 |  Music: Music blog | guardian.co.ukArticles published by guardian.co.uk Music about: Music blog http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog рекомендовать друзьям >> |
- 50 great moments in jazz: Anthony Braxton swims against the tide
A Coltrane devotee who liked Brubeck's Take Five? Anthony Braxton has always been at odds with orthodox jazz thinking
In the 1980s, after a period of eclipse by fusion, more traditional approaches to jazz were in resurgence – a subject I'll return to in the next blog in relation to the arrival of Wynton Marsalis. But if "classic jazz" (particularly in its bebop manifestations) gained a new respectability during the decade, some uncompromising jazz-inspired artists were determined to resist what they saw as a betrayal of innovation and change.
One of the most implacable and prolific of jazz contrarians has been Anthony Braxton, a multi-instrumentalist and composer from Chicago. Braxton, a master of most instruments in the saxophone and clarinet families, has followed no advice as to whose face fits as a jazz influence – he cites John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy as inspirations for a performer maturing in the 60s free-jazz era, but also such restrained "cool school" players as Dave Brubeck's Paul Desmond, and 20th-century compositional iconoclasts Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage.
Braxton's music can be brittle, fierce, even impenetrably complex, and his methods so radical as to require a notational language of his own invention that only a small group of players can interpret. But he has also explored traditional jazz materials – particularly Charlie Parker's and Thelonious Monk's – with affection, empathy, vision and his own kind of eloquent lyricism. A prolific composer, Braxton has written hundreds of pieces (many of them with simply opus numbers as titles) for everything from solo performance to interpretation by full orchestras, and he has collaborated with experimental musicians worldwide – particularly in the UK and in Europe, where he has been a significant inspiration to the improv avant garde.
Braxton was born in Chicago in June 1945, and went to school with two other prominent jazz artists from that city – Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman, who later came to prominence with the Art Ensemble of Chicago. But even as a young man, Braxton's eclectic tastes were at odds with orthodox jazz thinking and the avant garde. As a Coltrane devotee, he wasn't supposed to like Dave Brubeck's Take Five, but he did. As a jazz artist, he wasn't supposed to find inspiration in the work of John Cage – but after the death of Coltrane, an event that shocked and disoriented Braxton, he looked to non-jazz sources including Cage and Stockhausen for alternative ways of music-making that didn't have to involve improvisation on sequences of modes.
Braxton once observed to this writer, in 1988:
"In every other discipline, whether we're talking of mathematics, physics, or the new sciences, people are looking at extended forms. We're in a period of extended technology, new possibilities are opening up, scientists are plotting and learning more about the planets and their orbits and star systems, and this information will probably be part of the next order. Then there's what Coltrane talked about, which is music as a vehicle for understanding spiritual consciousness."
A scientist and an artist, Braxton seems content developing of his own musical galaxy. There's nobody quite like him, and if his music is the diametric opposite of easy listening, it has acted as an antidote to creative conservatism throughout his lifetime. His work has influenced contemporary artists from Americans John Zorn and pianist Marilyn Crispell, to the European avantists, and a new generation of creative musicians – including guitarist Mary Halvorson and trumpeter Taylor Ho Bynum – who are bending 21st-century music with tools of Braxton's invention.
During the 80s, Braxton often concentrated on rigorous small-group music with virtuosic interpreters including pianist Crispell, bassist John Lindberg and drummer Gerry Hemingway. The clip above shows the band in action in Spain, in 1983. And to bring the story up to date, here's the tireless iconoclast together with John Zorn, bassist/producer Bill Laswell and legendary free-jazz drummer Milford Graves, for a journey to the edge of the envelope on Zorn's own festival at the Warsaw Summer Jazz Days in 2009.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - New music: Monarchy – I Won't Let Go
They once beamed a gig into space, then it all came crashing back down to earth. Now Monarchy are back with a new deal and some stylish, synth-heavy sounds
In June 2010, enigmatic London-based electro duo Monarchy (aka producer Andrew Armstrong and Ra Black) were enjoying the fruits of a major-label deal with Mercury. They were about to release their self-titled debut album after having their first gig beamed into space (no, really). Then, things came crashing down to earth (groan) when they were dropped, the album was delayed and everything went quiet. Well, you can't keep a good electro-pop duo down. Monarchy recently signed a new deal and I Won't Let Go is one of their new tracks due out later this year. The song is a typically stylish slice of synth-heavy pop with a gargantuan chorus, while the video features an androgynous-looking boy having a breast plate drilled on to his rib cage, a cow stood in a dark room and raining cup cakes.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Ask the indie professor: Why the big fuss over Coachella festival?
Coachella not only benefits from a picturesque location, perfect climate and plum position on the calendar, it can also embellish your cyber identity. What's not to like?
Why do people make such a big deal about Coachella now?
Julianna YoungOver the past decade, destination music festivals have overtaken the touring market. While in the previous 20 years, such events were primarily the purview of Europe, Americans have finally entered the international festival circuit with significant music events such as California's Coachella, Chicago's Lollapalooza and Tennessee's Bonnaroo. As the festival calendar has become extremely crowded, bills have a generic quality.
The artist lineups look interchangeable, with the same bands playing most of them (Muse, is there a festival on Earth that you haven't headlined in the past four years?). With so many artists overlapping, it's important the destination festival become its own brand. Fans go to festivals to see specific bands and often to find new acts – but the real draw is the festival itself. People don't say: "I'm going to see the Black Keys, Kanye West or Mumford & Sons." They say: "I'm going to Coachella. I'm going to Green Man. I'm going to Benicassim." Thus, while many music festivals suggest they are eclectic, it's actually the ability of a festival to encapsulate a distinct musical point of view and/or have a track record that makes it a must-see event.
Several factors lend Coachella attendance its cultural cachet. First of all is location. Like most destination music festivals, it's far enough from the big city that fans need to commit to being away from home. The Coachella Valley, home to Palm Springs, Indian Wells, and roadrunners is about an hour and a half from Los Angeles. This means a weekend of either camping or staying in any of the hundreds of cozy, kitschy, or posh hotels that are the staple of the resort community's desert landscape. The weather tends to be between hot and perfect, so festivalgoers wear bathing suits and sunglasses.
The site itself, on the Empire Polo Grounds, is a vast expanse of green fields surrounded by palm trees, adjacent to Joshua Tree national park and with the San Jacinto mountains in the distance. It is the definition of picturesque. Or, as Lou Barlow said to me on a first visit to the site: "This is what people think Reading looks like when they are on ecstasy."
Coachella has slotted itself into the festival calendar early, which means it gives many fans and pundits the first chance to see this year's re-formed 1980s or 90s beloved cult act or get an idea of what Arcade Fire's lighting rig is going to be like. The Coachella bill's special spin reflects the history of a southern California gig circuit, as local promoter Goldenvoice puts the event on. This is why LA bands figure so largely, with Perry Farrell having performed in some fashion at nearly every one and Rage Against the Machine perennial favourites. Southern California's music scene has a tradition of punk, dance, new wave, ska and alt-rock, which is mixed with indie fare and a nod to acts that have graced the Hollywood Bow, such as Paul McCartney, Prince, or the Time. Location, timing, southern Californian branding, and a bit of celebrity shrapnel from actors who like to spend a weekend slumming make Coachella a potent trademark.
Being the early contender for first festival of the season in a globalised world of music coverage, Coachella, like other destination music festivals, increasingly serves another important social function. The destination festival provides content for the virtual presentation of self. Music performances and other social activities are fodder for producing online content for social networking.
Festival attendance becomes part of your cyber identity. A good avatar needs documentation of exclusive events, particularly events or activities that express taste, as online personas are constituted by listing your consumer preferences. By going to a Coachella, you can advertise yourself as the "type of person that goes to Coachella". The destination festival as opposed to the reproducible tour is the ultimate "I was there" event. This is why people go even when they claim that the bill sucks or seems identical to some other festival. If you are really lucky, you might just capture this year's "man in altercation with flip-flop" or whatever viral sensation emerges from using your phone to record being at a festival rather than just being there.
If you have a question for the indie professor about the music industry, indie music or academia please leave a comment below, email her at theindieprofessor@gmail.com or inquire via twitter at indiegodess.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Democrat turns to the White Stripes for inspiration
In a bid to make her point, congresswoman Donna Edwards employed the lyrics of Jack White to take the Republicans to task
It's not often that rock'n'roll springs from the floor of the House of Representatives, but that's what happened when congresswoman Donna Edwards quoted the White Stripes during her time at the podium. Railing against the Republicans during a debate about the possible shutdown of federal government, Edwards quoted the band's 2007 song Cause and Effect, saying: "I guess you have to have a problem, if you want to invent a contraption. First you cause a train wreck, then you put me in traction." The clip ends before we can see whether any devil horns were waved in response, but the shutdown was averted at the eleventh hour.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Cass McCombs – Wit's End: exclusive album stream
It's the fifth album from the mysterious Californian songwriter – so what can we learn from the man behind the music?
Five albums and one EP in, and Cass McCombs still cuts an enigmatic figure. Here's what we do know: the Californian singer-songwriter wrote some of his best songs while surfing couches and living in cars between the west and east coast of America. Even those at the label who picked McCombs up for 2007's Dropping the Writ don't seem to have got close to the man. "I won't pretend that I'll ever fully understand Cass," writes Domino Records' Kris Gillespie, giving the kind of candid account of an artist you never read in press releases.
No matter, for McCombs is an incredibly honest and perpetually driven songwriter. Wit's End floats on a sea of lugubrious guitars and laconically delivered lines that get underneath your skin, such as opener County Line, when McCombs suddenly sings: "You never really tried to love me."
Buried Alive twists the most suffocating of imagery – "When I wake up to the breath of the old, on a sea of black" – against a subdued melody and tenderly strummed guitar. On album closer A Knock Upon the Door, McCombs channels Leonard Cohen circa Songs of Love and Hate in an aureate but ominous finale to the album.
McCombs has always retained a sense of privacy in his songwriting, the kind which led Gillespie to advise listeners to enjoy Wit's End alone, late at night. When the San Francisco Chronicle described him as "delivering too much information in his songwriting, and too little in conversation", I can believe it. I've had several interview requests politely declined, and was most recently asked to write a letter to McCombs in lieu of your usual Q&A. He may make a frustrating interviewee, but better a man with little to say in front of a journalist than one with little to say in front of a microphone.
Wit's End is out now on Domino Records
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - New music: Rihanna feat Britney Spears – S&M
Thanks to the power of Twitter, here's Rihanna singing with Britney Spears about chocolate biscuits (er, possibly)
A few days ago, Rihanna asked her millions of Twitter followers who they'd like to see her collaborate with. Apparently most of them replied "Britney Spears" and now, through the wonder of crowd-sourcing and probably a few high-powered label negotiations, we have a remix of Rihanna's current single S&M featuring a whole new section sung by Britney Spears. Britney's verse carries on where her recent Femme Fatale album left off, all innuendo-laced lyrics and slightly uncomfortable (in all variations of that word) imagery: "It's your turn to hurt me/ If I'm bad tie me down/ Shut me up, gag and bound me". Considering the original was edited to remove all mention of "chains" and "whips", it's not clear whether anyone's banking on this version being played on the radio. Also, it would be hard for Rihanna to continue the claim that the song is about anything other than sadomasochistic sex, unless "feel the pain on your skin" is about tattooing and "just one night full of sin" is about watching EastEnders while overdoing the chocolate biscuits.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать
 | Саморегулируемые организации Тексты законов, аналитические обзоры, тематические статьи о СРО в строительстве и проектировании — все это собрано в этом блоге. Присоединиться → |
| rss2email.ru |
| rss2email.ru | отписаться: http://www.rss2email.ru/unsubscribe.asp?c=90855&u=756462&r=477547156 управление подпиской: http://www.rss2email.ru/manage.asp партнерская программа: http://partner.rss2email.ru/?pid=1 |
.jpg){kind=link}
