C'è anche John Greaves tra i numerosi ospiti dell'edizione di quest'anno, la sesta, di Rochefort en Accords: per tre giorni, dal 26 al 28 agosto prossimi, i musicisti animano diversi luoghi della cittadina francese incontrandosi e unendosi in occasioni e formazioni decise al momento, fedeli alla formula di un festival 'imprévisible & inattendu'. Informazioni e una traccia del programma sono in www.wix.com/rochefort/rochefort-en-accords.

En marge des tendances inflationnistes actuelles, Rochefort en Accords vous propose d'assister à des rencontres inédites, inattendues ou insolites entre musiciens et de vous immiscer dans des créations musicales souvent surprenantes dans le cadre dune ville historique. Si l'improvisation a sa part bien entendu, il ne s'agit pas de se lancer dans de longues jam, mais d'abord de retravailler à partir de morceaux, créés par les uns et les autres (voire des reprises), et d'en offrir des orchestrations, des versions, des interprétations totalement différentes, inédites, uniques. Les musiciens invités viennent seul, en duo, en trio mais se produisent à trois, à quatre, à cinq ou à douze selon un principe déjà bien établi: rester toute la durée du festival et jouer les uns avec les autres selon les affinités et les envies. Tout se passe sur le feeling, les accords entre les musiciens sans considération de style musical ou d'origine géographique. Comme n'importe lequel des musiciens invités peut intervenir à tout moment et partout, sur la plupart des lieux de concert, les artistes programmés ne seront pas annoncés spécifiquement, ce qui promet de jolis parcours de découverte...

www.wix.com/rochefort/rochefort-en-accords

Ogni mese un gruppo di autori di canzoni mette insieme testi, composizioni, conversazioni a tema e vari materiali e li pubblica online in forma di programma simil-radiofonico, disponibile liberamente anche in forma di podcast o di mp3. Ideatore e coordinatore dell'iniziativa, inaugurata quest'anno a gennaio e denominata Radio Free Song Club, è il produttore Nicholas Hill: "Everyone says there are too many songs, yet everyone waits for the next song to love. Songwriters know there is always room for a gem. Radio Free Song Club is a group of veteran writers with a monthly song deadline. Host Nicholas Hill presents these new tunes along with interviews and live performances and special guests. Some of the songs are finished and fully produced, some are roughly recorded fragments, some in-between. The writers are looking for a good song, the world is looking for a good song. Someone might get lucky."

Nel gruppo, che comprende tra gli altri Dave Schramm, Peter Holsapple, Jody Harris, Robin Holcomb, Laura Cantrell e Victoria Williams, c'è anche Peter Blegvad, che oltre a disegni e illustrazioni ha finora offerto diversi brani nuovi, o inediti: My Father’s Face, Winner Came There None, We Fell Through A Crack In The World, Golden Helmet, I Had a Dream (con Andy Partridge) e The Cote d’Azur. Una versione dal vivo di quest'ultima si trova anche su YouTube.

http://radiofreesongclub.com
radiofreesongclub@gmail.com

http://tinyurl.com/2ddetc7

Due audiocassette prodotte e distribuite dall'etichetta Nikad Robom, fondata a metà degli anni ottanta da Bojan Djordjevic, riaffiorano in un recente post in Lucky Psychic Hut: Joëlle Léandre, David Thomas and The Wooden Birds e Wondeur Brass dal vivo a Belgrado nel 1986 e 1987.

http://luckypsychichut.blogspot.com/2010/08/2-tapes-from-serbian-cassette-label.html
http://rym.fm/label/nikad_robom

Radiotre Suite Jazz trasmette domani il concerto "21st-Century Coltrane" presentato l'anno scorso al festival jazz di Saalfelden (Austria) dalla versione orchestrale del quartetto Rova, Orkestrova, che da qualche tempo presenta in concerto un'affascinante rilettura di uno dei capolavori di John Coltrane, Ascension. In formazione oltre ai quattro Rova (Larry Ochs, sax tenore; John Raskin, sax baritono; Bruce Ackley, sax soprano; Steve Adams, sax contralto) c'erano: Elliott Sharp, chitarra, elettronica; Jason Kao Hwang, violino, elettronica; Eyvind Kang, viola; Zeena Parkins, arpa, elettronica; Ikue Mori, elettronica; Chris Brown, elettronica; Peter Evans, tromba; Trevor Dunn, basso; Andrew Cyrille, batteria. Un estratto video è anche su YouTube. Giovedì 12 agosto 2010, alle ore 22.30.

http://tinyurl.com/2wbmruu

http://tinyurl.com/2vawe4t

Ikue Mori è a Londra per tre giorni di concerti dal 12 al 14 agosto al Café Oto: incontra John Edwards, Evan Parker, John Russell, Steve Beresford, Mark Nauseef, Pat Thomas, John Butcher e Chris Cutler. Informazioni: www.cafeoto.co.uk

I. with John Edwards / Evan Parker / John Russell
For the first night of the residency, Ikue is joined for an electro-acoustic quartet by Evan Parker, John Russell and John Edwards, three of the most fluent and powerful musicians working in the field of improvised music today.

II. audiovisual improvisations with Steve Beresford / Mark Nauseef / Pat Thomas

The visual has always been an important element in Ikue's work, from her cover designs for Tzadik and other labels to composing music for films by Maya Deren, Abigail Child and others. She has increasingly incorporated her own improvised visuals as part of her performances. For the second night of her residency, Ikue will be joined by American percussionist Mark Nauseef and the double piano/electronics of Steve Beresford and Pat Thomas for an evening of audiovisual improvisations

III. trio with John Butcher / Chris Cutler

Since her days with DNA, Ikue has gradually reduced her kit from acoustic drums to drum machines to laptop computer. The third night of the residency sees her playing with two musicians who also have distinctive approaches to technology and physicality in music. Chris Cutler uses electronics to radically expand the sonic range of his drumkit and generate an almost orchestral barrage of sound. John Butcher pushes both the machinery of the saxophone and his own physical capabilities to the limit, producing sounds which hover between noise and music and which inject a strange and powerful physicality into any musical situation.

www.cafeoto.co.uk

http://ikuemori.com

Dagmar Krause, Julie Tippetts, Annie Whitehead, Karen Mantler, Richard Sinclair, Michel Delville, John Edwards, Chris Cutler: non solo un'affascinante ipotesi, forse la nuova (imminente?) configurazione di Comicoperando-A Tribute to the Music of Robert Wyatt.

Un album per Cadillac Records, Night Time is the Right Time, raccoglie registrazioni inedite tratte da alcune session al Ronnie Scott's Club in Chinatown tra il 1967 e il 1968, nelle quali spicca il sassofono di Dudu Pukwana. Ne ha scritto John Fordham sul Guardian qualche giorno fa: "Dudu Pukwana, the alto saxophonist who moved to Britain in the 60s to escape South African apartheid, was one of the most original jazz improvisers ever to erupt over the UK scene, and his early death in 1990 was one of its great unsung losses. These just-unearthed recordings from all-night jams in the original Ronnie Scott's Club in Chinatown in 1967 and 68 would intrigue the jazz-scholarly simply for reflecting the club's crucial importance as an open-door workshop and informal conservatoire. But their real point and relevance, is Pukwana, whose searing sound and sheer life-drive roar off this album – all the more startlingly for being set in a pretty conventional mid-60s organ/guitar-swing context. Hammond-player Bob Stuckey, guitarist Phil Lee and drummer John Marshall mostly catch the Jimmy Smith soul-blues pretty authentically, but Pukwana's quavering upward slurs, dishevelled squawks, unique ballad playing, barging indifference to the inhibited cool of jazz sambas, and floods of flat-out post-bop eloquence are a ball-game of his own making."

http://tinyurl.com/342esw7
http://tinyurl.com/2u8twlw

Inizia tra pochi giorni la ventisettesima edizione del francese Mulhouse Music Festival, dallo scorso anno denominato anche météo: "météo (i.e. weather, weather forecast) must be as its name says: unpredictable, unexpected, lenient, loathsome, instable, changing, risky. A festival made of the weather changes you find in the music lands, a festival where by looking at the sky, despite the clouds, despite the pollution, you can sometimes still catch a glimpse of the stars. This festival is dedicated to contemporary music, classical music, jazz, rock, traditional music, multimedia practices, etc...".
Il programma completo - oltre 38 concerti, dal 12 al 28 agosto - si trova in pdf in http://tinyurl.com/2um3rmg.

météo Mulhouse Music Festival
BP 1335
68056 Mulhouse cedex
Tel. 33 (0) 389 45 36 67
Fax 33 (0) 389 25 29 42
info@festival-meteo.fr
http://www.festival-meteo.fr
http://festival-meteo.fr/WordPress

Interviste inedite e numerosi scritti su Sun Ra sono raccolti in un libro curato da John Sinclair per la londinese Headpress. Un breve estratto da un'intervista del 1966 è nel numero di agosto 2010 di Point of Departure.

Composer, bandleader, pianist, poet and philosopher, Sun Ra is one of the most colourful and enduring of musical legacies, transcending time, place and cultural genres. From the mid 1950s until his death in 1993, Sun Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing line-up and name which sometimes numbered as many as thirty musicians living and playing together under the despotic tutelage of Sun Ra himself. Their music touched upon the entire history of jazz, from ragtime to swing, bebop to free jazz,while the band also pioneered the use of new forms, including electronic music, space music and free improvisation. But Sun Ra’s legendary status was earned as much for his eccentricities as for his unique artistic vision. Claiming to be from Saturn, he developed and propagated a mystifying sci-fi mythology which he weaved into both the music and Dadaist performances of The Arkestra (performances which inspired artists as diverse as George Clinton and MC5). His ideas are still the cause of much debate and controversy, the poetry and prose Sun Ra left behind only deepening the ambiguities around his work and ideas. This book collects together for the first time interviews with Sun Ra, the people that knew him, and his contemporaries, alongside illuminating essays and conversational pieces regarding his prolific musical output, mystique, philosophy, fans and much more.

In 1969, the poet-provocateur, MC5 manager and White Panther John Sinclair found himself the victim of that decade’s draconian American drug laws, and facing a twenty-year jail sentence for the possession of two joints. The counterculture Sinclair helped create came to his rescue, however, when John Lennon, Stevie Wonder, Phil Ochs and others performed at a successful benefit gig to petition for his release. Since that epochal moment, Sinclair (whom Ben Edmonds calls the “hardest working poet in showbiz”) has travelled the globe with his beat verses and inimitable growl, performing with some of the world’s finest musicians. He interviewed Sun Ra in 1966.

http://www.headpress.co.uk/JohnSinclair.aspx
http://www.headpress.com/ShowProduct.aspx?ID=89
http://www.pointofdeparture.org

Si tiene dal 13 al 15 agosto prossimi - con qualche anticipazione già dal 10, ad Amburgo - la ventunesima edizione del festival Zappanale nella tradizionale sede di Bad Doberan (ribattezzata più o meno ufficialmente Zappatown) nel nord della Germania. Ricchissimo al solito il programma, con concerti, proiezioni, dibattiti, incontri e jam session cui partecipano in gran numero musicisti 'storici' che hanno suonato in varie epoche nei gruppi di Zappa e altri più giovani che in ogni angolo del pianeta ne riprendono a proprio modo le gesta. Tra i nomi di quest'anno: Napoleon Murphy Brock, Denny Walley, Ike Willis, Bobby Martin, Ray White, Ensemble Ambrosius, Muffin Men, Paul Green's Band of Monkeys, LeBocal, The Central Scrutinizer Band, Zappatika, Filthy Habits Ensemble, Caballero Reynaldo e Beardfish. Ci sono anche Jean-Luc Ponty e per il secondo anno consecutivo Daevid Allen, stavolta con University of Errors. Informazioni presso Arf Society e Zappateers.

http://zappanale.de
http://www.zappateers.com