Favorite Street – Bruce Ackley
RECORDINGS
Morton Feldman – Piano and String Quartet
Kronos Quartet with Aki Takahashi, piano
Nonesuch – 1993
Feldman nearly always charms and delights me, but this disc is particularly well
wrought. I keep coming back to it.
Evan Parker – withBirds
Treader – 2005
Evan put this enchanting piece together with John Coxon and Ashley Wales—known
as drum ‘n’ bass duo, Spring Heel Jack. It’s dedicated
to Steve Lacy.
Ray Nance – The Complete 1940 – 1949 Non-Ducal Violin Recordings
(featuring BEN WEBSTER on clarinet!!)
Ab Fable CD – 2005
Duck Baker turned me on to this gem. Imagine that husky and brutish tone of Webster’s
tenor but on Bb clarinet. The 7 clarinet tracks from a swing jam session in 1941
included on this CD are ear-opening and the only known recordings of Ben Webster
on clarinet. Nance, as usual, is cool too.
FILMS
Harlan County, U.S.A.
– Barbara Kopple (1976)
Criterion recently issued this Academy Award winning documentary film, first released
in 1977. Kopple created a chilling and intimate story of working class Americans
in the throes of a modern labor struggle in rural Kentucky. It’s gorgeously
shot and the music she used is great too.
Wanda – Barbara Loden (1971)
Written, directed by and starring Barbara Loden, this realistic and startling portrait
is akin to John Cassavetes best work—but perhaps better. It’s the only
film Loden directed (although she played Warren Beaty’s sister in Spleandor
in the Grass).
Black Narcissus – Michael Powell (1947)
British director Powell was the creator of The Red Shoes, and this movie
has some of that same surprising exoticism. The acting, lighting and sets all make
it worth seeing.
BOOKS
Slowly – Lyn Hejinian
Tuumba Press – 2002
I’ve slowly come to this—another deeply engaging piece by a very special
poet.
Steve Lacy: Conversations – Jason Weiss
Duke University Press – 2006
Second to Lacy’s solo recordings, his interviews over the years have provided
the clearest insights about his thinking. The editor has put together some of his
best talk, and has delivered a valuable rendering of Lacy’s development as
an artist.
Harmony Book – Elliott Carter
Carl Fischer – 2002
I’m struggling to really swing with this, but always get a fresh look at intervals
and note schemes after spending time with this compositional master’s compendium
of chords and intervals.
The Grand Piano – Parts 1 & 2
San Francisco, 1975-1980
An Experiment in Collective Autobiography
Mode A – Detroit 2006 and 2007
These are the first two volumes of what will be a 10 book piece chronicling some
creative adventures and interactions of a group of innovative writers who called
San Francisco home during this period. Rova was born in this era, and these writers
give us an informed view of times shared 30 years ago.
VIDEO
Cheese and Crackers - Chris Haslam and Daewon Song
Touted as ‘not your average skate video’ this over-the-top slice of
skateboard virtuosity is a breathtaking balletic duet by some awesome skate dudes.
Favorite Street – Bruce Ackley
Our family recently had the fortune to acquire a beautiful new upright piano, so
I’ve been playing it and listening piano recordings a lot. Here are some notable
pieces in the Western ‘classical’ tradition—many of which have
been long-time favorites, but which each sound fresh thanks to our recent addition.
- Karlheinz Stockhausen
Klavierstucke I – XI
Herbert Henck – piano
There is a progression from Stockhausen’s earliest compositional ideas at
the start of the 1950s to his those in his boundless imagination by mid-decade which
is evident in this cycle of piano pieces. I’ve been listening to Aloys Kontarsky
as recorded in 1966, but Henck’s recordings are great and they’re available.
His music makes the piano sound.
- Arnold Schönberg
The Piano Music
Maurizio Pollini - piano
Here too the progression is clear, as these pieces span the composer’s career
and follow his departure from classical tonality, exploration of atonality and development
of his 12-tone technique. The clarity of these performances brings one into the
composer’s universe.
- Pierre Boulez
Piano Sonatas Nos. 1 - 3
Idil Biret –piano
Biret is a powerful and sensitive performer, and these works are truly unique. Boulez
piano music is confrontational and the complexity of his language fits comfortably
on the instrument. This version is really inexpensive too.
- Alexander Scriabin
The Complete Piano Sonatas
Ruth Loredo – piano
The real deal here is the pentultimate sonata, No. 9 “Black Mass”. Majestic,
transcendental and iconoclastic, this is a masterpiece; but Scriabin’s last
piano pieces (after the last Sonata) are even more personal.
- Charles Ives
The "Concord" Sonata
John Kirkpatrick, piano
This wall of Ives is his Second Piano Sonata, and it embodies all the characteristics
of his orchestral and chamber music: massive fields of free tonality which reveal,
through palimpsest, layers of familiar themes and pastoral scenes. Hearing it all
on the piano gets one inside the ideas.
- Fredric Rzewski
The People United Will Never Be Defeated
Ursula Oppens - piano
Following up Ives with Rzewski makes a lot of sense because these musics traverse
much of the same emotional and conceptual territory, and get you easily from first
part of the 20th century to the last. Oppens is spectacular here, though you can
also check out the composer performing this piece on a hatArt release.
- Terry Riley
The Harp of New Albion
Terry Riley – piano
This is a suite of 11 pieces for piano in ‘just intonation’ (the piano
tuning based on the harmonic series) rather than the normal tuning in 12 equal half
steps to the octave. Some of the intervals, therefore, are seemingly ‘out
of tune’ and make for a startling listening experience. Riley improvised much
of what we hear, although portions of each section are composed and planned out.
- Olivier Messiaen
Vingt Regards Sur L’Enfant Jésus
Peter Serkin – piano
Messiaen’s compositional themes of asymmetrical time signatures, personally
designed modes and characteristic interplay of intervals all permeate this music
and contribute to one of his most successful works. John Ogden also made a great
recording of this, though it might be harder to find.
- John Cage
Music for Keyboard 1935-1948
Jeanne Kirstein – piano
These pieces are performed on conventional piano, prepared piano or toy piano. The
lyricism and inventiveness of them make them fresh and powerful still. While some
of the pieces bring to mind other musics, they stand alone with their own integrity.
Required listening.
TWO FILMS
On and Off the Record
These films, made by the National Film Board of Canada in 1959 and now available
as a single DVD, make for a fascinating portrait of pianist Glenn Gould. The footage
is great, giving us a chance to see his creativity at full force, and his congenial
manner at its most magnetic. Really good stuff.
Favorite Street – Bruce Ackley
Recordings:
The seminal music of Archie Shepp has been front and center for me in the past couple
of months. Although his tenor sound is never far away from my imagination, I’ve
been especially focused on it lately. Below are listed the classic recordings (most
of which are available on CD) that have been an inspiration to me, all of which
were recorded on the Impulse label in the 1960s.
Fire Music
I think this was Shepp’s first Impulse record from 1964. Reggie Workman is
the bassist. The tune Los Olvidados was where I first heard about Buñuel’s
Mexican films. (The movie of that title is very powerful.)
Four for Trane
This is a masterpiece, due in part to the thoughtful arrangements of Roswell Rudd.
John Tchicai is brilliant here too. The Trane tunes are more nuanced here, brought
into sharper harmonic focus with four horns. When poet/activist John Sinclair was
honored at San Francisco’s City Hall in 2005, the head of the Board of Supervisors,
Matt Gonzalez played this record over a lunch served in his office.
On This Night
Christine Spencer’s soprano is especially engaging, and provides an unexpected
prelude to a very slippery Shepp blues. “In a Sentimental Mood” is the
best reading of that song I’ve ever heard.
Live in San Francisco and Three for a Quarter,
One for a Dime
These two albums are two sets played during an evening at the old Both/And Club
on Divisadero. “Live” is the first set and offers a variety of settings
for Shepp and Co. to work – blues, ballad, poetry, R & B; “Three
for a Quarter” is all out terror on tenor. Shepp stretches in the most vicious
way for the whole set. No one else has a word to say.
Mama Too Tight
This is large band complete with clarinet, trumpet, 2 trombones and tuba along with
the rhythm section. The music is dense and rich, with voices emerging from layers
of riffs and gorgeous melody. The title track is a solid sender.
The Way Ahead
"Damn If I Know (The Stroller)"...
My intention is not to give an overview of Archie Shepp’s music, but to cite
his groundbreaking work that has lead the way for me. I regret that I’m out
of touch with his current work, but would love to know what’s worked artistically
for him in the intervening years. Anyone know?
Favorite Street – Bruce Ackley
Remnant 2009 San Francisco photo: Ackley
Ackley’s Mixed Media Favorites
Lee Konitz
Conversations on the Improviser’s Art
Andy Hamilton
University of Michigan Press
Interviews with musicians often bore me, largely because interviewers can’t
figure out how to get at the good stuff that most creative artists have to share,
which they often don’t know how to express themselves. Andy Hamilton has put
together a series of relaxed and candid conversations with one of the true originals
of jazz, alto saxophonist Lee Konitz. The book has been engaging and offers a glimpse
into the creative process of this committed artist.
Tristano's historic 1955recording date at the Sing Song Room
Lennie Tristano Quartet
Live at the Sing Song Room, NYC, 1955
Atlantic Records
Reading interviews with Konitz pulled me back to my favorite recordings of his including,
of course, Motion (1961 w/Elvin Jones!), and the 1955 live recording of
the Lennie Tristano Quartet at the NYC Sing Song Room where Lee’s inventiveness
is at one of his many peaks. Unfortunately, word has it that the CD transfer for
the date is not good, so look for the LP.
Maya Lin – Systematic Landscapes
famsf.org/deyoung/
Working from computer generated models of the topography of the San Francisco Bay
Area, architect and artist Maya Lin has created sculptures and room sized installations
which bring the magnitude of our local environment down to the scale of the human
body. The work is at once delicate filigreed and rhythmically dynamic. Systematic
Landscapes is at the de Young Museum in San Francisco until January 18.
The Grand Piano – Part 7
An Experiment in Collective Autobiography
Mode A
The seventh part (of 10) of this collaborative personal history, which comes out
of the writing and times of ten writers who intersected in the Bay Area during the
1970s, is now available. The writers participated in readings at the Grand Piano,
a Haight-Ashbury café, and were a part of the cultural milieu of the era.
In the current volume Lyn Hejinian chronicles circumstances around the inception
of Rova and makes connections between the early impulses which led to the formation
of the quartet and other artistic streams and traditions.
Small Press Distribution in
Berkeley is a great place to get hard to find publications by adventurous writers,
including The Grand Piano series.
Plays Monk
In December Rova played opposite the pianoless trio of Ben Goldberg (clarinet),
Devin Hoff (bass) and Scott Amandola (drums) known as ‘Plays Monk’ at
a Berkeley show. Unlike most journeymen jazz musicians who do Monk tunes by playing
the head and then blow in a somewhat stiff and doctrinaire manner on the changes,
the trio delivered breathtaking readings of several of Monk’s perfect compositions:
they were spot on from the rendering of the heads to the extrapolation of the forms.
While true to the ‘changes’ (both rhythmically and harmonically), these
monastics spoke with their own, substantially developed and original voices throughout.
Find and get their CD.
Barack Obama Quartet: The White House Tour
A followup to his 2000 hit recording, Advise and Consent, Obama continues
to fulfill the promises of his earlier work and should be topping the charts for
the next eight years. Sound relief at long last.
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