The One Seat

Next Concert: Sunday May 8th 2pm, featuring the Daniel Kelly Trio

2011-05-03T08:44:00.000-07:00

This Sunday!

2pm @ Douglass Street Music Collective
295 Douglass St. between 3rd and 4th Ave.
Brooklyn, NY
suggested donation $10

The Daniel Kelly Emerge Trio
Daniel Kelly - piano
Brian Ladd - bass
Jordan Perlson - drums

Award-winning composer and pianist, Daniel Kelly has developed a unique and personal approach to jazz, free improvisation and modern chamber music. Daniel has collaborated in performance and on disc with a wide range of artists, including Michael Brecker, Lauryn Hill, Ray Barretto, Don Byron, Bobby Sanabria, William Parker, John Zorn, David Murray, Donny McCaslin, David Binney, Brad Shepik, Joel Harrison, Nestor Torres, Briggan Krauss, Iva Bittova, Candido and many others. He performs regularly with bassist Harvie S and the genre-busting modern chamber ensemble the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Daniel has toured throughout the US, Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa and Central America. In addition to the several CDs he has recorded as sideman, he has recorded highly acclaimed CDs as a leader, including World and Duets with Ghosts which features Daniel’s unique approach to electronic sound manipulation and sampler. Daniel’s third CD Portal is an improvised solo piano suite that arose from his continuing series of improvised solo piano concerts. His quartet was the recipient of the 2007 Chamber Music America/ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award. His fourth CD, Emerge, will be released on Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records.

Daniel serves as the artistic director of the music based non-profit organization Connection Works. Along with founder, Rob Garcia and co-artistic director Michel Gentile, he has organized and helped present workshops for young people and an ongoing series of daylong concerts featuring artists such as Joe Lovano, Fly (with Mark Turner, Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard), Dave Liebman, Adam Kolker Trio with John Abercrombie and Billy Hart, Dafnis Prieto Quartet, Yosvany Terry Quartet, Anat Cohen and Howard Alden, Wycliffe Gordon, Nikki Denner Septet with Dave Valentin, Adam Rudolph’s Go Organic Orchestra, Matt Darriau’s Yo Lateef and the Tony Malaby Trio.

Daniel has exhibited his commitment to arts education and young audiences by performing in schools and in artistic multi-media works for family audiences. His most notable collaborator is storyteller David Gonzalez. In addition to performing in hundreds of schools, they have toured to performing art centers throughout the US and Canada and the Royal National Theatre in London. They developed the multi-media theatrical work The Frog Bride, which premiered at the New Victory Theater on Broadway and incorporated Daniel’s music with the music of Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev and video images of paintings by Wassily Kandinsky. It was nominated for a Drama Desk Award in 2006. Daniel composed music for a new collaboration called Wounded Splendor, a multi-media work that is part of the University of Maryland’s “Performance as Politic/Artist as Activist” 2009 season bringing together music with video, poetry and monologues inspired from interviews with activists and experts in the environmental movement. David and Daniel have also been Lincoln Center Institute Repertory artists from 2002-05 and 2008-09.

Daniel was chosen by the US State Department to be a Jazz Ambassador, performing a six-week tour to India, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, Vietnam and Bangladesh. This highly prestigious honor is only awarded to a few groups each year that travel to developing countries to perform concerts and workshops.

Daniel's talents as film composer can be heard in the films The Receipt, Suzana’s Dreams, Below the Belt (awarded Best Film of the Oregon Film Festival) and the feature film The Legend of Johnson Roebling.

Visit him at www.myspace.com/danielkellymusic and www.danielkellymusic.com.

P R E S S

“Daniel Kelly is a pianist and composer who confidently splits the difference between murky history and sleek progressivism” Nate Chinen, New York Times

"Pianist Daniel Kelly is original and adventurous."
-Howard Mandel, Author of Future Jazz and Miles, Coltrane & Cecil

Sadigursky / Hebert / Hirshfield @ Church for All Nations - August 21, 2010 - 417 W. 57th St.

2010-08-19T05:51:00.001-07:00

Saturday August 21st - 8PM
417 W. 57th St.
NY, NY
$12 suggested donation

RIP Abbey Lincoln

2010-08-15T06:49:00.000-07:00

I can't remember exactly how I found my way to Abbey Lincoln's music, but I know that she was the first living jazz singer to stop me in my tracks and make me want to hear a song again and again. I vaguely remember rummaging through the used CD bins at the local record store and seeing a record with Stan Getz (her 1991 release You Gotta Pay the Band, also with Hank Jones and Charlie Haden) and buying it based on Stan's presence... Regardless, I was hooked as soon as I heard the first notes of the song Bird Alone. Later on, I picked up other albums, including Abbey is Blue, which to this day is a desert island album for me.

The rawness and nakedness of her style and power of her conviction is almost unparalleled in the jazz tradition. She had nothing to prove about her voice or musicianship - it's simply there for us to take in, pure, honest, and timeless. Listening to her early records now, it's so hard to conceive that it's the voice of somebody in her twenties and thirties that is singing - it's so developed and full of feeling and sorrow.

Besides her singing, she had an exquisite choice of sidemen (just look at the roster of people on her Riverside albums of the fifties and sixties), unique taste in songs and and a totally adventurous approach to them. Although her own compositions were never my favorite things that she did, I do admire her desire to bring contemporary material to the jazz world that dealt with things other than romance, and I'm sure many of these songs will be sung by other singers for years to come.

I did see her perform once at Yoshi's in Oakland. She sounded great, and was just such a beautiful person to be in the presence of. She possessed a rare gentleness, style and grace that I will always remember. I only wish I had taken advantage of other opportunities to see her.

I put a few of my favorite songs of hers below. Read the New York Times obituary here.

Etudes II

2010-08-15T06:41:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce that my second book of clarinet etudes is now available at Amazon.com and www.Earspasm.com.

Bass clarinetist Michael Lowenstern will be recording the etudes over the next year or so in order to eventually sell them in PDF form at Earspasm. Right now you can purchase the hard copy of the book from his website.

This is what the critics are saying:

Sam Sadigursky's etudes are a significant and welcome addition to the clarinet study repertoire. These marvelous etudes combine traditional technical exercises with a contemporary flare and vocabulary. They are challenging for the serious clarinetist and are a wonderful tool to increase not only virtuosity but musicianship as well! I have started to use them with my students at Michigan State with much success! - Caroline Hartig, acclaimed soloist and recording artist

I love these etudes! They’re obsessive, concentrated, and right on point. They grip onto important musical and technical issues without ever letting go. They’re challenging, but the real challenge is mastering the musicality in them. If the familiar clarinet etudes are the meal, Sadigursky has just given us the espresso…. - Andrew Sterman, Phillip Glass Ensemble

Sam Sadigursky's characterful etudes are so well crafted and musically creative
that they make me want to practice them! My students at the University of
Delaware love them, and they target many problem areas in clarinet technique.
A great addition to the etude repertoire! - Marianne Gythfeldt, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Zephyros Winds

These etudes are essential for the advancing clarinetist. The greatest bore in an etude is laboring and solving a problem of technique without a satisfying musical result. . . Sam's etudes manage to reveal the wonderful possibilities in reaching new levels of ability. The pieces are harmonically compelling, lyrical, and often witty. Concise but never narrowly conceived... This one's staying on the stand; I can't recommend it highly enough. - Peter Hess, Balkan Beat Box, Slavic Soul Party

Clarinetists will delight in these charming, graceful études, filled
with unexpected harmonic twists and turns. - Derek Bermel, clarinetist/composer/conductor

Review by Martin Gladu

2010-03-20T07:13:00.000-07:00

Read it at All About Jazz.

There is something of genius in Sam Sadigursky's musical poeticizing. Indeed, besides his knack for casting the most uncanny yet perfect voices for his eclectic and at times Kafka-esque sets, the Brooklyn-based reedman/composer is rapidly becoming the beacon of modern jazz-informed musical prosody. In this capacity, he replenishes the dormant format with a daring, integrated approach to composition, cadence and arranging, while remaining creatively respectful towards the texts he sets to music. As unsettling as some of his arrangements may be, he always finds imaginative ways to put his writers' verses in an enhancive, albeit at times wry, light.

Though the second installment of his ongoing Words Project, Words Project II (New Amsterdam, 2008), proved somewhat disappointing, Sadigursky returns with a batch of incantations as gripping as the project's acclaimed first effort, Words Project (New Amsterdam, 2007). While this first outing firmly established him as a commendable talent right out of the gate, with Miniatures he reaches a new level of formal mastery, using the contrapuntal aspect of his compositional trade more fruitfully and somewhat more prominently.

On the opening "Content," Sadigursky's treatment of David Ignatow's thought-phrase gets a mechanistic, clock-like working, as each of its syntactical propositions get isolated and repeated ad infinitum by Monika Heidelmann's overdubbed vocals, but with each line's exposition deployed through its own set of rhythmic permutations. In both its design and effect, it is reminiscent of the medieval motet. Fernando Pessoa's "Recall" takes a similarly clever, though more fugal spin. Other pieces in the program also showcase Sadigursky's sure skill as an arranger/orchestrator, namely the tranquil wind arrangement of "Wistful," the string quartet-adorned "Now," and the monosyllabic chorale "Do Me That Love."

But the real ear-opening moment comes in Christine Correa's performance of Maxim Gorky's scornful screed against jazz, "O Muzike Tolstykh." The assembling of the overly expressive vocalist—who takes a serious joy digging in each of the Bolshevik author's cutting descriptions—and Sadigursky's cohorts' dissonant machinations lends to one memorable moment. The sonorous commentary is followed by the group's dense construct around Alena Syknkova's "Tears," akin to listening to Björk in the middle of a noisy New York City traffic jam. Conversely, Maureen MacLane's "Ode" gently rolls off the tongue of violinist Roland Satterwhite's soft, rickety voice, which is stealthily supported by Michael Beers' English horn and the leader on piano. "To Know Silence Perfectly," a dreamy, almost psychedelic ditty, also adds to the other, more introspective vignettes.

Miniatures is an engaging, richly textured work to be reckoned with, a modern masterpiece of the profoundest authenticity.

for your podcasting pleasure

2010-03-11T06:00:00.000-08:00

Jason Crane just posted a nice interview we did last month. Go to The Jazz Session to listen to it, or look for it on iTunes.

Etude Videos

2010-02-11T09:02:00.000-08:00

Marianne Gythfeldt, who I was fortunate to take clarinet lessons with in college, recently recorded two of my clarinet etudes. Here are some videos of them that I've posted on YouTube.

You can purchase the etudes here.

Scenes from the Archipelago

2010-02-02T11:57:00.001-08:00

Thanks to everybody who came out to see the Words Project III release concert at Galapagos. Here are some videos from the night.

The CD is now available on iTunes, Amazon, and at New Amsterdam Records.

The Words Project: Process and Evolution

2010-02-02T11:54:00.000-08:00

I wish I could say that I've been a lifelong reader of poetry and that this venture evolved naturally out of that. This couldn't be less true, actually. I've always loved reading fiction, but never could achieve the quietness of mind that poetry demands. I read and memorized the requisite poetry fed to us in school, but beyond that I wasn't exposed to much of it. Given how marginalized it is in our culture it's easy to ignore. I can't even say that I was ever very interested in song lyrics, even. I've always loved listening to music of any style with singers, but like many musicians I tended to ignore lyrical elements in favor of musical ones.

I spent a number of years in New York in search of what my own contributions here would be, dipping my feet into as many waters as I possibly could. I was involved with a few groups with singers and started to feel a shortage of new vocal pieces that involved lyrics (rather than wordless vocals), and many of the newer works I heard didn’t have very challenging lyrics or content. Having long loved the art-song tradition, I set out to find some initial poems to set, and started calling singers over to sing through my work. The directness to the human voice and its mysteries were thrilling for me, and I found myself thinking and working differently than ever before. Fortunately, I also began to discover a deep well of talented young singers eager to take on new material, which furthered my interest in this venture.

The first pieces I set were by Lithuanian-Polish poet and Nobel Prize winner Czeslaw Milosz, whose work I’ve continued to set to this day. There’s a certain simplicity to his work that makes it highly typical of the kind of work I enjoy setting. The ideas in his work are by no means simple, but the use of language has a direct quality that makes his work conducive to musical setting. When poetry reaches a certain level of abstraction, there’s no longer room for the kind of music that I would like to write. Similarly, there’s a lot of poetry that tells something akin to literate story, which also doesn’t intrigue me as a composer. It’s difficult to define what lies in the middle of these two extremes, but I do tend to know whether I can set a work within the first few lines of it.

I’ve sometimes wondered whether it’s the poetry that I set to music or music I set to poetry. It’s probably a little of both… There have been times when everything has started simply with the words in front of me, a musical gesture or phrase that arises from the first stanza, with nothing else preconceived. Other times, there is a more intentional process, where I’ll employ a musical idea I’ve been toying with or use a certain stylistic notion in crafting a piece.

I don’t tend to dwell too much on the meaning of a poem before I start working with it. Perhaps this is out of impatience or over-eagerness, but I feel strongly that my job is not to filter the meaning of any work for the listener. I try my best not to interpret these poems or put any sort of definitive stamp on them. I simply want to color them and make them come alive in a unique way. Great works of poetry, like great works of music, can mean different things to us at different times. This is one of the beauties of art in genearal. Certain works can fill us with sadness one hour and be completely exhilarating the next. We bring our own experiences to whatever we take in, and it’s not my intention to subjugate this process by governing the experience of a poem. By the time it lands in my hands, the poem is a complete work of art on its own. It doesn’t need my efforts to be read or to thrive. It already exists in its full flowering, and this is a humbling thing that I always try to keep in mind.

One of the greatest challenges of this genre for me continues to be how to fit all this into the jazz continuum, one that is based on improvisation. Many of the longer works I’ve set demand long forms and it’s difficult to know where improvisation should fit in, or whether there’s a place for it at all. Personally, it’s unappealing to simply use words as a launching point for extended improvisation. I’ve always wanted to frame my work primarily around the poems themselves, and always have them be at the center of my work. Thus, I want any solos or improvisation to function somehow within the poems themselves, to make this all feel like one, creating the illusion that the words and the music came out of the same mind. All the principles of tension and release in music really come to the forefront. Sometimes improvised sections function as a release and other times they build tension or intensity from a place where there was not before. Other times they simply function as a breath within the poem, a chance for the listener to take in what has come before.

Melodically, my own voice tends to guide me when I write. I do my best to forget my background as an instrumentalist and try to think like a singer. I also keep the use of melody in everyday speech in mind. We all use varying degrees of pitch inflection and rhythm when we speak, and thus we’re so easily able to accept lyrics that are sung as a natural extension of everyday speech. Perhaps this is what makes so many of us want to be singers, to further the expression that language allows us, and possibly communicate things where speech falls short. To this effect, I tend to use mostly close intervals in my writing that mirror the intervals of everyday speech.

Words Project III: Miniatures comprises material that I’ve written spanning back to 2006, primarily songs that had never fit into the framework of what I’ve done previously both live and in the studio. The project started quite spontaneously…. I called Michael Leonhart to sing through some songs I had written for male voice, and he hit the record button and we started tracking. A few months later, vocalist Sunny Kim was in New York, and I decided to bring her into Michael’s studio to record a few things. Based on how well these two experiences went, not long after I chose material for an entire record of short songs.

Sometimes I had conceived arrangements and instrumentation before going into the studio, and other times these things came together as we worked. Most of the tracking was done individually, which allowed Michael and I plenty of room for editing and experimentation. I wanted to create a unique world of sound for each piece on the record, and used a lot of uncommon instruments and sounds in order to achieve this. Sometimes I had a good idea of what a piece would end up sounding like and other times tracks unfolded themselves from something more unknown.

The miniature aspect to each piece is really what holds this record together through all the changes of texture and instrumentation. These are musical portraits or glimpses, maybe akin to a collection of short poems or stories. I’ve always loved listening to collections of short pieces, whether they be art song or piano preludes. I love the challenge of creating interest in a piece quickly, constructing something that is short yet feels complete, taking a more microscopic look at the arc of a piece of music, and connecting a collection of short pieces to one another in order to assemble a larger work.

The broad mix of styles reflects the many kinds of music that have shaped me, perhaps never so apparently as on this record. There are very few improvised solos on any of the tracks, but to me the way this record was recorded gives it the feel of a jazz record, and most everybody who appears on it comes from a jazz background, although they all bring much more than that to the table. In any case, I’ll leave this to the listeners to decide where they want to put this album…

WPIII - Galapagos - 1/29/10

2010-01-29T06:52:00.000-08:00

8 PM
www.archipelagoseries.com

Galapagos Art Space
16 Main St.
Brooklyn, NY

Buy the CD here or on iTunes.

Words Project III Podcast now available

2010-01-27T07:28:00.000-08:00

The podcast about the new CD is now up on New Amsterdam. It was produced by rising star Jacob Paul. Hit the podcast button on the upper right of the homepage to listen to it. Hopefully it will be up on iTunes soon.

Detroit Free Press review

2010-01-24T07:28:00.000-08:00

By Mark Stryker.

See it here.

The overlapping a cappella voices that open Sam Sadigursky's "Words Project III Miniatures" (***, New Amsterdam, in stores Tuesday) hit the ear with a bracing freshness: What have we here? Sadigursky, a saxophonist, composer and multi-instrumentalist, creates compelling soundscapes that sit on the intersection of the classical art song and a wide-ranging eclecticism that references jazz, world music, post-minimalism and pop.

Sadigursky sets texts by Carl Sandburg , William Carlos Williams, Maxim Gorky and others with an aphoristic flair. He bypasses song forms for through-composed settings that hug the imagery of the poetry. Whispered like a secret, Emily Dickinson's "Light" marries a lonely woman's voice with gentle counterpoint from acoustic guitars. Williams' jaunty, slightly warped "Danse Russe" lopes along jazzily on a bed of walking plucked cello, with Sadigursky's voice doubled by plucked viola. Vibes and various "little instruments" create an exotic wash.
The bass line and vibes on "Danse Russe" recall Eric Dolphy's "Hat and Beard," but Sadigursky mostly creates a self-contained sound world of beguiling combinations of vocalists and mysterious orchestration. After a while, I willingly gave up trying to parse the details: As in some modernist poetry, the sound of the music becomes meaning.

To Know Silence Perfectly

2010-01-23T13:24:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Doug Jacobson for making the video.

The song is based on a poem by Carl Sandburg and is available Jan. 26th on Words Project III: Miniatures
. Monika Heidemann is featured on vocals.

Step Tempest

2010-01-16T10:24:00.000-08:00

Richard Kamins on Words Project III: Miniatures.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Words and Music That Can Touch the Soul

Words Project III: Miniatures - Sam Sadigursky (New Amsterdam) - In his ongoing project to connect poetry with original music, saxophonist Sadigursky has, in the past, created elaborate works, with melodies that often used a small coterie of instruments in counterpoint with the vocals. The 3rd entry in the series concentrates more on the sound and shape of the words, this time allowing the poetry to dictate the form of the songs. Few of the 18 tracks have more than 3 or 4 instruments playing; there's no real rhythm section and solos are rare. This time out, Sadigursky's focus is on the voice - even the one track that has no words is a chorale written for voices. Working alongside multi-instrumentalist Michael Leonhart (and a number of musicians and vocalists), Sadigursky is not interested in displaying his (or his sideman's) technical facility but in making the listener move easily into this aural landscape. Sometimes it's tough, the words whiz by, the images don't make immediate sense - go back, play the cut again and again and, as you do, the words and music start to come into focus.

If you've not read Carl Sandburg in decades, you may have forgotten how he could create such vivid images in short sentences. There are 4 examples on this disk and each one has a unique soundscape. "Wistful"utilizes Leonhart's multi-tracked brass chorale to frame the lines while "Swirl" moves on the Middle-Eastern percussion of Richie Barshay and droning background vocals. "To Know Silence Perfectly" utilizes several keyboards, sounding not unlike Brian Wilson in his "Smile" days or the simple yet haunting songs of Robert Wyatt. Numerous horns and strings play in unison with Leonhart on "Stars, Songs, Faces" and there's a dreamy quality to this beautiful idea of how to live your life that the poet asks his reader to consider. The shortness of the cut (1:07) only strengthens the message of impermanence.

Other poets include William Carlos Williams (his "Dance Russe" is a mad look at the creative process while "El Hombre"has the feel of Brazilian poem/melody by Caetano Veloso), Sadi Ranson-Politizotti (her "Now" is a song of love that Karlie Bruce sings with an aching tenderness over a chamber music ensemble) and Kenneth Patchen ("Do Me That Love" has the feel of a introspective John Lennon work.) "O Muzyke Tolstykh" uses text by Maxim Gorky that is a scree against modern jazz with a soundscape featuring bass clarinet, piccolo, baritone saxophone, tabla and moaning brass. "Light (Ample Make This Bed") features a handsome guitar melody (played by Andrew McKenna Lee) over which Heather Masse quietly recites a wondrous piece by Emily Dickinson. Sadigursky also wrote music for the words of contemporary poets Michael Lally, Han Dong, and Maureen N. McLane as well as older poets such as David Ignatow (1914 - 1997), Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935), León de Greiff (1895-1976), and Alena Synkova (1926 - ?, the only child-poet to survive the Terezin Concentration camp.

Sam Sadigursky is a busy musician, playing and recording with the likes of Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, Folklore Urbano, Tibagui, Julie Hardy and Rob Mosher's Storytime. He's a fine, articulate, player whose sweet tone enlivens the various ensembles he plays with. Yet, the Words Project CDs offers listeners the opportunity to hear Sadigursky the composer, arranger and orchestrator. While there is an "art song" quality about the Projects (a style which often has a distant and impassive feel), the majority of the pieces on "..III" have emotional weight and many speak of longing or love or sadness. The musical backdrops may be spare at times (the use of kalimba on "Rain" is a perfect touch as the hand-held African thumb piano's sound can resemble falling water) but never out of touch with the words. In this time when one can be surrounded by "talk shows" on television and radio as well as the constant jabbering of politicians and fundamentalists, these "Miniatures" pack quite a punch.

The One Constant

2010-01-14T22:39:00.000-08:00

I shot this earlier tonight... Danny is currently mixing a new record of material that should be out in May or June. He's been one of my favorite pianists and composers for a long time now.

Danny Fox: piano, composition
Chris VanVorstVanBeest: bass
Max Goldman: drums

live at Cafe Vivaldi

New Rules

2010-01-05T06:24:00.000-08:00

New York Times contributor Jon Pareles thoughtfully weighs in on the impact of music downloading and the new music business here.

Let it Snow

2009-12-18T18:23:00.001-08:00

some holiday help

2009-12-15T14:50:00.001-08:00

For lovers of the accordion everywhere. I love the sitting vocal quartet too.

And the strangely prophetic ending...

Via Eivind Opsvik

Kurt Rosenwinkel interview at All About Jazz

2009-12-12T11:25:00.000-08:00

Besides being one of my favorite players and composers on the planet, Kurt Rosenwinkel is one of the most thoughtful and straight-shooting people an interviewer can ask for. This interview at All About Jazz is short, but worth reading. Here are a few of my favorite parts.

AAJ: Did you have a breakthrough moment when you committed to a career in jazz, or did it more evolve naturally over time?

KR: I committed to playing music for my life when I was nine! Since then, it's never been a question. So, I never committed to a career in jazz. It's all just music to me. Whether it's this or that, I like it all—mostly. I became a jazz musician because so much of the music I love is called that, and it inspired me to learn and grow in that direction.

AAJ: You mentioned, in a previous interview, that you moved to Europe because of a healthier lifestyle—better healthcare, etc. That was over six years ago, and while certainly the American lifestyle hasn't gone through a wholesale evolution, a lot has changed. It is arguably a different time in America now. Do you envision returning to the States at some point?

KR: For now I am cool where I am. I don't think it has gotten any better in the States in terms of the cost of raising a family. If anything, it's gotten worse. It costs next to nothing to send a child to school here, all the way through 'til [a] Master's degree. Health care is affordable. I am not bombarded with advertising everywhere I go, and people are generally pretty cool. That said, it is not my culture, and I do feel the sense that I "belong" more to the States than to "Europe."

But then again, I don't wanna belong. I don't want to be a part of that larger cultural conversation in the United States. I don't share the same experience or assumptions about life that most people do here or there, so it ain't really that simple.

Mostly it really just boils down to that my kids are in Berlin, so I will stay in Berlin.

AAJ: You chose to work with Eric Revis and Eric Harland. What about their playing fit this project?

KR: Eric Revis and Eric Harland are the musicians I wanted to play with because they are both open minded and spontaneous, listening musicians. And also, as Ethan Iverson puts it in the liner notes, they are "committed to the straight-ahead mission," which means that we aren't trying to reinvent the wheel here, but rather play in the more traditional jazz conception that we love and know.

That said, there is no dogma involved and that is a critical point. I cannot play with anyone who is playing music from a dogmatic approach. But I also am not about throwing the baby out with the bathwater either. I love the jazz tradition, that is to say the music of jazz. And I know that we share this attitude, and I have had great experiences playing with Eric and Eric in lots of situations.

2009

2009-12-08T19:11:00.000-08:00

I just completed this questionnaire for the Interboro Rock Tribune, which got me reviewing my year. Here's my submission:

1. What was your favorite album of 2007 and why? Least
favorite album?
The Bad Plus - For All I Care - It's a masterpiece by one of the few real working BANDS that are out there in the jazz world. Proves that great music can be fun to listen to and the production is amazing.
2. What are your other four favorite albums of 2009?
Fred Hersch - Plays Jobim
Laurent Coq - Eight Fragments of Summer
Emilio Teubal - Un Monton de Notas
Matt Kanelos - Silent Show

3. What song did you love this year and hated yourself for it and why?
Porque Te Vas scene from the film Cria Cuervos - the song is from the 70's and is absolutely perfect kitsch

4. What was the coolest thing you downloaded off the
Internet this year?
eMusic - It can sometimes be so overwhelming to keep up with buying music. It really helps me stay with it and keep my ears fresh.
5. What annoyed you most about 2009 and why?
television news and the increasing impact that it has on our culture

6. What freaked you out most about 2009 and why?
see #5 - specifically the pathetic shape the discussion of health care reform took
7. What was the best thing you saw on television in
2009 and why?
MADMEN - Actually, it was the only thing I saw on television this year.
8. What was your favorite film of 2009 and why?
Man on Wire. I know it was made in 2008, but it made a lasting impression. Goodbye Solo was a quiet film that I really liked. The Mike Tyson doc was great too.

9. What was the best concert you saw in 2009 and why?
Pat Metheny, Larry Grenadier, Jack DeJohnette at the Bear Theater in Woodstock NY. I had never seen Metheny before and it was totally awe inspiring to see him in such a small place with such an incredible group. I felt like I was 15 again listening to these guys play.
10. What does your gut tell you about 2010?
Not much different from 2009
11. Of all the retail stores that went belly up in 2009, which one will you miss the most and why?
Falafel Fusion on Church Ave. in Brooklyn.

12. What are your thoughts on Obama now vs. back in November of 2008?
Not to say that I'm not troubled by a number of policy decisions, but for the most part he's fighting a noble fight and up against some harsh political and social realities. It's a lot easier to be critical of him now that he's not being compared to people like McCain and Palin.

GLASS

2009-11-28T19:45:00.000-08:00

Just watched the Philip Glass documentary on a bit of an impulse. I've never been the biggest fan, but have always been intrigued. It sucked me in right away, and I definitely gained an appreciation for his music and incredible output and longevity as an artist.

Here are a few of my favorite videos that I've found online.

See the movie. You can stream it on Netflix.

join the herd

2009-11-24T07:00:00.002-08:00

Sam Sadigursky is a fan of

New Amsterdam Records

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Sam Sadigursky is a fan of

Sam Sadigursky/The Words Project

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local shame

2009-11-22T01:32:00.000-08:00

Sad to find out that a bunch of popular restaurants in Park Slope (my former hood) have been caught using some questionable labor practices. Thanks to Only The Blog Knows Brooklyn for putting this up.

25 Park Slope Restaurants Cited/Fined for Labor Violations

Many favorite Park Slope restaurants are on the list released by the State Department of Labor Department yesterday. 25 Brooklyn restaurants owe at least $910,000 in unpaid wages to more than 200 workers.

In Park Slope, state inspectors found that workers make as little as $2.75 an hour way below state minimum wage of $7.25. They found that delivery workers earn $210 to $275 a week for 60 to 70 hours of work.

Of the 25 restaurants cited, 12 restaurants paid back the wages while 13 other restaurants are still in negotiations to pay back the wages.

Park Slope Restaurants With Violations

The following restaurants are negotiating a resolution for payment:
Aunt Suzie's Restaurant
Bagel World
Bogota Latin Bistro
Coco Roco
Joe's Pizza
Marcho Corp's Cholita
Olive Vine Cafe (two locations)
Rachel's Taqueria
Sette
Song
Taqueria
Uncle Moe's

Here's the link to the Daily News article that ran the story.

Paris

2009-11-20T09:09:00.001-08:00

Thanks to a grant from Chamber Music America and the French American Cultural Exchange (FACE), I've had the great pleasure of putting together a great set of original music by both pianist Laurent Coq and myself. We have taken four poems (two originally in French and two written in English, both translated to the other language) and set them in our respective languages. Thanks to some great work from singers Christine Correa and Laurence Allison, bassist Yoni Zelnik, and drummer Karl Janusska we have a really wonderful set of eight songs.

We'll be at Radio France on Saturday November 21st and Sunside the following day.

Jazz Dock

2009-11-16T03:10:00.000-08:00

I've had the great pleasure of playing with Czech guitarist/composer David Doruzka and his trio the past few nights in Prague. Here are some great photos by Barka Fabionova from a concert we did at Jazz Dock on Saturday.

fOr yoUr eNjoYmeNt

2009-11-14T03:47:00.000-08:00

I've put up some tantalizing videos on YouTube of tracks from the Words Project (2007) and Words Project II (2008)

Words Project III: Miniatures will be released Jan. 29th, 2010 at Galapagos.

Required Reading

2009-11-08T01:34:00.001-08:00

Knowing that I would have plenty of reading time over the next month (numerous flights and overnight trains) I bought this after I read the initial NY Times review of it, not realizing an even more full length review was to come out in the Sunday edition of the paper.

I'm midway through its hefty 450 pages of text and over 100 pages of notes and deeply impressed and inspired. Robin D.G. Kelly put in an extraordinary amount of research into this and takes on Monk's story with honesty, love, and compassion, through which he gained an unprecedented level of trust and closeness with the Monk family (including his wife Nellie before her recent death). The story of Monk and Nellie's ancestry is a deep portrait of slavery and the oppression of blacks in the South, which didn't end with the migration of Monk's family to the North and the days of living in San Juan Hill (now the ritzy area around Lincoln Center), and would follow Monk into much of his career. But not only is this a story of deep struggle, but also an incredible sense of pride and triumph. Monk's mother toiled as a cleaning woman for years in order to support her kids (including Monk through much of his twenties), and Nellie would do the same for many years until Monk's music began to bring steady income to the family. Despite early hardship, joblessness, and countless negative reviews, Monk never sacrificed his artistry and having learned some harsh lessons about the music business early on (his estate still only receives 1/3 of the royalties from "Round Midnight" due to Monk entrusting his publishing to others) he never allowed promoters, labels, and club owners to push him around.

It's an incredible portrait of the jazz scene from the forties into the seventies, and of musicians and others who lived by their own set of rules. Monk would have an incredible musical influence over the course of his lifetime. The number of musicians who he taught and who passed through his bands is staggering. Anybody who played with Monk had to be taught his music by ear, often in the studio or on the gig, resulting in numerous apprenticeships that would shape giants such as John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Roy Haynes, and Steve Lacy.

As talked about in both reviews, the book also dispels much of the mystique surrounding Monk, and is a beautiful story of a lifelong love and devotion between Monk and Nellie, as well as Monk and his two children and extended family. He actively took a part in the well being of countless others, and donated his artistry numerous times to a number of civil rights organizations over the years. Monk did struggle with what would now most likely be diagnosed as manic depression and some horribly misguided treatments, not to mention his own alcohol abuse and occasional drug use, all of which took a toll on him. Still, he managed to persevere into the last decade of his life, leaving a legacy that has been paralleled by few artists in history.

I hope books such as this continue to raise the level of scholarship in jazz. Kelly undoubtebly went the extra mile to get the truth, making many sacrifices of his own along the way. I think any lover of Monk owes him an incredible degree of gratitude for his work.

Tenacity

2009-11-05T14:41:00.000-08:00

Bravo Jason Crane.

If only all of us musicians had this in us...

Galapagos - Sunday, 10/25

2009-10-20T14:22:00.000-07:00

New Music From Argentina
Sunday October 25th @ Galapagos Arts Space

* 7 pm: Fernando Otero

Fernando Otero: piano/compositions/ melodica
Juan Pablo Romarion: Bandoneon
plus special guests.

* 8 pm: Emilio Teubal & La Balteuband

Moto Fukushima: electric bass
Franco Pinna: drum-set
Chris Michael: percussion
Xavier Perez: tenor and sop. sax, flute
Sam Sadigursky: clarinet and sop. sax
Greg Heffernan: cello
Emilio Teubal: piano/ compossitions

Galapagos Art Space
16 Main street, Dumbo, NY
Tickets: $12
www.galapagosartspace.com
718-222-8500
buy tickets at: www.smarttix.com
www.emilioteubal.com
www.fernandootero.com
www.myspace.com/labalteuband
www.myspace.com/oteroxtango

Sept. 11th Concert in Ft. Greene

2009-09-10T05:33:00.001-07:00

Home Grown: A Harvest of Fresh Music for Peace

This free concert is held as part of the September Concert, an annual citywide music festival in New York, in remembrance of September 11th and a celebration of our universal humanity. It includes performances of mostly original music by Brooklyn- and New York City area-based classical and jazz musicians and features fresh organic produce from local farms.

DATE: September 11, 2009
TIME: 8pm
RUNNING TIME: 3 hours
LOCATION OF EVENT: South Oxford Space

ADMISSION: free but recommended to reserve tickets in advance.

EVENT DESCRIPTION:
8 Pianist John McDowell and violinist Emmanuel Vukovich
8:45 Sam Sadigursky
9:30 DAAD Quartet
10:15 Frank Carlberg

Pianist, percussionist, producer, commissioned composer and instructor John McDowell achieved worldwide recognition with his soundtrack to the Academy Award winning documentary Born Into Brothels. He is also an organic, biodynamic farmer and runs Camp Hill Farm in Pomona, NY, just north of New York City.

Violinist, composer, and organic farmer Emmanuel Vukovich recently organized and performed in The Agri-Culture Concerts -- a series of benefit recitals on organic farms throughout the US and Canada. A graduate of Canada’s McGill university, Vukovich also studied at Juilliard.

Saxophonist, multi-reedist and composer Sam Sadigursky’s critically-lauded first recording, The Words Project, hailed as "an impressive debut" by the New York Times, was given a four star review by Time Out New York, who also named it one of the Top Ten Albums of 2007.

The DAAD Quartet is Can Olgun - piano, Nils Weinhold - guitar, Matthias Nowak - bass, and David Anlauff - drums. All four are accomplished German jazz musicians who have come to the United States as part of a grant through the German Academic Exchange Service or DAAD.

Jazz pianist and composer Frank Carlberg's most recent release on Red Piano Records, The American Dream (2009) has drawn critical acclaim including the Hartford Courant who called it "...melodic, challenging, intelligent, and fiercely original."

WEBSITE: www.septemberconcert.org and www.petermcdowell.com

Prez at 100

2009-08-29T07:50:00.000-07:00

Lester Young's centennial was this week. With a little help from Ethan Iverson, who wrote a ten piece essay/interview/commentary complete with multipe transcriptions I've been thinking myself of Prez and how he has shaped the saxophone and improvisation.

As with my discovery of a lot of early players, I arrived at Lester Young through his disciples, principally Stan Getz, who was the first tenor player I ever listened to as a kid. Funny enough, I remember thinking Getz had a clunky sound on tenor, lacking the sheen and edge that the alto players I had been listening to had, namely Bird, Cannonball, and Phil Woods. I was seduced by his melodicism pretty quickly though (maybe it was our common Russian-Jewish ancestry) and could sing every solo on that two CD-set Best of the Verve Years by high school. Of course, you can't read anything about Getz (or Al Cohn or Zoot Sims) without mention of Lester Young's influence.

Eventually (I'm pretty sure through the old BMG music subscription service) I got The President Plays - Lester Young with the Oscar Peterson Trio, recorded in 1952. Having already heard a little bit of Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins at this point, I could immediately tell that Getz and company got their sound from Young, but Young was not at his peak on his later recordings, and especially paled next to Oscar Peterson's virtuosity to a young listener. (Knowing Young's earlier work and the arc of his life and career to some extent now I can hear the beauty of these later recordings, but you're not hearing the player who shaped jazz to come on these recordings).

Unlike a lot of my peers, I was never particularly lured by the sound of big bands as a kid, and it was thus much later that I got the early Basie recordings where Lester really made his mark. It wouldn't be until late in college that I really heard Young's brilliance on the early Basie recordings and learned some of the pivotal solos, like Shoe Shine Boy, Lady Be Good and Blue Lester. His conception of the instrument and his lines are so different, especially when you consider the prevalent approaches of the time. There is such a cool, relaxed sense of swing, such a light and even sound on the instrument, and such an understated sense of melody. These qualities were never lost at fast tempos or shadowed by Young's virtuosity as a player. There is so much great vocabulary in the concise solos from this period. These aren't bebop lines, but nor are they the vertical approach that dominated pre-bebop. They're just pure melody, mostly diatonic, and a lot of rhythm.

For those who may not have a lot of this material, there's a great compilation on the Living Era label with 24 of Young's greatest tracks that you can get on Amazon here. Listening to this material again now, it's impossible not to hear just how pervasive Young's influence has been on so many of my favorite players, a very short list including the obvious Getz, Zoot Sims, and Al Cohn, but also Bird (there is an MP3 on Iverson's post of Bird quoting Shoe Shine Boy verbatim while playing tenor that I had never heard), Art Pepper, Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh, Coltrane, Hank Mobley, Joe Henderson, Miles Davis, Kenny Dorham... the list goes on and on.

You can't talk about Young without remembering one of the most unique personalities in jazz. Here's an interview with Tootie Heath from Iverson's post:

I was about 19 or 20 when Lester came to Philadelphia a few times a year. We were the house band at the Showboat: me, Jimmy Bond on bass, and Jimmy Golden on piano. We backed Sonny Stitt, too, and Bond and I played for Thelonious Monk as well. Jimmy Bond also got me my first record date, with Nina Simone.

Lester was a piece of work. I loved being around this guy because he was just so different. He seemed like he was gay, since he swished when he walked, but he wasn’t. He was just unique. I was so young then and just enraptured by this cat. We all loved him. I couldn’t wait for him to come to town.

OK, you talked to Benny Golson? Well, Benny’s an angel, who never swears or curses. But if you’re talking about Lester, you’ve got to talk nasty, because he swore all the time. He called everybody “bitch.” Or “Pres.” It was “Pres” or “bitch” for everybody.

My father played clarinet on weekends. He liked John Philip Sousa. During the week he was an auto mechanic, but he played clarinet on weekends. Then he’d take the clarinet into the pawn shop on Monday, and the guy gave him 4 dollars for it until he pawned it the next weekend.

Anyway, my Dad came to the club to see me play with Lester Young. When the gig was over, we came out through the middle of the bar (that’s how the stage was set up). I proudly said, “Lester, this is my father.”

My dad said, “How do you like playing with my son?”

Lester replied, “Well, Pres, the bitch vonces just right for me!”

My dad grumbled afterwards, “I never liked that old man anyway.”

So, Philadelphia was dry on Sunday, right? So that’s why there were matinees on the first day, Monday, and the last day, Saturday, but no gig Sunday. Every night we’d play 9 to 1, but on Monday and Saturday we’d play 4 to 7 as well. And between the matinee and night sets, I’d join Lester at a little bar around the corner that was cheaper then the club. He’d order a small gin, then sweet port in a tall glass, and chased those with a Rolling Rock. Then, of course, he’d smoke a couple of joints. He called weed “Edis,” after “Con Edison,” meaning power.

Smoking weed was illegal in Philadelphia, and everybody knew Lester smoked, of course. In Philly they didn’t understand this guy. One time we were in the back room of the club and a black narcotics detective team came in. “Rez and Rags” were well known: “Rez” was light-skinned and “Rags” dressed in old clothes. They tried to put the heavy on Lester: “We know you have some weed, Pres.” But he held up his drink and replied, “Lester’s ginin’ it tonight!” They grumbled but left us alone.

But most of the time he was so high he’d be moving in slow motion. We were all so fucking high. One time he whispered to me on the stand, “You play and I’ll take the bridgework” - meaning the bridge -- “And then we’ll play “Lester Creeps” -- meaning, we’re so fucking high right now that we’d better just creep into “Lester Leaps In.”

I loved him so much man.

There was a local tenor player named Jimmy Oliver who was black! Blacker than you can believe. Black as night and only five feet tall. We called him the Satin Doll. Oliver loved Lester and imitated him; played all his licks.

One night he came in and asked Lester, “You mind if I sit in?” Lester responded, “Well, Pres, I don’t like to rumble. You play your little songs, then I’ll play my little songs. That way you don’t throw Lester down.”

Afterwards he walked Oliver over - took him by the hands -- to the Jewish owner, Herb Geller, and said, ”Look at the bitch’s palm’s: there is nothing blacker!”

He was so different.

He never told anybody in the band what to play. He’d never count anything off, either. He’d sing the tempo a little bit until one of started playing. When he said, “We are going to play ‘Polka Chips, Pres,’” that meant it was going to be “Polkadots and Moonbeams.”

He sure had a way with words. Roy Haynes sat in with Lester, and fired him up so much that Lester just loved it. Afterwards he came up to Roy and said, “The slave is yours if you’ve got eyes.”

keep it local

2009-08-12T21:12:00.000-07:00

via the gothamist:

A local currency for goods and services in Brooklyn. Let's hope this catches on.

http://brooklyntorch.org/

Drone Drone Drone

2009-08-11T20:41:00.000-07:00

I found some great tracks to practice to today and figured I'd share them.

Enjoy.

Keith + Ethan

2009-07-23T11:45:00.000-07:00

Ethan Iverson did an interview with Keith Jarrett for BBC Radio that will be up for a week. It's great to hear Keith interviewed by another musician (a pianist nonetheless), and there are some great musical tracks on the program too, particularly some recent solo concerts that I'm not familiar with. Go here to listen to it.

Against Doctor's Orders

2009-07-16T05:37:00.000-07:00

I do intend to get back to writing actual posts before the summer is over (a few ideas are starting to brew again), but for the meantime the blah blah blog will continue to be YouTube videos and shameless self promotion.

Darcy James Argue has shown me something to truly aspire to with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWCWdTM-Ogs

(This is so good that it can't be embedded. Trust me, it's worth the click)

Jokes aside, the CD this comes from the album Silhouette, which I was a proud owner of early on. In fact, I was obsessed with it. Thankfully, the Charlie Parker Greatest Hits album won out in the long run, but I can't say I don't owe Kenny G(orelick) anything. I still remember bringing my rented soprano saxophone to summer camp (in fact, it was Jewish summer camp, appropriately enough) and playing the title track (learned by ear, thank you) in the talent show. Thankfully, that has yet to surface on YouTube, and no I never cured any cancers or performed any miracles with my performance.

this week

2009-07-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, July 8th

Tim Ziesmer's Snafu plays Tea Lounge in Park Slope tomorrow night, wed, July 8th at 9pm. Tea Lounge is located on Union st btw 6th & 7th ave.

Snafu members tomorrow:

T.Z. - guitar
Nate Radley - bass
Vinnie Sperrazza - drums
Brian Drye - trombone
Sam Sadigursky - saxophone

Thursday, July 9th

The Encuentro + Lucia Pulido video

2009-06-14T21:52:00.000-07:00

The Encuentro continues to grow year by year, both in size and vision. The energy in the room was incredible, and the mix of bands quite diverse. There were a number of highlights, and I even got a glimpse of the new Highline during a break in sets.

I shot two songs during Lucia Pulido's amazing set with Stomu Takeishi and Sebastian Cruz. Here they are:

The Sixth Annual Encounter of Colombian Musicians

2009-06-11T07:11:00.000-07:00

This Sunday at Highline Ballroom I'll once again be exploring my secret indigenous South American roots at the annual Encuentro, which has proven more extraordinary with each year. This year it will feature over one hundred different musicians over the course of ten hours. I'll be performing with Tibagui, Folklore Urbano, Diego Obregon, and La Cumbiamba.

Here's the info from Pablo and Anna Mayor followed by the schedule:

The time has finally arrived! Our "VI Encuentro" (6th Annual Encounter of Colombian Musicians in NY) is this Sunday, June 14th, at the renowned High Line Ballroom in Manhattan.
For those not familiar with the event, it is an all day/night festival of Colombian music-10 hours to be exact, 20 bands. It is a special evening (families welcome) that will keep you on the edge of your seats (and hopefully up on the dance floor!)....The program will take you from the intimate songs of Lucía Pulido and Marta Gómez, to an all-out dance celebration of Folklore Urbano and La Cumbiamba eNeYe, to awe at the virtuosity of Samuel Torres on percussion and Edmar Castañeda on harp. You will hear African music from the Pacific coast, guitar/tiple music from the Andes, harp from Los Llanos (the Plains region), Cumbia and Vallenato from the Caribbean, in styles from jazz to traditional to singer-songwriter---all influenced by Colombian rhythms and song. Folklore Urbano will be performing at about 6:45pm. See details that follow, including a full schedule. ***Purchase tickets ahead so you are assured admission! $12 tickets for children under 10 at the door

THIS Sunday, June 14th, 2pm-12am
VI Annual Encounter of Colombian Musicians in NY
VI Encuentro de Músicos Colombianos en NY
@
The High Line Ballroom
431 W. 16th St. (bt/n 9th and 10th Ave) in Manhattan
Subway: A,C,E to 14th St.
easy street parking since it's SUNDAY!
www.highlineballroom.com
to purchase tickets ahead: Ticket web: 866.468.7629/Nuestro Ticket (español) 201.633.1152

SCHEDULE/HORARIO
2pm Welcome
2:05pm Nilko Andreas Guarín
2:33 Gallo-Florez Duo
3:01pm Johanna Castañeda
3:29pm Hector Martignón
3:57pm Daniel Reyes y Parias Ensamble
4:17pm Diego Obregón
4:45pm Rebolú
5:13pm Tibaguí
5:41pm Fidel Cuellár
6:09pm Marta Gómez
6:37pm Presentación formal del Encuentro
6:52pm Folklore Urbano
7:20pm La Cumbiamba Eneye
7:48pm Lucía Pulido
8:16pm Sebastián Cruz
8:44pm Andrés Garcia
9:12pm Daniel Correa and the Crazy Rhythm Orchestra
9:40pm Harold Gutierrez
10:08pm Gregorio Uribe Big Band
10:36pm Samuel Torres
11:04pm Andrea Tierra
11:32pm Edmar Castañeda

So in Love - Fred Hersch

2009-05-19T21:10:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Tyshawn Sorey for posting this on the Facebook. I've treasured the CD version of this found on Songs Without Words for a long time. It's captivating to watch this live version.

Tyshawn also linked to an excellent interview with Fred done by Ted Panken that can be found here.

Infernal Machines on New Amsterdam Records

2009-05-13T06:53:00.001-07:00

Out yesterday on New Amsterdam Records... I'm really thrilled to be a part of this record and it's been a thrill seeing it get so much well-deserved attention and doing a great CD release at Galapagos last week. Thanks to Suzi Beyerstein for sponsoring my participation on the record.

Check out the amazing press this record has been getting:

"[A] fresh jolt of discovery [...] a potent debut [...] the weight of its achievement feels properly definitive."
— Nate Chinen, New York Times

"For a wholly original take on big band's past, present and future, look to Darcy James Argue."
— Seth Colter Walls, Newsweek

"It's maximalist music of impressive complexity and immense entertainment value, in your face and then in your head."
— Richard Gehr, Village Voice
"[A] seven-track marvel of imagination."
— David Adler, Time Out New York

"Infernal Machines stands defiant, updating the big band tradition for the new millennium while presenting exciting possibilities for the future."
— Troy Collins, All About Jazz

"[A] wonderful combination of sounds, styles, moods and messages"
— Richard Kamins, Hartford Courant

"[T]his is a seriously great record, one of the finest examples of new jazz I’ve heard in the past decade, one of the finest big band records ever made, one of the finest jazz records I’ve truly ever heard."
— George Grella, The Big City

"Among the young turks, Darcy James Argue has the most heat."
— Trevor Hunter, NewMusicBox

"An exciting stylist with an abundance of ideas, Argue deserves his place alongside Schneider, Hollenbeck and other contemporary big band arrangers who are looking beyond traditional notions of what a large jazz orchestra should, and can, sound like."
— James Hale, Jazz Chronicles

Darn that Dream

2009-05-05T10:27:00.000-07:00

Only Ahmad Jamal can make a ballad sound like it was made to swing. His influence as a pianist, arranger, and bandleader can't be underestimated.

This made my rainy day.

giving them the fix

2009-05-05T06:25:00.000-07:00

These excerpts are from an interview with Brooklyn writer (aren't they all?) John Wray on Gothamist, who just published a new book called Lowboy.

I wanted my third [novel] to be as different as possible from my second. Mainly because— not because of ambition— I just didn't like the idea of always writing the same novel. There are authors I love who always write the same novel, like Ernest Hemingway or Cormac McCarthy. I mean they might not feel that way, Hemingway might have been like, what are you talking about? But from an aesthetic point of view, he was writing the same book over and over. It would drive me insane. It would be like an obsessive person at an asylum darning the same sock.

There's a tradition in film, and there's this thing that's kind of a curse on fiction in the 20th century, I don't know who it was in what writer's workshop who first thought of this "finding your voice" notion. I think it's destructive. I mean I think it's fine for certain writers who are finding a voice they're interested in— but they're choosing a voice, a particular role to inhabit. People with the archetypal voice: Gertrude Stein or James Ellroy or Raymond Chandler. I mean you hear it and you immediately know it's them, it's consistent from book to book. They chose that voice. Kids in creative writing programs are told that there's a single, genuine voice inside them, only one, and that they have to find it. And I think you can really give a kid a complex with that. The truth is you are starting out your career and you have this whole spectrum. You can choose what you want and it'll be your book no matter what. And you can do that again with your next book or you can do something totally fucking different if you want.

I once interviewed Haruki Murakami, which ended up being a great interview, one of the best things I've been involved in. It was a long Paris Review interview, which meant we could spend a long time talking. I'm a huge fan, and the interview process revealed a lot about what goes on behind the screen, and demystified it. One of the interesting things Haruki said was that while he had been interviewing John Irving, of all people— it's like this endless chain of writers interviewing writers— Irving said to Haruki that when you have your readers you want to hook them on your writing. You want to hook your readers on it like a drug. And you want to get them hooked on that particular feeling like you're writing it for them and you want to come back for every one of your books, like a fix. And if anyone was interested in taking on the whole Irving oeuvre, they'd probably see that.... I think there's a certain understanding of supply and demand that pertains to the microcosm of the literary world. With movies, traditionally, a lot of people going to the movies don't know who the director is, which is probably freeing. Authors are innately identified with their books.

Loser's Music

2009-05-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

Picked this up on a recent trip to Amish country.

As if band kids needed one more reason to be bullied.

The Words Project - 4/25 @ Portland Conservatory of Music

2009-04-22T08:13:00.000-07:00

Featuring Christine Correa (vocals), Dan Tepfer (piano), Sam Sadigursky (saxophone)

Saturday April 25th @ Portland Conservatory of Music
202 Woodford St
Portland, ME
8 PM

Tickets are $15

Service Advisories

2009-04-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

Found on Gothamist.

4/17 at Cornelia St. Cafe

2009-04-15T15:12:00.000-07:00

April 17th - 9 PM and 10:30
Cornelia St. Cafe
29 Cornelia St.
NY, NY
$10 cover

w/ Sam Sadigursky (saxophone, compositions, aimless reminisces, pre-midlife crisis), Monika Heidemann (voice), Christine Correa (voice), Dan Tepfer (piano), Eivind Opsvik (bass), Eric Doob (drums)

RIP Patelsons 1920-2009

2009-04-13T05:27:00.000-07:00

Patelson's, soon to be a relic of another day, was one of those places that almost defined what was so great about being a musician in New York. The stock was great, you could always count on talking to somebody who actually knew what they were selling, and more than once I rubbed shoulders with the classical elite. It was a regular haunt of almost any musician who lives here, and one of the first stops for any musician swinging through town.

Here's the NY Times article about the closing, which details a quintessential New York family story.

the making of a saxophone

2009-04-06T08:55:00.000-07:00

This is a total masterpiece.

I'll buy dinner for anybody who can tell me who's playing saxophone on this.

Got Poetry?

2009-04-05T07:21:00.000-07:00

Go here.

Sunday 4/5 @ All Souls

2009-04-03T08:33:00.000-07:00

An Evening Meditation of Jazz and Poetry

Sunday April 5th
6-7 PM
All Souls Unitarian Church
Lexington at 80th St.

Featuring my settings of poems by Langston Hughes, Muriel Rukeyser, Osip Mandelschtam, Sadi Ranson, and Fernando Pessoa performed by:

Christine Correa (voice)
Dan Tepfer (piano)
Jorge Roeder (bass)
me (saxophone)

Details here.

Romance

2009-03-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

Jacob Garchik has a new record featuring Dan Weiss and Jacob Sacks.

Watch this:

A guru for troubled times

2009-03-27T10:48:00.000-07:00

Austin McBride has blessed us with a number of instructional music videos that are sweeping the web.

Watch him dispense his wisdom (free!) at Expert Village.

The Quiet Coup - Simon Johnson

2009-03-26T21:04:00.000-07:00

Read it in the Atlantic Monthly.

The New Art Song Concert

2009-02-22T10:03:00.000-08:00

Sat. February 28th, 2009
7pm

Greenwich Music House
46 Barrow St. NYC

$20

Jody Redhage
Gregg Kallor Duo
Sam Sadigursky + The Words Project
Gabriel Kahane
Frank Carlberg Quintet

Tickets available at Brown Paper Tickets.

Tickets are limited, so order in advance.

the music of words

2009-02-20T17:32:00.000-08:00

from Daily Routines

Writing is physical for me. I always have the sense that the words are coming out of my body, not just my mind. I write in longhand, and the pen is scratching the words onto the page. I can even hear the words being written. So much of the effort that goes into writing prose for me is about making sentences that capture the music that I’m hearing in my head. It takes a lot of work, writing, writing, and rewriting to get the music exactly the way you want it to be. That music is a physical force. Not only do you write books physically, but you read books physically as well. There’s something about the rhythms of language that correspond to the rhythms of our own bodies. An attentive reader is finding meanings in the book that can’t be articulated, finding them in his or her body. I think this is what so many people don’t understand about fiction. Poetry is supposed to be musical. But people don’t understand prose. They’re so used to reading journalism—clunky, functional sentences that convey factual information—facts, more than just the surfaces of things.

-Paul Auster

All About Jazz review by Elliot Simon

2009-02-16T05:55:00.000-08:00

Words Project II
Sam Sadigursky |
New Amsterdam Records(2008)

By Elliott Simon

Multi-instrumentalist Sam Sadigursky has released the second of his Words Projects, wherein musicians and like-minded vocalists present poetry in a beat-cum-back to the future manner. This is not your grandfather's poems read over a bongo but is creative integration of vocals into an instrumental fabric.

Sadigursky's saxophones and clarinet as well as Pete Rende's piano/Rhodes and accordion thoroughly blend with the vocals to create a "'reading" true to the overall meter and phrasing of the poem(s). Nate Radley's guitar/banjo stylings and Richie Barshay's percussion add a bit of needed color to what otherwise is a fairly monophonic sound palette, texturally rich but sonically narrow. This, combined with the artful vocals of Wendy Gilles, Monika Heidemann and Becca Stevens, makes for a deeply engaging listen.

Poet Andrew Boyd's three contributions are choice narrations of desperate situations that are a perfect fit for these environs. A lyric sheet is included and the way to experience these pieces is to use it while listening; otherwise one might not realize that the true definition of "rock bottom' is "purchasing the collected works of Yanni." Subjects also include David Ignatow's "No Theory," a description of the evisceration of a chicken, and "Miss Teen USA," whose legendary incoherence might be the seeds of a Vice Presidential candidacy someday. While the biting sarcasm of "The War Works Hard" is presented over a cacophonous build, all is not dark, and moments like Langston Hughes' uplifting "The Dream Keeper" and Sadi Ranson Polizzotti's lover's delight "Such Fruit-The Ritual" are points of light.

Gerry Niewood 1943-2009

2009-02-14T10:05:00.000-08:00

I was terribly saddened to read late last night that among those killed on flight 3407, which crashed in Buffalo N.Y. Thursday night, was saxophonist Gerry Niewood. Along with guitarist Coleman Millett, they were on their way to a concert with Chuck Mangione, with whom Niewood performed and recorded with early on in his career.

I went to college with Niewood's son Adam and got to know Gerry a little while in school, and even took a lesson with him after finishing college. A few years later, I found myself sitting next to him when subbing in the orchestra for the Radio City Christmas Show. Over a period of three years, I played about seventy shows sitting next to him, and he was always a great source of warmth, encouragement, sound, professionalism, humor, and a real woodwind guru. He seemed to do things his own way, which isn't something I've encountered much playing on Broadway. I always felt that I emerged a better player after sitting next to him, and he always had something nice to say to me after the show, which meant a great deal to me being so new there.

I'll never forget how five minutes before the Christmas show I was once completely unable to find my tuxedo jacket, which I had taken off and hung somewhere after finishing the previous show. Totally baffled, panicked, and extremely embarrassed, I turned to Gerry for advice on what to do. After chuckling, he pointed me to a costume room upstairs where extra tuxedos were, and I was able to find one that fit to get me through the show. (As it turns out, mine had been hanging on a chair that was moved by the stagehands between shows.) Gerry was the kind of guy who I knew I could go to in this kind of situation, and he was totally there.

It's hard to believe he's no longer with us, and how his life could be taken so abruptly. I know he'll be sorely missed by everybody who knew him and played with him.

Here's the bio from Gerry's MySpace page:

Gerry Niewood is an instrumentalist (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone saxophones; flute, alto flute, bass flute, piccolo, clarinet) who has lent his melodic invention to artists as diverse as: Chuck Mangione, Peggy Lee, Simon and Garfunkel, Sinead O'Connor, Anne Murray, Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, Mark Murphy, Gil Evans, Astrid Gilbeto, Judy Collins, Frank Sinatra and Gerry Mulligan to name only a few. Gerry is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music. Following graduation, he embarked on a recording and concertizing schedule with the Chuck Mangione Quartet with which he performed for a total of nearly fourteen years. Six years after graduation, Gerry relocated to the highly fertile music scene of New York City and began freelancing. With so many colors in his Palette, and his adaptability to many musical styles, there has never been a shortage of opportunities for Gerry. But his distinctive voice on one instrument, the soprano saxophone, brought him the greatest praise. He was twice voted Downbeat International critic's poll winner in the category "Talent Deserving Wider Recognition" on Soprano Saxophone...//// Gerry's Tenor Sax was heard on the sound track to the Robert DeNero film "A Bronx Tale," his woodwinds in the orchestra for "When Harry Met Sally, "Annie," "Shinning Through," "National Lampoon Goes to the Movies," "King of Comedy," and many others...//// Gerry is the 1st saxophonist of the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra. In that capacity, he has performed with some of the world's most famous entertainers.//// As a composer, Gerry Niewood's works have been recorded by: The Chuck Mangione Quartet, Rare Silk, Lena Horn//// Gerry's resume appears in the Encyclopedia of Jazz, and the Who's Who in Entertainment.

His son Adam Niewood, has posted a page on Myspace that will announce plans for a memorial service. It's here.

Blossom Dearie 1926-2009

2009-02-09T14:05:00.000-08:00

We've lost one of the world's most original, swinging voices and pianists in jazz. For anybody who hasn't hear her, get her first record on Verve, which features Ray Brown and Jo Jones. The NY Times obituary is here.

15 steps

2009-02-09T13:49:00.000-08:00

This almost makes me wish I had been in a marching band.

Sound Familiar?

2009-01-28T12:44:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/books/28selfpub.html?em

a new chapter begins

2009-01-20T12:54:00.000-08:00

America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words; with hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come; let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Daily Routines

2009-01-17T15:01:00.000-08:00

Sooner or later, the great men turn out to be all alike. They never stop working. They never lose a minute. It is very depressing. --V.S. Pritchett

A friend of mine pointed me to a website called Daily Routines yesterday, which chronicles how writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days. Compiled mostly from interviews and biographies, it's an intimate portrait of some startlingly disciplined and monastic work routines, juxtaposed against a few who find no need for routine. I wish there were more portraits of musicians (only Satie appears), but hopefully more will come along, especially as much of the content seems reader-generated. It's fascinating to read, and demonstrates so well the lack of any rule or formula in the creative world.

Here's the entry for Franz Kafka:

Begley is particularly astute on the bizarre organization of Kafka's writing day. At the Assicurazioni Generali, Kafka despaired of his twelve-hour shifts that left no time for writing; two years later, promoted to the position of chief clerk at the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute, he was now on the one-shift system, 8:30 AM until 2:30 PM. And then what? Lunch until 3:30, then sleep until 7:30, then exercises, then a family dinner. After which he started work around 11 PM (as Begley points out, the letter- and diary-writing took up at least an hour a day, and more usually two), and then "depending on my strength, inclination, and luck, until one, two, or three o'clock, once even till six in the morning." Then "every imaginable effort to go to sleep," as he fitfully rested before leaving to go to the office once more. This routine left him permanently on the verge of collapse. Yet when Felice wrote to him...arguing that a more rational organization of his day might be possible, he bristled.... "The present way is the only possible one; if I can't bear it, so much the worse; but I will bear it somehow."

It was [Max] Brod's opinion that Kafka's parents should gift him a lump sum "so that he could leave the office, go off to some cheap little place on the Riviera to create those works that God, using Franz's brain, wishes the world to have." Begley, leaving God out of it, politely disagrees, finding Brod's wish probably misguided. Kafka's failure to make even an attempt to break out of the twin prisons of the Institute and his room at the family apartment may have been nothing less than the choice of the way of life that paradoxically best suited him.

It is rare that writers of fiction sit behind their desks, actually writing, for more than a few hours a day. Had Kafka been able to use his time efficiently, the work schedule at the Institute would have left him with enough free time for writing. As he recognized, the truth was that he wasted time.

The truth was that he wasted time! The writer's equivalent of the dater's revelation: He's just not that into you. "Having the Institute and the conditions at his parents' apartment to blame for the long fallow periods when he couldn't write gave Kafka cover: it enabled him to preserve some of his self-esteem."

Zadie Smith, The New York Review of Books, July 17, 2008 (reviewing The Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head: Franz Kafka: A Biographical Essay by Louis Begley)

big hair, big heart

2009-01-15T05:14:00.000-08:00

beauty like this must be shared

thanks danny fox

Ratliff Revealed

2009-01-14T08:48:00.000-08:00

Ben Ratliff, the jazz and pop critic for the NY Times, gives a lot of thoughtful answers to some of the most difficult questions facing jazz here.

Also, kudos to Darcy James Argue, who gets a mention by Ratliff as one of the prominent young musicians to watch. Darcy's group, Secret Society, which I am a member of, just finished recording his debut record for New Amsterdam Records, which will come out in May. For those of you who don't know him, Darcy is one of the bravest and most dedicated people on the scene, not only as a composer and arranger, but also as a blogger. Catch Secret Society at the Jazz Gallery in February.

Words Project II

2008-12-30T23:30:00.000-08:00

Words Project II has been selected as one of the best CD's of 2008 by Richard Kamins, who writes for the Hartford Courant. Click here to see the actual write-up.

Words Project II- Sam Sadigursky (New Amsterdam Records) - Multi-instrumentalist Sadigursky (who excels on saxophones and clarinet) creates intricate yet accessible musical backgrounds for this collection of 10 poems. The scope of the verses range from the sublime (Sadi Ranson Polizotti's "Such Fruit - The Ritual") to the forceful (Dunya Mikhail's "The War Works Hard") to the ridiculous ( a musical setting for Miss Teen USA contestant's Caitlin Upton's answer to a question about finding the United States on a world map.) The music is not loud but has much force and never fails to complement the words. You really need to listen to this CD a number of times to take it all in, to hear how the rhythm section dictates the flow on many tracks and how the textures can be so rich (for instance, the blend of clarinet, accordion and banjo on "The Dream Keeper" and Bill Campbell's exquisite cymbal work underneath on the same track.) There's plenty of music to be found in this project and it's quite good. For more information, go to www.samsadigursky.com.

holiday thought

2008-12-25T10:51:00.001-08:00

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials. -- Lin Yutang

Pandora

2008-12-12T12:29:00.000-08:00

A lot of people know about Pandora, but I've come back to it recently and am astonished at what comes out of the old box. By entering artists or songs you like, it allows you to create personalized radio stations, free of any commercials, which play songs by artists deemed similar or related to the one entered. While each song is playing, there is a link that allows you to purchase it (or skip it if it doesn't appeal to you). It's remarkable what comes up and is a great way to hear new stuff, remember some forgotten corners of your record collection, and perhaps sell some records or songs on the other end.

Check it out.

Monk's rules to his band

2008-12-11T03:17:00.000-08:00

I wish I knew how to increase the size of this... It's worth getting your spectacles out for though.

via Alan Elliott

Wednesday 12/10 @ Cornelia St. Cafe

2008-12-08T06:39:00.001-08:00

Sam Sadigursky - saxophone
Jacob Sacks - piano
Dave Ambrosio - bass
Ted Poor - drums

Karlie Bruce - vocals

Wednesday 12/10 at Cornelia St. Cafe
two sets - 8:30 PM + 9:45 PM
29 Cornelia St.
www.corneliastreetcafe.com

$10 cover

I had a sinking feeling that something was missing from my life, but couldn't put a finger on it until I put Sam Sadigursky's "Word Project II" on to listen and I remembered the power that words have to bring beauty and meaning into life. Of course this force can be amplified by combining it with great music, and Sadigursky, whose first Word's Project was a revelation and one of the better releases of 2007, is back with another release that may even surpass the first one. - Brad Walseth, jazzchicago.net

cold, long winter ahead

2008-12-05T19:17:00.000-08:00

It seems everywhere you look people are bracing for a difficult road ahead. I thought of this poem by Bertold Brecht earlier today, translated by John Willet. May we all embrace our broken world and never stop singing.

MOTTO

In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing
About the dark times.

Bertolt Brecht. German 1898-1956.

Odetta 1930-2008

2008-12-03T06:29:00.000-08:00

A voice and an icon leaves us.

NY times obit here.

Odetta at Newport:

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T11:15:00.000-08:00

A word of caution to deep-fried turkey lovers

[Via Darcy James Argue]

"When I see three oranges, I juggle; when I see two towers, I walk."

2008-11-26T12:25:00.000-08:00

It's not often you see a movie that instantly compels you to tell everybody you know, once knew, or might not know yet to see as soon as possible. I'm taking a few days off to get some R&R and recharge after a two week tour and figured I would take in a few matinees in the city. I read about "Man on Wire" in TONY when it first came out and was instantly intrigued. I didn't know about Philippe Petit's famous highwire crossing of the Twin Towers before reading the review, and like any New Yorker was quite affected by any story involving the two spires that are no longer with us.

How often is one's entire life driven my one moment? For Petit, a Parisian street performer, this moment came while sitting in the waiting room of a dentist's office, waiting for some respite from a toothache. While thumbing through a magazine, he saw an article about the building of the WTC, which included drawings of the towers. Instantly, the yet-to-be-completed towers would give him the challenge of a lifetime. Petit, who had been a tightrope artist for years would also cross the Notre-Dame and the world's largest steel arch bridge in Sydney in the intervening years, defying both death and the law in order to do so. However, the sheer height between the towers offered him something far beyond anything else the world had to offer a man of the tightrope.

The movie follows the six-year planning that Petit and his rogue cast went through to fulfill the dream. Every step of the process had to be accounted for in order for the team to rig the highwire and for Petit to cross it. The trials and travails of the group are totally exhilarating, and the characters, a mix of hippies, renegades, and an insurance adjuster on the inside, are totally fascinating. When Petit finally gets up on the wire (after a night of countless mishaps), 450 meters in the sky, it is totally breathtaking. Not only did he cross the span. He danced up there, walking, running, dancing, hopping and even lying down on the wire, spending 45 minutes up there before walking into the arms of police. For the thousands of people who were there to see it, most of them probably on their way to work, it was a sight never to be forgotten. Most of us will never be able to understand how somebody could flirt with death to such an extreme, but seeing Petit interviewed throughout the film, you feel that this was his journey in life, the only way he saw of living. He has no answer to why he did this. Somehow, in all its absurdity, it just has to be.

One can't help but think what could possibly keep Petit going after accomplishing this feat. Certainly, there is little chance any structures side-by-side and quite so high will ever again exist, and modern security mechanisms, especially in this new age of terror, will never allow an amateur team the access to buildings necessary to pull of something of this magnitude. The movie delves very little into Petit's life since, and one certainly wonders how things must pale in comparison with that miraculous journey that culminated so beautifully that summer day in 1974.

In the words of Port Authority Police Department Sgt. Charles Daniels, who was dispatched to the roof to bring Petit down, later reported his experience:

I observed the tightrope 'dancer'—because you couldn't call him a 'walker'—approximately halfway between the two towers. And upon seeing us he started to smile and laugh and he started going into a dancing routine on the high wire....And when he got to the building we asked him to get off the high wire but instead he turned around and ran back out into the middle....He was bouncing up and down. His feet were actually leaving the wire and then he would resettle back on the wire again....Unbelievable really....[E]verybody was spellbound in the watching of it.

See this movie. Click here to go to the official site.

There is an excellent Gothamist interview with Petit here and one from Psychology Today here.

brooklyn makes some noise

2008-11-06T09:39:00.000-08:00

let us dream, let us dream

2008-11-05T20:59:00.000-08:00

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.

It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled -- Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

— President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama, November 4, 2008

and the band plays....

2008-11-05T09:32:00.000-08:00

After spending so many months guarding any optimism, obsessively reading the news and checking polling sites, repeatedly thinking this is to good to be true... what a feeling. I'm still going to the New York Times website obsessively, only this time it is to remind myself that what is happening is real.

We've seen so much damage done in the last eight years, more than anybody could have imagined possible. So much has been based on fear, isolation, and divisiveness. McCain/Palin repeatedly, to the end, played to people's worst, lowest, and most base instincts. We couldn't help but cringe as we saw John McCain, one of our bravest politicians, give up his values and literally sell his soul to appeal to the worst of the Republican base. As the gauntlet descended, his people tried every possible way of attack and refused to repudiate some of the lowest, most dangerous things ever said in a campaign. At last, people have finally begun to wake up to how far we have moved backwards, how much less of a voice we have when everything comes down to blue and red... Obama's decisive victory is a repudiation of eight years of a move away from democracy in this country, away from the values of tolerance, imagination, openness, leadership, and accountability that this country is supposed to represent. Yes, Obama is a politician, and despite the poetry with which he so often speaks and the exuberance he embodies, we must not forget this. Over the last two years, he often fought fire with fire, accepted large sums of money from special interests, and played into the sad, television-dominated electoral system that has so compromised real political debate in this country. He is no doubt a realist, somebody who often plays the odds and in many circles is known for playing it safe. Those of us who dream must remember this and urge him to face the ills of our system before it is too late.

Without doubt, he faces immense challenges, challenges beyond all measure, systemic problems too great to be solved in just one or two presidential terms. Nevertheless, let's hope that he can live up to his promise of something better and do some things to really heal this world, move it forward and inspire us all to lead better lives. This man is the American story in so many ways. By ascending to the top in so short a time, defeating political machines thought to be invincible, he has reawakened people around the world to the possibilities that exist here that make this country what it is. My heart is touched when I think that people in all corners of the world are smiling today as they read the news. As the son of immigrants, I've always been reminded that despite all of America's faults, it's a place that offers things that are unattainable to most of the world. Just thirty five years ago, my parents came here with next to nothing and have gone on to create a life for their children and themselves that they could have never have dreamed possible. There is a reason that millions of people dream of someday coming here, and it is time to act in way that embodies the vision that defines this nation and acts in every way to spread it to the rest of the world. We are an important part of the world, and our actions, both positive and negative, have impact on everybody. Regardless of who becomes the world's next superpower, what we do as a nation can determine the direction this world takes. Future generations will learn not only from our failings, but also from our triumphs.

Not only does Obama's story remind us that anything is possible, but also that it is patriotic to criticize your country when you feel it errs, that dissent truly does lie at the fabric of democracy, and that it is only when we and our leaders ask ourselves tough questions (and, yes, look at the nuance in things) that we can move forward and bring about a change of direction. Let us all be vigilant in holding on to the excitement we all feel right now, but not let our sense of victory at the present moment lull us into complacency. No public servant ever deserves a free ticket into office, and as citizens we have to work to remind our leadership who put them there and maintain a vigilance in making sure that we never again allow ourselves to be lead down any of the disastrous roads of the last eight years.

Cheers.

Ear to Ear

2008-10-28T19:30:00.000-07:00

This Saturday (11/1) I'll be the guest on WNYC's Ear to Ear, hosted by David Garland. I'll be interviewed and will choose selections from both Words Project records to be played.

Here is the Ear to Ear website. You can listen to an archived version of the show there after it airs.

McCain Plays

2008-10-17T12:41:00.000-07:00

a submission to the colbert report greenscreen challenge...

Palin Sings

2008-10-17T12:39:00.001-07:00

Henry Hey put this together.

daily comfort

2008-10-12T16:58:00.000-07:00

We're never as good as we think we are on our good days, nor are we as bad as we think we are when we have a bad day. -Bertrand Russell

the tortoise emerges

2008-09-26T11:10:00.001-07:00

One of the biggest reasons I started this blog was to promote new music that I feel might not be getting the attention that it deserves. I previously wrote about my good friend David Doruzka's recent release of poetry settings, which was a staple of my summer listening, and now wish to spotlight saxophonist and composer Rob Mosher's new release with his group Storytime, entitled The Tortoise
, which I so curiously happen to play on.

Until he called me to play one of his open rehearsals at the Brooklyn Lyceum, Rob was unknown to me. He moved here from Toronto in 2004 and somehow our paths had never crossed. Clearly something big has been brewing inside of him since he got here and is probably part of the reason somebody of his talent has existed largely under the radar here. Storytime is a ten-piece ensemble that consists of four wind players (including Rob on soprano saxophone and double reeds), trumpet, french horn, trombone, guitar, bass, and drums. Not quite a big band, but neither a small group, it functions somewhere in the middle, in what some might call chamber-jazz, and offers a myriad of orchestral colors while remaining intimate and quite often subdued.

The tracks on the record are through-composed, and range typically from five to ten minutes in length. None of them ever fall into the typical head, solo, head out format of jazz. Solos emerge out of nowhere, and are brilliantly worked into the ensemble. Despite a beautiful lyrical sense to his melodies, so many of them are indistinct in themselves, small kernels from which everything else emerges. Rather than blow the mystery of the compositional process the way most jazz composers do by giving you the hook upfront and relying on predictable devices (bass ostinatos, odd time signatures, angular melodies, etc.), Rob's pieces unfold slowly, with the patience of somebody much older than Rob. Little motives emerge as the pieces unfold, and appear subtly throughout the instrumentation, tying the pieces together in a very disciplined, yet unexpected way. Much like the great impressionist composers who moved away from large sweeping melodies, Mosher takes the minimum amount of material at squeezes it until every possibility inside of it has been found. Despite the intimidation some might feel at the idea of chamber jazz, a joy permeates this music, even in some of the more tragic sounding moments on the album, and I really believe this record has a rare accessibility to listeners. There are several solos on the record that really knock me out, including one from saxophonist Peter Hess, trombonist Mike Fahie, and two from guitarist Nir Felder, who all soar above the ensemble. Rob makes some beautiful contributions on soprano saxophone (evoking his own brand of Wayne Shorter), but clearly shares the spotlight generously with the other members of the ensemble.

Several humorous miniatures offset the density of this record, and are beautifully worked into the program, offering contrast but always setting the tone for what's to follow. One of my favorite moments is the sudden emergence of a choir singing Latin gibberish on a piece called Sleepless Lullaby. It comes out of nowhere in an otherwise serious piece, but somehow feels totally natural despite its absurdity. None of us had any idea what he had in mind when he handed us a sheet of lyrics on the session and asked us all to sing, and to hear this emerge from something so seemingly silly is quite astonishing.

A CD like The Tortoise is the product of literally thousands of hours of difficult, soul-searching work. It's no wonder so few people know about Rob, as he has clearly had something profound on his mind since getting here, and is one of the most hard-working and dedicated people I know.

Storytime will be having a CD release concert on October 3rd. Here'sthe info:

* Friday, October 3rd, 7:30pm
* Third Street Music, NYC, 235 East 11th Street (near 2nd ave)
* No Admission, Limited Seating, CD's $15

Go to www.robmosher.com to hear clips of the CD and to get information on how to order it.

Kucinich on the Wall Street bailout

2008-09-23T13:58:00.000-07:00

This just landed in my mailbox this morning. I think it's really important that the Wall Street collapse be seen in a larger context.

Protecting the public interest in any economic "bailout"

Dear Friend,

The U.S. government has been turned into an engine that accelerates the wealth upwards into the hands of a few. The Wall Street bailout, the Iraq War, military spending, tax cuts to the rich, and a for-profit health care system are all about the acceleration of wealth upwards. And now, the American people are about to pay the price of the collapse of the $513 trillion Ponzi scheme of derivatives. Yes, that’s half a quadrillion dollars. Our first trillion dollar compression bandage will hardly stem the hemorrhaging of an unsustainable Ponzi scheme built on debt "de-leverages."

Does anyone seriously think that our public and private debts of some $45 trillion will be paid? That the administration's growth of the federal debt from $5.6 trillion to $9.8 trillion while borrowing another trillion dollars from Social Security has nothing to do with this? Does anyone not see that when we spend nearly $16,000 for every family of four in our society for the military each year that we are heading over the cliff?

This is a debt crisis, not a credit crisis. Just as FDR had to save capitalism after Wall Street excesses, we have to re-invigorate our economy with real - not imaginary - growth. It does not address the never-ending war on the middle class.

The same corporate interests that profited from the closing of U.S. factories, the movement of millions of jobs out of America, the off-shoring of profits, the out-sourcing of workers, the crushing of pension funds, the knocking down of wages, the cancellation of health care benefits, the sub-prime lending are now rushing to Washington to get money to protect themselves.

The double standard is stunning: their profits are their profits, but their losses are our losses.

This bailout will not bring real jobs back to America. It will not bring back jobs that make things. It does not rebuild our schools, streets, neighborhoods, parks or bridges. The major product of this financial economy is now debt. Industrial capitalism has been destroyed.
In the next few days I will push for a plan that includes equity for every American in any taxpayer investment in this so-called bail-out plan. Since the bailout will cost each and every American about $2,300, I have proposed the creation of a United States Mutual Trust Fund, which will take control of $700 billion in stock assets, convert those assets to shares, and distribute $2,300 worth of shares to new individual savings accounts in the name of each and every American.
I will also insist that all of the following issues be considered in whatever Congress passes:

1. Reinstatement of the provisions of Glass-Steagall, which forbade speculation
2. Re-regulation of the finance, insurance, and real estate industries
3. Accountability on the part of those who took the companies down:
a) resignations of management
b) givebacks of executive compensation packages
c) limitations on executive compensation
d) admission by CEO's of what went wrong and how, prior to any government bailout
4. Demands for transparencey
a) with respect to analyzing the transactions which took the companies down
b) with respect to Treasury's dealings with the companies pre and post-bailout
5. An equity position for the taxpayers
a) some form of ownership of assets
6. Some credible formula for evaluating the price of the assets that the government is buying.
7. A sunset clause on the legislation
8. Full public disclosure by members of Congress of assets held, with possible conflicts put in blind trust.
9. A ban on political campaign contributions from officers of corporations receiving bailouts
10. A requirement that 2008 cycle candidates return political contributions to officers and representatives of corporations receiving bailouts

And, most importantly, some mechanism for direct assistance to homeowners saddled with unreasonable or unmanageable mortgages, as well as protection for renters who have lived up to their obligation but fall victim to financial tragedy when the property they live in undergoes foreclosure.

These are just some thoughts on the run. You will hear more from me tomorrow.

Dennis J Kucinich
www.Kucinich.us
216-252-9000 877-933-6647

Inadvertent Songs on WNYC's New Sounds

2008-09-17T14:51:00.000-07:00

Words Project II was featured recently on the WNYC program New Sounds,hosted by Jon Schaefer. The program was called Inadvertant Songs and also featured Gabriel Kahane, who has been a huge influence in some of my more adventurous text settings over the past two years. As you can imagine, the program is about composers using unlikely texts in their music, and featured my setting of Caitlin Upton's grand moment in the 2006 Miss Teen USA pageant.

To listen to the program, which features some great new music, go here.

Words Project II podcast

2008-09-12T08:28:00.000-07:00

Jacob Paul, New Amsterdam Records' new "man on the street", has put up a podcast based on an interview we did about my new record. It's available here.

9/11

2008-09-11T05:40:00.000-07:00

Tears -Alena Synkova

And thereafter come...
tears,
without them
there is no life

Tears---
inspired by grief
tears
that fall like rain.

Words Project II review on jazzchicago.net

2008-09-09T04:33:00.000-07:00

Review by Brad Walseth

I had a sinking feeling that something was missing from my life, but couldn't put a finger on it until I put Sam Sadigursky's "Word Project II" on to listen and I remembered the power that words have to bring beauty and meaning into life. Of course this force can be amplified by combining it with great music, and Sadigursky, whose first Words Project was a revelation and one of the better releases of 2007, is back with another release that may even surpass the first one.

The original project centered around translations of Eastern European poets, while the new release only offers one in this category: "The Sea and the Man" by Anna Swir. Instead, there are two African American written poems, "Therapy" by Audre Lorde and "The Dream Keeper" by Langston Hughes; "The War Works Hard" by Iraqi-American Dunya Mikhail, and poems by two well-known Western poets, the late David Ignatow ("No Theory") and Sadi Ranson Polizzotti ("Such Fruit - The Ritual"). These "serious" works are countered by three darkly humorous entries from noted "troublemaker" Andrew Boyd's book Daily Afflictions (as opposed to "affirmations"), and a transcription of Miss Teen U.S.A. contestant, Caitlin Upton's convoluted response to a question posed to her during the pageant.

Many of the same participants appear on this new recording: Nate Radley on guitar and banjo; Pete Rende on keyboards; Eivind Opsvik on bass, and are joined by drummer Bill Campbell to form the core group (percussionist Richie Brashay is added on three tracks, and soprano saxophonists Daniel Blake and Jeremy Udden appear on one). Sadigursky himself plays saxophones, clarinet, piccolo, percussion, keyboards and more. Singers Monika Heidemann and Becca Stevens reprise their roles, providing different vocal while Wendy Gilles joins in replacing Heather Masse. The continuity adds to the recording and things sound even more focused and relaxed.

"Paths" starts things off in a darkly compelling manner with its cynical look at self-help tracts, while Polizzotti's �Such Fruit - The Ritual" is a lovely number that perfectly captures the longing and ambivalence of romance. Meanwhile, track three, Ignatow's "No Theory" will have you dancing and singing along to a song that features not your usual words and sentiments you would never expect in such a cheery musical number. Hughes' "The Dream Keeper" is given a delicate treatment that suits these beautiful lines well.

"Miss Teen U.S.A." is again humorous in a dark way, with the indecipherable lines fitting the jazz groove like beat poetry. And Sadigursky is able to write music that corresponds tightly to Andrew Boyd's wryly sardonic insights on "It Takes a Nail" and "Indecision."

The subtle "The Sea and the Man" may be the centerpiece of the album with lines like "You will not tame this sea either by humility or rapture, but you can laugh in its face," seeming to express the sentiments of Sadigursky's entire project. The haunting "The War Works Hard" features the poet herself over an appropriately swirling freeform morass. The jazzy outro is Audre Lorde's "Therapy" with a single saxophone accompanying the singer. A delightful ending to a work that fuses the sadness and joy inherent in life and filters them through the beauty and absurdity of life in a way that helps me remember why I love both music and words so much.

Words Project II review on Courant

2008-09-09T04:29:00.001-07:00

Words Project II - Sam Sadigursky (New Amsterdam) - Saxophonist-composer Sadigusrky has created a compelling second recording that, like the first, takes poems and puts them to original melodies. I truly enjoyed his initial endeavor (read my review here) and hoped his next recording would be as impressive.

In fact, it's better. Whereas his choice of poems shows sensitivity equal to "Words Project I", the music seems better integrated with the words - actually, I believe the melodies are stronger (and they were really good on the first disc.)

Sadigursky's choice of material comes from poets well-known (Langston Hughes, David Ignatow, and Audre Lorde) and writers new to me (Andrew Boyd, former Miss Teen U.S.A. contestant Caitlin Upton, Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti, Anna Swir and Dunya Mikhail.) The track that stands out immediately upon first listening is Mikhail's "The War Works Hard". The Iraqi-born poet, currently living in Michigan, reads her own work. Amidst sounds of war and a dirge-like melody, the piece seems like an answer to the question "War - what is it good for?" The answer is not pretty but the poet writes "How magnificent the war is!/How eager and efficient!" and goes on to explain how it gives work to grave diggers, ambulances, orphanages, etc. To read the entire text, click here.

Caitlin Upton is, perhaps, best known for her convoluted answer to a question asked during a recent Miss Teen U.S.A. contest. The question, which opens the track "Miss Teen U.S.A.", reads "Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't find the U.S. on a world map. Why do think this is?" The reply is, at best, elliptical, and incredibly strange. The music, anchored by Bill Campbell's active drumming and Pete Rende's subtle Fender Rhodes piano phrases, has the feel of 1970s British fusion (Hatfield & The North) right down to Wendy Gilles's straightforward vocal.

Monika Heidemann takes the lead on Hughes' "The Dream Keeper." It's a beautiful ballad,sounding not unlike a traditional Scottish song Sadigursky's clarinet swoops up around the vocal while Rende creates a drone on pump organ and Nate Radley picks gentle lines on the banjo. Becca Stevens is the 3rd vocalist featured on the recording and her gentle reading of Ranson-Polizzotti's "Such Fruit - The Ritual" is bolstered by the active bass lines from Eivind Opsvik and rich piano chords from Rende. The leader's soprano saxophone tone bring Wayne Shorter to mind as does his declaratory solo lines.

Throughout the CD, Sadigursky often serves a second voice to the vocalists, sometimes in unison with them, creating an echo effect. His sonic shadowing not only provides depth for the voices but also creates fascinating colors - on "The Sea and the Man", there are moments when it's hard to differentiate between his tenor and Gilles' voice.

Each track, even the very short (1:24) "Therapy" that closes the program, is well thought-out. There's no hint of slapping this recording together just to get it on the market. From the title, one realizes it's really about the "words" but much of this music could stand on its own ("The Sea..." starts out with a sweet bass line, creating a feeling not unlike a piece Gill Evans might have created for Miles Davis.) This music is not about technical facility or long solos or vocals that "stop the show"; instead the music gives added strength to the words, makes them stand out more because one is compelled to listen closely.

For more information, go to www.samsadigursky.com or www.newamsterdamrecords.com (where you can listen to and/or buy all the tracks.)

I like the cover art, too, a reproduction of "Leaping Kiss" by Chilean-born artist Pablo Campos. Click on his name to see more of his engrossing work.

Words Project II now available

2008-09-08T17:57:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to announce that Words Project II is now available at New Amsterdam Records.

This is from their press release:

After receiving international acclaim and a spot on Time Out New York's Top Ten CD's of 2007 with his first CD, Sam Sadigursky has released his second CD of poetry and text settings, Words Project II, today on New Amsterdam Records. Featuring much of the same cast of singers and musicians as his first CD, his new effort is a substantial departure in character and mood from his previous work. From the darkly comic and strangely philisophical settings of Andrew Boyd's Daily Afflictions, an ambitious and politically-conscious spoken word setting of Dunya Mikhail's The War Works Hard, a touchingly serene setting of Langston Hughes' The Dream Keeper, and a sardonic setting of Caitlin Upton's infamous response in the 2006 Miss Teen U.S.A. pageant, this CD will certainly take listeners on a unique journey that defies convention.

Brad Walseth at Jazzchicago.net has already caught on:

"I had a sinking feeling that something was missing from my life, but couldn't put a finger on it until I put Sam Sadigursky's Words Project II on to listen and I remembered the power that words have to bring beauty and meaning into life. Of course this force can be amplified by combining it with great music, and Sadigursky, whose first Words Project was a revelation and one of the better releases of 2007, is back with another release that may even surpass the first one."

Richard Kamins at courant.com also had some very nice things to say about Words Project II:

"From the title, one realizes it's really about the "words" but much of this music could stand on its own ("The Sea..." starts out with a sweet bass line, creating a feeling not unlike a piece Gill Evans might have created for Miles Davis.) This music is not about technical facility or long solos or vocals that "stop the show"; instead the music gives added strength to the words, makes them stand out more because one is compelled to listen closely."

To purchase the album now or stream it for free, head over to the New Amsterdam site.

September 11 concerts

2008-09-05T07:43:00.000-07:00

I'm really honored to have been selected to curate four performances on Sept. 11th, all of which are part of the September Concert series, which commemorate the anniversary of the attacks in 2001. There will be privately sponsored concerts in all corners of the world, including many here in New York City. All events are free and open to the public.

Here is the info:

Marta Topferova duo.
1560 Broadway (@46th)
1-3 PM

Becca Stevens duo
200 Varick (@ King)
1-3 PM

Sofia Tosello duo
630 9th Ave. (44th and 45th)
1-3 PM

Sam Sadigursky trio (featuring Jorge Roeder and Tommy Crane)
230 5th Ave (@ 27th)
1-3 PM

sometimes you have to love being a musician

2008-09-03T16:41:00.000-07:00

this is priceless.

leave that bottle on the shelf

2008-09-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

Walking in NYC yesterday I was so pleased to see that an organization (whose identity seems to be secret) has started plastering signs around the city condemning bottled-water consumption as wasteful and unnecessary. I think the reasons are quite compelling, especially given the new awareness of our society's oil dependence, and hope that we can see some state or municipal action against it in the near future.

TEN REASONS NOT TO BUY BOTTLED WATER

Since 1976 there has been an increase of 1625% in the consumption of bottled water. In 2006 people in the US consumed 8.25 billion gallons of bottled water, or 30 billion actual bottles, a 9.5% increase from the year before.[i]

1. Research shows that bottled water is not purer than tap water. Recently, Pepsi was forced to admit that its bottled water, Aquafina, is actually certified tap water. 60-70% of bottled water is tap water with carbonation, seltzer, etc. In fact, an “estimated 25 to 40 percent of bottled water really is just tap water in a bottle—sometimes further treated, sometimes not.”[ii] According to the National Resources Defense Council, 25-40% of bottled water is tap water that has been treated, but sometimes not.
2. Tap water is regulated by the EPA, and is tested 3 to 4 times DAILY; bottled water is regulated by the FDA, and is tested once a week at the most. A recent Cast Western Reserve report found that 15 of 19 samples of bottled water had bacterial counts almost 2 times as high as Cleveland tap water.[iii]
3. If bottled water is derived in-state, then there may be no regulation. One in five states have no regulations for bottled water “made” in that state; there are no requirements that bottled water has to ban e-coli or fecal matter.
4. More water is used in making the plastic bottle that holds the bottled water than is in the bottle. At Coke’s India plants according to the company’s own report “3.9 liters of water are needed to produce each liter of beverage” because of the need to wash bottles, floors, and equipment in addition to the water used in the drink itself. Coke has 50 plants in India, using “hundreds of thousands of liters of water” per day.[iv]
5. The cost is much more: $1-$1.50 per bottle = $10/gallon for bottled water vs. $.04-$.05 per gallon for tap water. In Los Angeles you get 450 gallons of tap water for the price of one bottle of Evian![v]
6. The environmental impact is great. Bottled water impacts stream and river flows by drawing down water, reducing the water for vegetation, bird and animal needs. Bottled water is connected to global warming, using huge amounts of fossil fuels to manufacture and transport them bottles. The National Resources Defense Council estimates that 4000 tons of carbon dioxide is produced yearly—which is equivalent to the emissions of 700 cars yearly—by importing bottled water alone, not to mention the amount produced by transportation in the US.[vi]
7. It takes 1.5 million barrels of crude oil to create the plastic in one’s year’s supply. That would fuel 100,000 cars a year. Distribution requires the equivalent of 37,800 18 wheel trucks.[vii]
8. Plastic bottles create 2.7 billion pounds of plastic garbage in the US per year![viii]
9. There are cheaper alternatives: a carafe (e.g. Brita) = $.31/gallon; faucet filter = $.34/gallon; undersink filter = $.42/gallon
10. Coke and Pepsi bottled water factories in India (one of the largest sources) draw water from aquifers, depleting the water for farmers in the surrounding areas.

[i] “The High Price of Bottled Water,” The Week, 7 Sept., 2007; Bryan Walsh, “Back to the Tap,” Time, 9 Aug., 2007.

[ii]. Quoted in Cameron Woodworth, “A Clean Drink of Water: Choices and

Responsibilities,” Sound Consumer (August 2006), 4.

[iii]“The High Price of Bottled Water,” The Week, 7 Sept., 2007.

[iv] “Around the Globe,” Seattle Times, 22 Sept. 2006.

[v] “The High Price of Bottled Water,” The Week, 7 Sept. 2007.

[vi]Brian Walsh, “Back to the Tap,” Time, 9 Aug., 2007.

[vii]“The High Price of Bottled Water,” The Week, 7 Sept. 2007; Editorial, “In Praise of Tap Water,” The New York Times, 1 Aug., 2007.

[viii] Bryan Walsh, “Back to the Tap,” Time, 9 Aug., 2007.

Information on Water Conservation:

www.h2ouse.org

www.wateraware.org

www.wateruseitwisely.com

www.weathertrak.com

www.friendsofwater.com

www.smarter.com

www.watersavingtips.com

WATER FACTS

–The minimum amount of water that the average person needs daily for drinking, cooking, bathing and sanitation is 13 gallons. The average person in the U.S. uses between 65 to 78 gallons of water daily.

–Gallons of water needed to produce:

One pound of potatoes – 100 gallons

One pound of rice – 340 gallons

One pound of chicken – 460 gallons

One pound of beef – 4200 gallons

One 6 inch silicon wafer (computer) – 1892 gallons

One gallon of gasoline – 9 gallons

One average US automobile – 39,000 gallons

Gabriel Kahane on WNYC Soundcheck

2008-09-01T07:26:00.000-07:00

Gabe Kahane, Rob Moose, and I appeared on WNYC Soundcheck last week, promoting Gabe's upcoming record on Wasted Storefront/Family Records. There's going to be a record release show this month at the Zipper Factory in Midtown, followed by a tour in November.

Listen to the segment here.

Words Project II bonus track

2008-08-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

There's a bonus track from Words Project II, which will be out on New Amsterdam in September. It features Monika Heidemann, and due to reasons beyond my control won't be on the CD. Feel free to listen to it and/or download it here.

Beauty

2008-08-10T18:31:00.000-07:00

"I cannot believe that the artist who establishes beauty as his fundamental approach to art can go very far wrong. No one denies that beauty is broad in scope, so broad that no single lifetime could encompass more than a small part of it. The great danger lies in allowing beauty to get bogged down in personal opinions, trends, and isms, in narrowing our individual understanding to the dogmas prated by the few. Beauty must be free, belonging individually to you and me, as far as we are capable of grasping it. Beauty is all around us, waiting to be discovered, and every artist interprets it on paper or canvas in his own particular way." - Andrew Loomis, The Eye Of The Painter

Morning on the Q Train

2008-08-09T19:26:00.000-07:00

So many times I've looked around me on the train at the incredible diversity of NYC and wondered just how many stories lurk inside a single train car. So few people of this city were actually born here. Everybody seems to have a story as to how they ended up here and why they've stayed. The NY Times did a story on just this (read it here) and it has one of the coolest photographs I've ever seen, somehow stitched together from a number of photographs taken while the train crossed the Manhattan Bridge.

8/8/08 - South Ossetia

2008-08-08T18:29:00.000-07:00

It looks like another regional conflict has escalated and is taking on global proportions. Here's to the new edition of the cold war, which never really stopped.

The War Works Hard
by Dunya Mikhail
Translated by Elizabeth Winslow

How magnificent the war is!

How eager

and efficient!

Early in the morning

it wakes up the sirens

and dispatches ambulances

to various places

swings corpses through the air

rolls stretchers to the wounded

summons rain

from the eyes of mothers

digs into the earth

dislodging many things

from under the ruins...

Some are lifeless and glistening

others are pale and still throbbing...

It produces the most questions

in the minds of children

entertains the gods

by shooting fireworks and missiles

into the sky

sows mines in the fields

and reaps punctures and blisters

urges families to emigrate

stands beside the clergymen

as they curse the devil

(poor devil, he remains

with one hand in the searing fire)...

The war continues working, day and night.

It inspires tyrants

to deliver long speeches

awards medals to generals

and themes to poets

it contributes to the industry

of artificial limbs

provides food for flies

adds pages to the history books

achieves equality

between killer and killed

teaches lovers to write letters

accustoms young women to waiting

fills the newspapers

with articles and pictures

builds new houses

for the orphans

invigorates the coffin makers

gives grave diggers

a pat on the back

and paints a smile on the leader's face.

It works with unparalleled diligence!

Yet no one gives it

a word of praise.

Copyright © 2005 by Dunya Mikhail and Elizabeth Winslow. From The War Works Hard. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing.

Becca Stevens

2008-08-06T17:28:00.000-07:00

Nate Chinen did a great article on Becca Stevens in the New York Times over the weekend. Read it here. Becca is definitely one of the most uniquely talented and dedicated people I know. She has a new, self-released record out that's fantastic, and is also featured on three songs on Words Project II, which will be released on New Amsterdam Records in September. Catch Becca tomorrow night (8/7) at Barbes.

internet fads

2008-08-05T19:24:00.000-07:00

Things seem to pass so fast on the internet, especially the various social-networking websites that seem to be all the rave of anybody under forty. I tend to be pretty uninspired (maybe even a little bit intimidated, frightened, and lazy too) by things that beckon me to spend even more time online than I already do, and thus I've been relatively late to get on board with the social-networking sites of our times. One minute everybody is crazy about Friendster, then it's MySpace, only to have that replaced with Facebook, which seems to have left MySpace strangely passe in the past few months, likening it to a once indie band that is just not what it once was.

Once I stopped holding out, I remember being genuinely excited about the possibilities of MySpace... I found a few people I didn't expect to find and spent a lot of time going to people's pages, listening to their music, and would even check most every friend request that came my way, with the same hopes that people were checking mine. Just a year later, it all feels strangely dead to me, and slightly loathsome. It feels like most people have moved on, and it's become yet another e-mail account that I have to check regularly, on the off-chance that someone has used it to contact me for work, which has happened a few times and is certainly a good thing. I'm not quite sure what Facebook offers that's so different or new, but it leads me to think that maybe we're all seeking something that just can't be found online, something based more actual human warmth and connection, somewhere we can share music without it being so shrouded in self-promotion. Maybe this unsatisfied desire keeps us flocking from one site to another. Or maybe it's all just for dating... who knows? In the end, maybe we're all just excited by online presence, where we can show people what we want them to see (none of those awkward smiles that take place when we actually see people in passing), where we know people from our distant past (and maybe even that attractive person from the bar whose number we lost) can find us. For musicians today, any online presence is a good thing, so it seems hard to justify not spending an hour or two setting up a page (or a blog, shame, shame, shame). Certainly these sites are compelling in a lot of ways and still free(!), but the way in which users flock from one to the other every few months leaves me thinking that in the end, they're places that largely remind us of our loneliness (or if you're a musician using them, the fact that you might not be performing as much as you would like to). Are we really happy, absorbed, gratified being when we spend an hour modifying our profiles? What are we really expecting from all this time we spend socially-networking online?

Oh well.... off to check my latest friend requests.

food for thought

2008-08-05T19:22:00.000-07:00

It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear. -- Dick Cavett

Cannonball Adderley

2008-08-02T21:50:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, after having spent way to many consecutive hours traveling in subways, cars, airplanes, and vans, Frank Basile and I had one of those conversations most people stop having when they're fourteen years old, one that began, "If you could play in a frontline with any other horn player, living or dead, who would it be?". Pretty dorky, I know, but then again, if you're reading this blog, likely indoors on a beautiful, sunny day, it might be time to make some similar personal admissions.... However, it was something I hadn't really thought about, and pretty entertaining to mine jazz history for an answer.

Somehow, Cannonball Adderley has consistently come into my world over the years, and ended up the object of my adolescent fantasy that day. There are so few improvisers who've been able to combine such an combination of elegance, virtuosity, unpredictability, lyricalness, blues, and swing like he did. Every time I hear him, he still sounds modern to me and totally surprises me in how he weaves in and out of changes, even just simple turnarounds. He had one of the most distinct alto and soprano sounds in the history of the saxophone, and conveys such a profound joy in his playing, no matter what the material. This man could make you cry and smile at the same time, and thankfully a few YouTube videos have surfaced recently and allow us to watch him in action. Most people know him for the Miles Davis albums he was on, and later for the original recording (and memorable pre-tune monologue) of Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, but check out the stuff in between and you'll definitely find one of the hippest bandleaders of the sixties and seventies. Much of what Joe Zawinul later did with Weather Report certainly came out of Cannonball's band, and even the more commercial ventures that Cannonball released as a solo artist are incredibly compelling and inspired.

There's a pretty impressive tribute site and discography here.