LF: Jacques Coursil - Way Ahead

[Justin V]

Anyone willing to part with this cd? If so, please shoot me a pm or email. Thanks.

[clifford_thornton]

I hadn't realized it was on CD. Good date; hope someone offers you one.

Bill Dixon's composition "Papers" is pretty interesting, and if I recall correctly it was the only work that he actually choreographed (for dance) himself, designed costumes for, etc. I want to say its 1960s NY performance included Coursil, Ric Colbeck and Joel Freedman but I don't have my notes handy. The quartet reading is really nice, at any rate.

[Justin V]

I hadn't realized it was on CD. Good date; hope someone offers you one.

Bill Dixon's composition "Papers" is pretty interesting, and if I recall correctly it was the only work that he actually choreographed (for dance) himself, designed costumes for, etc. I want to say its 1960s NY performance included Coursil, Ric Colbeck and Joel Freedman but I don't have my notes handy. The quartet reading is really nice, at any rate.

Thanks, Clifford. I became interested in hearing it after hearing Coursil's latest album, Trails of Tears, which just came out on January 25th on Sunnyside.

[clifford_thornton]

Yeah, that is a good record too. I was impressed.

Got my wires crossed a little on "Papers," though I was close. From Dixonia, p 127-128:

One night while Judy Dunn and I were working I said to her, "I would like to do a work where I do everything" -- except the movement, of course. I did the music. I designed the costumes. I did the make-up. Each one of the dancers had to wear something that emitted sound, so I made these huge necklaces of balsa wood. I laminated each piece, and each had its own sound. This was time consuming.

For the decor -- I'm a paper-airplane fanatic. I haven't made any in years, but I used to make incredible paper airplanes that didn't fly, but they looked good. I made close to 200 paper airplanes out of newspaper -- wouldn't fly if you put a motor in them. We hung all of these paper airplanes from the ceiling at various levels, so that the light shaped through them.

I'll never do it again; I almost went crazy, but that was the piece. I got that out of my system. I wanted to do a piece that was completely everything I did.

Dixon, trumpet & cello; Jacques Coursil, trumpet; Howard Johnson, tuba; Travis Jenkins, tenor saxophone; Judith Dunn, Barbara Ensley, Jack Moore, movement. 24/2-30/3 1968, Dance Theater Workshop