 |
 |
 |
|
CJR 1168 - patrick brennan: sonic openings under pressure
rapt circle
artist's notes
#64. Wei Chi. Before Completeion. Success. But if the little fox after nearly completing the journey gets his tail wet in the water, there is nothing that would further. (I Ching/Book of Changes, trans. Richard Wilhelm)
Artists are far from alone in stretching over the thin ice of the Global Warming Empire. Any extra baggage should still recommend a second thought. A third thought, a fourth, and pretty soon a composition begins to grow - that kind of slow-motion improvisation that may span years, a forested canopy under which one can stroll in and out of, ruminate over, walk all around its outsides. A composition is a dream reenacted and reshaped in dialogue with a community of musicians; and what especially draws me to composing in relation with improvisation is its potential as tonic antidote to the SameOld-SameOlds, a.k.a. the SO-SOs.
Compositions also develop, lives, personalities and an insistence of their own, and while each may function as a distinct member of the band, they don’t necessarily accomodate travelling light. So, when all one can offer is what at first seems to be a string of coded idiosyncratic half-nelsons and less than optimal working conditions, it becomes a special occasion for gratitude and respect when the right musicians are willing to apply their tolerance, patience and creative personalities in collaboration.
This music was recorded live in June, 2002 - both at the Vision Festival
in New York and several weeks later at the Festival International de Jazz
de Montréal, not all that long after the coordination of a new
formation of sonic openings under pressure (with which I’ve been
thinning and thicking since 1979). Newman Taylor Baker has already played
drums with the group for a good stretch in the 80’s and Hilliard
Greene brings a strong new voice to the music and an on-the-spot compositional
sense that’s most easily heard in his a capella solo on covert.
I’ve been wanting to incorporate the dundun into this music for
quite a while as an counterstating, untempered melodic voice, and I hadn’t
considered that I’d be able to include my old compatriot Juma Santos
Ayantola, but he offered to travel all the way from Detroit to join us
in Montréal. And, this is just a beginning of what we might develop
with these sounds and voices.
|
 |
