Muhal Richard Abrams + Roscoe Mitchell

[ep1str0phy]

(I'm a Mills student and incidentally working a publicity assistantship for the music department, but this really doesn't have to do with that--)

I was told today that this Friday's concert (2/27) featuring Muhal and Roscoe (I'm presuming some solo piano, some duet) is not yet sold out. Mills is located at:

5000 MacArthur Blvd.

Oakland, CA 94613

Show starts at 8pm and tickets are $20 general, $12 students, alumnae, and seniors (65+).

Now, I feel like a massive shill for posting this, but I thought it was ridiculous that this show had empty seats (considering attendance for certain other events...). If any of you are in the Bay Area and not yet hip to this, I highly, highly recommend it.

I and a few of the other students actually performed an epic Muhal piece today, composer in attendance (providing encouragement, vocal and physical exhortations, and some piano). The man's energy is awesome.

It's great actually finding out how open, helpful, and encouraging these heavyweights are (Roscoe, Muhal, Fred Frith, etc.). Good music by good people-

(If any of you make it out, let me know.)

Edited February 26, 2009 by ep1str0phy

[ep1str0phy]

Oh yeah--you can order tickets here:

http://www.mills.edu/musicfestival/concert3.php

[robviti]

good music deserves a good audience. wish it was happening in my neck of the woods.

[paul secor]

You're a lucky guy, ep.

[GregK]

Damn.

[Chuck Nessa]

Roscoe told me about this last week. For a couple of days I considered going. Sadly I decided I could not afford the trip. Dang.

The last time I heard them together was at Edgefest with George Lewis. GregK and Skid were there but I regret they didn't hear the second show. Muhal took a contrary motion solo like I've only heard attempted by Tristano and it was friggin' miraculous. Muhal is a wonder and few understand his value.

[blajay]

I'm so excited! :rsmile: I'm just finishing the George Lewis book now, and I can't think of any other show I'd rather go to.

Edited February 27, 2009 by zanonesdelpueblo

[blajay]

And as I mentioned in another thread, Randy Weston and Lou Donaldson are also playing separately in the Bay Area this weekend. One hell of a time to be living here!

[Chuck Nessa]

I envy you.

[Lazaro Vega]

That's a helluva weekend of music in store for you folks: the Roscoe/Muhal/Lewis concert in Ann Arbor was one of the most simultaneously poised and shouting concerts I'd ever heard. So many elements of music come into play in their concerts and their reactions to each other signal an attitude to the "whole" of the performance that puts the final result, hopefully and if all goes well, on the highest musical level, an exulted plane of creation.

[GregK]

how many shows do either Roscoe or Muhal do in a year, including other collaborations?

[Chuck Nessa]

This might be it for the two of them.

[.:.impossible]

You feel like a shill? Please!

[ep1str0phy]

Oh man--a few of us managed to book some time with Muhal. I managed to play with him today--maybe the best "feeling" improvisation I've ever been in. No anxiety--just calm, time, the music goes where it's supposed to go. He kept emphasizing the phrase "respect the space", which just orients things--philosophically--for me in a completely beautiful way (the "space" being something apart from the self--something that just is when music is being made).

Another bit of wisdom--"You are not your mind." Beautiful.

Anyway, it's the real deal. The giants are out to go eat fish, and we're left to just do. Life changing.

[AndrewHill]

Lucky duck

[Johnny E]

You feel like a shill? Please!

Really. If you're a shill what's that make me? That's what this board is all about. Sharing the love man.

I can't wait to get a show review. Come on fellas, do tell...

[blajay]

What's there to say, really. I've never had a more powerful live music experience. It did end up filling well, it seems most people just bought tickets at the door. The newly-renovated Concert Hall had excellent acoustics. There wasn't any solo, all duet. Muhal on piano of course and Roscoe on bass, alto, soprano, sopranino, and about a hundred bells, whistles, bicycle horns, and other little instruments. Ep1strophy should add details on the music because he has the expertise, but this is how it went down from my perspective. They both started out playing single notes held in suspense by long stretches of silence. Muhal said afterward at a reception that if people didn't have 9-5 jobs, he would have held that note for days and weeks. Muhal played one note here and there while Roscoe did circular breathing on the bass sax. Inevitably it escalated, and a high point was probably when Roscoe was blowing his face off on alto while Muhal hammered away with closed hands. Some of the highlights were Muhal playing inside the piano and Roscoe playing his alto in key with the bicycle horn. It ended with a great climax and everybody gave them a big standing ovation. They then came out and performed an encore for a bit.

I have to thank Ep1strophy again. He was kind enough to give me a ride, and he invited me to a reception where he introduced me to his fellow lucky students. We spoke at length with Fred Frith and Muhal, who at 79 years old has more vitality than most 20 year olds. He's the wise mentor figure I had imagined and very easy to get along with. It was a once in a lifetime experience.

[Johnny E]

Sweet.

[blajay]

Just came back from Randy Weston at Yoshi's SF. Also a good show, I was definitely tapping my feet throughout, but the energy just didn't compare with last night's show. That set the bar really high. I gotta say, as much as I'd heard of Alex Blake on bass, and people definitely enjoyed him... I found it pretty distracting.

Oh well, Lou is tomorrow.

[ep1str0phy]

I really don't know what to say about the show. I came up to Fred afterward, and all he could say was--"Well, you were there." It makes music feel really, really small and really, really big and the same time--putting credit where credit is due, knowing that people from backgrounds as diverse as Fred, Roscoe, (etc.) can all share in and appreciate fine music.

What I can say is that the vitality of the two principals is indeed awesome. Roscoe played a sopranino solo that night that compares with or surpasses anything I've heard him do on record--a mixture of bent/microtonal pure tones and shrieking harmonics, circular breathed. (Cut askew from the same cloth as Evan Parker's essays on the larger soprano--only Roscoe's playing is an extension of the same phrase shapes and patterns one might detect in, say the Art Ensemble--not some monolithic something else.) And somewhere in my mind I'm wondering if the words fit, but I would call Muhal's contributions--which often served to harmonically "ground" the duet portions, providing a more tonal counterbalance to Roscoe's more angular, linear improvising--tasteful, elegant, and concise--as elegant as anything I've ever witnessed live (in any idiom).

In other words: patience, ideas, work, and friendship. That's pretty much it.

If we're lucky, the set might someday get released on record.

Edited March 1, 2009 by ep1str0phy

[Chuck Nessa]

Thanks for the reports.

[johnlitweiler]

Thanks for describing the concert, guys. I'm drooling.

[blajay]

Well Chuck and John, thanks for exposing me to the AACM in the first place through your producing and writing efforts, respectively. Without that who knows if I would have had seized the opportunity.