I’m very excited to announce that a new #blacbuc promo video is now available. Just surf over here and get a taste of the latest adventure in sound from the body of work that is #blacbuc. The piece is entitled “Cast Down Your Buckets Where You Are” and references Booker T. Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” speech of 1895.
Last year, the new music publication The Wire did a feature on me and also previewed some tracks from my upcoming release “Koheleth” . You can read a blurb and listen to the previews here.
I’m especially proud of the album “Koheleth” and for this reason, had refused to release it digitally. As it was conceived and produced as an album – a gesamtwerk – i wasn’t going to compromise it by having it disassembled and lost in the sea of “download only” singles that are all too overabundant on the Internet. I started a crowdfunding campaign on Patreon to raise the money to finance a proper release. It has yet to produce the result i aspired to. I’ve considered abandoning the Patreon campaign and then something happens to inspire me to press on. So, for the time being, i’ll continue working on that.
In the meantime, #blacbuc continues to get closer to a premiere. Watch this blog for updates and info and, of course, more music.
I’ll be doing a solo set at Bitcoin Meets Art tomorrow (Saturday August 23rd) here in Stocholm. I’m posting a few tracks from my rehearsal. All recorded in Ecasound. The gear i’ll be using is (as always) my NSD WAV bass with the Glasser bow (German, of course), the magnificent Zoom B3 and my iPad Mini running Filtatron and Animoog. Please drop by if you can and tip 🙂
“Salo”
“Klaus Kinski”
“Rachel”
As promised in response to the comment by jazztraveler, here’s a recording of my tune “June Blue” from the cruise ship last month. This piece is characterized by a long, near-ambient improvisation followed by a brief improvisation on the chord changes of the theme, an open one chord improv section and ending with the “A” section of the actual theme. The order of these sections changed every night. Sometimes the theme would be sandwiched between two long improvisations. Sometimes the theme would only be stated once at the end of a long improvisation and so on. The combinations of theme/improvisation are endless.
Wow, it’s done. I’m back on land and preparing for the next phase. I spent the last two months on a cruise ship playing improvised music and popular songs from the mid-twentieth century with pianist Doru Apreotesei and vocalist Deborah Herbert. It was a fantastic time of growth and exploration. As mentioned in an earlier blog post, there will be sound clips from those gigs posted here from time to time in relation to various topics.
Now the work turns to preparing for a concert series that i’ll produce that focuses mostly on my presentation of solo works for bass. Some of the pieces i’ll perform have been composed for me. Some will be by composers i admire and have been greatly influenced by (e.g., Cage, Braxton, Sun Ra, Ayler). Stay tuned here for the where and when.
Partial list of Sun Ra charts
I’ll be starting to post some new music here now. By “new”, i mean clips from gigs that i’m doing currently. Most recently, i’ve been playing in duo with the pianist Doru Apreotesei. As i mentioned in my post “The Audience Gets It“, we’ve been playing – mostly – improvised music in an environment that is generally reserved for the squarest of square: a cruise ship piano bar. The track here is “Blue In Green” co-written by Miles Davis and Bill Evans.The playing on this clip is pretty “inside”. There will be others that aren’t 😉
The Manhattan Lounge on MS Color Magic where i’m working right now.
As with all Music, dynamics play a very important role in improvised music. Dynamics can (and should) be used very effectively as a structural/organizational device. We’re not just talking about volume here. Getting back to an earlier post on this blog, eleven aspects of improvisation are delineated. Each of these parameters can be dynamically modulated. In other words, one can vary the amount of any of the defined parameters one utilizes in a phrase, note or statement. This is to apply Braxton‘s eleventh (of the twelve types) “Gradient Formings” – the serialization of dynamics.
One very, very good illustration of this is the “Pulse Track” of Braxton’s Composition #108B. This graphic score may be freely applied to volume and/or pitch.
Braxton describes #108B as “a series of possible curve line sounds or curve line dynamic changes” (311), implying that the lines can indicate pitch and/or volume… – Graham Lock
Here’s an album that i’m featured on. It’s by the German saxophonist Biggi Vinkeloe. There is some really amazing music by some of the most inspired improvisors around. The entire album is available as a free download. Check it out 🙂
Wow, we did our first gig together in 1986. Time flies.
Us at the Court Tavern ca. 1986
Before i continue with my discussion of solo and group improv methodologies, i wanted to mention that i’m giving some serious thought to abandoning the “J” word. The term “Jazz” appears to do the opposite of what language is supposed to do.
As much as the word is a part of my identity – both personal and cultural – i question very seriously its ability to communicate anything remedial about the subject to which it’s applied.
Going Outside 