Thanks Brian for this review of the TIlbury disc. I've listened to it many times since it's release and while I found it immediately enjoyable it has grown on me substantially with subsequent listens. Amongst the wags it seems to have been dismissed as "slight" and Tilbury's skills as a solo improvisor questioned. I have found that like the best improv it reveals itself over multiple listens - it has depth and a character that unfolds as it becomes familiar. I'm with you in that there is not other pianist I'd rather hear and I really wanted to love this immediately. But the reality for me is in how often I'm drawn to listen to it

"Amongst the wags it seems to have been dismissed as "slight" and Tilbury's skills as a solo improvisor questioned." -Robert (hatta)

I was really excited to hear this one, but only listened to it once before dismissing it. I felt that Tilbury anxiously moved through his repertoire without taking time to explore any one idea fully. At a mere 36 minutes, this disc seemed like a tease to me. However, after reading your comments and Brian's review, I wonder if I might have missed something. I'm going to give it another listen now!

After one listen, my first reaction was a little bit the same: nice--not sure how much more. Though even then, I found the last several minutes riveting. You know the way you get a certain "image" of a disc after a single listen? When I listened for a second time, much more closely, it was like I'd never heard it before. Headphones recommended, depending on your system. It was only over 'phones that I picked up the gentle tapping of what I'm guessing to be Tilbury's fingernails--maybe a drumstick?--over the keyboard at the very end (something he did on the "Doris" session but which still has a huge effect on me--extremely, sensually caressive).

I'm surprised you found it necessary to review both as a double header, Brian, since they're quite different releases and it's perfectly clear where your own sympathies lie. Just because discs come out on the same label doesn't mean they should automatically be reviewed together, especially when the label is as eclectic (as you say) as Rossbin. I've only skimmed through the Andel so far and nothing much grabbed me but I still feel you're doing her a disservice, if only simply by putting her in the same bag as the Tilbury, which is very fine (though not as overwhelming and moving as "Doris"). I don't understand the packaging concept either, to be honest.

I listened to the Tilbury disc again last night (this time with headphones), but I still have the same complaints as before. It just seems a little too rushed. I agree with Dan that this disc is "very fine", but it is certainly not great.

Brian, if you really want to hear some groundbreaking solo improv you should crack open that Meehan! :)

Grrr....

History will bear me out on the Tilbury! I wondering if, on the part of Rowe fans, there's not a little, lingering resentment still in the air concerning Tilbury and Prevost that might be coloring opinions of their recent work. Maybe, maybe not.

Dan, it wasn't "necessary" to combine the two in one write-up, simply convenient. I don't have any particular problem with so mating two disparate releases. Readers can ignore one or the other as they please.

Interested if anybody already knew the new Schmickler/Tilbury duo on A-Music. Did you liked it ?

"History will bear me out on the Tilbury!"
What do want to bet, Brian? I always thought Absinth was a great Tilbury disc - I like it more than many AMMs and much more than Hands of Caravaggio (nothing personal Jon), but that dropped off the map.
"I wondering if, on the part of Rowe fans, there's not a little, lingering resentment still in the air concerning Tilbury and Prevost that might be coloring opinions of their recent work."
Not in my case. I view that whole business as a storm in a teacup anyway.
"I don't have any particular problem with so mating two disparate releases. Readers can ignore one or the other as they please."
Your last sentence makes it crystal clear which one they're supposed to ignore!

I'm going to try to stay out of this thread also, I think, although I will say that my own feelings about Absinth aside (it sounds like three separate records overdubbed to me, all nice sounds, not much connection between them), it would be better known if it hadn't been OOP for a few years now.

I need a solo piano album like I need a hole in my head... Hmm, I have this Tilbury solo piano disc sitting at the very bottom of my listening stack still stealed (Skempton pianoworks) and I'm thinking I might just get rid of it without even opening it and playing it at all—I bought it for like $3 because it's Tilbury, but maybe I'd be better off using that hour of my life in another way... I can always rely on silence or Black Sabbath for a great listening experience, but if Mr. High and Mighty Guardian of Our Conscious is too good to come to the US (not that I'm personally enough of a fan to even to go to a gig anyway unless it was very convenient), then I'm too good to listen to his solo music... Check it out, Johnny Boy, one of your fans (I do love AMM and the Feldman set) can be as pretentious and irrational as you! Heck, it's fun!

I totally agree with Dan about the review formatting. Sticking unrelated reviews in the same slot makes it likely that the commentellen will get really tangled to the detriment of each topic and the thread's readability, as has happened many times on Bags. Putting reviews together just based on them coming from the same label strikes me as a terrible habit I see a lot of people follow, and I'm assuming it has to do with their personal linkage getting them in the same package from the label and feeling a review obligation or whatever, a superficial connection that often doesn't carry over into any substance.

But that Andel sounds fantastic. I'm a huge fan of Michael Gordon, especially his earlier work. The Vienna Art Orchestra output was occasionally uneven, but I can think of a solid handful of albums that I find mind-blowing, including all of the Hat releases as I recall. Those albums are MONSTERS! Apologies for interrupting a perfectly good Tilbury thread, but I'm going to check out that Andel asap...

See? Even negative, ill-positioned reviews have value! Go for it and enjoy, Michael.

"if Mr. High and Mighty Guardian of Our Conscious is too good to come to the US (not that I'm personally enough of a fan to even to go to a gig anyway unless it was very convenient), then I'm too good to listen to his solo music... Check it out, Johnny Boy, one of your fans (I do love AMM and the Feldman set) can be as pretentious and irrational as you! Heck, it's fun!"

really stupid, Michael, you should stick to stuff you're more clued in about. and the Skempton record is very nice, listen to it or give it to someone who can appreciate it.

"the Skempton record is very nice, listen to it or give it to someone who can appreciate it."
Yeah, ME - I haven't got that one (you know my email address, I'll send you $ drop a line)
Maybe you know something about the Absinth sessions I don't, Jon, but I still think that record is very good indeed. If I didn't know you better (maybe I don't know you well enough) I'd say there's a whiff of sour grapes in the air - Absinth for my money is one of the only EAI outings of Erstwhile quality that's not on Erstwhile (there are one or two more, on Cut and For4Eears maybe). Out Of Print? Totally chaotic.. what the fuck's up with Grob? I get the impression they don't have a clue or give a fuck about what's going on vis a vis promo or mid/longterm strategy.
As far as Tilbury's decision to boycott your blessed country, Michael, perhaps you should read his thoughts on the subject http://incalcando.com/tilbury/ before you start sulking... Though I can see what he means I can't really see what's to be gained by it all; the best comment on Tilbury's "boycott" (which was as inconsequential as Rowe's anti-French strike last year or was it two years ago?) was written by Alan Licht in Jigsaw #8 a while back (check it out, it's somewhere online). Here's a bit of it:
"If a bunch of pop stars decide they ain't gonna play Sun City and put words to that effect in a song that gets played on every radio station in the country they'll raise consciousness and have an economic effect (on Sun City, at least) by not performing. If John Tilbury doesn't play Tonic, fifty people in New York City, who are most likely already politically conscious, are disappointed. Youssou N'Dour also cancelled his tour in protest of the war. He plays larger venues than Tilbury, so this is a more significant statement. But in a way he's playing into the hands of the right wing. Keeping Americans in the dark about what the rest of the world is like makes their job easier-it makes keeping people of afraid of the outside world that much easier. By importing culture from other countries it makes it harder to consider them enemies (just think how different history might have been if we'd had Vietnamese restaurants in major cities in the 50s or if the great wave of Iranian cinema happened in the early 70s instead of the 90s). This was one of Tilbury's other complaints-that "people in the US have been kept in abject ignorance in relation to the world at large." But then he goes on to say that he always feels uncomfortable here and is terribly relieved to scurry back home to Blighty as soon as possible to escape "a predatory, aggressive, individualistic, dominant culture whose avowed aim is to impose itself, through threat of annihilation, on the rest of the world."

"Maybe you know something about the Absinth sessions I don't, Jon, but I still think that record is very good indeed. If I didn't know you better (maybe I don't know you well enough) I'd say there's a whiff of sour grapes in the air - Absinth for my money is one of the only EAI outings of Erstwhile quality that's not on Erstwhile (there are one or two more, on Cut and For4Eears maybe). "

nah, no sour grapes, just my honest opinion, I wouldn't have put that record out as is. the only release on another label that I would have liked to have released that I can think of offhand, no reservations, no changes, is the Toshi/Andrea Neumann on Rossbin. the Rowe/Beins on Zarek was in that category also, but then I did ErstLive 001. I'd be really excited if other labels were releasing more records I could totally get behind, believe me.

"what the fuck's up with Grob? I get the impression they don't have a clue or give a fuck about what's going on vis a vis promo or mid/longterm strategy."

I'm surprised you don't know, but last month, Grob announced to all of the musicians in their pending projects that they were going on hiatus for at least a year, and would reevaluate things then. a lot of their best titles have been OOP for quite some time.

who runs grob? musicians or non-musicians?

some very good cds, but i've always found their website irritating.

I have to say I have struggled to completely enjoy the Tilbury so far. I certainly haven't dismissed it yet though and will listen some more.

For me, it has just seemed to try and do too much in too short a space of time, jumping from approach to approach without much to link the parts together. Parts of this disc are heart-stoppingly beautiful, but its more the overall structure I have yet to come to grips with.

I saw Tilbury play a short solo improvisation a year or two back where he focussed continually on slow Feldmanesque structures alone. This was quite stunningly beautiful.

It may well be that I am just letting my love of Tilbury's Feldman interpretations cloud my judgement here so maybe I just need to listen some more.

[Jon] really stupid, Michael, you should stick to stuff you're more clued in about.

[Mike] Not stupid at all, Jon. I'm clued in enough about the Tilbury thing to have an opinion. I just read (or re-read as it were, since it sounded familiar) the page Dan linked to, and my opinion of Tilbury's ideology has sunk even further. It's comically naive and irrational, not to mention crass, insulting, delusionary, and factually inaccurate. He sounds like a small-town community college professor raving at a local coffee shop, and it's a fine example of how artistic sophistication and intellectual sophistication are totally independent of each other.

I'm personally partially boycotting Tilbury's music and that's my personal choice based on a thought process at least as substantial and irrational as Tilbury's (combined with a marked lack of enthusiasm for piano music). I'm sure him and anyone else don't care, just like I don't care if he doesn't come to the US.

I agree with Alan Licht's take on it, but I have an even better argument against Tilbury's view in which it's cast as a personal insult to his fans in the US. It would take at least an hour or so to write it up properly and it's not an interesting enough topic for me to bother at the moment.

As far as the Skempton disc, "nice"—that seals it! The last thing I'm going to spend time on is a "nice" solo piano album! It pains me to even think about it.

MAP - "I'm personally partially boycotting Tilbury's music"

Hey, either you boycott it or you don't. There is no third way. Or at least if there is, it seems a bit of a waste of time to me.

I object to being fingerprinted and asked whether I was a Nazi between 1933 and 1945, but I try not to take it personally.

Hang on, hang on --

The disc of Tilbury playing Skempton's music is rather more than just "nice" - it's a splendid piece of work, terrific music, interpreted with great skill and sensitivity. And, note, it's rather more Skempton's music than Tilbury's. Mike, surely you're not going to boycott Skempton, are you?

But if, out of bloody-mindedness, you're intent on not playing the CD, wing it to Dan, he'll give it a good home.

Strongly agreed on the Skempton--a big favorite of mine. But, hey, I like "Barcelona" a lot too so, WTFDIK?

I'll make a CDR copy "just in case the mood strikes in a few years" before I wing it to Dan! :-) Geez, "splendid" and "terrific"—you play hardball, Brian.

Alastiar, "partially boycott" just means I'm occasionally avoiding some of his music that I'd perhaps be more inclined to listen to if I had a nicer extra-musical opinion of him. I'm not taking it very seriously, and there's a bit of clever twist to what I was saying because my reasons for not listening to Tilbury are mostly musical and have only a little to do with the ideological thing, intended to be a subtle analogy to the way Tilbury's stated reasons for his boycott have in fact very little to do at all with the action itself. My quaint smokescreen for a humdrum, purely aesthetic loss of interest in even AMM is a sly poke at Tilbury for his own smokescreen.

Yes, I'll come clean. I've just found my tastes shifting away from both AMM and Feldman. It's too loud. :-) And not spluttery enough. I'm dying to hear that new Doneda/Bosetti...

FWIW, I called Tilbury's Skempton disc "very nice" and will stick with that as a two word assessment. his versions of For Bunita Marcus and Triadic Memories are as beautiful as any music I know, and I'd also rather listen to his Cardew or Cage discs than the Skempton, although I'm certainly holding onto my copy.

Damn, between "very" and "splendid", I'm about to tear into this Tilbury/Skempton with a razor blade and slam it into the nearest disc player...
Er, yeah right...

But then maybe this is a perfect opportunity to pull an "Olewnick" on it! Ah, the sublime joy of courtly sound-love repression...
:-)

Bloody hell, Mike. I bet you and Brian were the only kids in the whole of the western world to get up on Xmas morning and say, "I don't think I'll open my presents, I'll just enjoy looking at the stuff they're wrapped in." If the doom-mongering British press is correct, avian flu will have killed us all within the next three months - so in the interim why not enjoy a bit of Skempton/Tilbury or some Meehan?

We've got 3 months?
Hell, go nuts & listen through the second Feldman string quartet. Or ErstLive 005.
I am pro-unwrapping gifts. It completes them.

But I *am* enjoying the Meehan.

Ah, Brian, but one could argue, and with some justification, that you're only tapping into, at best, 50 per cent of the Meehan package's potential, as you haven't yet heard the music. And surely Sean, as a musician first and foremost, would rather have us privilege the music over the music's packaging, however marvellous and fulfilling the latter may be. Am I missing something here?

Not having spoken to Sean about it, I don't know explicitly what his desires might be but, as mentioned in the commentary on the "review", when you're dealing with an artist who has a previous release consisting of an empty cassette case, I think it argues for assuming a wider than normal latitude of possibilities.

Obviously, I'm missing the music. But I do strongly feel that, certainly in an extra-musical sense and arguably in an extra-aesthetic one (ie, one concerned with social/philosophical values), I've more than gotten my money's worth. I could get "more" by listening, but that would necessarily lessen these auxiliary values and, besides, my approach to the package is very much about denying oneself, at least sometimes, the "more".

Not saying everyone should do this; that's up to them. But if there are 200 copies of this (? dunno the run amount), I'd kinda hope that at least a few made the same decision. Barry, are you still with me??

If not, not.

Looking at the papers over here this morning I reckon three months could even be pushing it...

Forget the Feldman String Quartet and EL005 and make a start on the Meehan before tea time Brian, we may all only have hour left to li..........

Looking at the papers over here this morning I reckon three months could even be pushing it...

Forget the Feldman String Quartet and EL005 and make a start on the Meehan before tea time Brian, we may all only have an hour left to li..........

That joke kind of loses impact when it is posted twice.... sigh....

Good gawd, Richard, you're still not dead yet! Have the Daily Mail, The Sun, The Star and even - gasp! - The Guardian been informed of this miraculous case of survival against all tabloid odds?

A-choo!!!

Jesse: "I am pro-unwrapping gifts. It completes them."

Don't know about that, Jesse, but it's a good strategy for avoiding - merely forestalling? - disappointment.

Ah, but in life a measure of disappointment is unavoidable, no matter how much one wishes to keep it at bay.

OK, I promise that when my demise is imminent via bird flu, my last music-related act will be listening to the Meehan. Guessing it will serve well as exit music.

Give over, Brian. You've got about as much chance of dying crossing a road in rural Kansas as catching bird flu - the worst media hype since the fucking Ayler box!

...feeling lung constriction....bleeding from ears...Meehan sleeve placed too high to reach....Now...I'll never...hear....aggghhhhhh.....

Open question re: muisc in the Tilbury/Skempton vein.

I get the impression, often and, I suppose, not surprisingly, of a general dislike on the part of "avant" listeners of what you might call post-neo-Romantic music, by which I mean music composed by people who have a good working knowledge of avant forms but who choose to write (or improvise) melodic, overtly "pretty" or emotional music. Skempton would be an obvious example. I'd also include the political music of Cardew and Rzewski and, based on this one recording anyway, Tilbury's own music. John White and Michael Smith, too.

Personally, I don't have any problem at all with this approach (while differentiating in quality between practitioners), never having thought that there's "one way", even in a broad sense, to attack contemporary music. I find as much beauty in, say, Skempton's "Well, Well Cornelius" as I do in, oh, your standard Rowe solo set. A different type of beauty, at least on several levels, but a roughly equivalent one all the same. I think, sometimes, listeners will more or less dismiss one or the other out of hand--"You can hum it? No way!" Unfortunate, if true.

Not, of course, that everyone must like both but I wonder if a number of listeners, maybe mostly younger ones, avoid listening to people like Skempton merely knowing the forms he uses, knowing that he writes songs for piano or accordion.

Obversely, I think it's fascinating (and entirely appropriate) that musicians like Skempton are huge admirers of AMM. I doubt he sees any dichotomy. Some here know that I studied painting and, notoriously, use painting analogies often enough in my music reviews. My own work is quite realist (tending toward stones, sticks, etc) and, in fact, when turning the analogy on myself, I could see comparing them (though not necessariy qualitatively, by any means!) to Skempton piano pieces. Of course, this doesn't mean I can't admire a Rothko or a Beuys performance. There are simply many different approaches toward similar ends and objecting to a work of art due to the technique or style employed seems to me, most often, to be missing the point. Not to mention way Western-centric.

I could be wrong--clue me in. It's just that the level of...repulsion I sometimes hear expressed toward music like Skempton's, (late) Cardew's and others seems to have more behind it than just a difference in taste. It's almost as if they're seen as betraying some modernist covenant, much like the reaction levelled at ex-Abstract painters like Alfred Leslie or Philip Guston.

who said anything bad about Skempton here? repulsion? huh?

Not here, necessarily. But you hear it around. (won't name names for now)

FWIW, I'm one who doesn't care for Skempton or the later Cardew. I don't know why, exactly, but I'll try to put something together here. Generally, though, I think it's that the harmonies don't move me.

To (try to) give an example, one Feldman piano chord, held for six slow beats, might just consist of--after a pause--a forte blast of left hand middle C and the C below, and right hand octave Es--the one an octave and a third above middle C and the one an octave above that. So...it's just two octaves being played. And it's just a major third....but it's beautiful. Who knows why. I don't think there's anything like it in Skempton or Cardew. Of course, nothing is supposed to be like THAT.

Thus, someone might say, "Well, sure, but there's also melodic beauty of a type you don't get from Feldman." And yes, I think that's undeniable. But, for me at least, for that sort of beauty, there has to be some interesting harmonies--like in the slow movement to Mozart's late symphonies or in the adagio to Barber's Violin Concerto or the opening of Brahms 4th or almost any randomly chosen Beethoven or Shostakovich string quartet or Bruckner symphony or etc. etc. Even a simple celtic folk (or e.g., Inc. String Band or [pick your favorite pop] tune is, for me, moving only if there's something gripping (touching or exciting or unusual or otherwise striking) about the harmonic movement.

The late Cardew & Skempton stuff was, I think, very intentionally made NOT to be gripping in that particular fashion. So, it naturally may remind the jaded of stuff more commonly made for my six-year-old and other kindergartners. I'm not claiming that this music has therefore failed in what it's attempted to do, only trying to explain why it may bores me and many others so quickly. No unexpected changes, no real surprises of any kind.

Anyhow, I don't think these pieces were made for people who'd spent many years listening to classical music (or jazz)--quite the contrary. And that's (I think) why it's lost on me. Others obviously disagree.

Actually I think Skempton is a hugely underrated composer. I can see why people encountering his music on CD with no context might find it underwhelming or trifling, but he is definitely at some remove from such pop peddlers as Pärt, Glass or Nyman.

I have heard him introduce a concert of his music and his intellectual engagement was obvious: he stressed the importance of Cardew, experience with the Scratch Orchestra, experimentalism, and how this related to his desire to make simple pieces for solo instruments. It seems there is often a certain ambiguity within that simplicity. Recently he has written some interesting choral pieces too.

Thanks, Walt (I knew you'd been unmoved by Skempton and Cardew and was hoping for a response from you). Most of your issues seem to be simply a matter of taste and nothing to discuss about; all well and good.

I'd agree with you that one of the likely intents, certainly in late Cardew, was not to focus on strictly musical elements of interest but to have the form be subserviant to a "larger" goal (rousing the people, eg). But to me, even if I happen to disagree with the particular reason for public arousal, if a given piece successfully achieves that goal, it's saying something interesting about what elements it does possess, that they hold some psychological power. Of course, you could say the same about the theme from "Rocky" but the fact that it's filtered through someone with deep experience (in Cardew's case) with the music of Stockhausen, Cage, Feldman, etc., means it's likely to contain elements that Bill Conti would never have conceived of, even if those elements reveal themselves in subtle fashion.

With Skempton, though geared to different ends (contemplative rather than arousing, generally), a similar thing obtains, for example the filtering of an English folksong through someone experienced in Feldman-esque time dilation and slightly off cadences. So a jig by Skempton will be interestingly different from one by the ISB, at least to me (not necessarily better or worse). It's also why, to get back to the subject of the review, I think it's misleading to corral Tilbury's improvisations under a "Feldmanesque" label. There are echoes of Feldman, to be sure, but they been filtered through his knowledge of AMM, Cage, Cardew, Asian music etc., all processed, of course, by his own personality. I find his work, especially here and the in "Doris" session, to be highly individual, full of soft surprises and very beautifully deep.

So, to my ears, there's more to the music (returning to Skempton/Cardew here) than something a child might appreciate though, in fact, a child may well enjoy it on a certain (entirely valid) level and that's fine, no?

It's certainly fine with me. In fact, I do prefer the odd Skempton tune to most of the stuff on Chloe's "Body Shop" CD, recently brought home from kindergarten, which includes the hit "No Drugs! No Way!"

(In case you're interested, that little gem continues as follows:

"Not me, not tomorrow or today.
My body's great, that's the way I'll stay.
No drugs! No way!")

I'm singing it to the tune of Feldman's "Only".

"Not here, necessarily. But you hear it around. (won't name names for now)"

All I got from the Erstquake bleachers was a grin and "completely self-absorbed."

The Tilbury Skempton disc is fantastic. . .the packaging is particularly hilarious. I've really tried Howard's "Surface Tension" but I can't crack it. At all.

The Skempton disc on Mode (Surface Tension, Mode 61) is fantastic and strongly recommended. Here's a link to a prehistoric review
http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/recordings/d3_mode.html#skemp
Nothing at all like late Cardew, which is ugly, pitch deaf and deadly. Don't trust anyone who says they actually like things like "Boolavogue" or the "Three Bourgeois Songs", I don't believe a word.

FWIW, I endorse Dan's comments on Surface Tension and Cardew.

FYI ....

The following is an email interview with Howard Skempton (HS) conducted by Malcolm Atkins (MA) between November 2002 and February 2003 ( Howard will be running an open workshop in Oxford on May 15th at Oxford Brookes University ) :

http://nmo.studio282.com/HS-int.htm

thanks to oxford improvisers / new music oxford

I've really tried Howard's "Surface Tension" but I can't crack it. At all.

I don't have "Surface Tension," but, based on the 60-second clips (one from each cut) available at Amazon, I'm pretty sure I'd prefer it to the Tilbury disc--but neither is my cup of tea.

FWIW, a couple of those clips remind me of Crumb (others don't). But, in any case, the mode disc isn't so Cardewy--which (apparently along with Dan)I take to be a good thing.

I for one dig the Tilbury Skempton piano disc. I find that it is music that on a casual level of attention is very enjoyable, but there is a lot more revealed as you pay closer attention. Too be honest though I haven't heard much more Skempton then this, but I'm curious now to check out the above mentioned Mode disc. I thought I heard a rumor that there is another Tilbury Skempton disc that Sony is sitting on (was it you Jon that told me that?).

On the issue at hand, I've continued to play Barcelona Piano Solo every other day or so and it continues to engage my interest and reveal further nuances. I do agree with those that wish it had been longer but not so much with those that think he is running through a catalog of techniques. There are these slight pauses between various segments that make it feel more like a series of variations or movements. It calls back to classical works that can have very short movements - like the Cage Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano. I think that this time it is the listeners who are imposing the Feldman-isms onto Tilbury.

'I thought I heard a rumor that there is another Tilbury Skempton disc that Sony is sitting on (was it you Jon that told me that?).'

yes, John told Brian O. and myself that. I believe Sony may have a second disc of his also in the can indefinitely, Brian probably knows the specifics.

It included some Terry Riley pieces (I can't remember which--nothing very widely known, I don't think). And yes, I'd love to hear Tilbury's renditions of Riley.

Can't say I would - I find most of the recent Riley (recent meaning last 20 years) rather wayward: he seems to want to go back to the jazz harmony but gets stuck somewhere in India along the way. What Tilbury would make of that stuff, I don't know. Even a great performer can't save a duff piece.

I'm pretty sure it was older pieces, from the sixties.

Yeah, I've been trying to remember--I think they were "piano studies" from the late 60's, maybe early 70s. I've given up on Riley since "Shri Camel" (late 70s?) but still enjoy his early work.

In the summer of '72, I heard "Rainbow in Curved Air", my first exposure to so-called minimalism, and it's always remembered warmly. I do think "In C" is something of a masterpiece (original Columbia version, especially).

Wow, just got through a bit of the Tilbury 'statement' and can't believe my embarassment for such an exceptional musician. Amazing how identical his feelings are to those Americans who want to bomb the whole Middle East - he just feels it in reverse.
Even though the situation is dire and stemming from US, it's hard to take Tilbury's blanket statements of condemnation intellectually seriously.

Whereas your anonymous post here has really set the bar for intellectual honesty and rigor. Perhaps by the time you manage to make it through the entire statement you'll realize how nonsensical your comment is.

Robert, just to point out that Andrew has the word "unwrinkled" all over the place (refer to the recent blog entry I posted!) just like you use "hatta", so there's nothing remotely anonymous about his post!

What's more, I agree with him about Tilbury's statement (but I guess I already mentioned that above in the thread...) and don't find it nonsensical at all. To the contrary, it's a rather insightful comparison he's made. Surely you can separate your fanhood for Tilbury's music from his pseudo-intellectualism just like many of us have.

hatta: want rigor? tell me how tilbury defends dismissing the collective consciosness/ cultrural awareness of the entire U.S. population. give me a break. aren't all british people stupid too, and shouldn't they all be taken outside and given a minor warning bruise because their government supported the war in Iraq based on tilbury's logic? face it: poeple look stupid when they make nationalist generalizations about other country's populations.
I took his self-imposed banishment more seriously when I was told about it than after I read how he explains it. If you think his argument is rigorous, I don't recommend reading as a habit.

Michael your posts here have revealed that there is no point in attempting to "discuss" anything with you but I will make one point of clarification. I am a fan of Tilbury's music, but I happen to also agree with quite a bit of the substance of his "statement". My politics are most likely pretty different from Tilbury's but the essence of his statement is not reflective of that. More importantly I feel that individuals should do what they feel they must in reaction to the world. Tilbury's actions may have little consequence (though his statement has been endlessly discussed in improv circles) but he has every right to do what he feels he should. Far too many people just do nothing beyond making comments on message boards so the fact that he has taken action that may effect him on a personal level (certainly he has lost opportunities for paid gigs) is far more impressive then even the most gregarious message board poster.

Anyway the quote that you consider "a rather insightful comparison " is ridiculous on it's face.

"Amazing how identical his feelings are to those Americans who want to bomb the whole Middle East - he just feels it in reverse."

What our anonymous poster is saying here (sorry MAP I don't read your blog) at it's core is that Tilbury is condemning all Americans for the acts of its government. Well first off that is patently incorrect. This quote: "If, for example, I could make music for those brave Americans incarcerated for opposing the madness of their rulers, I would go." demonstrates succinctly that he recognizes that there are Americans who are not in thrall to the administration. But furthermore the quote from "unwrinkled" is ridiculous hyperbole - Those that advocate to "bomb the whole Middle East" are promoting indiscriminate violence against a group for the actions of a minority. This is an expression of extreme hatred and fear. That Tilbury chooses to withhold his performances in America, to deny the message that 'everything is alright' is not even remotely in the same league. I see nowhere in his statement indiscriminate hatred for the American people but a distaste for its government. So "unwrinkled" is guilty of two logical fallacies in his so called "insightful" comparison. And you sir are guilty of an ad hominem attack in your amazingly off base "psuedo-intellectualism" charge.

You may have different standards then myself, but when I level a criticism against something, I tend to read the entire thing and to back up my statements. Had "unwrinked" put in some quotes and his interpretation of them, before his conclusion I would not necessarily had any grievance.

I apologize for the length here, but I'm taking this as an opportunity to clarify my position on Tilbury's statement that I have made in various locations.

(On preview from "unwrinkleds" rather hysterical response, I think I address most of his points above, but I should mention that Tilbury has acknowledged the British role and has condemned it but feels that one has a responsibility to try to fix society that one is a member of.)

[Robert] What our anonymous poster is saying here (sorry MAP I don't read your blog) at it's core is that Tilbury is condemning all Americans for the acts of its government. Well first off that is patently incorrect. This quote: "If, for example, I could make music for those brave Americans incarcerated for opposing the madness of their rulers, I would go." demonstrates succinctly that he recognizes that there are Americans who are not in thrall to the administration.

[Mike] Robert, I don't have a blog. I meant the Bagatellen blog... No big deal if you missed it, but Andrew is far from anonymous and has posted in several recent threads... It's currently the third most recent blog entry on the frontpage if you're curious about Andrew. If you haven't read his Nickelsdorf feature yet, I recommend it as one of the finest pieces of writing on music I've had the pleasure of reading and re-reading.

That quote doesn't demonstrate what you say it demonstrates. Tilbury was talking about a hypothetical situation of Americans incarcerated for objecting to current foreign policy. This situation doesn't exist in the current non-hypothetical world.

[Robert] And you sir are guilty of an ad hominem attack in your amazingly off base "psuedo-intellectualism [sic]" charge.

[Mike] Actually, no, I'm not. You're terribly misusing the word "ad hominem" here. Check into it, seriously. My characterization of "pseudo-intellectualism" was based solely on what Tilbury wrote. That's an attack on the content of his ideology, and not any personal qualities of Tilbury aside from this.

I can't see how my characterization is amazingly off-base either. Surely most people who read his statement will notice he's making facile and inaccurate generalizations in a cloud of bombastic and self-righteous rhetoric, not to mention entirely sidestepping the actual issue of performance sociology at stake. Fits the term "pseudo-intellectualism" to a tee.

Sorry to be so blunt about all of this.

Well this is the definition I'm going off of:
There are three major forms of Attacking the Person:
(1) ad hominem (abusive): instead of attacking an assertion, the argument attacks the person who made the assertion.
(from here )

And you said:
"Surely you can separate your fanhood for Tilbury's music from his pseudo-intellectualism just like many of us have."

This is not the same as you stated above "My characterization of "pseudo-intellectualism" was based solely on what Tilbury wrote". That may have been your sole source (likely) but you basically called Tilbury a Pseudo-Intellectual which is you attacking the man and not the substance of his statement.

Anyway that's it for me. I don't agree with your or Unwrinkleds assessment of the Tilbury piece but I fully respect your right to have your take it on it. I just dislike see unsupported arguments, especially against a person who really is an intellectual and thinks hard about political matters.

I personally think John's position on this makes a lot more sense in person, when he's explaining it to you face to face, then when he boiled it down to a single page of text on the web.

regardless, it's his personal position, an explanation for people who are interested of why he feels the way he does and has chosen to make the decisions he does. attacking him this strongly on the basis of that page of text is roughly the equivalent (in my mind) of someone attacking MAP for believing that the Maneris are musical gods. both are positions I strongly disagree with (although John's much less), but people are entitled to their own political opinions and stances. John has earned the right to believe whatever he wants.

"facile and inaccurate generalizations in a cloud of bombastic and self-righteous rhetoric"

leave out self-righteous and this could apply to virtually every piece you've written here, Michael. and I'm not getting into specifics past the Maneris, because I don't want to drag opinions about individual musicians into this.

[Robert] This is not the same as you stated above "My characterization of "pseudo-intellectualism" was based solely on what Tilbury wrote". That may have been your sole source (likely) but you basically called Tilbury a Pseudo-Intellectual which is you attacking the man and not the substance of his statement.

[Mike] Actually, no, it's me attacking the substance of his statement. I called his statement "pseudo-intellectualism". You're totally missing the meaning of "ad hominem" here. I don't think it can be made any plainer. No worries, this is just idle chatter; we all like Tilbury's music and have slightly different tolerances for his ideological gambits.

it may be just "idle chatter" to you; for me it's extremely insulting of someone who I have far more respect for than I do for you.

i have no idea why jon abbey has such little respect for MAP. why do you bother chatting with somone you don't respect?

i think robert and jon just hold him on a pedestal and whatever he does is perfect. i used to have girlfriend who thought my shit was white too.

and I think you know not of what you speak. I think whatever John does is perfect? yeah, you're paying attention.

Jon, if you mean to say I'm insulting Tilbury, then it deserves to be acknowledged that I believe he's insulting a great many members of his community (and it's with very specific intentions that I'm using this phrase instead of the more obvious term "fans") living in the US. And his insult is far more extreme than mine because I'm just a random person opining on a public internet forum who he has no reason to pay attention to, whereas the co-participants in his cultural community (i.e. his fans) have a reason to care about his attitudes and behavior towards them.

That's of course entirely ignoring the more general observation that he's insulting a lot of other people who don't participate in his community or even have any clue who he is. This is worth ignoring because it's a mundane feature of human discourse one can find in newspapers, magazines, conversations, etc on a daily basis. I phrased my point about insults with respect to a very specific group of people with a certain deep relationship to Tilbury (the people who make it possible for him to be an artist).

John is making a personal choice, one he feels he has no choice about. believe me, he's put a lot more time into considering his position on this than you have. probably the only reason it's public at all is that I pushed him to make his "boycott" public in early 2003.

and you're pushing me into a position I really don't want to be, defending his position, a stance I've argued with him quite a bit in the past, in person and over the phone. but what I do strongly believe in is his right to hold this position, which I think you're being very condescending and insulting about, and which I think you have no right to, hence my posts. if one of his fans really need to see him perform, they can go to London and do so, and I'm sure he'd be very gracious to them in person.

basically, you simply don't understand the nuances of this situation for whatever reason, and I believe you should cease and desist, assuming you're capable of that.

Jon, I certainly also strongly believe in his right to hold this position, but I have every right to express my opinion of his position as well. I think Tilbury is vastly more insulting and condescending than I have been in this thread. Anyone who fails to register the smothering and irrational prejudices and arrogance of his statements is truly a victim of blind hero-worship.

You'll note that nobody is asking for you to defend Tilbury's position, and we all understand the awkwardness of the topic for you. So I don't see the point of your remarks here, to be honest, no offense intended.

The notion of someone needing to see him perform is, of course, both absurd and irrelevant here; the issue is his attitude and behavior towards people who partially sustain the sociological structure in which his life's work is situated.

I suspect you don't understand or haven't independently considered the nuances of my objections to his ideology, which I can't blame you for since I haven't attempted to explain them! LOL To be honest, I think you're being slightly condescending to me by suggesting I'm not entitled to an opinion, or assuming it's less informed or sophisticated than Tilbury's. I would happily match wits with Tilbury in the playing field of "statements", "arguments", "ideology", none of which have to do with the organization of sound. His greatness as an artist doesn't give him any advantage here.

While I think both of us just like to argue online, it bears noting that you seem to attack me solely for expressing an opinion differing from yours. I expressed a very serious and carefully considered opinion. Has there been a point to any of your remarks in response?

"You'll note that nobody is asking for you to defend Tilbury's position"

certainly no one was asking for your initial post in this thread.

"I expressed a very serious and carefully considered opinion. "

again, your initial post in this thread could not have been farther from this, remarkably cavalier and disrespectful. whatever's come since that has yet to erase that taste.

If you spent as much time actually listening to music as you do writing this twaddle you might learn something. "Serious and carefully considered opinion"? I suggest you start with the Skempton record.

Is this a soccer lout site? I thought music was the subject here. How naive of me...

Hey, what's wrong with football hooliganism, Tom!? If groups of bored young men want to meet up every Saturday with the sole intention of beating the living shit out of each other (and often pay large sums to travel around the country to do so - football is usually just a pretext), that's fine by me. It's only a problem when they start smashing up other people and their things along the way. As long as it remains between consenting adults, football hooliganism is on a par with S&M sex and professional boxing, neither of which I particularly care for, but wouldn't seek to ban.
Anyway, with reference to our "discussion" here, Al has very thoughtfully shifted it over to another thread, so I'll see y'all there.

There's a book on metaphilosophy written in the 1960s according to which ALL philosophy is ad hominem. I can't remember the author's name (Johnson?), but I remember reading a review of the book by Richard Rorty in, I think, 'Review of Metaphysics'.

Sorry for this "above the fray" aside. Carry on!

Just another "above the fray" aside, regarding somebody Brian mentions (part of the large group on the Andel record), Carl Maguire. He's a marvelous musician--I've been playing with him for years now--and his first record will be out shortly on Between the Lines. I'd recommend it to all.