aworks :: "new" american classical music

aworks five-star links and tracks :: march 30, 2009 /bad and good day/

Steve Reich (via last.fm)

• Someone was searching today for "robert gable nudes." This in turn alerted me that someone had defaced my quite serious Memorial Day 2006 post with a comment about various undressed celebrities. I'm normally good-natured about spam but this was annoying.
• I thought I heard Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians (lala) playing in Starbucks today although the place was quite loud and I wasn't sure. Also, the balance on my Starbucks gift card was 20 cents less than I needed.
• I'm disappointed I didn't notice today's earthquake (sfist).
• For better or worse, Green Day will do a musical at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. (SF Chronicle via artsJournal)
• TechCrunch has a video of lala's future iPhone client.
• Favorite recent NetFlix instant play: Kinamand -- a Danish/Chinese film.
• Favorite track from Phil Kline's John the Revelator: lala.
• Favorite track from the Marin Alsop recording of Mark O'Connor's Americana Symphony: lala

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Poem of Change (1990). Pauline Oliveros /"is this your wake up call?"/

Image via Wikipedia

Poem of Change is the strangest thing I've heard in awhile. The first listen was bewildering, the second enlightening.

The composer:

A Poem of Change is my text mixed with actual World War II sounds, accordion and vocal sounds.

HurdAudio on the piece:

The calm delivery of the text (that is often whispered) and the sparse drones of the accordion punctuated by the sound of warfare are well matched. This is a rare case where the concrete meaning of the text serves and is served by the abstract qualities of the composition. 

30 second stream on lala:

aworks five-star links and tracks :: march 23, 2009

Image via Wikipedia

The Magic of Ju-Ju. Archie Shepp. I've always been lukewarm about the sixties-ish jazz of Archie Shepp but this title track caught my attention -- both for the skull on the album cover as well as Shepp's tenor over a more tribal rhythm section (lala).

March. Joshua Redman. I seem to like martial jazz (lala). See also Jimmy Smith (lala).

String Quartet. Earle Brown. This is inexplicably appealing. (lala)

However, it is clear that this horrific production is as worn and thread bare as carpet in a filthy nursing home. (Out West Arts)

aworks five-star links and tracks :: march 21, 2009 /march madness/

Earle Brown (via last.fm)

Between B & C. Keiran Hebden and Steve Reid. This is the first year that I'm watching the NCAA basketball tournament via Web streaming. The quality is surprisingly good even if the games have been surprisingly boring. To compensate, I've started playing tracks at the same time and this one is powerful enough to cut through the sportscasters if not the television ads. I listen on headphones so the Cage-ian effect isn't inflicted on family. (lala)

Henry Kaiser recommends books that have influenced him, musically and beyond. (ANAblog)

Graph of rock music quality vs. US oil production, for "peak rock" and "peak oil" theorists. (Overthinking It)

Music for Violin, Cello & Piano. Earle Brown. Not as austere as it could be, I suppose. The composer says some of the composition is created "subjectively and spontaneously." (lala earle-brown.org)

aworks five-star links and tracks :: march 20, 2009 /one world/

Image via Wikipedia

Sénégal Fast-Food. Amadou & Mariam. New album on Tuesday; they will be the opening act on Coldplay's tour. (lala. wsj)

Nothing wrong with that -- "West Side Story" is a musical, not a sacred text -- but the results are disappointing, not just by comparison with the original "West Side Story" but in their own unconvincing right. (Terry Teachout in the WSJ)

Denim is "ghastly." The writer is presumably an east coaster. (WSJ)

Obama makes a fascinating video for the Iranian people and government in honor of Nowruz. (Andrew Sullivan Wikipedia)

Only (1947). Morton Feldman /only when flight shall soar not for its own sake only/

Morton Feldman (via last.fm)

As I continue to try to use my ears rather than my eyes in my quest for interesting music, I managed to surprise myself with Morton Feldman's Only. With only a too-small-to-quickly-read album cover on lala as my guide, earlier today, I queued up a Feldman album I'd never seen before.

When the first track, Only, finally played, my first thought:

Why is there a vocal in the Berio piano album I was streaming at the time?

my second thought:

Hmm, lala has screwed up the track and this isn't really a Feldman album.

my third thought:

Feldman wrote songs. Cool.

Only - Morton Feldman

aworks links etc. :: march 17, 2009 /in non-recognition of st patrick's day/

britney spears by minifig via Flickr

I start to actually listen to Britney Spears and the next day, Sacha Frere-Jones declares her career over. (New Yorker)

Probably the the nerdiest bloggingheads.tv yet -- two economists agreeing to meta-disagree. (bloggingheads.tv)

Speaking of electrons, here's how many there are per song on an iPod. (Fine Structure via Anil Dash)

I still can't figure out who composed A Banjo Song from yesterday's last ten artists playlist after incorrectly assuming it was Stephen Foster.

Thomas Hampson sings Foster's My Wife Is a Most Knowing Woman. (lala)

beyond aworks :: "Will Critique Work for Food"

Scriaban image via Wikipedia

That aura of authoritativeness will also distinguish journalistic Web sites from collective-wisdom sites that allow anyone to rate a product. As Denton notes, that model works well if you're buying a computer component, but it's not all that helpful when it comes to evaluating a CD or theatrical production. For that kind of advice, you want someone with knowledge and experience who can judge a work of art thoughtfully and write about it in an interesting way — in other words, a critic. (Tom Jacobs via Arts Journal)

As one who has purchased more than my share of music and more than my share of words about music, I wonder about the future.

Being able to stream millions on tracks on lala, the first play for free and with no advertising, feels like a fundamental change. I've tried every other "collective-wisdom" music site but with mixed results. However, on lala, since there is only the cost of my time, I'm listening to as interesting a set of music as ever. For example, my current list of most frequently played artists on the service  includes Frederic Rzewski, David Korevaar, Alexander Scriabin, David Harned Johnson, Arthur Russell, Sarah Cahill, Sir Neville Marriner, Herbie Hancock, and John Cage.  This is a good mix of the familiar and the novel.

And I'm satisfying my curiosity with not much effort. Since there's no financial downside to trying off-the-wall classical musicians and material or even the back catalog of say, Britney Spears (not as bad as I imagined), I rely  less on criticism as buyer's guide and more just as a source of ideas of things to experience. Even so, tracking blogs like Alex V. Cook's, coupled with following the listening habits of "My People," as lala calls it, gives me enough material to perpetually have new music in my queue, and now my spending on recordings is way down.

I suppose that's all to be expected. The surprise is that I am reading less about music than before. I like to believe I still value intelligent and informative criticism. But rather than read all the mediocre material I used to, I'm spending more time online just listening. Does this mean the celestial jukebox is inherently anti-intellectual? Or does the delivery of the musical written word need to morph into something more user-friendly?

Maybe it will ultimately raise the quality of what we can and should read...

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playlist of last 10 artists I listened to on lala.

last 10 artists

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aworks five-star links and tracks :: march 15, 2009 /science sunday/

Hebden via Wikipedia

As we see these barriers disappear, we also see digital music becoming more rhizomatic. (music think tank)

Between B & C. Kieran Hebden & Steve Reid. I'm listening to all my tracks with the word "electron" in the meta-data. This one with acoustic drums and un-acoustic electronics stands out so far. (lala)

People in Ft. Wayne, Indiana speak funny ("a davenport may need moved by the crick"). Or not. (The Journal Gazette)

electronic and flute. Charlemagne Palestine. This reminds me Palestine plays Schlingen-Blängen in LA tomorrow night. (Monday Evening Concerts)

Photo of a mooring bollard. (Mister Bijou. Wikipedia)

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Hoedown (1942). Aaron Copland /also not completely ludicrous/

ELP via Wikipedia

Speaking of ELP and Aaron Copland, I should point out the Emerson, Lake and Palmer version of Copland's Hoedown is also not completely ludicrous:

Hoedown (Taken From Rodeo) - E...