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1st Y2k5 pictures and DAY ONE AND DAY TWO's concerts
Hi everyone,
Phil Zurrigo took a picture of the Loop Bus while
Andy Butler, Bernhard Wagner and I taught a the Electronic Music
History class at the University of California at Santa Cruz today.
We cracked up when we saw it!
We did a lecture demonstration on the history and technology of live
looping.
It was lot of fun!
Later, Phil, Ryusei, Hideki and I drove to San Francisco where
Phil, Hideki and I did mostly avante garde live looping performance at the
Luggage Store.
I played an improv set with Matt Davignon on drum machine (please go out
and
buy BWOO, it's a really unique
and extremely creative CD) and the Hideki came and joined us playing the
amazing
'daxaphone' which is an instrument that I saw him play in Kyoto at the
looping festival there earlier this summer.
He is an incredible craftsperson and has a factory that makes the
beautiful
electric mandolins that he plays in concert.
This instrument is just a piece of then hardwood, carved like a dagger
that
has a pickup on it.
You play it with a bow and 'fret' it with a wooden 'slide' that has frets
on
the bottom of it in a curved shape.
In this way you can roll the 'slide' over the board and it tunes the wood
as
you bow it.
It sounds uncannily human; almost like little boys and girls who are
making
nonsense sounds. It's extremely expressive and
Hideki played it while I processed him in the EDP and the Repeater.
I was so blown away when I saw it that I asked him if he'd consider making
me one for me to buy.
Well, he blew my mind when he got to our home in Santa Cruz and unvailed a
beautiful one, replete with a piezo pickup and a stand and case.
It was a present and I was floored. Consequently, it was wonderful
for me to hear him play it tonight. He's really good on the thing.
I know because I shedded it a little today and can hardly make any thing
interseting come out of it.
Afterwards, Phil Zurrigo did a really beautiful solo guitar/EDP concert.
It was really challenging harmonically and rhythmically and there were some
really beautiful moments in the piece. I especially loved a Cecil Taylor
cover that he did for his finale. His use of the EDP is just seemless
and
his guitar technique is really wonderful too. I am usually very concious
about what techniques a looper is uses and tonight I just didn't notice
what
he was doing. It was that accomplished and flawless and musical. I was
really impressed I have to say. He seemed to bring a lot of joy to the
music which is not usually an emotion that I associate with rather free
jazz
influenced music. At one point he was dancing in 19/8 as he played. It
was pretty magical.
*********************************
This was day two of the Looping Fest. Yesterday, Ryusei, Hideki,
Bernhard, Andy, Bill and
Dan Soltzberg performed at the Henry Miller Gallery in Big Sur.
I was teaching a master class in rhythm at the Kuumbwa Jazz center and
wasn't able to attend so
we'll have to wait for a report about that gig from one of them.
I wanted to thank Bill (my brother) for completely running the Big Sur gig
for me this year. It was great to
add Big Sur to the Y2K5 festival this year. The Henry Miller Gallery may
be
the most beautiful place I"ve ever
played and the curator, Magnus Toren, is a wonderful man who really
supports
art. He was one of the first people
who believe in us enough to let us have one of the first live looping
festivals there several years ago.
Well, It's off to San Francisco again tomorrw where Ryusei, Hideki, Andy
and Bernhard will play at Javacat Coffee
and the, bright an early, the main festival starts on Saturday morning.
I'll try to send pictures to this URL while we keep going:
www.looppool.info/Y2K5/