Nothing to Say

The Chronicle of Higher Education is giving me a 404 when I try to leave a comment on this article about David Gelernter, so I'll just spit it out here:

Depending on whom you ask, Gelernter's intellectual adventurism is the mark of a true Renaissance man or the desperate flailing of a scattershot dilettante. Around Yale, there is a curious reluctance to criticize him on the record. "Some communication at Yale is conducted in raised eyebrows and significant silences," notes Jim Sleeper, a lecturer in political science at the university, when asked about this reticence. It may be that many of his colleagues are reluctant to speak openly about Gelernter out of sympathy for his experience with the Unabomber. Whatever the case, few want to be publicly critical.

Oh well allow me! Because I'd like to point out that this is disgusting:

The woman who yearns to be a rabbi resembles the openly practicing homosexual who wants the same thing. Both cases suggest a man who yearns to be a hazzan but lacks the ear or voice for it, or hopes to be a rosh yeshiva ... but lacks the temperament or brains, or wants to be a poet but has nothing to say.

That's from Gelernter's new manifesto, Judaism: A Way of Being. Note the flaccid rhetoric! Note the creepy use of "openly practicing homosexual"—a rabbi who practices sodomy in secret is A-OK, I guess.

Oh, yeah, and in case you're wondering, our "Renaissance man"'s paintings are pretty wretched, too. Way to go, Chronicle of Higher Ed, and way to go, Yale University Press.

Hollaback

So John Hollenbeck turned up on my radar just recently, when the New Sounds podcast featured his piece The Cloud. I had mixed feelings! But you people know I have Jazz Issues, which I am still trying to rationalize and articulate. For now they remain the sort of Issues that would be better rehearsed on a therapist's couch than on a blog, but insofar as I can gripe intelligently at all about things like jazz fusion and jazz for large ensemble, I guess something strikes me as uncanny about the meticulous performance style—it seems too cautious, somehow. What I love about the jazz I love is how well hidden the precision often is. (CLASSICAL COMPOSERS AND PERFORMERS, YOU COULD LEARN SO MUCH FROM THIS.) But on the other hand, that's clearly not what Hollenbeck's trying to achieve with this stuff, so I guess it is not him, it's me. See also Argue, Darcy James.

But the point is that, like Argue, John Hollenbeck clearly deserves to be on yall's new-music radar as well. Of the two discs his publicist sent me, the one that excites me most isn't the John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, whose latest release (Eternal Interlude) is excerpted in the above podcast, but last year's Rainbow Jimmies, which consists mostly of chamber works Hollenbeck has written for his own Claudia Quintet and for other small groups even further away from any kind of conventional jazz configuration.

His writing for violinist Todd Reynolds is brilliant, maybe because he's thinking about the violin as a percussion instrument, employing both hands to pluck the strings

Gray Cottage Study #3 My Deer ...

and even, later on, detuning the G string like it was a kettledrum. (That's Hollenbeck on drumset, on that track.)

Here's my favorite piece off the album, Ziggurat (Interior); it's the companion to the slightly silly Ziggurat (Exterior), a big jagged pyramid of Latin-style percussion; this one's performed by the Ethos Percussion Quartet:

Ziggurat (Interior) - John Hol...

See, that's just good writing!

Anyway, on MONDAY, at the Le Poisson Rouge, John Hollenbeck is doing a release party for the Large Ensemble record, but it's also going to be him and Theo Bleckmann and their band covering Meredith Monk (see Hollenbeck and Bleckmann jamming here), and Todd Reynolds is gonna be there too, to play the stuff from Rainbow Jimmies. So it's kind of a big deal! 8 pm, $15, info here.

Now C Here

Just in case you needed something else to be thankful for (BECAUSE TOMORROW IS THANKSGIVING, GET IT?), here is a streaming mp3 of the Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble playing Terry Riley's In C at their LPR release party! Via them.



I'm not totally loving the alapana (I am guessing that is Michael Lowenstern? somebody who was there correct me) that kicks it off—"the delicacy of taking liberties with scores that already offer a great deal of leeway to the performer" etc etc—but Dennis DeSantis's electronic contributions are sensitive and credible, and this offers a tantalizing glimpse of the full-length performance I wish GVSUNME had released in the first place. More like this, please, everyone!

Uh-Oh

The good news is, I finally got around to interviewing New Haven new-music mainstay Jack Vees, apropos of tonight's performance of his Party Talk. The bad news is, Party Talk is canceled! The WORSE news is, I think it's because Timo Andres has swine flu!

Dammit. Ah, well: the Cerrone, Knight, Kuspa, and Wang performances are still scheduled to go on. Everybody drink lots of hot soup and get plenty of rest and let's Party Talk soon.

Your Daily Mindfuck

First, via Timo Andres, Pitchfork follows up on this craziness (Fiery Furnaces guy mixes up Harry Partch, microtonal composer, with Harry Patch, the WWI vet the Radiohead song is about) with the even more bizarre announcement,

Friedberger tried to cover his fuck up with a statement that said: "Matt has not heard the Radiohead song about Harry Patch, but if he did, he is sure he wouldn't like it. No doubt Radiohead and their fans can ignore his opinion of this matter and continue with their triumphant artistic interventions. Matt would have much preferred to insult Beck but he is too afraid of Scientologists."

Now, Beck actually seems to be responding. He's putting up a new song called "Harry Partch" on Beck.com later today. According to a post on the site, the track "employs Partch's 43 tone scale, which expands conventional tonality into a broader variation of frequencies and resonances." It isn't clear yet if the song is directly related to Friedberger's remarks, or just one hell of a coincidence.

I have no idea whether this is even true, or Beck is just screwing with us now. Andres: "My head a splode."

UPDATE: It is true. The song is up on Beck's website.

CODA. I scrolled down that Pitchfork page, and there was a video of Renee Fleming singing "Perfect Day" with Lou Reed on Czech TV, as if to remind us, lest we forget, that Sting does not have a monopoly on Tragicomic Crossover Nightmares. A perfect day, indeed.

Have You Heard These Things?

New Corey Dargel, everybody. He and violinist Cornelius Dufallo are premiering a new song-cycle at the Stone Nov. 29, and here's a taste—fiddle loops, brutal lyrics, 7/8 time. Highly recommended. It's like Owen Pallett meets Stephin Merritt meets rhythmic complexity? Yikes, okay, the previous sentence just embarrassed us all. Let's move on.

I haven't written much about our New Amsterdam friends lately, which is totally a mistake. They've been continuing this monthly ARCHIPELAGO concert series at the Galapagos Art Space, and I kicked myself when I realized I'd forgotten to tell y'all to check out the show by Roomful of Teeth, a new-music chamber choir, which based totally on YouTube clips, I'm pretty sure is going to become the new thing. Like Toby Twining and the Toby Twining Singers! Or Meredith Monk and the Funky Bunch! Look here they are singing Judd Greenstein: And here they are singing Caroline Shaw: Seriously, isn't this going to be a big deal?

Anyway. The next Archipelago concert, on Nov. 20 (there will also be a Dargel one in the spring), is all about Victoire, whom—as we have established—you totally love, and special guests Arturo en el Barco. Arturo en el Barco is one Angélica Negrón and her band, and you'd really better check it out, here. Eerie, sample-driven ambient, very good. It makes me want to wear gloves. And eyeliner. Actually, after listening to a little Arturo and a little Victoire just now, I think I am going to try to bring hats back, so this is a dangerous combination. You're warned. You're welcome.

fuori dall'abitato di Malbork

Okay this was kind of crazy. But the really crazy thing about this thing HERE

Hurdy Gurdy Man - Sting

is how not-bad it is. Sting's affected and overwrought Classical Voice was a colossal drag on his Dowland album, Songs from the Labyrinth—Dowland's songs are already overwrought with (well) a labyrinth of lines, and demand a clear, simple vocal style. (Shouldn't a pop singer be capable of a clear, simple style?) Das Leiermann, on the other hand, which Sting has recorded on his new If on a Winter's Night..., is a clear and simple tune already, and it actually benefits a little from his ridiculous stage whisper, if you've a high tolerance for camp. Plus that's DANIEL HOPE playing that violin. Plus Sting's translation is LOL.

Apparently he also covers Bach, Prætorius, and Purcell up on this record? Gee, I hope he sings them all in this sickly baritone range!