Thread

Took part in an enjoyable and thought-provoking workshop given by Henry Threadgill last night at the Jazz Gallery. Very inspiring guy to be around. His ideas about art, self-propulsion, collectivity, form, rhythm, etc left me with lots to think about. While giving him a ride home his words re: artists paying their bills in advance so they can have unfettered time to create, "to daydream, to look at leaves, at sticks..." were particularly poignant. Thanks Henry.

RIP Jimmy Giuffre

Sad news that Jimmy Giuffre has passed. Singular composer and improviser. Very inspiring approach to form and to open space. Hopefully some footage will surface of his great early 60s trio with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow. In the meantime, the above is pretty lovely.

Music Reading

This just came in the mail. Can't wait to get to it... Congrads George!


Meantime, been enjoying this blogger's book.

Guewel - Love letter to Africa, vol.2

its been a year since I returned from West Africa. Sheesh! Where'd the time go? Just recorded my 7th as a leader for Clean Feed entitled Guewel, and its been about a year in the making.

The band includes Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet, flugelhorn), Nate Wooley (trumpet), Mark Taylor (french horn), and Josh Sinton (bari sax), and from last Friday's rehearsal through Saturday night gig and Sunday morning (?!?) recording, it all came together smashingly! Thanks fellas...

Guewel means musician(s) in Wolof (the major language/ethnic group of Senegal). The compositions combine arrangements of Sabar (traditional Wolof drumming) and M’balax (Senegalese pop music), with improvised extrapolations on the written materals. The horn blend came out great. Baritone saxophone's range and fullness balanced the (mostly) cornet/trumpet/horn blend wonderfully. Mixing next week, then will send it off to Portugal for Clean Feed to master. Will be out in September so keep an eye out! More about Guewel in future posts, no doubt.

Never done a sequel project before. Volume 1 in my love-letters-to-Africa series came out on CIMP in 2003, Jalolu. That recording was inspired by and dedicated to Brikama, Gambia, after spending two months there in 02-03. Who knows when vol. 3 will appear, but I will say this: There are more Africa-inspired projects in me, that's for sure.

Time Out New York's preview read:

"In his Guewel project, drummer-composer Harris Eisenstadt mixes his avant-jazz expertise with an extensive knowledge of funky, intricate African music. Fortunately his bandmates—saxist Josh Sinton, plus brassmen Taylor Ho Bynum, Nate Wooley and Mark Taylor—can shift convincingly between boisterous and abstract modes."

Foyled again

Apologies for the long silence. Been quite busy and not finding the time to write much prose.

Consumptive delights of late:

Sara and I have been getting into Foyle's War. Talk about understated. Michael Kitchen as Foyle is fantastic. His facial expressions, mannerisms, and overall reflective nature remind me of a decade-older version of one of my favourite British actors who I had the great fortune to work with in a touring one-man version of Macbeth from 2004-06, Stephen Dillane. Check Foyle out. Masterful British drama, unhurried quality-over-quantity mystery-laden narratives.

Seasons 4 and 5 of The Shield blew me away, with Glenn Close (4) and Forest Whitaker (5) as respective guest stars. Though I love Forest, particularly in the understated Jarmusch masterpiece Ghost Dog, Close is the stronger of the two featured guests, going for a simmering, you've-come-a-long-way-since-boiling-rabbits-baby police captain.

Nearly read the entire published oeuvre of George Pelecanos.
Best known for writing/producing HBO's seminal The Wire, Pelecanos dozen plus books have kept me engrossed throughout 2008 so far. In keeping with the quality-over-quantity theme, I appreciate Pelecanos' brevity. Each book is around 300 pages, none have broken the 400-mark. Characters and narratives appear and return throughout the books, and its just been a treat to watch Pelecanos' prose get more and more airtight with each outing. If I had to pick, I think my favorites are probably the Derek Strange/Terry Quinn salt-and-pepper private detective team, but then again maybe the Dimitri Karras/Marcus Clay combo is the one. Hard to pick. An embarassment of riches in Pelecanos' work, thats for sure. Anyone have any suggestions who I should take up next?

Days of Heaven

Finally saw Terrence Malick's 1978 masterpiece Days of Heaven.

Strange irony somehow that it comes after seeing No Country For Old Men and There Will be Blood, two Westerns that owe a significant debt to Mallick's painterly film.

Of the many reviews out there, I like Roger Ebert's essay here.

See it.

Messiaen's Turangalila... Wow!

Heard/saw an incredible rendition of Messiaen's Turangalila Symphonie at Carnegie Hall last Friday. Alex Ross blogs about it here. The ten-part, 75-minute piece features a dizzyingly virtuosic piano part, a haunting low-end fanfare that returns periodically and gave me goose bumps each time I heard it, and the eerie Ondes Martenot. Unfortunately, I had a hard time hearing the Ondes during particularly boisterous moments, of which there were many. That's about my only complaint, though. What a treat to hear Turangalila live!


Very informative demo video of how the incredible Ondes Martenot works here.