great counterstrike, dan.

it seems to me, that hill mixes up all kinds of more "abstract" music. i mean: compare malfatti to drumm - i doubt there is more diversity in recent "classic" jazz releases than this.

he's really comparing apples and oranges and besides: i don't give a shit if someone thinks "our" music sucks, but the lack of basic respect for other peoples work in his remarks makes me think, mr.hill is a very, very frustrated man. poor guy.

Actually, I don't think Hill HAS listened to 36 non-I records. My guess is somewhere between 3 and 8.

"Even yammering mutts, though, have to heed the call of nature from time to time, and I have to say that if journalism like this were the only tree for miles around, I wouldn't even bother cocking my leg up on it."

Brilliant, Dan.

Dang, that’s a zinger. I’m actually curious about the motive(s)/rationale(s) behind publishing Hill’s piece as it stands, especially in light of the promo blurb that went out to the OFN mailing list yesterday. I’d find it very edifying if Scott decides to comment on these publicly.

Two things:

1. Every time something comes along, somebody who's not into it pipes up to say "you're just listening to that to look hip." See Miles's comments on free jazz in his autobiography.

2. EAI is overhyped. So is everything that gets covered in every music magazine. Writers are besotted with superlatives, because there's so much music out there, and so many other writers writing about it, that praise has become an arms-race.

I thought I'd take a moment or two to respond to some of the response my piece has generated, and to do so here, since many of the folks who frequent this forum are the ones most peturbed by it.

One of the major criticisms of my piece had to do with my making assumptions and generalizations (a criticism I fully accept). What is interesting is that those claims haven't stopped people from making assumptions and generalizations about me and my 'obvious agenda.'
This has run the gamut from the absurd (I think he's only listened to only 3 or 8 recordings rather than the 36 he's claimed), to the unfounded (he's just trying to bash Jon Abbey or he only likes accessible music), to the illogical (his use of an expletive says it all).

So once again, let me say, my piece derived from a sincere frustration with the music, with the writing about the music, and with the hype and boosterism (which we now know involves quite a few conflict-of-interest perception problems).

Is my tone sneering? Admittedly, yes. So is, predictably, the tone of much of the reaction to it.

As for Dan Warburton's response, I'd like to say a few things. First off, I admire his writing and his wealth of knowledge--I always have and continue to. But much of what I took from his own tone could be boiled down to a few condescending nuggets: I know more than you, I listen to more music than you, I write for more (and better) publications than you, and I'm going to tell you why you're a fool. Does he attempt to be fair? I'd say, in some places certainly. He also failed to do anything to truly address the lack of clear writing when it comes to this kind of music. I read his "What Is EAI?" piece but did not find it to be much of a primer or a directive.

I do not agree with him that there is a lack of interesting new jazz being released, but I do share his sentiments about the ridiculous volume of jazz released--which may help explain why I think there's too little good, honest writing and reviewing.

The thrust of some of his other points are, 'Hey, I like both this and that and so do many of my friends, so what do you know anyway?

Some other small points: why is it that certain people need to turn into PC police officers at the mere mention of gender or race? My line about men being the listeners may be wrong (if I'm to believe all of you that plenty of women listen to eai) but there's no sexist implication whatsoever. For there to be there would have to be some sense of intent, some kind of truly invidious claim. There is none. Dan's remark is silly.

As for the provocative discussion that Eddie Prevost's comments set off, I'm sorry I don't run in your circles, Dan. I did read the two letters in the Wire, but that hardly qualifies as a discussion.

Finally, after all this heated talk, I have yet to see any good writing about eai's mysterious structure, and the aesthetic qualities that make listening to it so worthwhile and how one can evaluate its quality.

I find most of the music tedious. That, I guess, is simply an issue of taste.

Adam, thanks for taking the time & energy to respond in this forum. As I’ve written elsewhere I also didn’t like your op/ed and take issue w/ its assumptive/speculative qualities. But I do appreciate your willingness to address its detractors here.

hello

adam, i think i understand your point. sometimes i am also very pissed off about EAI. i cant really explain why, unless i go a bit your way maybe. it happened a few times in the long discussion on this site in january.

what pisses me off maybe is the fact that during the last five years it somehow interest for ''''EAI'''' kept growing and then it became already very boring. that's roughly an explanation. then i understood, after the discussion here in january, that maybe i should, like people advised me, have a break with it. i did. but still by myself i am very interrested to think about this subject. also i talk about this with some musicians collegues here in paris. we somehow share a bit of disinterest with the so called EAI onkyo derived japanese influenced scene. how the improv scene works in general, what are the politics ... hummmm.

to conclude, i think sometime i feel the same as you when reading the eddie prévost's thing. strange that it doesnt raise more discussion, more criticism, more engagement. maybe i always dreamt an art scene should have this outrageous discussions and conflicts...

so much to think about

alexandre

A few quick points in response to Adam (thank you for writing in):

"I know more than you, I listen to more music than you, I write for more (and better) publications than you, and I'm going to tell you why you're a fool."

Well, if that's the way you read it, fine, but it certainly wasn't intended to be a put down. I cited the website and the few mags I write for by way of context/explanation of the number discs I receive / buy (you should see some of the cats I know who write for French jazz magazines and the amount of stuff they get: one geezer sells off (he boasted of the fact) 150 CDs a week.. not that he's actually listened to any of them, of course). But you should be careful if you're going to cross swords with Jon Abbey - I speak from experience - as he's well on the ball as far as the latest outings go, and only too ready to remind you of the fact. But anyway, thanks for the nice words!

"He also failed to do anything to truly address the lack of clear writing when it comes to this kind of music."

If you followed the epic posts that my own Amplify review provoked, I think you'll see my own doubts on the subject expressed in no uncertain terms.

"I read his "What Is EAI?" piece but did not find it to be much of a primer or a directive."

It wasn't intended to be either - I was (am) frustrated that a group of people had somehow arrived at a term (I'm obsessed with terms, I know; put it down to too many years spent in music school) that had no real basis in musicological reality. It's like, yeah, we all know what we mean when we say eai, but when you scratch the surface you find out that there are several distinct musical currents / genres / schools that have been (unfortunately) confused.
I hope you'll agree that the Radu / Taku piece on the IMJ (which I found pretty yawn-inducing, I have to say: my own faith in that duo was only recently restored when I saw them live - see my Wire review)is not really eai at all.

"I do not agree with him that there is a lack of interesting new jazz being released"

Did I say that? Hope not. There's a lot of good stuff - and a lot of dross too. That's true for eai, improv, metal (though Phil F knows more about that than I do), and anything you care to mention.

"Some other small points: why is it that certain people need to turn into PC police officers at the mere mention of gender or race?"

It's hardly my style (I recently got on Wayne Spencer's case for referring to listeners as "she".. I find the whole PC thing pretty petty to be honest, but it just stuck in the craw, if you see what I mean. I wrote the feature yesterday afternoon in 45 minutes, so it was hot off the anvil so to speak.

"As for the provocative discussion that Eddie Prevost's comments set off, I'm sorry I don't run in your circles, Dan. I did read the two letters in the Wire, but that hardly qualifies as a discussion."

I dunno, but we've been rapping on about this shit on Bagatellen (and other sites) since last summer. Maybe I'm just suffering from indigestion.

"I find most of the music tedious. That, I guess, is simply an issue of taste."

Absolutely - but as I think I wrote, there's a time & place for sharing one's opinions. I think we have a certain responsibility as journalists to address our remarks to people who are honestly in search of clarification and edification on something they know little about, but about which they're curious to learn more. There's a time and a place for saying "this is a piece of shit", but I'm not sure that doing it in print (or in an online publication) is really responsible.

Anyway, point me in the direction of some great new jazz!!

Thank you for clarifying, Dan.
Perhaps the one issue that you and others and I will certainly continue to disagree on is whether my piece was appropriate or responsible. I think it is, and as I said, despite the tone, it's sincere. With all the gushing going on, all the 4 and 5 stars handed out, I think a couple of hackle-raisers are actually needed.

as for new jazz, i don't think i can tell you anything. i do enjoy much of dave douglas puts out, am rarely disappointed by new cecil release sor reissues, and have loved, absolutely loved two of the boxes from the golden years of soviet jazz, II & IV, which feature the ganelin trio. I know there's been some writing about it on your site, but not enough elswhere.

Adam-

While I appreciate the sentiment behind your piece -- eai can stand a little more questioning criticism -- I think it's fair to note that a large portion of your argument seems to be based on the idea that people who listen to eai are just trying to be cool, whereas the proper assumption would be that they actually do like the music and are trying to write about it in a way that captures why. It's valid to question whether they always achieve it, of course. This is hard music to write about, and in my writing about it over the last year or so I don't think I've truly come up with a way to express its essence yet. But when you say things like "No ink was spared blathering on about the emotional quality in pianist Tilbury's note placement, a conclusion I dare say would have been hard to reach were it not for the helpful liner note informing us that Tilbury's mother had passed only two days before the recording was made," that just sounds like nonsense to me. This is hardly the first album I've heard with Tilbury on it, and his playing has always sounded emotional to me, with or without notes about his mother. I think you're making assumptions about other people when it's really just a matter of different tastes. And as Dan mentioned, this forum (and the I Hate Music board that's related to it) has had a pretty significant amount of questioning and thoughtful discussion about eai. Nothing conclusive has come of it -- how boring would that be? -- but it's been interesting and certainly not as unrelentingly positive as you suggest in your article.

ed,

fair comments. as to my generalization about listeners just trying to be cool, well, it is a generalization, and there are plenty of exceptions. but based on a lot of the people i've met, and from stuff i've read, wow, is that behavior often true. i find it particularly telling when the most vocal eai enthusiasts go out of ther way to dismiss everything else--jazz, rock, modern composition, etc. Only this music is new and fresh and vital. Nah. And I'm not so sure newness is such a high aesthetic accomplishment anyway.

in Wire, STN, and a few other on-line media sources, nearly all of the coverage of eai has been positive. really. but no one has been able to make clear to me how i'm to evaluate the clarity of this music. just trust jon abbey? or his good friend brian? I need more than that. I trusted them by buying many of the discs, and I haven't been at all moved by them.

adam

"i find it particularly telling when the most vocal eai enthusiasts go out of ther way to dismiss everything else--jazz, rock, modern composition, etc. Only this music is new and fresh and vital. Nah. And I'm not so sure newness is such a high aesthetic accomplishment anyway."

adam - this and other remarks of yours tell me, that actually what you're really pissed about is the talking, the "politics", the hype around so-called eai. that's ok, i have no objections about that. but if you start disrespecting the music itself because of the positive talk about it, you're just incredibly reactionary...

i doubt you would write such ridiculous lines about tilbury if it wasn't for the fact that tilbury's playing got raved about elsewhere. so basically you say: "there is no substantial criticism about eai" but you completely miss the point to do so yourself! why don't you try to write a balanced piece about it yourself, instead of saying: ALL of this stuff is tedious.

"I find most of the music tedious. That, I guess, is simply an issue of taste."

and most impotant: if you admit that this is just an issue of taste, how come that you're not ashamed by the amount of underestimation and arrogance that where shown in your article?! why would you throw shit at a whole scene (better: at what YOU think is one scene. in fact it isn't) only because its music doesn't correspond with your "taste"? how arrogant is that?

adam: "in Wire, STN, and a few other on-line media sources, nearly all of the coverage of eai has been positive. really."

most of the coverage of ALL music in those sources is positive. just speaking for myself, there's so much music out there, and so much that i enjoy, that i generally can't be bothered to write about something i don't like, unless i feel for whatever reason i have something particularly relevant to say about why i don't like it. i know a lot of reviewers feel the same way.

"but no one has been able to make clear to me how i'm to evaluate the clarity of this music. just trust jon abbey? or his good friend brian? I need more than that. I trusted them by buying many of the discs, and I haven't been at all moved by them."

we've had this debate a few times too, but in my opinion there's not much of an objective way to judge this music, which seems to be what you're looking for. why do you feel the need to evaluate it, anyway? if you respond to it in some way, great; if not, move on. nevertheless, i'll do my best to give you some of my loose, subjective "criteria."

for me, eai works on several levels.

first, it's often immensely beautiful on the superficial level, just as pure sound. i'm thinking stuff like AMM and, yes, Duos For Doris. i can enjoy them the same way i enjoy Miles Davis or Brian Eno or Aphex Twin's ambient albums: they just sound gorgeous.

secondly, good eai often reaches me on an emotional level. you mentioned John Tilbury, and i happen to find his playing very striking and very emotional: this is of course also subjective, but there's something in his sound that suggests a tremendous depth of feeling behind each note, which is why i find your description of this music as emotionless very baffling.

and i've found eai also works as a way of awakening the senses. there's just so much nuance and depth to a good eai record, so much going on, and when i listen closely a few times to the same performance, i'll always hear different things, my mind will make different associations each time. the relationship between different sounds (and different performers) is looser and more abstract than in most jazz, but it's still there.

for the record, i know thats a fairly vague set of criteria, but it works for me. i know somewhat intuitively what eai i like and what eai i don't; the stuff that i enjoy tends to fulfill all those things. also for the record, eai is a really broad and inadequate term. your article is mostly referring to the "reductionists" (another term i'm not too fond of).

i think the relative newness of this music means there's not much codified terminology to describe it, which is perhaps what contributes to your dissatisfaction with the writing about it. a lot of the terminology used in writing about jazz -- like "swing" -- wouldn't necessarily mean much without the long history of jazz and its lingo behind it. without a concrete and universal terminology for eai, writers just try to express their responses as best they can, which maybe isn't such a bad thing.

tomas,
again, it's an opinion piece and i forcefully expressed my opinion. you don't like it, you think its arrogant and wrong-headed--that's your opinion, forcefully expressed. the world still stands, and eai is still a music that leaves me wanting, and it's still a music with many die-hard fans. there might even be a few relevant issues that bloom from this.

another thing i've noticed: i'm criticized for how negative and sneering my piece is. thus, i should have been more genteel? more good-natured? kinder, gentler? please, let's be honest about how warm and fuzzy the eai enthusiasts are. and i think you
would have been unhappy with
any kind of negative piece because you just haven't faced very much criticism.

i don't claim to be as elegant or eloquent a writer about music as say, Dan is. but perhaps some of you will turn inward and come up with a piece or two that might clearly explain the structure of this music, and how one can evaluate the quality of it, and how we are to find in it so many of the qualities in it that i find it lacking. at some point, you might stop responding to me (though it's been fun) and prove me wrong in that regard.

ed,
thanks for your post. actually, i've found there is quite a lot of good writing out there on jazz that clearly helps one develop criteria, helps one hear what the writer hears in a manner that's not just metaphoric, that actually describes passages of music in ways that can be understood by someone (like myself) who does not have a musicology degree or training. though you maybe onto something in that this writing about jazz takes place over a long period of time with a whole history of references to draw on.

you know, for example,
i read a lot (and not just in reference to eai) about how this music makes you listen in a new way or changes the way you listen, or things to that effect. i guess that's not an achievement for which i have too much regard. if i'm going to hear in a new way, then i also want to know how i'm to take pleasure from this and how i'm to judge the quality of the experience.

and i do think the univerally postive nature of almost all music writing is disappointing. look, i can fully ubderstand why, for all the reasons stated, but it actually underscores for me why my very negative piece was met with such hostility.

here is abombshell for atom that may sting on the otherside too. eai, and the people who listen to it or not cool, or could possibly be trying to be cool by listening to it. how many times have a gotten layed by a hipster chick because of my deep cd case of otomo yoshihide, not once. how many times have a come off stage at a show and been taken into the bathroom,, not once. cool people like the rapture and the yeah yeah yeahs and what not. now poetry.. thats money

adam -

"and i think you would have been unhappy with
any kind of negative piece because you just haven't faced very much criticism."

you really seem to like prejudices, don't you?
how could you possibly tell about what kind of criticism i'm confronted with? just to let you know: i live in zurich and in the field of improvised and/or "experimental" music (most of) the venues and (most of) the public money (yes, we're fortunate enough to have that) here in switzerland is in the hand of people that think exactly the way you do about what you call EAI. AND i write for a jazzmag, and every time i critizise some of the established guys (say fred van hove or günter sommer) i'm overloaded with shit, so don't you tell me about not being used to face criticism.

look, i'm not asking you to be "polite" or "nice" but just to be FAIR. i mean, do you really think that all of the music enthusiasts (listeners, musicians, critics, whatever) that are so attracted by the field of music you seem to hate are either completely naive or stupid or just have no idea of "good" music or just are trying to be "cool"? are you serious? see that's what i mean with arrogant.

if you think my record so and so is a failure because of whatever musical reason: no problem, i can live with that. but if you think that record so and so is shit just because this sounds to you like EAI and, as every music lover should know by now, all EAI is just tedious crap, then that's a ridiculous simplification.

besides: i like the humming of refrigerators...yeah, i know, i'm pretty cool.

I think, Adam, that Dan probably wouldn't have bothered complaining at all if your piece was a "negative" review of a disc or two, rather than a smearing of an entire music (which is pretty pluralistic, actually, and nowhere NEAR being a "scene"). It also would have raised fewer hackles if it had been a critique of the hype/journalism surrounding the music (noted and bemoaned by many, recognized as unavoidable and benign by others) rather than a conflation of hype/music.

As for me, your urge to evaluate (as expressed most strongly by the line "if i'm going to hear in a new way, then i also want to know how i'm to take pleasure from this and how i'm to judge the quality of the experience") is a mistake. I understand that evaluation is one of the primary actions of our minds, but it's not a very interesting one, and if it's your stated goal when listening to a piece of music, then I'm afraid your missing the music in your haste to evaluate it. Listen to it; take pleasure, or don't; evaluate (if you must). But listen first.

Frankly, I can accept reviews that evaluate: unless the evaluation is prescriptive. I prefer, however, description, since it's clearly more helpful to the reader.

one last thing:

on another thread mr.abbey told us that most erstwhile records sell between 300-500 copies.
yup, i guess this music is really being hyped and overrated, isn't it...

i'm out of this thread - need some time to polish my limo and fuck some groupies.

truth is, i've found most of the people i've insulted with my piece to be incredibly intelligent and learned people. i never suggested otherwise.
and it's evident by the serious posts here.

Hey Adam,

Welcome to Bags. Just for clarification, I know you said that you actually enjoyed a *few* (2 or 3) eai records, so what were they? The Rowe 3", right? What were the others?

I think that from my perspective a lot of what I really enjoy about the music - and what I think you might find so frustrating, or at least this is what I'm inferring - is precisely that it IS difficult to talk about or conceptualize (or play). I know that a lot of the stuff that comes my way is familiar and predictable on some levels, and over these past several years I've been very excited by this music because it is elusive in a lot of ways (partly via its "reductionism" and I suppose partly for other reasons).

I can see how that would fail to connect with some folks, or just be annoying. My arc of appreciation for a lot of this music tends to go through 3 phases (which I've attempted to describe in some of my reviews, e.g. with the Sachiko M minidisc I wrote up here): first of all I'm attracted to the sounds themselves, their alien quality, the modes of their interaction, etc.; second, I am fascinated by the conceptual problems that the music raise (and that some of the improvisers involved in this music are quite explicitly pursuing); and finally I come back to an appreciation of the sound, the pieces themselves, which possess details that are not always immediately evident. It's in the space between phase 2 and 3 that things get complicated, I admit, especially in terms of translating what is often a bizarre (and thereby, for me, interesting) aesthetic experience into text. But I dig that.

Anyways, onward the conversation goes.

jason,
the other discs I've liked are by the various configurations of Trapist/Radian, though maybe only Trapist is really improv?

so to turn the tables for a second... what do you hear in trapist/radian & that keith rowe 3" that you don't hear in other eai?

ed,
fair enough.
i haven't listened to them in awhile, so
let me do so and i'll try to come up with something. i can say though the main reason i've liked the trapist/radian configurations is because of the drummer. brandlmayr is amazing.
such touch, such evocative touch.

hello

i've read all the post so far about this new talk.

hummmm, its hard to know how to stand here.

rather than trying to make theories or explain so many things i will simply right down here about my experience with improvised music. its going to be a bit of a story.

I started being a musician in 1993 (i was born in 75) after being touched by Nirvana. I just started a band with my brother, learning by myself drums and electric guitar. from 1997i started listening to a lot of sonic youth, can, velvet underground and a friend discovered this tiny record shop in Paris which sells Thruston Moore 'experimental' records. I went there and then I learned about this venue called Instants Chavirés near Paris. This is back in september 1998. First concert I saw was with Erik M, Guionnet and Cordier. It all started from there. Since that time my interest for improvised music has been going on. My rock bands finished in 1999 because people were moving away.

Now about the evolution of the music: after this first concert in Instants Chavirés, I use to go to this venue very often. I guess my interest was big because i was discovering lots of things. At the same time i was still listening to old rock or other stuff as well. But i was very into this 'new thing'. I started buying records, learning about genre references such as Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Otomo Yoshihide, Haino Keiji, AMM, also learning existence of concrete music, contemporary stuff like cage or feldamnn... Then i feel that the growth of the japanese thing started. First time I saw otomo was with Tenko at the time of microcosmos. i guess a bit before he turned his way round somehow as he's said sometimes. then also it was the 'begining of taku sugimoto' and the off site minimal thing. again that was something new in the new thing for me and for my musician friends in this improvised field. so interest went on the japanese scene, i really thought at first that they had really found some new way of playing, and then they did, and it was quite interresting. of course then maybe we all thought back to something like AMM.

then there is parts i am still not sure to really understand. well, somehow obviously i feel some of the derived jazz stuff improv acoustic tended to disapear and more and more it seemed musicians were going in this japanese thing and electronics. Or also, it started some kinda of thing in europe like, when the japanese were coming, it was like an event. and then musicians wanted to start being involved with them, and then maybe started a whole big trend thing, trade thing (all proportions kept). and now sometimes it seems it has become a hierarchy with politics. hummmm. its a hard bit. i still feel myself quite confused about this. i very well know that it is a small thing, not so many sales, money etc.

also i must go this way as well. as i said i am a musician myself, and for the last five years i regularly participated to concerts here in paris and other places as well. i remember that there wasnt many possibilites for me to play at the begining, and then the artists squats stuff started. people started organising concerts, anything, they had a space and they just wanted people to play. still now i do many concerts in such places in paris, not really noise music place but if you have a good attitude people like it. then they started being more squats for this, so, more concerts, and so more new young musicians coming from the workshops organised at instants chavirés few years before started playing for example. and also small venues slowly started being interrested in organising improvised related events. i have a feeling most of the musicians present now on the scene in paris (i know also in other places in france) around age of 30 (let's say) have been influenced by the japanese thing of this last years. i am really quite so sure about this. i have been myself in fact. and i want to be aware of this. i must. and then also people got influenced by the berlin musicians, and the austrians, and the londoners. and now in paris, for me, many concerts i attend are very boring. it gets hard to explain this. it has just mostly become just a genre, people play this way or that way and sometimes i think they dont even know why. sometimes they dont have the talent for it even, they dont seem to have such thing to express, to transcend, but they still do it. and even worst sometimes some people still seem to like it, but i think its less and less.

i basically am not interrested in something so new, or never done. i am attracted by something which moves me. nirvana moved me and still moves me. i still like velvet underground. i dont like rock concerts that have no attitude neither. i am not interrested in improv concerts where musicians seems to not make any efforts, seems to sometimes have forgotten there is an audience, and that they should be abble to cut loose if necesary. i dont want to talk so much about the music. it should talk for itself really. music should never feel like its imposed to me, i talk on a concert level mostly. i am much more interrested in improvised music as a live performance than on cds. cds somehow would always push more towards composed work maybe. and when i play a concert i want to captivate the audience. i want to try to make them feel like in a movie, like there is this, and then this, and then this part, then this event happens. i want actions. i cant always be okay with some music which totally lacks of any kind of intention, of strenght, of speech. i mean. and still i talk about improvisation.

come on, can we react on this.

maybe its hard to explain, but if we make effort we can i am sure understand what we are trying to explain, discuss, understand...

alexandre

"Such touch, such evocative touch."

Groupie! Wannabe! Joiner! Airhead! Hypester! Sell-out! Drone! Pablum-spewer! Tushieface!

"Tushieface"?

No?

Ok, how about I substitute either "Poseur!" or "Shill!"?

;>}

i don't think i have much to say about the article on that other site or the response here, but i liked that post alexandre just made and want to talk about it a little...

it raises the question to me about how a musician might get involved in music such as this. it's one thing to be impressed by the work of otomo, sachiko, rowe, or whoever else, something else entirely to find a unique voice using their tools. the recordless turntable, sampleless sampler, and motionless guitar (well, not exactly, but you know what i mean) are surely very difficult instruments to be expressive with. i certainly believe the musicians i've listed are succesful, but then i consider them pretty amazing musicians, so i'm not surprised others might not be able to follow their path...

which leads me to a few comments about my local (houston) scene. i'm not a musician, but have many friends among the group of young musicians who have studied with david dove, a trombonist an improviser who has been pretty much the main mover for improvised music in town (arranging concerts, workshops, classes, etc). several of these young musicians are heavily influenced by the workshops they have attended with john butcher and especially keith rowe. while none have acheived voices as powerful and unique as the major names in the field, i find it very exciting and rewarding to witness the development of their music and the steps through which they both reduce and extend the sounds they are interested in working with.

my point? i guess it's just that i'm disappointed to here that this process is so trendy and forced in more cosmopolitan regions of the improv world. around here, i don't see mimmickery, posing, or forced gestures. i see musicians genuinely intrigued by a new and developing direction in improvised music.

m

Hi,

even I like Tilbury's Touch.

and from the little I have heard from him I like it best in his collaboration with Evan Parker on Tenor. Probably *too jazzy* for some of you guys.

Ed,

Okay,
i've been listening again to Trapist and Radian (how they should be classified, I can't really say). And at the risk of accumulating more scorn (but hell, I dished it out), I'll try to offer a few thoughts (as opposed to a review) on what I like about the recordings I've heard (2 from each group).

Of course both groups are different, but in a general sense what I like is the very controlled tension that derives from the way they abstract song in their playing. They're not just interested in texture and sonic discoveries, but in the forms and facets of song--its harmonic underpinning, its rhythmic scaffolding, and its variable approaches to creating beat and even melody. There is momentum and even a kind of evasive and playful progression in many of their songs, but this sounds neither predictable nor amorphous.

Brandlmayr, as many others have remarked, is wonderful. Often these days when people praise drummers, they talk about their inventive polyrhythms, layers of braided and unbraided beat that come from crossing and changing meter. How innovatively one assimilates this within a song os often what gets attention. But what I really love about Brandlmayr is how many melodic ideas he seems to be able to draw out with his very subtle but richly suggestive playing. Take for instance his brush work. I've never heard someone mine and find such a range of moods with brushes.

Generally, his playing is elliptical, even spare, and yet at the same time its brimming with patterns (or their apparitions), and thus, there's always a presence from him. I know this negelects the other players in Trapist and Radian, who are also exceptional, but listening again this morning, it's Brandlmayr's uniqueness I find really rewarding.

Adam, I don't think many here would quibble with your assessment of Brandlmayr and, speaking for myself, you've pretty well encapsulated many of the aspects I greatly enjoy in his work as well. The only (or, at least, "a") difference is that as much as I love Brandlmayr's rhythmic suppleness, I also love (to restrict it to percussionists) the way Sean Meehan rolls grains of rice on his snare. As much I love the way Radian's or Trapist's pieces approximate song structure in very tantalizing ways, I love the way Philip Samartzis' modified field recordings have nothing whatsoever to do with that. It's not, imho, one thing or the other, it's both and many more.

blawless--where you been? Stick around.

Adam,

That's a great description of Brandlmayr, he's definitely a uniquely skilled "drummer." I can of course see why you'd like Radian and Trapist, since they both have way more structure than most eai (and Radian in fact isn't improvised at all). But I think a lot of the things you're talking about there can certainly be applied to other eai performers as well, although perhaps in a less readily accessible and recognizable way. As Brian mentioned, Sean Meehan is excellent, and I think there's more kinship between him and Brandlmayr than one might at first suspect. I'm thinking here of his album with Sachiko M (which I doubt you'd find very digestable nevertheless) and a duo I saw between him and Tim Barnes. He can create evasive and unpredictable rhythms from his rather unconventional techniques, and though he's a lot further from song structure than Brandlmayr, as Brian says, that in itself doesn't make him bad.

Have you heard "Too Beautiful To Burn," Brandlmayr's duo with Trapist guitarist Martin Siewert on Erstwhile? It's my favorite album from that Trapist/Radian scene.

thanks, Brian and Ed, for responding.

Yes, I have the Erst cd but haven't really had a chance to listen to it more than a couple of times. I will though because I'm willing to listen to anything by Brandlmayr. There's a few other discs out there he's on I'll have to check out to. It's great to find a musician you can really be excited over--especially one that's not dead!

You'll probably love Kapital Band. Check out my review somewhere in the Bag archives if you want a description. Great disc.

This 'debate' reminds me of the ECM controversy (for lack of a better word) back in the 80's. The label kicked out an endless stream of tone poem/new age-like recordings that annoyed the hell out of many free jazz/improv devotees. Me included. Hill's knock against eai is similar to complaints leveled against ECM at that time. While I agree with him for the most part, it really does come down to a matter of personal taste, I believe. I don't question the sincerity of the artists producing this music, but I also find much of it tedious and annoying. That, however, is my problem. Caveat emptor.

1(!).../"o", and so on.

Weren't there comments to this post?

Sounds like Hill needed an enema and found one that served him well.

He imagines every possible (to him) reason for listening to eai except one: that perhaps people might enjoy it, for musical reasons, whether or not he does.

I've always liked the way writers like Hill assume the ability to see into the psyches of people with different musical tastes than his own. It wasn't all that long ago that a lot of jazz fans accused people who listen to free jazz, never mind free improv, of listening to it in order to feel "cool." Now, it's eai. Tomorrow, it will be something else.

For myself, I can't imagine why it's such an issue to some jazz fans that others listen *also* to eai. So what? I've never met a jazz fan who didn't listen also to other forms of music. Why not eai? He doesn't complain about people talking about rock or hip hop or c&w or whatever on jazz sites, I notice, even though they do.

Anyway, I'm sick to death of this sort of supermarket psychologizing of things, and really sick of the personalizing of every possible issue. "Men with disposable incomes...." Well, no shit. Jazz fans don't have disposable incomes? What are remarks like that supposed to mean? I don't know about him, but I'm not one of the guys who receive a seabag full of free CDs every week. I buy my own records, like most music fans. Most of them are jazz records. A lot aren't. Again,so what? The point is, like most serious music people I know, I spend the bulk of my "disposable income" on recorded or live music, because music is my passion. Why I make the choices I do is something impossible for Hill to know, much less to psychologize; I doubt very much that he possesses the power to see into the minds of people he's never met or talked to.

So, he doesn't like eai. Tough. I don't like a lot of music I hear. So what? Other people do. In fact, it's obvious that many millions of people apparently enjoy listening to absolute crap, or "product" as the industry (and industry it is) rightly calls it.

For the life of me, however, I can't think of a rational reason to use the word "hype" when talking about a music, the recordings of which sell in the hundreds of copies, if lucky, worldwide. How much "hype" can there be? Give us a break already. Norah Jones has hype. People like me, who've never heard her records, know her name. That's hype.

Poire_z is not a name that comes up often in conversation or media. Some hype.

One other thing: It simply isn't true that improvised music as such derives from jazz, or even free jazz. Some, especially in Europe, derives from 20th C "new music," for example, and from musicians without any jazz credentials at all. Indian classical music has been an improvised music for millenia.

One of the more exciting things to me about eai is that it is an improvised form that has emerged from no local or regional source, but worldwide, and out of the current historical conditions, without which its evolution would probably have been impossible (the internet, email, downloading, digital equipment, and etc). It is, in many ways, the first authentic "world music."

But, if Hill can't dig it, he can always go back to listening to his Hot Fives And Sevens. Who's stopping him? Who would care if he did (or didn't)?