Keith McMullen: pfMENTUM Essays

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Jaw Dropping Gooseflesh, pfMENTUM, November 1997

by Keith McMullen

Some of you were there. Back in the mid-60s. What was the fuss? Four moptops from Liverpool. Sunday night. Ed Sullivan. "Ladies and gentlemen, The Beatles." An audience full of fainting screaming teenagers. I almost spilled my glass of Mountain Dew, jaw dropping gooseflesh from head to toe. What is THIS? Bought a tiny transistor radio the next day. Small plastic thing with a leather cover. Holes punched in the leather where the speaker was located. Portal to an amazing world. Beginnings were innocent enough. The waning years of 50s rock and roll, and the initial stirrings of the psychedelic era.

Things started to shift in junior high. One morning in science class, at the table behind mine, Roque and Dave were whispering enthusiastically about Cream and Jimi Hendrix. Now, Roque and Dave were cool. Their tastes could be trusted. And my dad had just purchased our first stereo. Looked like a small coffin, with a lid and everything. I went to the record section of JC Penneys in search of the lost chord. My first purchases were Wheels of Fire by Cream and Electric Ladyland by Jimi Hendrix. There is still a worn spot in the carpet between the speakers in my parents' living room. My dad said, "I cannot wait till the new wears off of your obsession with this stereo." He's still waiting. Music is essential.

So, why hasn't the new worn off? Because the musical landscape is so immense and varied; there is always something new to be discovered, and because there are musicians out there continually creating new music. While I still listen to those old recordings, they do not satisfy now like they did then. The new has worn off. But, Don McLean's eulogy notwithstanding, music is alive and well.

While rock and roll got me through junior high and high school, the college years revealed new horizons. While showing my rock and roll wares to a new friend, he suggested I listen to something new, Big Fun by Miles Davis. I was stunned. We were in a cluttered dorm room, and there were no screaming, fainting fans. But, there was the same reaction - jaw dropping gooseflesh from head to toe. Big fun indeed. Music is essential.

The jazz-rock fusion of 70s Miles Davis served as a bridge to the realm of jazz. Although I wander out into other musical realms from time to time, most of my energies are directed toward jazz and creative improvised music. One of the defining characteristics of jazz is improvisation, from improvisation based on an introductory composition to free improvisation. Within this realm newness abounds. Every performance is new, even if it is composition-based, because there is always improvisation. Skilled musicians spontaneously listening to, and interacting with, each other. Not just chaotic blowing. Skillfully crafted interactive composition. But, the compositions are created as a collaboration, in the moment, in front of an audience. At its best it can evoke jaw dropping gooseflesh from head to toe.

So, I was complaining to Jeff Kaiser that the best of this music rarely comes to Southern California. And, most people have never been exposed to it. I have attended performances of creative improvised music in L.A. at which the number of performers in the ensemble was greater than the number of audience members. Yet, the music was stellar. Why don't people attend these performances? Is the music unappealing to most, or are people unaware of this genre of music? Many American musicians are virtually unknown here, but are celebrities in Europe and Japan. My hope is that the problem is one of unawareness, and that if people are exposed to this music, many will enjoy it. I have tried to be content with listening to recordings, but improvisation is meant to be performed and experienced live. Improvisation is an interaction between musicians and audience as well as between musicians. Sharing my frustration and my hope, Jeff suggested we do something about it. This newsletter, and the performances and ideas it is promoting, are the initial products of that suggestion. This newsletter will be a source of information about New Music, via essays and interviews with musicians. The performances will provide opportunities to experience the music. You are invited to participate in what we hope will become an ongoing conversation regarding the place of music in our community. Perhaps there will be some jaw dropping gooseflesh for many of you, as well.

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Hommage à Coeur de Beuf, pfMENTUM, March 1999

By Keith McMullen

"Learn to distinguish banality. Remember that mediocrity thrives on 'ideas.' Beware of the modish message. Ask yourself if the symbol you have detected is not your own footprint. Ignore allegories. By all means place the 'how' above the 'what' but do not let it be confused with the 'so what.' Rely on the sudden erection of your small dorsal hairs. Do not drag in Freud at this point. All the rest depends on personal talent." - Vladimir Nabokov

While my father before me and his father before him had also served as custodians in the House of the Lord, their stints had been as acts of retirement; mine was an act of penance for the sin of enrolling in graduate school. A sentence I continue to serve to this day in a variety of ways. It was the staff Christmas party at noon on a Friday. My best friend and cohort in sacramental crapper-slapping had drawn my name for the gift exchange. I eagerly ripped open the square flat package to reveal a post-hiatal release by Captain Beefheart, SHINY BEAST: BAT CHAIN PULLER. The gooseflesh began just looking at the cover and liner notes. I'd had minimal exposure to Beefheart. An appearance or two on Zappa recordings. A live performance with Zappa which I caught in Chicago in the mid-70s shortly before taking the road to Western Lands. But, this was to be my first encounter with a full album of his material. It was also to be the first encounter for the party attendees, ranging from us environmental infrapoststructuralists to yuppie secretaries to the head pastor himself. At party's end they all returned to their posts in the Lord's Navy, and I-rather than grabbing my mop and swabbing the decks of the Saviour's Vessel-headed for the sanctuary control room where a glistening turntable was about to get laid by the Beef. Typically used to pipe pseudo-sacred muzak into the offices of the faithful, within moments that platter served up a new revolution of sound, as "WHEN I SEE MOMMY I FEEL LIKE A MUMMY I FEEL LIKE A MUMMY I FEEL LIKE A MUMMY" was suddenly filling the aural space of every nook and cranny of that property. The servants of the Master could be seen pouring into the hallways, hands over their ears, begging for relief from those opaque melodies that bug most people. Apologies were doled out to innocent parishioners seeking solace from life's wounds in pastoral counselling offices everywhere. My control room privileges were permanently revoked, and a mop was angrily thrust into my hand. Music. The power of music. Power to offend? Why? How can arrangements of notes offend? And what about the concern of this newsletter...NEW MUSIC...CREATIVE IMPROVISED MUSIC...What is so new, so creative about it? Who's listening anyway? And why listen? What point is Kaiser making? Music as music. Pointing to nothing other than itself. Who cares? What is the point of music pointing to itself? Sounds like the listener is a voyeur in some aural self-stim art experience. This music is a product of the human imagination. It comes out of the human psyche, and is then received by the human psyche. Certain forms of it are lapped up by millions of consumers. Other forms are cherished by but a few. What is it about these varied musical styles that anyone wants to experience them, and why the differences in popularity? And by what standards can the quality of music be measured, if any? What is going on at the interface of the creation/reception of music and human experience. Some people live to create music, while others live to listen to it. I can see why I get so hungry for food to nourish my body, but I'm hard pressed to understand and articulate why I get so hungry for music. She and I finally agreed to call our marriage for what it wasn't during the Christmas holidays a few years later. I ended up having Friday evening unplanned and Saturday evening with a spare ticket to see Beefheart at the Whisky on his DOC AT THE RADAR STATION tour. No longer invited to her work Christmas party, I hit up Ticketron for a Friday ticket and went alone to catch opening night at the Whisky. My first encounter with any incarnation of the Magic Band. But, Beefheart was pissed. The sound and lighting were very much not to his liking. Throughout the entire performance he was enraged. Spitting out his already raw and raunchy vocals with venom and wild gesticulation. Cursing the sound and light crew at every turn. Continually slamming his microphone stand on the stage floor and pointing at various offending lights. Screaming for alterations in the sound mix. It was hugely entertaining if a bit disruptive to any kind of pure enjoyment of the music as music. More like psychodrama as the enraged artist stormed the stage in search of a look and sound that expressed what had to be expressed. Grinning hugely I returned to the vestiges of my shattering life, wondering what to do with the now available ticket my soon-to-be-ex had left behind. Just before showtime that Saturday it occurred to me to invite a particular friend. He answered the phone hesitant to go. He was all dressed up with a party to attend. People were counting on him. I told him this was no minor experience I was making available for his enjoyment and edification, and he resigned himself to my pressure only to regret it enormously for the next few hours. First off, as one of my dearest friends, he was just elated to find that my wife and I had separated permanently. What a cheery note on which to begin this aborted party evening. Then, the godawful opening band proved to be the perfect soundtrack for his deepening depression as we sat in the balcony of the Whisky, he with long face, head hanging, forehead propped up by his enormous hands. During intermission he complained that I had taken him from an evening of joyous celebration only to torture him with tales of personal loss and really bad music. I smiled and told him things were about to change. The house lights went down, and to our left, a shabby looking man in a trenchcoat, with ragged hair and scruffy goatee, carrying an "I'll take paper" brown grocery bag and a soprano sax encased, sauntered very slowly from the balcony down the old staircase to the legendary Whisky stage. My friend shook his head in disgust as the derelict slowly took out the contents of the bag, placing them on a small table next to the microphone stand. A couple of large Perrier bottles and God knows what else. Then, as my companion rolled his eyes, Beefheart slowly freed the soprano sax from confinement, screwed the segments together, inserted the reed, put horn to mouth, cocked head backwards about 45 degrees, rammed bell against microphone, glanced up and smiled seeing the lighting was as it needed to be (off), flinched in anticipation of the sound mix, and assaulted that night's fortunate faithful with a screaming shrieking wailing multidementiphonic blast of sound from the depths of his amazing psyche. It was bad enough that my friend subjected his neck to whiplash and his eyes to permanent injury as his head snapped up and his orbs bulged out while sonic daimones thrashed his eardrums and soul, but he further damaged any of my hopes for rebound action by grabbing me by the torso, squeezing me until I turned blue, and kissing me all over the side of my face. Then, for two hours we were treated to hot burning gooseflesh courtesy of the shamanic exhortations of the Reverend Beefheart, calling the glory down and conjuring the fire up. An audacious orgy of sound and image as he sang in a score of voices surrounded by bizarre counterpoints and jangling rhythms performed by a band surrendered to his muse. He's now in the twilight of his proliferate life, but then we followed his peak experiences from club to club all over the Southland, each night a novel expression of the depths of his genius. Then, in my personal life, I was at rock-bottom. But, here I sit some 20 years later covered with gooseflesh as I relive those memories. What is that all about? Music as music. Music as psychotherapy. Music as somatic elixir. Music as mantra. Music as IQ booster. Music as sedative. Music as stimulant. Music as aphrodisiac. Music as shamanic technique of ecstasy. Music as political statement. Music as soundtrack. Music as religious expression. Music as entertainment tonight. Ex nihilo. First there was nothing. Then there was a Big Bang. Then there was a rock. Followed by a rock and water. Followed by a rock and water and plants. Followed by a rock and water and plants and air. Followed by a rock and water and plants and air and animals. Followed by a rock and water and plants and air and animals and self-awareness. In this most recent stage we find ourselves...a curious mix of rock, water, plants (some more than others), air (some more than others and to varying temperatures), animal, and self-awareness. Some optimists even keep going, calling the self-awareness stage the 'psychological' stage which can be transcended by a 'spiritual' stage or even many spiritual stages. We humans, in all of our multidementianality, are this planet metamorphosed into a self-conscious being. Getting here started with a Bang, and each leap across dimensions requires some sort of Big Bang reenactment. How does a blend of inorganic chemicals take on life? How does a blend of organic chemicals become self-aware? How does self-awareness transcend into non-duality? And, where is music in all of this? The planet has sprouted ears and created music. "AND IF YOU'VE GOT EARS, YOU'VE GOT TO LISTEN." Why? There's something in the nothing. Aliquid in the nihilo. The act of creating music is an act of creating aliquid ex nihilo. Pulling something out of the void. The act of listening to music is an act of experiencing something pulled out of the void. What gets pulled out can resonate at any level of our multidementianality. The highest forms of music are the forms that interact with us at the greatest number of levels and which are created with the greatest amount of interaction between the composer/musician and the void. When the void speaks, that's inspiration. When the artist composes, that's applying craft to the inspiration. All void with no craft leads to cacophony. All craft with no inspiration leads to capitalism. But, the call to create is the call to bait the hook of technique and craft with all that it means to be fully human, and to cast into the void...hoping against hope you'll get reeled back in. The more of the fullness thrown in, the more of the void reeled out. The more reeled out, the more the listener is pulled in. From the perspective of the composer/musician, as well as the listener, music calls us to create and continually be created. At its best, music challenges us to go more deeply into ourselves, to call on broader and deeper aspects of our humanity. In so doing, we actively participate in the eternal process of creation out of nothing.

"Fast and bulbous."

"That's right, The Mascara Snake, fast and bulbous.
Also a tin teardrop."

"Bulbous also tapered."

"That's right."

-Don Van Vliet

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Oh Coushatta! Refractions on the Sacred and Profane, pfMENTUM, April 1999

By Keith McMullen

Coushatta's oldest neighborhood is getting cleansed this weekend, with city crews and community servants working together to eradicate unsightly blemishes and dysfunctional appliances from the aging sector's underbelly. Inhabitants from Yew Ave. to Birch Blvd. carted old furniture, an assortment of broken devices, bags of yard clippings, and boxes of antiquated clothing to the inner city's curbs on Friday. The joint task force will haul away this debris Today. Hazardous waste is being withheld until Tomorrow, at which time Toxic Waste Management envoys will dispose of the matter in Lake Neserser. [More talkative than usual or pressure to keep talking.] I am He who cometh forth advancing, whose name is Unknown. I am Yesterday. "Seer of Millions of Years" is my name. Let it be granted to me to pass on to the holy princes, for indeed, I have done away all the evil which I committed, from the Time when this Earth came into Being from Nu, when it sprang from the watery abyss even as it was in the days of old. I am the child who traverseth the road of Yesterday. I am Today for untold nations and peoples. I am "He who cannot be known." I am seated upon the throne of the Dweller in fiery Lake Neserser, the throne on the Boat of Millions of Years. [Flight of ideas or subjective experience that thoughts are racing.] Over the ancient loudspeaker an auctioneer's voice crackles in fits and starts as the bidders assess the artifacts laid out for purchase. On the outskirts of this dismal Autumn morning, Frank Plumb of rural Coushatta, a third generation Peccary County farmer, bows his head as his treasures laid up on Earth are dispersed to the highest bidders. Echoing the periodic agriculture crises of a thousand previous decades across a thousand lands, croppers all over the nation's midsection are being ripped from the fabric of their trans-generational identities by a plummeting farm economy. [Distractibility.] And if thou offer a meat offering of thy firstfruits unto the Lord, thou shalt offer for the meat offering of thy firstfruits green ears of corn dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of full ears. And thou shalt put oil upon it, and lay frankincense thereon: it is a meat offering. And the priest shall burn the memorial of it, part of the beaten corn thereof, and part of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof: it is an offering made by fire unto the Lord. (BREAK: Sitting in a not-that-greasy spoon snarfing down a meatless daughter of a wealthy Florentine omelet doused in Tabasco while swilling mediocre coffee and reading Gravity's Rainbow. No pot of gold at the end of this one. Just hard cold death sending a shiver up me spine.) And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that Day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. The Coushatta Police reports Saturday included the following: A Winnsboro woman reported receiving five or six obsidian phone calls this month. Someone on So. Edna Ave. complained about "randy" neighbors. A Saratoga Dr. resident re-ceived phone threats from her manicurist. A 49-year-old man was arrested for drinking and conniving at No. 11th Ave. and E. Main St. Friday. A loud party was shut down at the San Felipe Lodge Saturday. A 26-year-old man was arrested for chthonic and primordial cogitation after he caused a three-proposition accident at the intersection of Being and Time late Friday. [Excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences.] Lightning killed a traditional Coushatta rainmaker last week as he knelt atop a grain silo where a Burlington PS-2 Hopper car was being filled. The grainery employed the man, known locally as Allegro, to hold off rain threatening to hamper expedient grain transport. Allegro had just begun appealing to Sango, the Yoruba god of thunder, when lightning struck and threw him to the ground. The head of the local Sango worshippers, Ubikbumi Yinotwala, said the victim had lost his life because he had disregarded the power of the god by thinking he could divert the storm with which Sango had decided to punish the town. (BREAK: Stayed up late last night and watched a 1965 TV special on Frank Sinatra. Never really paid much attention to that Frank. What a master of the popular song. Made me weak in the knees. Then this morning cruising the highways and byways listening carefully to Tom Waits. The Heart Of Saturday Night. Talk about crooning. And those lyrics. I mean what difference does anything else make anyway? Just sit me in a room with a stack of Frank Sinatra and Tom Waits CDs, a pack of Old Golds and a bottle of bargain scotch.) "For a minute I thought I was dreaming," said Eric Madison of East Coushatta. "A small, high-tech red jet was buzzing my neighbor's pond and dropping small packages into it. Before I could climb the fence to check it out, an amphibious helicopter landed on the pond and started loading what turned out to be large plastic bags. Figuring it was a narcotics transaction, I called the police. They arrived quickly and questioned the pilot and his accomplice." Police report that the cargo consisted of large chunks of stone used in France to make table tops. Due to the unusual nature of this activity, a complete investigation is ongoing, and charges are pending. "After the chopper left, I found one chunk of stone on the bank of the pond. I asked the police if I could keep it to use for a sculpture or something, and they said it was okay." Wrapped in the hide of a yellow cow. Changes ought to be undertaken only when there is nothing else to be done. Therefore at first the utmost restraint is necessary. One must become firm in one's mind, control oneself, and refrain from doing anything for the Time Being, because any premature offensive will bring evil results. [Repetitive behaviors or mental acts that the person feels driven to perform according to rules that must be applied rigidly.] Hospital medics fought Saturday to save the wounded survivors of a church bombing in South Coushatta, while politicians warned against a new explosion of inter-Nicene violence in the tense multi-denominational suburb. Police launched a search for a man and woman they suspect of planting the deadly bomb Sunday in the sacristy of St. Mary Magdalene's Cathedral. Now let our voices arise on the fire; let our voices sound in the well; let our words pass the boundary to the otherworlds. O Lord, O Lady, we give you our love, our respect, our devotion as we pray you. Bhantiarna agus tiarna, glac an h-iobairt seo muid! Lady and Lord, accept our sacrifice! [Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.] A local woman died after fire spread through her North Coushatta home early Saturday morning. Firefighters arrived about 12:45 a.m. and saw flames shooting from the roof. They found Pearl Tillquist, 37, on the floor of a back bedroom and took her outside. Emergency workers administered CPR and took her to Coushatta Memorial Hospital, but were unable to save her. The house sustained heavy damage. Part of the roof collapsed, and black ash covered the floors throughout. Coushatta fire investigators said the fire started from a pot of Yogi Tea left unattended on the stove. [The fire setting is not done for monetary gain, as an expression of sociopolitical ideology, to conceal criminal activity, to express vengeance, in response to a hallucination, or as a result of impaired judgment.] Wherefore, let our body remain in the water till it is dissolved into a (now the serpent was more) subtle (than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made) powder in the bottom of the vessel and the water, which is called the black ashes; this is the corruption of the body which is called by the philosophers or wise men, "Saturnus plumbum philosophorum," the disguised powder. And in this putrefaction and resolution of the body, three signs appear; a black color, a discontinuity of parts, and a stinking smell, not much unlike to the smell of a vault where dead bodies are buried. These ashes then are those of which the philosophers have spoken so much which remained in the lower part of the vessel, which we ought not to undervalue or despise; in them is the royal diadem, and the black and unclean argent vive, which ought to be cleansed from its blackness, by a continual digestion in our water, till it be elevated above in a white color, which is called the gander, and the bird of Hermes. He therefore that maketh the red earth black, and then renders it white, has obtained the magistery. So also he who kills the living, and revives the dead. Therefore make the black white, and the white black, and you perfect the work.

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This Music We Are Promoting, pfMENTUM, August 1999

by Keith McMullen

Several readers have asked how to learn more about this music we are promoting, which raises the question: What music is this we are promoting? New music? Creative and improvised music? Avant-garde music? Jazz? Experimental? Contemporary classical? Serious music? For the most part, we are talking about music with historical roots in the jazz tradition which has evolved into what many now call creative improvised music. But, when we add the music discussed in Jeff Kaiser's essays, and his recent audio-video installation, we are adding the realm of composition, not improvisation. What does all of this music have in common? One thing is that it is outside the mainstream, and commercial viability is not the primary defining factor in its creation. It is given form as an expression of an inner creative impulse without giving much, if any, concern to the formulae which will ensure mass appeal. But, even as I type that, I see all kinds of problems arising in my inner debate, and that is not the topic of this essay. I'm just trying to answer the questions readers are posing about how to learn about this music. So, from now on, I will refer to the music we are promoting as either this music or the music. What this music is will be defined by reading the resources to which I am referring. If you begin reading the resources and buying the recordings described therein, you will discover an amazing world of sound out there. Defining the music will become significantly less important than experiencing it. A second question we keep hearing is how to procure this music. Salzer's doesn't carry many Golia or Plonsey recordings. Kaiser's CDs can be found at many local outlets, but his grandmother keeps buying them all to make him look good. [Editor's Note: Kaiser's grandmother lives in Bakersfield, not in Ventura.] So, for the next few issues, I will be writing an educational series on this music. For this issue I will begin with a basic strategy for keeping abreast of the latest news regarding this music and initial sources for buying or ordering such.

While there are many magazines that are helpful in learning about this music, three stand out as essential resources for educating oneself in the history of the music as well as contemporary developments: The Wire, Cadence, and Coda.

The Wire: Adventures In Modern Music is published in London and is the most eclectic of the three essential magazines. It rarely covers commercial music, but reviews a wide range of non-mainstream genres from techno, jungle, and electronica to creative improvised, free, and contemporary classical. Each issue contains in-depth articles on several contemporary musicians, a historical retrospective on a given musician, label, or genre of music, an Invisible Jukebox in which a musician is given a blindfold test on a variety of musical samples, and a review section called Soundcheck which offers excellent reviews of recent recordings by artists across the genres covered in the magazine. Because of its broad focus, The Wire may be a bit intimidating to someone who is a newcomer to this music, but consistent and selective reading over a long period of time is guaranteed to make you a knowledgeable hepcat at post-pfMENTUM concert parties. Sample issues can be found at Tower Records stores and are also available in the magazine section of some Barnes and Noble and Borders bookstores. For further information check out their website at http://www.dfuse.com/the-wire. To subscribe send $60 to The Wire Magazine, FREEPOST, 45-46 Poland Street, London W1E 3EL, UK. It is worth every penny. Due to the immense amount of information in each issue, it is wise to save them. As you learn more about the music, things that meant nothing to you initially will be a delight to go back and read later.

Coda: The Journal Of Jazz And Improvised Music is published in Canada and is much more limited in scope than The Wire and Cadence. Like The Wire, Coda provides volumes of information, both on the history of the music as well as contemporary developments, but Coda focuses exclusively on the jazz tradition and its offshoots in free jazz and creative improvised music. This is not to say it is conservative in subject matter. Within its defined parameters, Coda exhaustively covers everything from Dixieland to the most bombastic free jazz explorations. Often an issue will focus on a particular instrument or ensemble size and offer essays and discographies for a wide spectrum of practitioners within the selected focus. One issue may discuss saxophonists while the next covers piano-less quartets. The March/April 1999 issue has the piano as its centerpiece. In one article the playing of Bill Evans is explored, including a review of his biography, How My Heart Sings. A few pages later, the work of Fred Van Hove is explored under the title Tearing Down Walls. Those titles indicate the difference in styles, from singing hearts to wall bashing. Within each of these articles, the artists are placed within their historical context, so the reader learns not only about the artist, but where they came from and what traditions and artists influenced, and were influenced by, them. Furthermore, there are several CD review sections. Most focus on recordings by prominent pianists (solo and ensemble), but the issue closes with a section reviewing recent releases by a variety of artists within the scope of the magazine. This magazine is rarely seen at local newsstands, but is a real gem. Highly recommended. Subscriptions are $24/year for 6 issues. For first-time subscribers it is $18. For further information: CODA MAGAZINE, Subscription Office, The Shire, Hornby Island, British Columbia, Canada V0R 1Z0. Tel/Fax 250.335.2911.

Cadence: The Review Of Jazz & Blues: Creative Improvised Music is an excellent resource for learning about the music and purchasing it. Each issue contains two interviews and scores of reviews. The focus is similar to that of Coda, with the addition of blues. Interviews are in-depth and erudite with plenty of history and context. The CD reviews are a gold mine. Many of my most prized discoveries have come from pouring over the reviews in Cadence magazine. They have many reviewers with a wide range of interests, so the reader gets educated and sympathetic perspectives on traditional and avant-garde forms, and everything in between. Plus, the center section, called Cadence Record Sale, is an exhaustive mail order catalog for this music. I will illustrate its relevance using some of the artists who have been presented by pfMENTUM. Under Gerry Hemingway there are 7 CDs. Vinny Golia lists 20 CDs. Dan Plonsey lists 3 CDs. Eugene Chadbourne lists 12 CDs. Ventura record stores will carry none of these CDs, but, without leaving your home, you can have 42 CDs by artists you've heard in Ventura delivered to your door. Orders arrive exactly one week from the day you make them if you order by phone. Subscriptions are $30/year for 12 issues. For further information check out their website at http://www.cadencebuilding.com. Their mailing address is Cadence, Cadence Building, Redwood NY 13679. Email: orders@cadencebuilding.com. Phone: 315.287.2852.

There are many more resources out there, and I will be writing about them in more detail in subsequent newsletters, but you can go a very long way with these three magazines and the Cadence mail order service. In the next issue I will begin describing the more important record/CD labels and the styles of music they represent. If you have questions do not hesitate to email me at

schwitterz1@juno.com.

I love talking about the music and helping newcomers find their way into it.

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Free Improvised Music: An Introduction, pfMENTUM, October 1999

by Keith McMullen

More than in the United States, Europe has been a bastion for free improvised music following in the tradition of Albert Ayler, late era Coltrane, and others. This music is characterized by its relative lack of preconceived compositional structure and reference. There is rarely notation and a minimum, if any, of pre-performance instructions or guidelines. The performance is a spontaneous composition rising out of the intuitive interaction of highly educated and skilled musicians. Following, I will present brief descriptions of two of the more prominent recording labels specializing in this music.

Free Music Productions (FMP)

One of the oldest labels producing free improvised music is Germany's FMP. It was founded in the late 60s by Jost Gebers, bass player and full-time social worker in Berlin. The organization was conceived as a collective protest against the timidity of mainstream music, and its initial offerings were known as anti-festivals. FMP operates by organizing concerts and festivals by German and other European free improvisers and recording them to document and disseminate the genre. Although the music receives more recognition and support in Europe than in the United States, it is not popular, and the company operates on a shoestring budget always on the brink of extinction. In 1982 FMP almost went under due to lack of funding, having to take an 18 month hiatus from recording. Thanks to occasional government funding and the nonmusical occupations of many of its members, FMP is currently up and running with a fairly steady stream of concerts and recordings.

While there is a broad spectrum of musical expression to be found in its catalog, FMP is known primarily for its energy music, pull-out-the-stops free blowing which can be meat (brown rice for you vegans out there) to some and poison to others. As Steve Lake says in 'Big Noise From Berlin' in the February 1991 issue of The Wire, "Classic albums of the first decade...might be described as workers' epiphanies, or revelations by and for the non-religious and irreligious." The biggest selling FMP release is Machine Gun by the Peter Brotzmann Octet. Its title says it all, as the music is a barrage of dense textures assaulting the listener's senses and sensibilities. Brotzmann is a multi-reed player famous for his bombastic style. Legend has it that he once was blowing so hard he broke a rib during a performance. Cecil Taylor is also prominent on the label, performing on numerous releases with varying combinations of European improvisers, from duos to large ensembles. At the other end of the sonic spectrum are the likes of Hans Reichel and the King Ubu Orchestra. Reichel is a guitarist who makes his own instruments from which he coaxes a variety of strange ethereal sounds, most prominently on solo recordings. The King Ubu Orchestra is a large ensemble which combines acoustic instruments, and electronics to weave complex group improvisations of great subtlety and delicacy.

Most of FMP's recordings are available through Cadence magazine (discussed in the last newsletter). More detailed information and a complete catalog can be found at http://www.pro-web.de/fmp/ Click the British flag in the upper left hand corner of the home page to access the English language version of the site. The information above was taken from The Wire article by Steve Lake, which is highly recommended.

Incus Records

Incus Records was established in Great Britain by Tony Oxley, Michael Walters, Derek Bailey, and Evan Parker in 1970. The label is owned and operated by the artists, and each recording involves the direction of the recording artist in all aspects, from art design to production and promotion. The focus is on new recordings as opposed to maintaining a catalog, so early recordings eventually go out of print. For the most part the music stands in stark contrast to the music found on FMP. While FMP tends toward the more expressionistic end of free improvisation, the music on Incus tends toward the more subtle, perhaps the more impressionistic. Often the music is quieter, with more space and delicacy. It is no less complex and intricate, and extended techniques abound, but no ribs nor eardrums will be broken in the execution or audition of most Incus releases. There are exceptions to such generalizations on each label, but if you like your music intricate, subtle, cerebral, and complex, start with an Incus recording.

Guitarist Derek Bailey is the prominent voice at Incus, and I believe he is at the head of production these days. He plays in a variety of contexts, from solo to large ensemble, and has exemplified a purist attitude toward free improvisation (although recent performances and recordings suggest a relaxing of that attitude). His book, Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music from Da Capo Press is highly recommended for those interested in researching the historical and philosophical underpinnings of free improvisation. For many years, beginning in 1977, Bailey hosted an annual Company Week in London to which he invited a select group of international improvisers to perform in varying combinations over the course of a week. The idea was to bring together artists who had never before played together, or at least in novel combinations, in order to minimize tendencies toward cliché and maximize the spontaneity of improvisation as players listened to, and interacted with, each other. Many of these performances are documented on Incus recordings.

Again, most Incus recordings can be ordered
through Cadence. More detailed information and a
complete catalog can be found at the Incus website: http://www.incusrecords.com.

This essay just scratches the surface of the wealth of performances and recordings characteristic of European free improvised music and will hopefully pique the interest of many of you in exploring the genre. In addition to Bailey's book, another excellent resource can be found on the Web at http://www.shef.ac.uk/misc/rec/ps/efi/efhome.html. This site offers very specific and generous information on scores of artists and labels dedicated to European music and is very highly recommended for further exploration. Anyone wanting more specific information or recommendations is also welcome to contact me at keithmar@jetlink. net.

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Big Music, pfMENTUM, January 2000

By Keith McMullen

We're in the midst of a contemporary swing dance craze, so I hope people aren't disappointed when they show up to see Golia's Large Ensemble in their zoot alluring suits and find it difficult to sling their honeys to his music. I mean Lawrence Welk this is not going to be. Since Vinny is speaking for himself elsewhere in this newsletter, I'm going to take this space to suggest to the suggestible listener a few other post/trans/hyper/avant-swinging/non-swing bands. Space suits would be more appropriate than 40s garb for a night at the concert hall to hear these ensembles.

Anthony Braxton's Creative Orchestra. In late 1978, Anthony Braxton assembled twenty of new music's finest musicians to form the Creative Orchestra. The performance in Koln, Germany is documented on Creative Orchestra (Koln) 1978 (hat ART CD 2-6171). Appropriately, this is one of Vinny Golia's early professional gigs, and the ensemble includes many of the greats of free and improvised music. Braxton is very concerned to pay respect to the tradition of jazz music, and all serious music, while developing a unique musical language which builds upon and transcends that tradition. This CD is a highly recommended testament to these compositional goals. Here, as opposed to many of his smaller ensemble recordings, even a newcomer to creative music can recognize many of the styles in the history of jazz and improvised music, and then watch as they are restructured with Braxton's baton. David Lee of Coda magazine describes the Creative Orchestra as "big band music that takes the complete continuance of creative music into account - from the early marching structures in Dixieland music from New Orleans to the multiple structural dynamics of Duke Ellington." But, don't be fooled. It takes them into account, then takes them into the stratosphere. Braxton is a master, not a stylist.

Sun Ra's Arkestra. The music of Sun Ra, like that of Anthony Braxton, is of seminal importance in the history of 20th Century music, and its breadth and depth cannot be touched in a paragraph. Words do not do justice to the magic of a performance of this ensemble. Arkestra performances were a stunning combination of theater and music, of swing and space (OUTer space). To avoid trivializing one of my favorite musicians, I'm not going to describe the Arkestra here, but will point to resources and encourage the curious to seek out the recorded documents of this other-worldly artist. Unfortunately, Sun Ra died in 1993, but he left behind a huge discography, much of which is available on CD, as well as a few videos. He must be seen to be fully appreciated, but his recordings are essential, too. A very comprehensive discography and videotape-ography, as well as many reviews and interviews, can be found at http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~moudry/ Also, John F. Szwed's Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times Of Sun Ra is an excellent and respectful biography. If you only see one video, try Make A Joyful Noise (Rhapsody Films). If you are interested in the outer reaches of new music, and you haven't encountered Sun Ra, a rare treat awaits you.

Lawrence D. "Butch" Morris. Butch Morris has evolved from a composer/cornetist of note in improvised music circles into a conductor of large ensembles employing a technique of conducted improvisation he calls conduction. Morris has taken this method across the globe, assembling musicians at various locales, and orchestrating performances tailored to the skills of the particular musicians, as well as to the nature of their instruments and culture. Musicians are taught a vocabulary of modes of musical expression, notated and non-notated, which are elicited by signs and gestures given by Morris during the performance. Here conducting is not used to facilitate the interpretation of a notated composition, rather it serves to create the composition improvisationally in the real time of the performance. All the building blocks of the performance are in the hands and minds of the musicians, but how they are organized is determined in the moment by gestures from the podium. The most extensive documentation of Morris' conductions can be found on the 10 CD box set, Testament: A Conduction Collection (New World Records 80478-2), which includes recordings of performances of 15 different conducted orchestras on three continents over a ten year period. Each CD is available for individual purchase as well.

King Ubu Orchestru. The woefully under-recorded King Ubu Orchestru is my favorite large ensemble. This German collective is 'headed' by reed player Wolfgang Fuchs who is a proponent of free improvisation with no written composition, no conduction, and no pre-arranged strategies other than to spontaneously create a positive outcome. Listening to 10 musicians interacting spontaneously on an assortment of reeds, brass, strings, electronics, and percussion is a sublime treat for this listener. The only two recordings of which I am aware are Music is music is... (Uhlklang UK-6) and Binaurality (FMP CD49).

London Jazz Composers Orchestra. This ensemble was created under the direction of bassist Barry Guy in the early 1970s and is comprised of some of the greatest European improvisers. Guy's goal has been to bring together the rigor of structure and composition with the spontaneity of free improvisation. The result is a highly composed/written music which shapes and structures building blocks of free improvisation. In some ways this is similar to Morris' conduction, but the shaping and form are communicated via a score as opposed to via gestures of the conductor. Guy and other members of the ensemble (who also contribute compositions) are very invested in the tension between composition and improvisation, resulting in a music which is very intricate and complex in both conceptualization and delivery...music which provides as much stimulation
for the intellect as for the passions. Further
information, including a discography, can be found at http://www.shef.ac.uk/misc/rec/ps/efi/mljco.html

These are but a few of many contemporary large ensembles. Others include the Vienna Art Orchestra, the Globe Unity Orchestra, the Georg Graewe GrubenKlangOrchester, the Tony Oxley Celebration Orchestra, and the Muhal Richard Abrams Orchestra. A Web-search for any of these names will lead the curious to a gold mine of new music. Recordings by these ensembles can be found at the usual sources, especially Cadence Magazine's center section. Happy listening.

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Bruce Fowler, pfMENTUM, February 2000

By Keith McMullen

Satan used many schemes to wrest me away from the faith of my fathers. His most powerful tool was music, mostly rock and roll music. But, it was a slow and laborious process. Lucifer is nothing if not patient...and insidious. A wily serpent. The seeds of deception were present in my adolescent record collection. The Beatles. Jimi Hendrix. Cream. Jefferson Airplane. The Doors. Some more subtle than others. I read about Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. Now there it was too obvious. My saved, sanctified, and satisfied ears could not listen to that level of overt heresy. I avoided one Mother in deference to another. Then I went to college. A good Christian college in the Midwest. Up near Chicago. Seemed safe enough. But, no. The muse of the Devil had infiltrated the ears and souls of many of the students there. Exploring the outer reaches of musical expression was the passion of many on that campus. To that add a philosophy professor who suggested we ask hard questions of our faith, and by my Junior year I was at Springfield, Illinois' Penny Lane record store shelling out $4.99 for my first Frank Zappa album. As soon as the needle hit vinyl I succumbed to the Father of Lies. My fate was sealed. It was Zappa's Apostrophe. Suddenly I was transported into the howling winds of the Yukon tundra. I was being told not to be a naughty Eskimo, to save my money instead of going to the show, and to avoid eating yellow snow. All sound fundamentalist Christian principles. I was then introduced to the forces of evil in the person of the evil fur-trapper, "who was strictly from commercial," with a warm, rich fanfare from the trombone of Bruce Fowler. This was the first time the glorious sound of that man's playing graced my ears. From flatulent sound effects for Zappa's notoriously scatological storytelling to precision charts at machine gun speed, Fowler's talent is omnipresent on that and many other Zappa offerings. Not long after that first encounter I had the privilege of catching the Chicago stop on the Bongo Fury tour by Frank Zappa which not only included the subject of a previous essay, Capt. Beefheart, but the subject of this essay as well. As with many other things, it quickly became apparent to me that if this music is a violation of all that is right and good, well, Hell...

A year or less later, I had barely unpacked the last box after moving from Illinois to California when I opened the paper to see an ad for a performance by Frank Zappa and The Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Orchestra. Being flat broke, my wife and I fasted for a week to squeeze out the money for my first trip to UCLA's Royce Hall. In addition to many members of the LA Philharmonic, the orchestra was filled with many Mothers alumni, including Bruce Fowler. For more information regarding this performance see:

http://www.primenet.com/~lantz/pages/emuukha.html

For many years thereafter my only encounters with Fowler's playing were on my rapidly expanding catalog of Zappa recordings. Then, as mentioned in a previous essay, a friend presented me with Captain Beefheart's Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) as a Christmas gift, and there is Fowler's horn beckoning us to come out and meet the monster tonight. His technical versatility is perfect for the fits and starts of Beefheart's genre jumping and juxtaposing compositional style.

A few years later the gift giving friend and I decided to catch the Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin Big Band in their final LA performance at Concerts By The Sea in Redondo Beach immediately before they relocated to New York. We sat there enjoying the kind of Mingus inspired big band music we expected, when who should pop up to take a trombone solo but Bruce Fowler. Now, the Beefheart gig was no big surprise, but we were caught a bit off guard by his appearance in this more conventional context. But, as soon as lips hit mouthpiece, his fit in the ensemble was evident. It made me regret the bandleaders were leaving town, and I still cherish the memory of Lew Tabackin ending the night by playing a kick-it-out-the-ass tenor solo down off the bandstand, through the club's tables, down the hall to the dressing room, with his final farewell heard off in the distance through the dressing room's closed door.

But, Fowler was not to leave me alone. Just a few years ago Kaiser and I decided to catch the Golia Large Ensemble in LA. Again, I am minding my own business, enjoying the progressive large ensemble offerings of Vinny Golia and his cohorts, when guess who pops up to take a trombone solo? Is there anything this guy can't do? After the performance, Jeff and I crashed the post-performance party and there was Bruce leaning up against the host's apartment wall chatting amiably with the other musicians. I introduced myself, and we ended up outside where he openly shared personal anecdotes about life on the road with the likes of Beefheart and Zappa. In addition to being a state of the art musician, he is also a very delightful human being. More recently he has played at least twice here in Ventura. Once with Billy Mintz's ensemble, and then again in Vinny Golia's Large Ensemble. After over 25 years of enjoying his playing, it is an honor to have him participating in pfMENTUM's ongoing new music series. As a member of Vlatkovich's trio, we will have an opportunity not only to hear him in a different context, but to hear a LOT of him, up close and personal.

In addition to the contexts mentioned here, Bruce Fowler has been very active in a wide variety of contexts from TV to film, from pop to classical, from supporting musician to bandleader. Excellent biographical information, as well as an exhaustive discography and filmography, can be found at this highly recommended website:

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~splat/Bruce_Fowler.html

There you will find the answer to the question: What do Oingo Boingo, Johnny Guitar Watson, Harry Connick, Jr., The Utah Symphony Orchestra, Backdraft, The Lion King, Short Cuts, and Chicago Hope, have in common?

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Electricity in Music, pfMENTUM Newsletter, May 2000

By Keith McMullen

As for many of you, my first encounter with electricity in music was the electric guitar. Initially not much more than an amplified acoustic guitar. Things started getting more interesting with effects pedals. The whole psychedelic era reaching a musical climax in the stunning virtuosity of Jimi Hendrix. And although the band Chicago Transit Authority almost immediately abbreviated to bland jazz-pop, there was that distortion drenched guitar solo on their first album that intrigued my hungry ears. Groups like the Beatles and the Beach Boys introduced novel studio manipulations and primitive electronic instruments (such as the Theremin) to pop music. Then, I find myself in a hockey stadium in the middle of a cornfield in northern Illinois clutching my ears as Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake and Palmer blasts quadrophonic Moog synthesizer mayhem from four enormous banks of speakers in the far corners of the arena. Not long after, that same stadium is host to Yes, with Rick Wakeman surrounded by an assortment of keyboards, surrounding us with eerie meanderings of Moog and Mellotron. But, while the electric guitar kept things rooted in the blues, these electronic keyboards brought an infusion of classical music into the realm of pop. The first Mellotrons were equipped with primitive tape samples of string instruments. The Moog synthesized sounds that pointed toward more complex orchestration rather than to the Delta. And, as it turns out, the emergence of electronics in the pop music of the 60s and since was preceded by its use in contemporary serious music. In addition to the use of electronics to synthesize familiar instrumental sounds, electronics have been and are being used to create new sounds with new parameters. After leaving the cornfields in favor of the Pacific, I found myself at places like USC and Cal Arts, still surrounded by banks of speakers. But, now they are mounted on the tops of buildings or set up in the corners of much smaller rooms. From them comes strange combinations of cut up and distorted spoken word and otherwordly sounds. Game rooms are established where space age chess can be played with complex rules involving the manipulation of light and sound sequences. Just last week I had the privilege of seeing Merce Cunningham's Dance Troupe flex and gyrate to live electronic music and computer generated images.

"Astro, I have a feeling we're not in Liverpool any more..."

To coincide with Mark Trayle's peformance I decided to do a Web-search on electronic music, with the goal of putting together a comprehensive list of links regarding the history of electronic music. The first link I checked out was this one: http://www.arachnaut.org/music/links.html So much for my idea. Arachnaut beat me to it. Everything you need to know about electronic music, from software to its history to its practitioners can be found at that site. I see no need to duplicate any of it here. If you have any interest in learning more about electronic music please do yourself a favor and check it out. Non-professionals and listeners are encouraged to begin by investigating the following categories: Organizations, Pioneers, and Individuals. So much of the electronica that has filtered up to the commercial realms exhibits a fascination with sounds for the sake of cuteness, novelty, and marketing. Browsing through the links offered by Arachnaut will reveal an entirely new dimension in which the technology is explored and extended to create an entirely new art form like many of you have never heard. And we in Ventura will soon have the privilege of enjoying a live performance by one of such artists, Mark Trayle. I hope to see you there.

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