November 1999

theTENTACLE Articulations

Deep-sea discourse on music-related topics

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November 1999 Articles

For the Sake of Grace: an excerpt from No Sound Is Innocent by Eddie Prévost
An Interview with New Music Presenter Herb Levy -- part 2
Response to "An Art Action Gone Wrong?" by Mark Taylor-Canfield
Catch and Release: Makihara / Moore / Shoup in NYC by Trey Hatch

Prévost: For the Sake of Grace

In art we make the world. We gaze at a morass of possible meaning and search for sense. We see a confusion of images and try to find our own identity. We explore models which we slip on and off like a suit of clothes. But they may also be stripped from our backs. Using a model is a very intelligent-seeming way of progressing, but it is wrong. The model, the objectives, the methods can only be properly understood when they are mastered. By then the artist is a captive, unable to move his own way. The more ensnared he is, the more he will defend his own chains.

Tutoring makes the student psychologically dependent. How to blow, how to hold and move a bow or hold a stick -- such things might usefully be taught. But a philosophy is bound into every move. Received technique masks its deep assumptions: A defining premise, though handed on, remains unspoken, still effective, though unnoticed.

Watch a self-possessed man walk. Lie of shoulder and stride of step will tell you about him. Each shape and contour will impart information -- the man is a walking art-form. What can we know of a battalion of soldiers marching in unison or a corps de ballet? Nothing, certainly, about the individuals within them -- except that they subscribe to a particular form of discipline. Such systems ascribe grace to those who learn the lessons best. But there are alternative 'traditions': more open, more severe, more difficult. Learn to make music as if it has never been played before!

Teachings are not necessarily untruthful but they are standard readings of the 'great narrative.' Tradition is the smoothing out of mores, practices and expectancies. Tradition is a medium of social control. Even when we alight upon some positive aspect of a tradition it is as well to be aware of the imprisoning effect it will have upon thinking and practice. Traditions are the shackles people grow to love. True grace is the manner in which we perceive all forms.

Eddie Prévost

Eddie Prévost is a founding member of the seminal improvisation ensemble AMM. Excerpted from No Sound is Innocent, an in-depth study of "meta-music" published in the UK in 1996.

Dear Lucy

Dear Lucy,

Bunch o' questions for you: Why doesn't the Tentacle list gigs by straight-ahead improvisers in the Northwest? Do you only list "out jazz" improvisers because you think those straight-ahead guys aren't any good? What is "out jazz" anyway?

Downbeat in Seattle

Ahoy Downbeat,

Can I assume that by "straight-ahead" you're referring to jazz? Without a doubt, there are many fine mainstream jazz improvisers in the Northwest. Those who work on the Tentacle deeply admire and occasionally play straight-ahead jazz, but the Tentacle's purview does not include mainstream musics. For more information on straight-ahead jazz in Seattle, several publications aid and abet mainstream musics and musicians such as Earshot Jazz, the Stranger, the Seattle Weekly, and of course, the Seattle Times and P-I.

You should also know that being a great improviser or masterful player or great composer, etc., are not criteria for a Tentacle listing. We do not distinguish between "the best" improvisers in out jazz (or the master makers of the other musics within the Tentacle's purview) and those who may be less skilled in creating "out" music. Regardless of our personal admiration, abhorrence, or any other personal feelings for any group or individual, it will slight, if not insult, our fellow musicians in the community if the Tentacle attaches subjective superlatives such as "favorite," "leading," "premier," etc. to a calendar listing.

Those who know and/or believe themselves to be the best, most innovative, beloved, adored, worshipped, etc. should gracefully bask in their glory silently. Heralds are not required to trumpet greatness.

To answer your question, "What is out jazz?", here is a rough definition: Out jazz refers to the vertiginous abandonment of the timbres, tonality, and forms found in mainstream jazz. Some consider out jazz a subset of free improvisation (classic free improv recordings include AMM 1966, the intuitive music of Stockhausen, etc.), but most will agree that both musics strive for spontaneous coherence without predetermined forms, harmonies, licks, etc.

While some mainstream musics may allude to "out jazz" with brief flurries of "wild" textures (film scores often do the same thing), out jazz relentlessly assaults the conventions of playing and listening to jazz by subverting the instrumentation, accepted playing techniques (e.g., barely audible dynamics shifting from ppppp to pppp, or Keith Rowe of AMM applying a transistor radio to his guitar pickups), performance rituals (Machito repeatedly screaming "Manteca!" on Dizzy's record of the same name must surely be a forerunner to the spontaneous chanting and vocalizations by many instrumentalists), and so forth.

Some "out jazz" players have extended this subversive vision to their personal and economic lives by living collectively and distributing their music independently (Sun Ra is the most famous example), but that should be the subject of a future Tentacle article.

Of course, if words could capture the essence of music, then music would not be needed. Happily such is not the case, and experiencing the music live and on records yields the best definition.

You may be well acquainted with these recordings, but we include them here in the interest of specificity. Some outstanding and by now classic "out jazz" records include Cecil Taylor's Conquistador, Ornette Coleman's Science Fiction, Albert Ayler's Spiritual Unity, and Sun Ra's Heliocentric Worlds Vols. 1 & 2. Almost any record by the Art Ensemble of Chicago or Henry Threadgill is a safe bet, too.

Happy listening!
Lucy

Dear Lucy,

You have "noise" and "new composition" on your cover. How about some definitions?

What Does Ned Love?

Ahoy WDNL:

Noise generally refers to a continuous broadband sonic assault generated by electronic devices such as pedals and amplifiers sometimes coupled with nonstandard vocal and instrumental techniques. The volume swerves from infinite quiet to (more often) the threshold of pain and beyond. Many noise gigs furnish free earplugs to the attendees, though devotees tend to bring their own ear protection. Merzbow is still considered the fountainhead of noise, though Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music (1975) and some of the more "out" electroacoustic music (cf. Rune Lindblad) pioneered the genre.

New composition generally refers to through-composed music of almost any instrumentation that grapples with or at least betrays an awareness of the musical achievements of the last 50 years: the abolition of tonality and application of serial and/or aleatoric controls, new harmonic and tuning schemas, the controlled allocation of sound moving in space, etc. The December-January issue of the Tentacle features an article that summarizes the century in music and addresses the new-composition angle effectively. You may also peruse the article on-line at www.tentacle.org, though the Ink issue also includes photos of a few twentieth century innovators as well as a composition score or two.

Lucy

Dear Lucy,

You guys must have lots of industry connections. How do I get a record deal? Should I start my own label? I live in New York. Will you review my record? It's OUT OUT OUT!!!!

Gotta Obtain A Deal

Ahoy GOAD,

While we prefer that our readers treat the Tentacle as a community endeavor and a resource rather than another stop on the PR Wagon Train to the Stars, here is some generic advice that you should supplement by talking to your fellow adventurous musicians in New York.

A record deal, at least for adventurous musicians, rarely satisfies anyone's pocketbook. A few recordings become cult classics, but the scarcity of saturating radio play and haphazard distribution offered to even the most renowned boutique labels make releasing adventurous music a labor of love, not a money-making endeavor.

Although your new record sounds, er, "OUT," the Tentacle maintains a steadfast "no review" policy for CDs and other new recordings.

It might seem unfathomable why the Tentacle abjures the tidal wave of free CDs that traditionally flood music magazines. Yet reviewing CDs would unleash a torrent of material onto our shores. It would be a disservice to our fellow artists and readers to try and review new recordings without the staff and space to do the music justice.

For Northwest creators of adventurous music, a simple press release suffices to be listed in the Tentacle Northwest Artist Releases section. The Tentacle does not give preferential treatment to those who send us music, but CDs that come our way do get listened to.

Lucy

Catch & Release:

Toshi Makihara / Thurston Moore / Wally Shoup
Tonic Lounge, New York City, September 19, 1999
by Trey Hatch

When Sonic Youth is not touring, usually at least one of its members may be seen and heard performing as a solo artist or collaborator in one of a handful of clubs around New York. All four members of the band seem to have become increasingly familiar presences here, and have collaborated with a widening range of jazz and new music players in mostly instrumental musical explorations. It is probably not fair to members of the group to compare their forays into relatively hardcore improvised music to the exploitation of foreign ethnic musics by the likes of the Beatles or Paul Simon, especially considering the fact that the group did stretch the boundaries of "alternative" music for its first several albums. They are, nevertheless, rich rock stars, and they can afford to dabble in music which, in its purest form, will never be commercially successful, without having to worry about starving if they play that music too often. I believe they mean well, and I'm glad they are doing what they are doing. I, for one, much prefer listening to any combination of Sonic Youth members and non-Sonic Youth musicians than I do to the music of the band as a group, or any of its members solo.

Thurston Moore recently invited Seattle saxophonist Wally Shoup and Philadelphia-based percussionist Toshi Makihara - a player familiar to many Seattleites from his multiple appearances in the city - to join him and tour as a trio for five or six shows here in the Northeast. Having been one of the dozen or so audience members at a duet performance by Shoup and Makihara somewhere in the basement of the Knitting Factory last year, and also having remembered the surprisingly enthusiastic reception which Shoup and his trio, Project W, received from thousands of (mostly teenaged) Sonic Youth fans when opening up for that band a couple of years ago in Seattle, my curiosity and enthusiasm were running high as I set out for Tonic, stoked even more by the fact that the venue is one of my favorites in the city. Tonic is clean and friendly, only allows smoking if the musicians allow it, and - very rare for a music club - the entire place shuts up completely when the music is good enough. Finally, its lineup is by far the most interesting in the city, regularly featuring the likes of William Parker, Matthew Shipp, John Zorn, and other internationally renowned pioneers.

I was satisfied that I attended the show, but I did pay dearly for the pleasure. The trio was booked as the second half of the club's "Sunday night songwriter series," and the first act was horrible. I kept thinking that I must have been mistaken when I thought that I would only rarely encounter the kind of hands-in-pockets, whining sort of amateurism displayed by the six members of The Scene is Now, as the band was called, here in the Big City. This wasn't the first lame performance I've seen in New York, but it was probably the worst.

As the members of that band and their many family members slinked out of the club, all of standing room of the space filled up with hordes of youngish-to-middling people that looked like they were probably Thurston Moore fans. The object of their affection approached the stage, introduced Shoup and Makihara to polite applause, and proceeded to play five or six solo songs on acoustic guitar, almost all of which consisted of long, annoyingly repetitive plunkings and dronings as he extended into instrumental "improvisations" for what must have been the delight of a stony-faced crowd of downtown hipsters. Having come to hear the fiery onslaught of Shoup's saxophone and witness the shamanistic genius of Makihara's percussion, I began to get a little angry at this point, and uncomfortable, considering the fact that I had been responsible for four or five friends' attending this show, one of whom, a guitarist, commented that Moore had one of the worst sounding tones he'd heard in ages. (In Moore's defense, Sonic Youth did just have a whole truck of musical equipment stolen, so he may still be trying out new axes.) Finally, after the applause following a particularly long piece of droning acoustic noodling died down, Moore reintroduced the men who had been sitting quietly on stage for 20 minutes, strapped on an electric guitar, turned on his amp, and redeemed himself.

Moore's enthusiasm and respect for this trio project were undeniable, and for some reason he looked like an apprentice as he stood, legs spread, staring intently across the small stage at his cohorts, and as his distorted, scattershot guitar noise intertwined with the chortles and screams from Shoup's saxophone and the surprisingly straight-ahead drumming of Makihara. The energy level increased tenfold in the room, and the audience seemed to shake off some of its alternative post-punk stupor. The trio had obviously learned to click in the few dates it had played before coming to New York. Moore's fuzzy guitar lines matched Shoup's growling sax, to the point where it became hard sometimes to pull them apart and tell who was playing what. Makihara, usually armed to the armpits with boxes of strange toys and noisemakers, kept up a steady beat with a minimum amount of goofing off, although his drumming was still as distinctly strange and intelligent as always, and the audience sat breathless at one point when he wove a strange percussive web by dragging a plastic cat-o-nine-tails across his small drum kit for a few minutes.

The trio played as such for 30 or 40 minutes, pounding, screaming, and sputtering at times, at others settling into surprisingly warm washes of sound, sometimes opening up into silent spaces into which one of the trio would venture a solo statement. The players maintained their pop appeal partially through one of the tricks that Project W fans have grown to appreciate: Most of the pieces had distinct beginnings and endings, and clocked in at around pop-song length, thus concentrating the musical statements, allowing the musicians to express different beginnings and endings, and preventing the kind of totally indulgent aimlessness that often occurs when musicians improvise for an hour or two without a breather. Although the first half of Moore's set scared me, the second was exactly what I had come downtown to hear, and constituted one of those redeeming moments which makes high-risk nightcrawling worthwhile.