Reviews that mention Pauline Oliveros
December 21, 2017
Pauline Oliveros + Connie Crothers
Live At the Stone
Impress: Records No #
By Ken Waxman
The first, last and only musical meeting between jazz improviser Connie Crothers (1941-2016) and electronic music avatar Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016) took place in August 2014 and is preserved in its entirety on this disc. Like long-lost siblings reunited in their senior years that discover that they have complementary habits, Oliver’s and Crothers were probably surprised by how many musical ideas they shared. Both had an unerring sense of rhythm coupled with a mischievous sense of humor that refused to take things too serious, plus a talent for disruption. MORE
January 6, 2016
Rova: Still Creative After All These Years
By Ken Waxman
Someone once described Rova as the Grateful Dead of Jazz. A comparison to the Rolling Stones would be more accurate. For more than 38 years, with only one change in personnel 27 years ago, the Bay area-based saxophone quartet has created high quality music. However unlike the venerable British rockers whose music hasn’t been cutting edge for decades, Rova continues to evolve and experiment.
Case in point: this month’s series of NYC concerts. From the 19th to the 24th, the band’s residency at The Stone offers a retrospective of classic Rova material as well as new works. Some sets will feature Rova and guest musicians, some of whom have never played with the band before. Before that, on January 17th at Le Poisson Rouge, an expanded Rove ensemble will perform Electric Ascension, a 21st Century re-imagining of John Coltrane’s classic work. Concurrently, RogueArt will release Channeling Coltrane, containing a live performance of Electric Ascension from the 2012 Guelph Jazz Festival on DVD and Blue-ray; a CD of the music itself; plus Cleaning the Mirror, a documentary that mixes the story of Rova’s Ascension adaptation with a history of the creation of Coltrane’s seminal session. MORE
September 3, 2010
Music in the Air
Deep Listening DL 43-2010
Marilyn Crispell David Rothenberg
One Dark Night I Left My Silent House
ECM 2089
John Zorn/George Lewis/Bill Frisell
More News For Lulu
hatOLOGY 655
Marina Rosenfeld/George Lewis
Sour Mash
Innova 228
Guelph Jazz Festival Highlights
Extended Play
By Ken Waxman
Characteristically adventurous, the 17th annual Guelph Jazz Festival (GJF) September 8 to 12 presents respected sound explorers in novel musical situations. MORE
March 23, 2009
The San Francisco Tape Music Center
1960s Counterculture and the Avant-Garde
Edited by David W. Bernstein, University of California Press
Morton Subotnick’s move to New York City in 1966 coupled with Ramon Sender relocating to the Morning Star Commune in rural California marked more than a geographical shift of two of the Bay area’s most visionary electro-acoustic composers. It also reflected the end of the fabled San Francisco Tape Music Center (SFTMC) as a stand-alone entity, and its relocation to nearby Mills College.
For the previous five years, operating from funky locations with mostly invented or cadged electronic equipment, the SFTMC was an autonomous, unaffiliated centre for tape improvisation and interdisciplinary experiments. As David Bernstein demonstrates in the series of articles and interviews that make up this book, the SFTMC’s dedication to “unlimited creative possibilities with limited resources,” had a long-lasting impact far beyond its physical existence. MORE
January 19, 2004
The Beat Suite
Sunnyside/Enja SSC 3012
DEEP LISTENING BAND/JOE MCPHEE QUARTET
Unquenchable Fire
Deep Listening DL 19-2003
Blending music and texts -- either poetry or prose -- has never been a particularly easy task, especially when the music involved is improvised. Yet for the past 50 years at least, variations of the concept have been tried with various degrees of success.
Among his other sonic inquiries, soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy has turned his hand to text-based material for many years; he has been able to utilize the voice of his partner Irene Aebi as his speaker/vocalist since the late 1960s. THE BEAT SUITE is his most recent grapple with the concept -- and one that is particularly apt. The words, which intermingle with the music here, were written by 10 of the most accomplished Beat versifiers. All had or have an affinity for improvised music and most were known personally by either Lacy or Abei. MORE
September 24, 2001
With Barre Phillips
482 Music 482-1007
One of the wonderful facets of free improvisation is that, unlike more formal music, practitioners aren't limited to certain instruments.
Thus you have this unbridled session of stirring improv performed on shakuhachi or Japanese bamboo flute; accordion retuned with just intonation; minimalist piano and string bass. The background of the four musicians couldn't be more different either.
Bay area shakuhachi player Philip Gelb, who brings a unique Occidental concept to his instrument, is as likely to collaborate with multi instrumentalist Joe McPhee, or interactive electronics composer Chris Brown as with koto master, Shoko Hikage. Accordionist Pauline Oliveros has been composing so-called serious music for 50 years and has a long history of creating electronic and minimalist works. MORE