has anybody ever played jazz theremin?

[kh1958]

There's an interesting documentary film about Theramin, the inventor of the Theramin. Here's a review.

Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey is a documentary about the creator of the Theremin musical instrument, Lev Sergeyvich Termen aka Leon Theremin. It is a story about a man with a passion for electronics and music, a man with an inventive and radical mind. It should come as no surprise that he had a profound influence on the development of electronic music as we know it.

The Theremin works by moving one's hands (or any object) near a device with two antennae that manipulate pitch and volume (due to the capacitance changes resulting from the moving object). The Theremin was used to supplement the soundtrack in various movies, including Spellbound, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and The Delicate Delinquent. It also profoundly influenced inventors like Robert Moog (who explains the role Theremin played in the discovery of the Moog synthesiser) and musicians like the Beach Boys (who used it a variant of it, the electro-theremin, in their classic 1966 song, Good Vibrations and a couple of other tunes) and Led Zeppelin (in fact, when Page and Plant reunited a couple of years ago, their live shows featured a Theremin). Throughout the 1920s and the early 1930s, Theremin enjoyed the advantages that came with the fame and success of his invention.

But Theremin's life was more far exciting than that. Theremin was a Russian who had immigrated to the U.S. In the late 1930s, a decade or so after his instrument was featured in performances at Carnegie Hall, he mysteriously disappeared and was presumed dead.

Given Theremin's contribution to electronic music, Steven M. Martin, a Theremin afficionado, decided to make a documentary about the instrument. During the course of his research, he discovered Theremin was alive in Russia. In the documentary, at the age of 94, we see Theremin recounting what had happened to him: he had been kidnapped by Russian agents for his technological expertise, and was put to work in various places in positions that would help the Russians in the Cold War (and was even awarded a medal by Stalin). As they say, fact is stranger than fiction. There are no special-effects or gimmicks here---this is a factual restatement of events as they happened; the excitement in the documentary is in its content.

This is a must-see for any fan of electronic music and electronic noise. Watching this movie, I had the immediate impulse of wanting to reach out to Theremin who had obviously been through a lot but yet managed to keep a sense of childlike wonder about him. The character in the movie is far more charmismatic than most fictional characters. Theremin died in Russia in 1993, at age of 97, but his legacy lives on.

[Bright Moments]

Try hunting down the very interesting and very rare Theremingus album. The version of 'Pithecanthropus Erectus' alone is worth the price of admission.

[bertrand]

I saw the documentary - it's fabulous.

Bertrand.

[Rooster_Ties]

Holy shit, you won't believe this...

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7fd_1227028754 <<<=== Autumn Leaves

Gobstobbingly beautiful. As the text above the video says, just wait till 2:30 when she kicks in the bass line.

I've NEVER heard a theremin played THAT well in tune, ever -- not even close.

Not that I've heard a lot of theremin, mind you, but still.

[EKE BBB]

I saw Scott Robinson use a theremin extensively at a recent concert at UNH. It was interesting for about 30 seconds, then it just sounded like the soundtrack to an old Sci Fi movie, which, BTW, was what he was trying for.

In his Arbors CD "Thinking Big", he uses theremin on both Ellington's "Mood Indigo" and "On a Turquoise Cloud". From the liner notes by Dan Morgenstern:

The famous Mood Indigo has been recorded so many times (not least by Mr. Ellington himself) that it's a challenge to find something new to say on it. Scott does so by means of the theremin, a fairly recent addition to his instrumentarium. Named for its inventor, it was the first electronic instrument - the sound is produced when the player passes his hands over a little black box with an antenna-like protrusion. Scott now owns two of these magic contraptions: an early tube model made by synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog, and the one heard here, which was once used for sound effects on the Ernie Kovacs show. "I've now used the theremin on three records, a film score, and a jingle," Scott said. It has an eerie sound (it was used prominently in the Hitchcock thriller Spellbound), complemented nicely here by Scott's bass clarinet, on which he gets a beautiful tone. Brother Dave, with Harmon mute, brings Artie Whetsol to mind with his centered tone, bowed bass adds another texture, and when the theremin resumes, Scott makes it slide and slither, climaxing with tremolos. Something else!

(...)

I can't recall anyone else having tackled Ellington's On A Turquoise Cloud. Scott owns Duke's original recording, and also has "a great film of the band doing it, which my brother gave me. Again, he introduced me to this piece." Scott overdubbed himself here, on alto, tenor and baritone saxes, clarinet and bass clarinet, and, last but not least, theremin. The latter instrument sounds startlingly human, conjuring up the voice of Kay Davis. Dan Barrett does a great job on Lawrence Brown's muted solo. A unique performance! Duke and Billy Strayhorn would have loved it.

[Joe]

Interested parties may care to track down THEREMIN NOIR, a collaborative venture between Rob Schwimmer, Uri Caine and Mark Feldman. A track-by-track review of this album may be found here.

In a more purely experimental, "non-idiomatic improvisation" idiom, there's also James Coleman's ZUIHITSU on Sedimental. For more info... http://www.sedimental.com/catalog/james_coleman_zuihitsu/

Edited February 12, 2009 by Joe

[ejp626]

Interested parties may care to track down THEREMIN NOIR, a collaborative venture between Rob Schwimmer, Uri Caine and Mark Feldman. A track-by-track review of this album may be found here.

I don't think anyone was that interested. I was hawking a copy here for a month or two and gave up and sold it to Reckless.

[BruceH]

There are not many harmonics apart from the fundamental sine wave, if any at all. It just sounds like one of those sine wave generators that they used to have in Physics labs.

The theremins I've heard sound a bit bright to have no harmonics. That's why they sound bright - the harmonics.

I don't need to go to a Physics lab, I can just turn on a synthesizer to hear a sine tone.

To me the theremin has always sounded like a weird blending of the mechanical and the vocal.

(BTW, anyone who, like me, thrilled to repeats of the original The Day the Earth Stood Still on TV at the age of six, will always have a soft spot for the theremin.)

Edited February 12, 2009 by BruceH

[sidewinder]

I saw the documentary - it's fabulous.

Bertrand.

Yeah - saw that one too when it came out. At the cinema ! Very informative documentary with quite a bit of footage of Clara Rockmore 'in action'.

Edited February 12, 2009 by sidewinder