aworks :: "new" american classical music

aworks listening log :: albums #betterlucknextlife #woolaeoak #blurred

1. Sally Whitwell - Mad Rush: Solo Piano Music of Philip Glass 
2. Royal Baths - Better Luck Next Life
3. Wire Tapper 13
4. Carl Stone - Woo Lae Oak
5. Christina Fong,Glenn Freeman, Karen Krummel - Three2 / Twenty-Three / Six / Twenty-Six
6. Holy Fuck - Latin 
7. Moon Duo - Circles
8. Ronald Prowse - Organ Music of Ned Rorem 
9. Simone Mancuso - John Cage: Works for percussion
10. Sally Whitwell - The Good, The Bad and the Awkward
11. Bill Ryan - Blurred

Three2 (1991). John Cage #cageisworthy

Daniel Asia continues to say things about Cage that make no sense to me:

I will continue to maintain that works that rely on his well-known use of chance procedures are not worth the time of any listener, and this includes a large amount of his output.

I just listened again to the Christina Fong, Glenn Freeman, and Karen Krummel recording of Cage's Three2, Twenty-Three, Six, and Twenty-Six. I greatly enjoyed the experience. Do I care if these used chance procedures or not? Not really. 

Do I think this music will persist? Maybe. One sign is that the Amoeba Music CD racks always have more recordings of John Cage's music than those of Charles Ives. Although I like the music of both, I spend more time with the former, a little bit to my surprise.

Of course, there are more Mozart and Beethoven CDs than all of American composers combined. But my listening continues to thrive despite not listening to 19th century music. 

aworks listening log :: albums #moondog #outofthecoma #monk

1. Thelonious Monk - Live 1961 (Stardust Records)
2. Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, James Tocco - Corigliano: Phantasmagoria (Remastered)  
3. Moondog - Rare Material 
4. Comus - Out of the Coma  
5. The Ruby Suns - Fight Softly

On Moondog: "Louis Hardin somehow managed to find the musical continuities between Bach, native american Sundances, be-bop, Stravinsky and yet still pursue his own musical paths and sound utterly unique."

Comus' Out of the Coma is the group's new album, four decades after their prior recording.

aworks listening log :: albums @thewiremagazine @CedilleRecords #luciferindub

1. Wire Tapper 17 
2. Gaudete Ensemble - Chicago Moves (Cedille Records)
3. No-Neck Blues Band - Parallel Easters
4. Peaking Lights - Lucifer
5. Peaking in Lights - Lucifer in Dub
6. Florian and Benjamin Feilmair. Busoni: Complete Works for Clarinet and Piano
7. Yo La Tengo - Fade #2013
8. Jordi Savall, Trevor Pinnock, Nederlands Bach Ensemble and others - Bach Edition Vol 16, Chamber Music Part: 10 
9. Dr. Lonnie Smith - The Healer 
10. The Academy Studio Orchestra - Soundtrack Music from the 2013 Academy Awards #2013
11. Birdy Nam Nam - Defiant Order EP #2013

I had the No-Neck Blues Band confused with La Monte Young's The Forever Bad Blues Band. Neither are particularly adherents of the traditional blues progression.

A review of Chicago Moves here.

I like Bach and Dr. Lonnie Smith, just not those recordings.

aworks listening log :: albums @sallywhitwell @theroyalbaths @carlstone

1. Sally Whitwell - Mad Rush: Solo Piano Music of Philip Glass 
2. Royal Baths - Better Luck Next Life
3. Carl Stone - Woo Lae Oak
4. Bill Ryan - Towards Daybreak #2013
5. Paul Hillier - In C
6. Christopher Hinterhuber - Rzewski & Bach: Variations #2013
7. Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost

The video of Faster Harder by Royal Baths is mildly disturbing. I also like the first comment on that YouTube:

gNarLy cEe: brooklyn you're ugly!

Dare I say that I prefer the more relaxing piano music of Philip Glass as played by Sally Whitwell.

I'd put Carl Stone's Woo Lae Oak at the midpoint of that spectrum.

Music for Marcel Duchamp (1947). John Cage #listeningtocage

SoundNotion100: Cage Match on YouTube:

At around 20:49, Daniel Asia repeats the meme that John Cage's ideas are maybe much more interesting than his music is for actual listening.

No! In fact, I'm headed in the opposite direction. I'm somewhat bored in reading about Cage. I can't get enough of listening to his music.  

As an example, I happen to have 11 recordings of Music for Marcel Duchamp and it's fascinating to hear the comparative performances, since timbre and texture is a, if not the, major distinction between them.

In recordings released this year, so far, I've liked Simon Mancusio play a good variety of Cage's music:

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Related articles

In a Landscape (1948). John Cage #cage100 #pastthegimmicks

4' 33" (1952). John Cage /cage against the hype/

Aria (1958). John Cage /as performed by justin friello/

Marcel Duchamp's gift to New York

Four 6 (1992). John Cage /consensual and accurate impressions/

aworks listening log - albums :: #father #son #garyburton

1. Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Girls
2. Mountain Clear Water Remote. Bun-Ching Lam 
3. The New Crystal Silence. Chick Corea, Gary Burton 
4. Canzonas Americanas. Derek Bermel

aworks listening log ***** :: #differentshakerloopsinc #minimalism

• In C. Paul Hillier. Terry Riley
• Shaker Loops - Hymning Slews. Sian Edwards: Ensemble Modern. John Adams
• Shaker Loops (version for string orchestra) - II. Hymning Slews. Achim Fiedler: Lucerne Festival Strings
• Different Trains: After The War. Kronos Quartet. Steve Reich
• Company: I. Adele Anthony. Philip Glass
• Company: II. Adele Anthony. Philip Glass
• Company: III. Adele Anthony. Philip Glass
• Die. Girls

aworks listening log :: #terryriley #johncagelistening #lysandre #sfauthenticism

1. Paul Hillier - In C
2. Christian Fong,Glenn Freeman, Karen Krummel - Three2 / Twenty-Three / Six / Twenty-Six
3. Simone Mancuso - John Cage: Works for percussion #2013
4. Simone Mancuso - La parola al legno
5. Bernard Herrmann / Elmer Bernstein - The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
6. The Barton Workshop, James Fulkerson - John Cage: Fourteen, Seven, Ten, Three²
7. Tom Middleton - Lifetracks
8. Christopher Owens - Lysandre #2013

• These mostly opened up my ears. 1 is Terry Riley, 2/3/4/6 are John Cage
• The Tom Middleton album is mostly boring expect for the take on Philip Glass, "Sea of Glass."
• I liked Christopher Owens' former group, Girls, but in a description of one of the tracks from his solo album: "Despite...lush acoustic palette, embellishments like the easy-listening flutes, wandering harmonica, and a meaty electric guitar pattern end up being distracting, since Owens doesn’t follow through with fully developing the song and how all the parts go together." San Francisco music, at its most authentic...

aworks link log :: recording labels on rdio by release date

• Bis
• Cantaloupe Music
• Chandos
• Cuneiform Records
• Innova
• Naxos
• OgreOgress
• Stradivarius