Spinozablue: An Eclectic Journal of the Arts

Bang on the Chasm

by Robert Mueller

I am won­der­ing about new jazz and new art music, and sep­a­rat­ing them entirely for the con­ve­nience of enter­tain­ing these thoughts. I am think­ing about con­sort­ing with a dif­fer­ence even though what I have to say about one has to be true of the other (again assum­ing for the pur­pose that they are sep­a­rate). Specifically as a mat­ter of degree I want to dis­tin­guish new jazz as a liv­ing pro­duc­tion that arrives cur­rently, spon­ta­neously in the club or spon­ta­neously also at a jam ses­sion or record­ing ses­sion, from the same sce­nario for new art music, which comes to us as a prod­uct, or object, that, when it arrives, may arrive in a pub­lic per­for­mance, but not cur­rently. Rather, there is a delay, for reflec­tion to take place, and even if it were to take place in the few moments after the per­for­mance has ended (that is, right then and there), it nev­er­the­less arrives in the mode of delay.

I won­der, then, about how dif­fer­ent his­to­ries of musi­cal per­for­mance and dif­fer­ent avenues of musi­cal expres­sion fea­ture the same expe­ri­ence and the same hap­pi­ness; on the other hand, we do and may feel their trend­ing in dis­tinctly dif­fer­ent direc­tions. And for music extend­ing back­ward through our mod­ern era, we most def­i­nitely approach the expe­ri­ence in reflec­tion. There of course would be no limit to the tim­ing of the reflec­tion, and the more and more and the longer and longer the new art music audi­ence reflects, the more the com­po­si­tion (granted that it has to be per­formed to be a com­po­si­tion of any stand­ing (true?)) goes into matu­rity, and, in short (or long), it becomes bet­ter received, bet­ter served.

With jazz, on the other hand, you may believe that it is incum­bent upon the musi­cians them­selves, as true artists, to mature over a long stretch of time before the mag­i­cal moment arrives in its won­drous form. Thereafter, it is not so much a mat­ter of reflec­tion as of new artists con­tin­u­ally, after their own advance to matu­rity, try­ing it out.

Now one fea­ture that makes the series of new art music, pre­sented four times a year by the Locrian Chamber Players at Riverside Church in Manhattan, won­der­ful is the fact of the audi­ence not hav­ing time to reflect. Though every bit con­cerned about the pro­ceed­ings, the audi­ence may enjoy the moment, and is encour­aged to do so. In other words, good will and a com­mu­nal spirit are main­tained because of the rule that all pieces (“piece” not a jazz term par­tic­u­larly) to be per­formed must have been com­posed within the past ten years. Thus no opin­ions of approval or dis­ap­proval ought, in good faith, to form, and only friendly inter­est, along with edu­cated atten­tion, is appro­pri­ate. The lis­tener will react in any event, but a spirit of curios­ity guides this event, and of fun, and the audi­ence per­haps can­not, or should not, adopt a crit­i­cal approach valu­ing this or that piece as good or bad, since you can­not know in the first place. You can­not know that the music might not grow on you later.

Having said all that, and to break the rule shame­lessly, I will express my view. But first a word on the atmos­phere in the room at this recent pre­sen­ta­tion. The feel­ing of stuffi­ness was not over­whelm­ing. The feel­ing was in fact airy: the out­side bal­conies high high up, the breathrestor­ing views over the Hudson, the high pitch­ing of Gothic point in the room’s pleas­ant sur­round­ing beneath a mod­est cross­ing vault. We took the new sounds in and pre­pared our­selves to reflect as well as we could, but a cor­dial­ity of sur­face mir­rored a delight­ing that is not far from, in its own way, a gath­er­ing. In its own way, it was current.

Now as to the lis­ten­ing expe­ri­ence, it is true the audi­ence is clamped down on floor chairs; but there is a prosce­nium stage and vel­vety cur­tains, pos­si­bly not func­tional, and a door in the back wall which, if mem­ory serves, sports some wrig­gling con­i­cal designs that make up the transom.

Now as to my view, or opin­ion, entered prior to reflec­tion on this occa­sion, even prior to pres­ence, I am espe­cially drawn to the music of Julia Wolfe, whose com­po­si­tion for piano titled Earring was per­formed by Jonathan Faiman. The date was Thursday, August 25, 2011. David Macdonald, the direc­tor of the series, apol­o­gized for the fact that not every piece on the pro­gram was com­posed within the past ten years. He said he would never do it again; but too late, and so we must break the rule again, gen­tly, and talk about Julia Wolfe’s Earring from 2000.

It is in fact the case that Mr. Faiman did not encounter too much dif­fi­culty per­form­ing the piece. It was that sort of event, that sort of com­po­si­tion, in a sim­ple style, how­ever much there for the tak­ing and reflect­ing. In Earring, we mean to note, there is a slap­ping and clack­ing rhythm out of the high­est keys and a grow­ing rhythm not far down the key­board in the left hand. The cross-​​altering rhythms do not match, and because of the lighter den­sity they match even less, mark­ing a pur­ported min­i­mal­is­tic improve­ment over ten­den­cies, gor­geous as they may be, fea­tured in the com­po­si­tions of the great 20th-​​century American com­poser Elliott Carter. But although he is still going strong, I am going back a lit­tle (again), and so let me say merely that there is a dif­fer­ence in Earring’s rhyth­mic ultra-​​freedom in terms of the open­ness encoun­tered over the slight derail­ing, slight in view per­haps of this con­stant tap­ping. That is to say the two hands clash all right, but do so in spirit, and in good faith and form, in the way of the fur­ther pos­si­bil­i­ties already cov­ered in the “Bang on a Can” approach that, to go back again, Julia Wolfe helped to for­mu­late dur­ing the 80s.

I sup­pose her inno­va­tions for the music scene, a New York scene, can apply to almost any­thing, but they gen­er­ally for “Bang on a Can” mean that if any­thing goes you can endorse the best in music because you are look­ing for music that does not set­tle for a pre-​​defined mold. Surely that is the case; surely it is true you can find the best in music that way.

So in this piece Earring by Julia Wolfe, whose title points to freely eval­u­at­ing Nietzschean “erring” as well as eman­ci­pated lis­ten­ers’ “hear­ing,” the pianist’s right hand at the very top of the key­board slaps and taps and tan­gos and tongues, and all the while, not in tan­dem, not quite join­ing, the lan­guider notes of the bet­ter har­mo­nized left hand become fuller and richer and fuller and richer and, then, it was over. Over already? Over. In God’s eyes, it was the fun­ni­est darn minia­ture, a ver­i­ta­ble minute waltz (well, maybe two min­utes), against a back­drop of head­lands, enor­mous but brit­tle, stand­ing out but porous, seen through the float­ing, above the silent acres of water Julia Wolfe has defined in her silence, a back­drop for the anti-​​sublime, a perime­ter for pal­li­at­ing to seek the prayer of the poem of the divine music. Divine new art music, but not only, but not only after.

The other com­po­si­tions on the pro­gram for August 25, 2011, and dates, were Night Psalm (2009) and I’m Worried Now, But I Won’t Be Worried Long (2010) by Eve Beglarian, Embracing the Wind by Robert Paterson (2000 (also more than ten years ago)), Ostinati by David Macdonald (2009, 2011, one recent date for each osti­nato), THERE’S NO PLACE (2008-’11) by Colin Holter and Black Bend by Dan Visconti (2003). Eve Beglarian, Robert Paterson and Colin Holter were in the audi­ence, and David Macdonald was not only present but he ran the show. Thank you, David.

New York Composers: An Excerpt

Copyright © 2011, by Robert Mueller. All Rights Reserved.

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