Back at the workshop...

Friday 7th May

After a break of four weeks (brought about by a series of enticing gigs on Fridays - Mats Gustafsson, Humcrush, John Tilbury...) I was back at Eddie Prevost's workshop again. And it felt good to be back. Only thirteen players tonight, rather less than the last few times I have been. Longstanding members Seymour Wright and Ross Lambert were noticeably absent; the workshop was different without them.

As usual, the evening started with a series of duos, passing around the circle. By chance, the first duo started next to me and then moved away anticlockwise, meaning that I would play in the last two duos of the cycle. As a result, I sat and listened to the other eleven duos before it was my turn to play. That meant I had almost an hour to listen and think.... Prompting me to muse on the process of improvising like this - reflecting the type of question I have long asked of improvising musicians, such as: "How do you start?" or "Do you begin with nothing in your head?" et cetera.

One of the beauties of the system of duos used at the workshop is that - except for the very first duo - those questions are not relevant. All other players join in with a player who is already in full flight and so have something to react to or against, giving them a way into the process. The system is reminiscent of the system of trios that was used at Relay events whereby a trio started of at each venue. When a new player arrived, they joined in and one of the trio dropped out, usually the member who had been playing longest. And so on. The end result was a constantly evolving trio with an ever-shifting membership. They did not have to keep restarting, getting to know each other and all the other stuff that can waste time and be unfulfilling to watch. Instead, they just kept on and let the music run its course, usually very successfully. In fact, if the workshop method started with a trio and then rotated around the circle, with one dropping off and another joining, the end result would be the same as Relay - A+B+C > B+C+D > C+D+E etc. until N+A+B to finish. Might be worth a try.

The Scratch Orchestra rides again

Saturday 1st May

As part of the London Sinfonietta's three-day Experiment! season at King's Place near King's Cross, Saturday afternoon and evening saw the resurrection of an ensemble that has not been heard of for a while - The Scratch Orchestra. The original Scratch Orchestra was formed by the late Cornelius Cardew in 1969, bringing together musicians (and non-musicians) from a variety of backgrounds including classically-trained players, improvisers and those keen to experiment. One of the original Scratch Orchestra members was composer Michael Parsons, whose composition Apartment House Suite No. 1 had been performed by the London Sinfonietta on Friday evening, alongside compositions by John Lely, Cardew, David Smith, Howard Skempton, Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman, as part of a programme entitled British Experiments, (Thursday evening had seen a similar programme entitled American Experiments, including works by Henry Cowell, Christian Wolff, Morton Feldman and John Cage.)

Saturday was planned as a full day of activity, in keeping with Experiment!'s strapline "a three-day festival of adventurous music in unexpected places". From 6am until midnight, an ongoing free performance took place of Erik Satie's Vexations, with its 840 repititions of a short motif. The publicity for the Saturday afternoon session read, "Join London Sinfonietta's Scratch Band"; at 2pm twenty-one volunteers assembled for the workshop which was to be led by Parsons and Experiment! curator Robert Worby. The results of the workshop were to form part of a free public performance early on Saturday evening, sandwiched between  performances of Steve Reich's Six Marimbas by members of London Sinfonietta. Parsons began the afternoon workshop with a brief history lesson that outlined the ethos and working methods of the original Scratch Orchestra, methods that were to be used in the workshop. Participants had been asked to bring a glass bottle full of drink (not alcohol!) and a harmonica if they possessed one; these were to be used in two of the pieces planned for the evening performance.

The opening activity of the workshop soon emphasised the ethos of combining musicians, improvisers and others into one ensemble. Sheet music of Christian Wolff's composition Burdocks was circulated and those who could  sight read music were asked to play it together. For those who didn't sight read, there was a rhythmic accompaniment that they could reproduce using any means. When the entire ensemble played the piece together, the results were impressive - the group of people there worked well together. Next up was a looser playing activity; in groups of five. One player started off making a single sound (of long or short duration) and then with a signal passed on to the player on their left who made their own sound, and so on around the ring, with no gaps allowed between the sounds. Once the groups had had time to get used to the activity,  Parsons and Worby cued different groups in at different times, creating a shifting soundscape as groups were faded in and out.

Another scored piece followed, part of Sibelius's Karelia Suite. Again the end result sounded good although, after a couple of run-throughs, Worby was concerned lest it become too slick - clearly not the intention of this exercise. The session closed with run-throughs of John White's Sipping and Blowing for which we needed our bottles. Starting with a full bottle, we had to drink a specified amount (nothing or a sip or a gulp) before blowing across the neck of the bottle a specified number of times, to generate a note.  And so on until the bottle was empty. Finally, we used our harmonicas to play John Lely's Harmonica High; a group of players started together, each playing the lowest note on their harmonica. They gradually spread out, further and further apart, playing higher and higher notes on their harmonicas.

After a break, we reassembled in Hall 2, where our evening performance would begin. Parsons and Worby led us through the running order and the changeovers, preparing us for the real thing. At 6-50pm, as the first performance of Six Marimbas ended, it was our time. The audience gradually drifted into Hall 2 as we passed our sounds around the groups of five. Then we came together to perform Burdocks and Karelia Suite (to applause!) before ending by dispersing into the foyer while playing Sipping and Blowing and Harmonica High. Then, happy and satisfied, we were gone.

Metal Machine Trio tour, April 2010

Saturday April 17, The Junction, Cambridge.

Metal Machine Trio - Lou Reed on guitars, Ulrich Krieger on tenor saxophone and Sarth Calhoun on continuum and live processing - opened their first European tour in Cambridge to enthusiastic audience reaction. Although named after Lou Reed's 1975 album Metal Machine Music, this trio does not attempt a faithful recreation of the album as has been done with so many classic albums, including Reed's own Berlin. Instead, they play music inspired by it and in a similar vein; the publicity advertised, "A NIGHT OF DEEP NOISE" and, just in case anyone imagined that Lou Reed might perform "Perfect Day"  or "White Light White Heat", it added, "NO SONGS. NO VOCALS". Nonetheless, a small proportion of the audience had obviouly not read that and did seem to hold out hopes that Reed would sing...

From the moment that the audience entered the gig, such hopes were challenged and soon dissipated. Onstage, alone, four electric guitars lent against speakers, feeding back in a recreation of the methodology of the original Metal Machine Music album.  Initially, the resulting sounds were not the high pitched screech many would associate  with the word "feedback", but a more organic throbbing sound. Intermittently, one or more of the trio would visit the stage to tinker with the levels, thus shifting the characteristics of the feedback. As the time approached for the trio to take the stage, the feedback became louder and more bass heavy, a sound sure to get adrenaline pumping and set pulses racing.

The trio performance was a tour-de-force unbroken set of two hours. The three players played a variety of music that encompassed ambient, industrial, noise, rock, r'n'b and more. For much of the time the focus was on Reed and Krieger, with the saxophonist being the more extrovert performer. At the side of the stage, Calhoun was a constant hive of activity but he never sought the limelight, preferring to let his music speak for itself.

Despite the length of the set and its comprehensive approach, once it was over the audience applauded and called for more. It was difficult to see what the trio could add to what they had already produced. After this gig, the trio moved to Oxford and London and then across Europe. Always NO SONGS. They don't need them!

 If you missed the tour, here is You Tube footage from their appearance in Copenhagen on April 24th 2010:

Fiction about music

I have just finished reading Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro (Faber and Faber, 2009), a book of five short stories all connected with music and musicians. As fiction about music, it is effective and engaging because it concentrates on the musicians relationships rather than on their music. However, the fact that they are musicians is central to the entire book. Nonetheless, it only scratches the surface of the subject that I have never found properly tackled in fiction - what makes musicians tick.

The books that get closest to that subject are But Beautiful by Geoff Dyer and The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor. The first is a fictionalised version of historical facts while the second is about a saxophone-playing bear (surprise!), so neither really delivers, despite each being an excellent read. 

So, my search continues. Any suggestions will be gratefully received (but please remember, I'm talking about fiction so no suggestions of biogs etc.)

Eddie Prevost's Workshop (Part 2: Modus operandi)

Friday April 2

So, here I was back at Eddie Prevost's weekly workshop for the second week in succession and the third time overall - enough to start to make me feel like a regular. As it was Good Friday, Eddie himself was away, leaving a gap to be filled. Guitarist Ross Lambert, a longtime workshop veteran and stalwart, ably stood in for Eddie, giving the all-important introductory talk and selecting the groupings to play together at the end. To help you make sense of that, maybe I should tell you a bit more about how the workshop operates...

Each week the workshop meets in the basement of a chapel on Southwark Bridge Road, within walking distance of Tate Modern. Typically, the workshop attracts between ten and twenty players, some of whom attend regularly, some occasionally, some once only. According to Eddie, the exact same group of players has never assembled twice. The players are seated in a ring, evenly spaced a comfortable distance apart. Those with equipment such as electronics or a short-wave radio will have a table in front of them. There is an upright piano in one corner of the room.

The brief introductory talk emphasises that the workshop is a safe space, a place to try out new ideas and to experiment. After it, the lights are dimmed to a comfortable level, and an adjacent pair of players (let's call them A and B) are chosen to start playing a duo. There is no set duration for a duo; it is at the discretion of the players themselves. When player A stops playing (often indicating so with a look or a nod to player C on the other side of B) C begins and the duo of B and C continues to play. And so on anticlockwise around the ring, C & D, D & E etc, ending up with N & A, bringing the duo full circle. By then, every player will have played in two duos, one with each of their immediate neighbours. The rest of the time they will have been sitting and listening. Depending on how many players attend, these opening duos altogether last up to an hour and three quarters.

The most noticeable thing about these opening duos is how truly experimental the players are, being uninhibited and unafraid to try things out. It is also remarkable how restrained they are, with the players in a duo not crowding each other, allowing each other space to play in and responding to each other's playing. Of course, there are occasional duos that are incompatible but they generally persist with peaceful co-existence and run on parallel tracks, often with surprisingly successful results. For myself, one effect of the restraint is that I have not yet cut loose and blown all out, something which seems true of other saxophone players there. Instead, I have opted for a quieter, more textural approach, which produces sounds more akin to electronics. This week, to emphasise this aspect of my playing - and to experiment - I opted to amplify my sax so as to hear the internal sounds of the horn. To do this, I inserted a microphone into the bell of the sax and also surrounded it with cloth in order to dampen down the sound coming out of the bell. When plugged into a small amplifier, the resulting sounds were quite unsaxlike.One of my duos was with electronics, and the two combined into a soundscape where the sax and electronics were at times indistinguishable. There is further scope for experimentation here; I may try and get hold of a cheap volume pedal soon. Electronics player Daichi Yoshikawa was not there tonight, as he was working at Cafe Oto. I am keen to hear how we work as a duo, and am looking forward to the two of us collaborating soon.

Anyway, after the opening duos are complete, whoever is leading then asks various larger groupings (often trios) to play together. The choices of personnel are based on what the leader has heard during the duos. This week, as there were fourteen of us present (and time was short because the duos went on quite a long time) Ross opted for two septets, plus a quartet and a trio. After the duos, it was a strange experience to play in a larger grouping - the larger the grouping, the stranger it feels. In the septet, I had to be very conscious not to hide or to underplay. In the quartet, I felt more exposed and was conscious again not to opt out or hide, which is easily done.

After everyone has packed away and paid their £3 subs (to pay for the hire of the hall), there is a tradition that all the players go to a local pub in order to chat and socialise. This aspect of the workshop is in keeping with the underlying ethos, which is supportive and communal with no emphasis on individual egos. For the next two Fridays, I cannot attend the workshop, having other commitments (gigs by Mats Gustafsson and by Humcrush). I am greatly looking forward to both of those, but already feel a sense of regret at missing the workshop. Yes, I am beginning to feel like a regular...

Buddha Machines proliferate...

When the Buddha Machine first appeared in the autumn of 2005, it seemed like a fascinating new gadget, a clever idea that would make a good Christmas stocking-filler. When stories circulated that Brian Eno had bought one in each of the seven available colours, some people who had been dismissive or cynical sat up and took notice. What they discovered was something that looked rather like a small transistor radio or portable tape player. The brainchild of experimental loop-based music duo FM3 (Christiaan Verant, from Nebraska, and Beijing -based keyboardist Zhang Jian), it was manufactured in China and was based on a device that played loops of Buddhist chanting, hence its name.

It came preprogrammed with nine different loops, each having an ambient quality about it that induced tranquility in the listener. A loop could be played indefinitely until the listened got bored and changed loop, or until the batteries (two AA's) ran down. Fans likened the endless repitition of the loops to locked-groove recordings such as those at the end of Sergeant Pepper or Metal Machine Music. Critics complained that the sound from the machine's speaker was rather thin and tinny. However, it was beautifully simple to operate, with nothing else to buy to make it work. The Buddha Machine developed a cult following and caught on rapidly.

The original Buddha Machine was followed in autumn 2008 (again, you will notice, in time for the stocking-filler market) by Buddha Machine II which added the innovation that the speed - and, hence, the pitch - of loops could be controlled by rotating  a small dial. In other respects, it was not radically different to the original. That had sold tens of thousands - why change a winning formula?

(Left to right: Buddha Machine, Buddha Machine II,  The Black Box, Gristeism.)

In autumn 2009, the picture became murkier as two new contenders using the same technology as the Buddha Machines came on the scene: The Black Box and Gristleism. Both were programmed with loops, but we were no longer in relaxing ambient territory. For instance, when the coffin-shaped Black Box is switched on, the first sound one hears is a flat, emotionless human voice repeatedly intoning the phrase, "Today I will not kill myself."  On another, a different voice repeats, "I don't feel anything."

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore...

Eddie Prevost's Workshop (Part 1: Some history)

Friday March 26

This was the second time I have attended Eddie Prevost's weekly workshop, the first having been two weeks before on 12th March. If I continue to attend, as is likely, a blog seems to be the ideal format in which to record the experience. That was one of my main reasons for starting this blog.

So, let's start with some background. I play alto saxophone and have done for over twenty-five years, although in that time I've not played much with other people. This used to be because in my head I wanted to sound like Lee Konitz but in my heart I knew I didn't. For a period in the nineties, I attended evening lessons at which I participated in a saxophone quartet. Eventually - my children were young then - I dropped out due to lack of time, not inclination. When my daughter Hannah was in her teens, she took over my sax for several years and attended weekly lessons. Gallingly, she could soon play better than I could!

In 2006, a good friend and colleague Lester Moses (himself an experienced and accomplished player of tenor and soprano saxophones who has had his own band - Moses and the Tablets! - and  played at events such as John Bisset's Relay) tried to get me involved in Andy Sheppard's 200 saxophone spectacular that opened that year's London Jazz Festival. As this coincided with my sax still being under the effective control of Hannah, I didn't get it together to practise the parts and so didn't take part. When I attended the event as an audience member, I kicked myself that I hadn't; I wanted to be part of that.

In 2009, another opportunity arose and I took it - John Harle's Leviathan extravaganza that involved 800 saxophones and was part of the City of London Festival. (It featured 800 saxophones as it marked the 800th anniversary of the first stone London Bridge.) Repaying a favour, I sent details to Lester. This time, I did learn the parts and took part, loving every minute of the event. Playing with that many other saxophonists was thrilling.

As well as scored parts, including a unison grand finale on London Bridge conducted by John Harle, Leviathan had scope for free-blowing sections. In practising for these, I discovered I enjoyed it. I had finally got Lee Konitz out of my head. (No offence, Lee. I still adore your music and would love to interview you one day.)

As I was preparing for Leviathan, one evening at Cafe Oto I mentioned it in conversation with Daichi Yoshikawa. (Daichi works at Cafe Oto, one of London's best venues for live music. He is also a regular at the workshop, playing electronics.) His response was instant, "You ought to come to Eddie's workshop."  That conversation and his suggestion set off a train of events  that ended up on 12th March 2010....

To be continued...

Hairy Bones: Peter Brotzmann and Toshinori Kondo together

Wednesday March 24, Vortex, London

Hairy Bones is the quartet of Peter Brotzmann on reeds, Toshinori Kondo on trumpet, Massimo Pupillo on electric bass and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums. The quartet is named after a CD they released in 2009 on Okka Disk.

The Vortex was full for a rare London concert by the foursome, although it doesn't seem that long ago that Brotzmann was in London, playing his January residency at Cafe Oto, itself a stone's throw from the Vortex.

On arrival, there were warning signs of how the evening would progress, as cotton wool ear plugs were being handed out by Vortex staff. As the staff had been present at the soundcheck, they knew what they were doing...

Once the band took the stage, there was no looking back. Right from the off, they generated a relentless barrage of sound, a barrage that was guaranteed to get the adrenaline pumping. This is a loud, electric band. Brotzmann, Kondo and Pupillo all employed amplification. Nilssen-Love didn't, but it was obvious that he was determined not to be outdone; throughout, he maintained an unrelenting onslaught which drove the band forward. The only let-up was during periods when Brotzmann and Kondo played as a duo. If you think that Last Exit was a loud band, you ain't heard nothing yet; try Hairy Bones.

As ever with Brotzmann, he generated a righteous blast that energised the rest of the band. Kondo was always ready to answer in kind. As we know from the Die Like a Dog band, the combination of Brotzmann and Kondo is a pairing made in heaven - so much so that it set me musing on other such sax/trumpet pairs. Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry named an album Twins in recognition of the bond between them. Other similarly close partnerships that come to mind are Bird/Diz, 'Trane/Miles, Mulligan/Baker, Rollins/Brown, Branford/Wynton Marsalis, Evan Parker/KennyWheeler. Any more spring to mind?