“Sour cream and chives on your baked potato?”
“Yes, ma’am, just like the President.”
— the late, great Philip Austin
“Yes, ma’am, just like the President.”
— the late, great Philip Austin
I dreamt last night that fellow composer Luke Ottevanger and I were exchanging musical sketches using a pitch-world we jokingly called “Bentatonic.”
More than a month ago I enjoyed the privilege of previewing the now-released (as of 17 July) double CD of a live improv event performed by the Mark Harvey Group, Peter H Bloom (woodwinds) Mark Harvey (brasswinds) Craig Ellis and Michael Standish (percussion) A Rite for All Souls. the quartet “employed an array of Western and non-Western musical instruments of classical and traditional disciplines as well as toys and found objects” in an aural theatre piece performed in two acts with a brief intermission. Interspersed through the course of the musical improvisation are four recitations: Gary Snyder’s Spel Against Demons (1970), Wm Butler Yeats’s The Second Coming (1919), Jack Spicer’s A Book of Music (1961) and Craig Ellis’s Napalm Rice Paper (1970)
A marvellously executed Service of Shadows, this was a once-in-a-lifetime, an extraordinary event, whereof this compact disc is a rich and enjoyable listen: the colors, the unflagging verve, the protean invention, the joyful anarchy which nevertheless subsumes into a centripetal organic whole. As a musical endeavor/result I find it thoroughly admirable. One aspect which probably defies either analysis or explanation: When I listened the very first time, and the recitation of Spel Against Demons began . . . in the back of my mind there arose the (ultimately unfounded) doubt that the recitation elements might prove an obstacle to repeat listening. Not a jot, not a jot: I do not know how they managed it (I have tried a few times over the years to include such a textual element, and have later generally cringed at the recollection) the whole feels like a seamless fabric. My hat’s off, gentlemen: Genius!
Thanks, Karl for your insightful, deeply considered and beautifully articulated observations concerning the recent release of our 2 CD project A Rite for All Souls. Such an appreciation from a musician of your wisdom, experience, and integrity is rewarding indeed.
ReplyDeleteI heartily echo my colleague Peter in this. Many thanks for the insightful appreciation and deep listening. So wonderful to have such listeners for our creative expression. ---Mark Harvey
ReplyDeleteKarl, It's wonderful to read your eloquent appreciation of A Rite for All Souls. It is gratifying to have such high praise from someone like you with a catalogue of impressive compositions and a distinguished musical career. Many thanks from Americas Musicworks and The Mark Harvey Group.
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