Category: Interesting stuff

This is where we put things that strike us as cool, no matter whether it has anything to do with the EMC or not.

Doing the Hartzell Hilton

We’ve been looking through some archival recordings and thought you’d like to hear some Hartzell Hilton Band music. The Hartzell Hilton Band originated when Virginia Anderson and Jane Aldred agreed that there was far too little music for that fantastic little instrument, the Eb clarinet. And what made a fantastic ensemble was to add two violists, Michael Newman and Karen Demmel, a pianist, Christopher Hobbs, and a marimba/vibraphone player, Simon Allen. The Hartzell Hilton Band was named after a house in Redlands, California, owned by the composer Barney Childs. Childs hosted so many composers and performers at this house, on Hartzell Avenue, that he called it ‘the Hartzell Hilton’. Newman, Demmel, and Hobbs had stayed at the Hartzell Hilton; Anderson often lived there, so Newman gave the band its name.

The track that we’re sharing is from one of two classic Hartzell Hilton Band concerts: a concert at Lauderdale House, Hampstead, London, on 4 July 1988 (the other was in the Picture Gallery at Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham). The concert programme included two pieces by Hobbs, two by John White, one by Newman, one by Michael Parsons, one by Childs, an arrangement of Lol Coxhill tunes by Hobbs, and a piece by Hugh Shrapnel. The date of Fourth of July was accidental, but it was used in their advertising for the concert. We haven’t found that advertising in our files yet, but it stated that as it was American Independence Day, the Hartzell Hilton Band would play no American music…ah, yes, one, Barney Childs, but as an alumnus of Oxford, he was an honorary Brit. The programme ended, ‘Happy American Independence Day’.

 

New York Downtown in the 1980s

It’s amazing how sometimes two things come along that go together — maybe not a match, but one follows along from another, comments on it, contradicts it maybe. In the last 24 hours, we found two such things. We’ll deal with the most recent first, because it may be a scene you know: Peter Gordon’s Love of Life Orchestra performing ‘Siberia’ live at CBGBs. For all the balance and intonation problems, this is a great evocation of the New York scene in the early 1980s.

The other New York connection is less well known: John Kuhlman was a fascinating West Coast composer, associated in the early years with what would eventually be Cold Blue Recordings. He studied composition with Barney Childs at the University of Redlands and played in the Redlands Improvisers’ Orchestra with Jim Fox, Rick Cox, Read Miller, Anne Noble, and Marty Walker in the mid-1970s. Kuhlamn’s early composition had a lovely West Coast jazz-based ‘pretty music’ sound. In 1979, Kuhlman moved to New York, where he and his bands played in clubs like CBGBs, Roulette, the Mud Club, and elsewhere. He also became ‘handyman to the stars’, fixing up lofts and apartments for Yoko Ono and other leading lights of the New York arts scene.

John Kuhlman is not well known because he died young (in 1996). The trombonist, and his former flatmate, Fred Parcells, has put up a web page dedicated to John Kuhlman’s memory, including some recordings of his performances in New York.

http://www.fredparcells.com/johnkuhlman/johnkuhlman.html

This is a fascinating ‘what if’ history of a very talented composer, and a great portrait of a good friend of those who knew him at the University of Redlands and those who knew him in New York.

John Cage in Italy, 1977

An interesting account of John Cage’s Empty Words performance at the Teatro Lirico in Milan in December 1977, sponsored by Cramps Records. The performance was billed as if Cage were a band or a rock star. Members of the audience who didn’t know him protested with loud spoken interruptions and slow hand claps. The documentary on this page (and on YouTube) follows the lead-up (tech rehearsal, vox pop interviews, press conference) to the show, which, if your Italian is very good, is absolutely fascinating. The English-language article, and translations of reviews, on this web page, are very useful. The last four minutes of the film, showing rare footage of Cage’s performance, is stunning.

Also see: http://www.johncage.it/en/1977-empty-words.html

Happy birthday!

A big happy birthday to John White (b. 5 April 1936). For those who don’t know it, John White is the originator of Machine and systems processes, and essentially is the father of minimalism in Britain. He has also been the greatest composer of music using postmodern irony, and has done so when most composers in Britain were only just beginning to accept serialism. He has written a number of symphonies, most of them (those written since the early 1980s) for electronic keyboards and computer processes. His series of piano sonatas (since 1956 and now numbering almost 200) have acted as a kind of diary of musical thoughts and information. John has also written extensively for the stage, dance, and television/film, and is musical director for Drama Centre London.

John White’s music has never failed to enthral us, surprise us and make us laugh. There are some pieces by John White on the Experimental Music Catalogue; we would like them all, if we could. Very happy birthday, John: can’t wait to see what you will come up with next!

Throw-back to festivals

Thinking of the New Music Box article by Caitlin Schmid (http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/flux-piece-fluxconcert-fluxfest-maciunass-fluxfest-kit-2/), who asks for information about festivals, we came up with this. Facebook has a custom called ‘Throw-Back Thursdays’, or TBT. This is one that has just been digitized. We’re having some problem with images on the EMC Blog at the moment, so for details, see our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/emcsystems/posts/953386074695781?notif_t=like It’s on full public access, so you should be able to see it, but here’s the text, for those who can’t.

This is from Classic Masterworks of Experimental Music Festival, University of Redlands, October 1982, that I curated. The theme of the festival was ‘Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear’ (tag line to The Lone Ranger), as all the music played came from the 1950s and 1960s. The afternoon (in the chapel) was a Musicircus, including New York School, Fluxus, and Scratch Orchestra pieces; the evening, in Watchorn Recital Hall, was more formal, including Terry Riley, In C, Frederic Rzewski, Les Moutons de Panurge, and Cage, 4’33”, among others. These two pictures are from the afternoon. On the first one, Robert Clarida, wearing a flashy stage band uniform jacket with a large glittery red treble clef motif, performs Cage’s 45′ for a Speaker on a ladder, in honour of its performance at Black Mountain College in 1952 (where Cage stood on a ladder). Bob was scared of heights and the position of the ladder, on the edge of a stage, made it seem even higher. It was a very brave act. The second picture depicts the performance of George Brecht’s Piano Piece 1962 (the vase of flowers) and Incidental Music. In the link, you can see the first of Incidental Music’s five pieces in the picture (the seat is tilted and rested against the piano; wooden blocks are stacked until at least one block falls). The third piece from Incidental Music is the picture — or rather, the picture is the outcome of the third piece, which reads, ‘Photographing the piano situation’.

The Cox who Rowes in the West

I have been working on a project about Southern Californian music; specifically the composers who were associated with Cold Blue Recordings. Cold Blue was founded by Jim Fox. On of the first Cold Blue artists is the composer/guitarist/saxophonist Rick Cox, whose recent album with the film composer Thomas Newman (35 Whirlpools below sound) was one of our favourite new albums of the last fall.

Casting about for sources, I found this interview with Rick on the blog Guitar moderne, in which he explained much about his background and ways of working. Rick Cox is known for his guitar preparations: bulldog clips, and other objects that are attached to, or applied to the guitar strings and pickups. Those of you who are AMM fans will know Keith Rowe’s pioneering work in this area — putting his guitar down on a table and essentially ‘deconstructing’ it as a kind of string electronic instrument. Rick does something similar, only he applies it to the luxurious, languorous Los Angeles musical style. You can see his interview here: http://www.guitarmoderne.com/artists/spotlight-rick-cox .

The Cold Blue site, where you can get the Newman/Cox recording and a host of other fantastic music, is here: http://www.coldbluemusic.com . Upcoming albums include music by Peter Garland, Michael Byron, Daniel Lentz, and Jim Fox himself; recent releases include an album by John Luther Adams. If you like British experimental and minimal music, this LA stuff is definitely worth a look.

Sound Out programme on Nature Study Notes

Perhaps, like the EMC, you were not able to get to the concert by the New Scratch Orchestra of excerpts from the Scratch Orchestra document, Nature Study Notes on Sunday, 22 February 2015. Well, here’s something to make up for it: the Resonance FM programme, Sound Out, from 20 February 2015, hosted by Carole Finer, which talks about the ways that the New Scratch Orchestra (or ‘Scratch Orchestra’, as it is called by some of the participants) approaches Improvisations Rites, the type of musical activity collected in Nature Study Notes. Hear it here: https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/sound-out-20th-february-2015/ . It’s a rather revealing glimpse into what the new generation thinks of Improvisation Rites and ‘improvisation and a musical life’, as Cornelius Cardew called it. Bryn Harris and Carole Finer represent the original Scratch Orchestra. Worth listening.

Scratch Orchestra Improvisation Rites

Sunday night there will be a rather wonderful event at Cafe Oto. Various people — original Scratch Orchestra members, new folk, younger folk — have been working on that most fascinating genre of Scratch Orchestra music-making, the Improvisation Rite, using the early Scratch Orchestra document, Nature Study Notes. Nature Study Notes is a collection of Improvisation Rites, edited by Cornelius Cardew, that existed right at the start of the Scratch Orchestra. Improvisation Rites are not compositions, at least not according to the Draft Composition of the Scratch Orchestra. Instead, they are meant to supply conditions for improvisation: a setting, idea, installation, and so on. In fact, many of the 152 Nature Study Notes Rites are actually compositions (they tell you what to play), but the Scratch Orchestra genres have always been somewhat fluid. For more on Cardew and the Scratch Orchestra, there’s a rather good article on Cardew and the Scratch Orchestra in the unlikely setting of the Red Bull Music Academy website: http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/magazine/cornelius-cardew-feature.

Stefan Szczelkun launched this concert of Scratch Orchestra improvisation along with a host of others, and from the early notes on rehearsals, it looks amazing. The information on the concert at Cafe Oto exists on their site: https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/nature-study-notes/ . It’s going to be a lovely programme, and the EMC (Chris Hobbs, Virginia Anderson) are going to be in the audience, cheering them on. For those on Facebook, the event notification is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1409389246024588/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming . And Carole Fyner will be interviewing performers on her Resonance Radio (London and the Internet) show, Sound Out, on Friday, 20 February, at 2 pm.

And should you want to follow along, the EMC has put up a download of the original EMC edition of Nature Study Notes on our Freebies page: http://www.experimentalmusic.co.uk/emc/Freebies.html . Your school field trip notebook was never this much fun!

Partch work quilting

Today, some of us at the EMC feel a bit Partched, given that Harry Partch has won a Grammy. So many people have been talking about Partch that we followed one of the YouTube links (thanks to our friend, the John Cage expert, David Patterson) to a 1958 film about Partch in which he shows off his instruments. This film can be found on a DVD from Innova Recordings, which includes four rare films and performances (see here: http://www.innova.mu/albums/harry-partch/enclosure-viii ). The DVD also includes a 1968 film about Partch that was broadcast on KPBS San Diego (a film that appeared briefly on YouTube but was removed), and a 1981 performance of Barstow at San Diego State University by Danlee Mitchell and the SDSU Partch Ensemble.* But for the moment, luxuriate in the demonstrations of Partch’s instrumentation. Microtonal sounds so juicy you could swim in them….

*I was a graduate teaching assistant at SDSU in 1980–81 and got a glimpse of early rehearsals for that performance. As a TA, it was my responsibility to keep undergrads off the cloud chamber bowls, which were stored at the back of the recital hall.