Arte Live Web pubblica la registrazione integrale del complesso lavoro che Carla Bley ha presentato in prima mondiale pochi giorni fa al festival di Moers: La Leçon Française, sorta di oratorio per grande ensemble e coro di voci bianche, proposto con l'inseparabile Steve Swallow, la Bohuslän Big Band, forte di quindici elementi, e il Dortmund Choral Academy Boys Choir.
Auf dem Moers festival präsentiert Carla Bley nach dem großen Erfolg von Escalator over the Hill Anfang der 70er Jahre ihr neuestes Werk, dass sie exklusiv für die Aufführung auf dem Moers festival 2012 komponiert hat. La Leçon Française ist ein Oratorium für Big Band und Knabenchor. Der Knabenchor der Chorakademie Dortmund wird in Englisch und Französisch singen und die Solisten der Bohuslän Big Band werden mit der internationalen Sprache des Jazz zu hören sein. La Leçon Française handelt von dem Schultag einer Jungenklasse, die gerade beginnt Französisch zu lernen.
http://liveweb.arte.tv/de/video/moers_festival_Carla_Bley
http://www.moers-festival.de/
Esce a giorni un importante documento - circolato finora in modo non ufficiale - relativo alla partecipazione di Daevid Allen e Gilli Smyth a un evento musicale tenuto alla Roundhouse londinese il 7 febbraio 1971, organizzato in favore dell'associazione Release con il contributo a vario titolo di Soft Machine, Ralph McTell, Kevin Ayers and The Whole World, Ivor Cutler, Symbiosis, Elton Dean Quartet e Mark Boyle. Era uno dei primi concerti di Allen in Inghilterra al termine dell'esilio iniziato nel 1967, ma il rientro fu tutt'altro che sereno, tanto da definirlo 'Return to Angerland' nei diari di Gong Dreaming: "At the end of our set half the audience hissed and booed. The other half cheered wildly. They argued. They abused each other. It was bedlam. And this was England? I was crestfallen. I felt an outcast from the family I had been instrumental in originating. I had also begun to experience the curiously philistine intellectual snobbery of the virginal English progressive rock public".
Un comunicato stampa di Voiceprint/Gonzo - ripreso anche dalla rivista francese Traverses - annuncia l'uscita del cd a giugno: "Australian poet and musician Daevid Allen, born in 1938, moved to Europe in 1960, inspired by the writings of the ‘Beat Generation’. After a year or so in Paris, he arrived in the UK in 1961. After meeting William Burroughs, and discovering the peculiar music and philosophy of free-jazz maverick Sun Ra, he formed The Daevid Allen trio with his landlady’s son Robert Wyatt. Some years later they teamed up with Mike Ratledge and Kevin Ayers to form Soft Machine (William Burroughs’ name for the human body). After a European Tour in 1967, Allen was refused entry to the UK because of a visa irregularity, and moved back to France, where he became involved in the famous student insurrection of 1968. He then moved to Deya, Majorca where he, and partner Gilli Smyth began to assemble a loose-knit collection of musicians who began recording under the name Gong. One of these musicians was Didier Malherbe (latter dubbed Bloomdido Bad De Grass by Daevid), a tremendously gifted saxophonist and flautist, who Daevid claimed to have found living in a cave on the estate of poet Robert Graves. In 1971, in Daevid’s own words..."It was now three years since my deportation from the mum country so I was now able to legally re-enter England for the first time since 1967.” One of his first appearances when he returned to the UK, was a performance at a benefit concert at The Roundhouse in aid of Release. Release was founded in 1967 by Caroline Coon and the late Rufus Harris. It is a charity which provides assistance to those people who have been charged with drugs offences. According to Wikipedia: “Today Release is the oldest independent drugs charity in the world and continues to provide a range of services dedicated to meeting the health, welfare and legal needs of drugs users and those who live and work with them”. The lineup of the concert included Daevid himself, Gilli Smyth, Didier Malherbe, Christian Tritsch, Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean and Gerry Fields. The event was one of the most important British hippy actions of the time, and we at Gonzo Multimedia are overjoyed to be bringing it out into the public arena".
http://www.voiceprint.co.uk/
http://tinyurl.com/cyo8l2z
http://tinyurl.com/bome77y
Gli album di Kevin Ayers prodotti tra il 1969 e il 1974 per la Harvest sono raccolti, nella versione rimasterizzata del 2003 e con numerosi materiali aggiuntivi, in un cofanetto economico di 5cd pubblicato di recente dalla Emi: http://tinyurl.com/dxzaskt
Burning Shed accetta prenotazioni per la riedizione dei concerti di Caravan e Van der Graaf registrati nel dicembre 2010 negli studi londinesi Metropolis, davanti a pochi intimi. I due documenti, già usciti come dvd nella linea Itv Studios/Rock Legends, vengono riproposti in una versione che comprende anche il cd audio. Nel frattempo, un altro documento dal vivo per i Caravan - quello del loro trionfale concerto allo Shepherds Bush Empire lo scorso ottobre, quando eseguirono quasi per intero il capolavoro In The Land Of Grey And Pink - è stato ripubblicato giorni fa da Concert Live dopo che la prima tiratura è stata ritirata dal mercato per alcuni imbarazzanti errori di stampa.
https://www.burningshed.com/store/dvd
http://www.caravan-info.co.uk/#/news/concertliveset2011issues
Si è tenuta pochi giorni fa a Belgrado la diciassettesima edizione del festival Ring Ring, con ospiti tra gli altri Tibor Szemzo, Ken Vandermark e Mats Gustafsson con Peter Brötzmann nel trio Sonore, Fred Van Hove e Paul Lovens nel quartetto Quat, Paul Lytton e Georg Wissel, Tetras, il quintetto Atomic con Ingebrigt Håker Flaten e Paal Nilssen-Love, il progetto Ultima Armonia con Stevan Kovač Tickmayer e Boris Kovač, Michel Doneda con Jerome Noetinger e Thomas Lehn, preceduti da Paolo Angeli e Takumi Fukushima. Un'ampia documentazione video si trova su YouTube.
http://ringring.rs/node/132
http://www.youtube.com/user/MehmetKrljic
Un omaggio allo scomparso Tony Marsh si tiene questa sera al Cafe Oto londinese, nella sera stessa in cui il batterista avrebbe dovuto suonare in trio con Shabaka Hutchings e Guillaume Viltard. Hutchings e Viltard suoneranno invece con Steve Noble, seguiti da Hannah Marshall con Alison Blunt, Neil Metcalfe e Orphy Robinson, ed Evan Parker con John Edwards e Mark Sanders; tutti insieme poi per il set conclusivo.
www.cafeoto.co.uk/shabaka-hutchings-tony-marsh-guillaume-viltard-may-2012.shtm
Dopo vari rinvii ed esitazioni l'olandese Radio 6 tien fede alla parola data e finalmente diffonde la registrazione del concerto di Comicoperando - progetto dedicato alle musiche di Robert Wyatt - tenuto ad Amsterdam esattamente un anno fa, il 19 maggio 2011. In formazione, come è noto, c'erano Dagmar Krause, Annie Whitehead, Karen Mantler, Michel Delville, John Edwards e Chris Cutler. Al sito web del programma Vpro Jazz Live si recuperano anche tutte le informazioni di contesto, un'intervista ai protagonisti e collegamenti a molti materiali aggiuntivi. Del concerto al Bimhuis c'è anche una registrazione video, co-prodotta dall'emittente assieme a Pavel Borodin, che aggiunge con questa un'altra perla alla già ricca collana della sua PanRec: un ampio estratto è su YouTube.
http://vprojazzlive.radio6.nl/2012/05/17/comicoperando-2011
http://vprojazzlive.radio6.nl/2012/05/10/robert-wyatt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tckYZT_lywU
http://panrec.com
Lungamente rodato nei concerti dei Magma degli ultimi due anni, Félicité Thösz è ora pronto nella sua versione di studio, dopo gli ultimi ritocchi alle registrazioni iniziate lo scorso settembre, quando in formazione c'era ancora il pianista Bruno Ruder. L'album è atteso tra poche settimane, non senza qualche diffidenza da parte dei fan più esigenti: un'anteprima è in www.seventhrecords.com
Sono pronti i cinque titoli Cuneiform della collezione primavera-estate 2012: un quadruplo cd di Wadada Leo Smith dedicato alla storia del movimento per i diritti civili negli Stati Uniti d'America, Ten Freedom Summers; Janel & Anthony, Where is Home; Positive Catastrophe, Dibrujo, Dibrujo, Dibrujo...; Pixel, Reminder; e un album postumo di Lars Hollmer contenente With Floury Hand (Sketches), compilato dal figlio Gabriel Strand, e un dvd con sue varie apparizioni dal vivo in Portogallo e Svizzera.
www.cuneiformrecords.com
Cédric Vuille, Dave Willey e Elaine DiFalco raccontano le vicende di un loro effimero convegno a distanza - garbato, ilare e romantico come conviene - propiziato da Udi Koomran: Send Me a Postcard, con sigla 3 Mice, su etichetta Les Disques Rayés.
Love or hate the internet, there is no doubt that without its existence an album such as Send Me a Postcard would have never seen the light of day – much to the detriment of the contemporary non-mainstream music scene. In fact, the three artists who have adopted the quaintly endearing name of 3 Mice reside at opposite ends of the world – Cédric Vuille (of Débile Menthol and L’Ensemble Rayé fame) in Switzerland, Dave Willey and Elaine DiFalco (both members of Thinking Plague, Willey also Hamster Theatre’s founder and mainman) in Colorado. Israeli sound engineer Udi Koomran (one of the icons of the modern avant-prog scene) acted as a catalyst by arranging a meeting between the three artists in 2008, when Thinking Plague performed in Vuille’s home town of Geneva. After finding out that they were kindred spirits in their musical vision, Vuille, DiFalco and Willey started their project by sharing files on the internet, then drafting in some trusted collaborators (namely L’Ensemble Rayé’s drummer Daniel Spahni and Hamster Theatre’s percussionist Raoul Rossiter, as well as Koomran himself).
http://www.ensembleraye.ch/disque01.htm
Ritocchi leggeri alla grafica e una migliorata funzionalità accompagnano il rilancio del sito web di Louis Philippe, Sunshine. Tra la novità più attese, una sezione podcasts dedicata a racconti vicende aneddoti di un'intera carriera narrati assieme al fido Danny Manners. Swifter than ever as the engines roar...
www.louisphilippe.co.uk
Eddie Prévost inaugura una sua personale serie gurdjieffiana di incontri con uomini straordinari - in questo caso, sassofonisti - documentando integralmente un concerto con Evan Parker e John Edwards il maggio dell'anno scorso a Londra, al Network Theatre: All Told. "For me, the sheer joy of touch and movement is a significant part of making music. It is physically stimulating. This is what I feel is at the heart of this CD. And, I hope a sense of this energy and tactility is translated to audiences who get to hear this (albeit disembodied) performance via the medium of recording. What you will hear is the complete performance - all told - but from the microphonic point of view. It has all the attributes of a spontaneous performance. There were no pre-conceived plans but there is an attendant tension. Within the music there may indeed have been tentative suggestions and protean moments of uncertainty. These, for me, give the occasion a creative authenticity. Anything too tidy suggests contrivance or the avoidance of risk. The too cleanly ready-worked-out takes us down the road towards commodity. The (near) perfect object perhaps attempts to requite the aural appetite. I want life and am happy with some of its accompanying messiness".
http://matchlessrecordings.com/node/389
Terry Day ripreso al festival londinese Freedom of the City domenica scorsa, poco prima del concerto con la London Improvisers Orchestra. Un appunto scritto anticipava la scaletta della sua esibizione in solo: "I will definitely play the bamboo reed flutes first. Followed by (depending on the length of the set & my mood) atomic balloons, recorders, & if there is a piano or drum set close by I might well go & perform "some tricks" - as in "Terry Day & his bag of tricks" - on them! & I might, or might not, finish with a "recitation performance" of a lyric, poem, reading to finish the set (the recitation depends on whether I'm doing a spoken piece with the L.I.O.) (As you see, even after 52 years of improvising with groups, 1960-2012, I still seem to be considered outside the mainstream & its genres!)".
http://tinyurl.com/c29cc3k
Intervista a Peter Blegvad in qualità di presidente del London Institute of Pataphysics: The Bleaching Stream. Solo 500 copie, disponibili da ReR.
Peter is the president of the London Institute of Pataphysics. Not a lot of people know that, but lo! Here he is with an interview format biography that zips through his childhood and then lingers over his time writing, drawing and making music in New York, London and elsewhere with Slapphappy, Henry Cow, John Zorn, Christian Marclay, The Golden Palominos and on his various records for Virgin, Silvertone, ReR and the BBC's The Verb. We move on to the long lasting Leviathan, teaching at Warwick and passing inspirations and byways. It's generously illustrated with drawings and photographs on nice coated stock.
http://tinyurl.com/c66a2ld
Fred Frith e Cosa Brava sono in giro per concerti in Europa per promuovere il nuovo album, The Letter, appena pubblicato dall'etichetta Intakt. Le date sono in Germania, Norvegia, Svezia, Austria, Svizzera, Italia e Francia.
Scrive il chitarrista: "Cosa Brava is about storytelling. I don't think about it too much. It just turned out that way. Some of the stories have words and some don't, but they share a sense of scenes glimpsed in passing. Torn photos, fragments of movies, distant shouts. One of my earliest memories is of a long drive north, as our family moved away from London to start a new life in the Yorkshire dales. I remember the smell of the car, and passing our broken down removals lorry in the middle of night. I was four years old, and sometimes it feels like I've been on the road ever since. I need to travel, and now my life depends on it, so there's never a shortage of stories. The musicians of Cosa Brava are fellow nomads and experienced collaborators, and some of the best storytellers around, so my stories also become their stories. It's been an exhilarating journey, and I still have no idea where we're going. In the end it doesn't seem very important."
http://tinyurl.com/ckndzyf
http://www.intaktrec.ch/204-a.htm
http://www.fredfrith.com
Mike King è a dir poco deluso dall'esito della rimasterizzazione in digitale del dischetto rosso dei Matching Mole compiuta da Paschal Byrne per Esoteric Recordings: "For fans who have always wanted to hear Matching Mole's Little Red Record digitally remastered, now that we have it remastered, we don't even have a remaster. Forgive my rude out cry - This Emperor Has No Clothes!". Una prima disamina dei problemi - altre ne seguiranno a breve - è in un post presso What's Rattlin'?: http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/whatsrattlin/message/7958
Sub Rosa pubblica un importante documento che mette in luce l'attività di sperimentazione compiuta da Don Preston con sintetizzatori artigianali e primitive apparecchiature elettroniche negli anni tra il 1967 e il 1975 (e il 1982, considerando anche il brano offerto come bonus nella versione cd): Filters, Oscillators & Envelopes.
The vinyl version of the album presents two tracks. The first one is from 1967 and it's entitled 'Electronic'. It was generated on a home-made synthesizer and a series of oscillators (40!!) and six filters. 'Electronic' is a 15-minute experimental piece, with pulsating rhythms and extraterrestrial sounds. It got recorded at the time when The Mothers were playing at The Garrick. It's hard to imagine that it's over 40 years old... The second composition consists of 7 pieces that were composed around 1975. These are called 'Analog Heaven #1' up to 'Analog Heaven #7", and were performed on a modular Moog synthesizer. Beautiful soundscapes that will take you on an electronic journey. The CD contains one extra track, 'Fred & Me', which is a collaboration between Don Preston and percussionist Fred Stoflett. It's a composition that will bring you in a meditative state of mind. Nice. Very nice. As it was recorded in 1982, the CD has a different date in the title: "Filters, Oscillators & Envelopes 1967-82".
http://subrosa.itcmedia.net/en.html
http://united-mutations.blogspot.it/2012/04/don-preston-filters-oscillators.html
Frutto di cinque anni di ricerca e raccolta di documenti audio e video, materiali scritti e iconografici, testimonianze dirette e interviste ai protagonisti, esce per Fantagraphics Books il libro di Pat Thomas sulle musiche e le culture afroamericane rivoluzionarie e radicali legate al movimento Black Power a cavallo tra gli anni sessanta e settanta: Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975.
Scrive Thomas nell'introduzione: "In the 21st century, the word “revolution” has lost its edge. Advertisements tout a “revolution” in hair care or describe a “revolutionary” new automobile. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, when young whites spoke of revolution, they wanted to take “the establishment” down and stop the Vietnam War. For African-Americans, “revolution” meant the Black Panther Party or Black Nationalism. There were a number of revolutions taking place, and none of them was going to make your hair smell terrific or provide a more comfortable driving experience. This book is about how Black Power influenced folk, rock, soul and jazz between 1965 and 1975, when musicians were viewed as revolutionaries and revolutionaries were considered pop culture icons. However, this book is not just about John Lennon hanging out with Bobby Seale and Mick Jagger recording a song about Angela Davis; it is a definitive catalog of Black Power related recordings that I uncovered during five years of intensive research - a diverse collection of albums and singles, stray cassettes and reel-to-reel tapes and a handful of films that have been suppressed for decades. Music is the primary focus, but there are also speeches, interviews, poetry and even militant religious sermons."
Un'ampia presentazione del libro e l'intero primo capitolo sono disponibili in http://tinyurl.com/74sqfsq
http://www.fantagraphics.com/images/stories/previews/liswhi-preview.pdf
Si tiene a Londra questo fine settimana l'edizione 2012 del festival di musica improvvisata e sperimentale Freedom of the City, sedici concerti pomeridiani e serali tra il 5 e il 6 maggio con Roger Turner, John Russell, Seijiro Murayama, Alex Ward, Christian Marclay e Phil Minton, Terry Day, la London Improvisers Orchestra, il trio Mathilde 253 di Charles Hayward con Han-Earl Park e Ian Smith, Evan Parker in duo con Eddie Prévost, John Butcher, Pat Thomas e molti molti altri. Ha aperto la rassegna ieri sera una discussione pubblica al Cafe Oto con gli interventi e le opinioni di Caroline Kraabel, Ross Lambert, Okkyung Lee e Steve Noble.
Sul cambiamento di programma imposto dall'improvvisa scomparsa di Tony Marsh scrivono gli organizzatori: "We were very saddened to hear of the death of Tony Marsh on 9 April 2012. He was meant to have opened the final night of Freedom of the City in a percussion and drums duo with Mark Sanders. The question of what to do instead was an awkward one: a solo set from Mark perhaps, or a blank in the programme, or maybe even something completely unrelated to what was originally planned? We've decided on a group that features Mark with two musicians with whom Tony played a lot in recent years: bassist John Edwards and reedsman Shabaka Hutchings."
www.freedomofthecity.org
http://londonjazz.blogspot.it/2012/05/discussion-at-cafe-oto-to-launch.html
