Yoko Ono's 2003 performance of "Cut Piece"; image courtesy of commondreams.org

If you’re a follower of this blog and haven’t gotten a hold of the new issue of Bitch, I heartily recommend it. I also recommend that you get a subscription, something I intend to renew after the holiday season. As luck would have it, the current issue came in the mail just as I was heading to Fort Worth for Thanksgiving, and its theme is all about artists. In it, you will find articles about mediated representations of female artists in television and film, the troubled history of contemporary feminist art, and an indictment of the patriarchal implications of Donald Judd’s artistic take-over of Marfa.

Anne Elizabeth Moore penned quite the invective against Donald Judd's presence in Marfa

While I’d like some more coverage of iconoclastic artists like Kara Walker and an extension of the term “artist” to include women like contemporary dancer Louise Lecavalier, I recognize that the good people at Bitch only have so much negative space to fill and loved the issue all the same. It was just the thing to read while running on the elliptical machine in the guest room when in need of some solitary quality time. I am an only child, after all.

I saw Kara Walker's My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love exhibit at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth two summers ago and it blew my mind; image courtesy of blackhistorymonths.files.wordpress.com

One person I’m really glad Bitch focused on is Yoko Ono. By having 20 female artists contribute their words and feelings about this great woman, Ellen Papazian helps shatter the myth of rock’s dragon lady widow and considers her influence as an artist, musician, Japanese immigrant, feminist, mother, wife, and woman. Importantly, these women also challenge the notion that Ono’s cultural position as feminist conceptual artist was trite and instead suggest ways in which it was revolutionary and brave. Let’s think about this when we look at works like “Cut Piece,” wherein Ono invites audience members to cut off pieces of her clothes and hair — sometimes to dangerous effect at the hands of misogynistic participants — or “Y E S,” which is comprised of a ladder, a magnifying glass, and three affirmative letters scrawled on a board overhead. 

Another lady I’d like to shine a light on, especially since she wasn’t featured in Bitch’s Art/See issue is composer and fellow Houstonian Pauline Oliveros.

Pauline Oliveros with her accordian; image courtesy of paulineoliveros.us

I’m in the process of putting together a couple of entries for an encyclopedia for American women in popular culture. I’ve sent off two, but am stalling on an overview of female composers because, frankly, beyond Ms. Oliveros, Libby Larsen, and film scorers like Wendy Carlos and Shirley Walker, I actually don’t know too many myself and was hoping to use this assignment as an opportunity to broaden my own understanding. A Pandora guide I inherited from my friend Emily will hopefully expand my own knowledge base, but feel free to throw out American female composers I should discuss. In the mean time, I thought I’d share a piece by Oliveros, an accordian player and pianist who emphasizes the importance of breathing in music-making, cultivates the idea of deep listening in contemporary classical music, and incorporates it into her music for feminist reasons.

Let’s toast these female artists and others who’ve carved spaces for themselves and, as a result, tried to bridge the chasm between subject and spectator, hoping to forge that most feminist of ideals: communal space. Here here! I sip my Lone Star in their honor.

So every solstice there is an awesome huge new music concert at the Chapel of the Chimes columbarium in Oakland. What’s a columbarium, you ask? It’s where they keep dead people! Well this one is a totally gorgeous labyrinthian building with huge halls and narrow passages and lots of stained glass.

Julia Morgan's Chapel of the Chimes

Every year they have a new music concert that is totally packed and awesome. It’s one of those things where people bring their kids to see micro-tonal string quartets and old ladies get to fuss with max patches. There are always about 200 guys in Hawaiian shirts and you think, oh man not another old guy in a Hawaiian shirt! until you realize it’s Terry Riley. Very Bay Area!

This year I have the pleasure of performing with my favorite group, the Cornelius Cardew Choir. This is a fun-loving and sincere little group that meets in Berkeley and is inspired by the works of graphic composer Cornelius Cardew. Here is one of his scores:

Image from "Treatise" by Cornelius Cardew

Our group is not doing that piece though, thank goodness.  We’re actually focusing on several piece by Pauline Oliveros, including one I love very much called “Heart Chant”.  That’s one where the audience can join in.  Here is the score:

****The Heart Chant (2001) by Pauline Oliveros © 2001 Deep Listening Publications; performed by the Cornelius Cardew Choir and willing audience members

This is the text of the original score:
Stand together in a circle with feet about shoulder width apart and knees a little
soft.

Warm up your hands by rubbing palms together until you feel the heat.

Place your right hand over your own heart.  Place your left hand on the back
of your left hand partner (back of the heart).

After a few natural breaths sing/chant/intone “AH” on any pitch that will
resonate your heart.  Sense the energy of your own heart and that of your
partner over the course of several breaths.

Can you imagine that the heart energies are joining together for healing
yourself and others?

Can you imagine heart energies traveling out into the universe as a healing
for all victims and toward the end of violence?

When The Heart Chant ends, gradually release your palms and bring them
forward parallel in front of you.  Sense the energy between the palms as if there
were a sphere or ball that can be moved around.  Then bring your palms to
your own center, fold them over and store the energy.

We invite you to join our performance of The Heart Chant. Once we have begun singing, you are welcome to find a place in our circle and intone the syllable “ah” in length-of-breath notes that resonate your heart and those of the person to your left in the circle. (“Choreography” developed by Joe Zitt and the Cornelius Cardew Choir.)

We invite you to sing with us:

Ask a choir member (wearing jewel tone and black) for guidance OR use these directions:

1.    ENTERING THE CIRCLE:
        a.    Warm your hands by rubbing them together
        b.    stand just outside the circle at a spot of your choice
        c.    Place your right hand over your heart and place your left hand on top of
                 the left hand of a person in the circle
        d.    That person will open the circle and place her/his left hand on your back
                 behind your heart
        e.    Use the syllable “Ah” and sing for as long as you wish, breathing deeply between your notes and
              standing with relaxed knees
      (At the end of the piece everyone will fall silent. If that happens while you
 are in the circle, please follow the gentle chi-gathering movements)

3.    LEAVING THE CIRCLE:
        a.    Fall silent
        b.    Lift your left hand from your neighbor’s back and rotate to your left until
                 you are out of the circle. The singers on either side will close the gap.

——————————–

Maybe it sounds a little hippie, but this piece actually creates some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard.  There are beautiful chords and microtones that emerge.  It’s really a magical experience and if you are in Oakland tomorrow you should come by and experience it.

Tonight at the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford, the Deep Listening Band, comprised of influential experimental music veterans Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, and  David Gamper, is giving two performances to mark the 20th anniversary of their historic first recording. Both are highly likely to sell out, so if you want to reserve a seat, instructions for doing so are on the Chapel’s website, along with more information about this rare and important event.

Deep Listening Band: Gamper, Oliveros and Dempster

I am so overwhelmed at the prospect of sitting down to write this post, and I can hardly even justify the time, knowing that it will be insufficient and incomplete (as are most things) for all that I am interested in exploring/expressing. And I have not even expanded on my “tag cloud reflection” in my last post. But I also feel that in three days of this new quarter, with new and important classes, as well as the density of inspiration coming from all of the Forsythe work in and around OSU/the Wexner, I am adrift amongst veritable constellations of thought. I am sure that I will only be able to address a few specific ideas, and even then, from light years away (as opposed to the microscopic examination I would prefer), but here we go. In no particular order.

Yesterday I attended a lecture by Alva Noë. His primary research concerns are philosophy and cognitive sciences, specifically exploring the nature of consciousness. He posits that consciousness in action, it is something we do, not some internal phenomenon that exists somewhere in our brains. He is questioning a somewhat established assumption that consciousness takes place specifically in the brain, and that thus on some level we are our brains. He asserts that the brain is only a part of the larger structure of consciousness.

And all of this is fascinating to me, especially in the context of dance.

But more of what I would like to address in these brief lines, in this brief time, is his comparison or art and philosophy. I commonly reference my choreography as being specifically concerned with the exploration of aspects of the human condition through the moving body. In a sense, it is an action of philosophy (and research). The piece I just premiered in March, “About,” was previously entitled, “Phenomena to Noumenon: This Simple Thing,” which is essentially a philosophical discourse concerning the nature of reality and perception, objectivity and subjectivity. Noë began by saying that art has been a problem for philosophy for a long time (in the same sense, philosophy is the central problem for my art), asking what is art, what is its value, can it produce knowledge, etc. He asserted three points:
1. Both philosophy and art either have neutral or no subject, or their subject is the whole or time and space, anything about which there can be thought, consciousness itself. Unlike other fields, they are not subject specific but more a way of approaching or addressing subject, which might be anything, and certainly arises out experience and thus consciousness.
2. Both philosophy and art find themselves problematic. Both raise the question for themselves, “How can a dialectic that does not need to produce results be a thing of value?” Both are in a constant state of reevaluating, recontextualizing, reenvisioning and questioning the nature of themselves, what they are and what they do. This relates to a subject Bill Forsythe has spoken on several times this week, that of doubt. We as artists/dancers/choreographers/philosophers are problems to ourselves because we have the ability to doubt or question what we know of ourselves, what has been previously established in our fields.
3. There is a blurring distinction between method and result, process and product. There is a sense in which the results of both philosophy and art only have value in the context of their methods/processes, and thus where on ends and the other begins because a difficult edge to find.

Noë also spoke about the nature of understanding, of understanding or recognition as the essential way in which the world reveals itself to us, and that this understanding is one of context. We recognize a thing in that way in which it fits within our frame of reference, our particular continuum of experience. A thing is unrecognizable, unseeable, when it completely unexpected, when you don’t even know what to look for. This is perhaps one of the values or interests of art, that it cultivates an ability to truly see, to recognize and understand, a microcosmic experience reflecting the macrocosm of all of life. All human experience is a process of bringing the world into focus through understanding and consciousness. Engaging with art gives us the opportunity to cultivate this process of understanding; it is the domain of investigating the process of perception and understanding.

And this is the work of “Synchronous Object for One Flat Thing, Reproduced” (NOW LIVE! CHECK IT OUT!). It is the process of cultivating the experience of understanding. If understanding is truly a phenomenon rooted in a context for perception, than understanding is the problem addressed by “Synchronous Objects.” It the exposition of choreographic work and information in the form of choreographic objects, or visual or pictorial expressions or representations. 

Today, in conjunction with the launch of “Synchronous Objects,” the Wexner Center for the Arts and the Department of Dance at OSU hosted the Choreographic Objects Symposium, bringing together a panel of collaborators and experts in the fields of dance, computer programming, animation, geography, architecture, philosophy and beyond to discuss the work of this project. I cannot possibly address all that was said by which I was inspired, but I will throw out a few key moments.

Maria Palazzi, the director for the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design, commented of the process of understanding through the process of making, the creative process as an act of recognition or understanding. This ties directly into the lecture Noë, and adds another layer, taking consciousness as action into an area in which context for understanding is constructed through the process of making. This was a consensus across the panel, many of whom had very little experience with dance previous to this project, that is doing this work, in creating about this choreography, the choreography became legible for them. The hope is that these points of entry that emerged during their creative work are then transmitted into the objects offered on the new site. It raises new ideas (or new to me) concerning the development of audience literacy in our field. Beyond the incredible work that has been done on this project, what is the potential for making dance legible through creative activities? An obvious application is that once people take dance classes, they understand dance further, but what are other creative (by which I mean generative, making) activities in which might audiences in order to make this art form more accessible? In order to establish a context in which understanding might thrive?

This relates to ideas that are coming up in my graduate teaching seminar with Susan Hadley about the relationship between content, the organization of material, and methods of communicating. What are the ways in which we transmit information?

Which connects to ideas I have been pondering surrounding the application of Labanotation to adjacent dance studies. I am finding my research profile situating itself somewhere between choreography/composition and history/theory; notation serves as a ready link between the two. In Labanotation, choreography becomes a written history, and a written history becomes choreography. I am becoming more and more interested in how this system might lend itself to embodying what is essential an embodied history. Far too often I find that we read, write, view and listen to our dancing history. It is transmitted textually, orally, and visually, but rarely corporeally. I am curious about the potential for notation to lend itself to the study of history, giving students the opportunity to embody seminal dance works that have previously only ever existed for them in disembodied translations. I am considering taking a Labanotation Teacher Certification Course this summer to these ends, to fuel this inquiry. 

Amidst much of this other thought there is the constellation of Somatics. I am taking a course this quarter with Abby Yager that surveys various somatic forms and methods. It may reveal itself to be one of the most significant (to my own interests and research) courses that I have taken thus far at OSU (and I have taken some incredible courses). Among its goals are:
-to cultivate deep listening
-to awaken awareness and clarify a sense of Self 

These are essentially my primary research interests in dance. I am fascinated by how awareness comes from movement of the body and how awareness then affects the way in which the body moves. Ever since I experienced the work of Pauline Oliveros (who has developed a musical/meditation technique described as “Deep Listening”) I have been interested in what a “listening body” might be, and more specifically, how it might move, and how choreography might arise out of that movement. I have felt a resonance of this idea in the somatic fields, but having it so explicitly stated in the syllabus excites me to know end (I am also in a course with Bebe Miller entitled “Creative Processes” exploring the process by which we make dances; I am interested to see how this research interest might be addressed in this composition course, supported by the work I am doing in Somatics with Yager).

My larger research interest has been evolving into something like “the choreography of identity,” the ways in which we come to recognize ourselves and others through the ways in which we move, and how we participate in the formation of who we are through these same processes. Clearly this relates to awareness. It also relates to issues of gender representation, queer theory, gaze theory, relational politics, social conditioning, etc. And it addresses another larger issue, that of the individuals connection to their body. I am interested in resisting the dualistic Cartesian model in which the body is merely the vehicle for the mind, the mind being the essence of the individual. The individual is composed of a mind-body, a body-mind, a cohesive, holistic, inseparable unit. A person is as much their body as they are their mind, and in honoring this fact, we discover that part of knowing ourselves and knowing one another is through an awareness and investigation of the body. This was illustrated in a piece that I designed in my seminar with Ann Hamilton and Michael Mercil last quarter but have yet to enact entitled KNOW(TOUCH)ME(YOU)(MY/YOUR BODY) in which participants engage in a physical conversation with one another, directing one another in a dialogue of physically exploring one another’s bodies.

And perhaps here is where this post comes full orbit and finds its pause: beginning with cognition/consciousness as more than the brain and ending with the person as more than the mind. The essence is that it is through the body that we come to know. Through dancing, through making, through embodying history through a practice of Labanotation, through somatic study, etc. we come to know ourselves and the context that makes up that concept of Self.

Other subjects that deserve attention but must wait for some other time: seeing the performance of “Monster Partitur.” Twice. The process of continuing work of this new piece “Red Monster,” and how it relates to the subject of identity and a sense of Self. The potential for “Synchronous Objects” to inspire further investigations into the representation and exposition of dance and choreographic knowledge. Briefly, this relates to a conversation I had with a friend this evening after the symposium. He raised the question of how this work might be continued. Forsythe has expressed interest in developing a Motion Bank, a library of these sorts of investigations, and while he is currently pursuing funding for the next addition to this “library,” one wonders how else this continuum of information my evolve. Partly, I see it as present in endeavors such as this blog (in the most basic and fundamental of ways): by this blog serving as a public creative platform, I am contributing to the exposition of the internal information of my dancing/choreographing life. I think the more interesting potential evolution of this “library” is one that emerges from public culture, embedded in public culture, rather than continuing to develop out of the work of a single (admittedly remarkable) choreographer. That is yet one more potential development for “Synchronous Objects,” how it my inspire and provoke additional investigations of a similar nature . . . 

And finally an announcement for my readership:
For those of you at OSU or in Columbus:

This Sunday, 5 April, I am restaging “About.” The cast and I had a particular interest is re-contextualizing the work site-specifically. We were interested is how it might be experienced in a circular space, and also how its choreographic structures might be further revealed when seen from above. So this Sunday we are going to explore the piece in these contexts by performing it in both Sullivant Hall rotundas, first in the one next to Studio 6 (the entrance faces Mershon Auditorium) around 5pm, followed by the High Street rotunda (the entrance faces High Street, between Sullivant Library and the Music and Dance Library). The first rotunda offers a circular, domed space with seating in the round, the second has a full mezzanine, from which the piece can be viewed in the round and from above.

I am not particularly advertising this event; it is less about a public performance and more about exploring the nature of this choreography in a different space. It will be informal, and there is no pressure to be in attendance. I simply wanted you to know that this was happening in the event that you had an interest in experiencing the work in this context. 

Sabemos que Ursula Bogner porque Wikipedia no tiene una página sobre ella. Ni en alemán, ni en inglés, ni en ningún otro idioma. ¿Qué es eso? ¿Que hay mucha gente que existe y que no tiene páginas en Wikipedia? De acuerdo, pongámonos más específicos. Artista pionera de la electrónica que nació en 1946 y murió en 1994 a la edad de 48 años. El sello Faitiche (pronunciado como “fetish”), montado por el del buscador del loop y del jazz-glitch Jan Jelinek, ha editado lo que tiene la intención de ser una complicación de los  experimentos radiofónicos de Ursula Bogner hechos entre 1968/1998. Ahora, difícilmente seré la primera persona en decir que esta atractiva y excéntrica música no suena mucho como una serie de visionarias, proféticas, premoniciones del singular y minimalista microsonido del siglo XXI, como lo compuesto y editado recientemente por un artista contemporáneo de la electrónica que vive en Berlín –digamos que Jan Jelinek – acompañado de una divertida y juguetona nota de prensa. Y no seré el primero en especular sobre la idea de que Ursula Bogner es de hecho Jelinek.

Sin embargo, uno de mis dichos favoritos es “Cada mentira crea un mundo paralelo; el mundo en el que es verdad”. Así que estoy interesado en el mundo paralelo en el que Ursula Bogner es creíble, y existe realmente.

No se necesita una gran extensión de la imaginación; después de todo, los sellos discográficos han hecho un negocio formidable durante la última década con compilaciones de electrónica exótica, muchas de ellas hechas por mujeres compositoras que “han sido pasadas por alto”. La ficticia Ursula Bogner toma su lugar junto a las verdaderas e históricas compositoras femeninas de la música electrónica como Delia Derbyshire, Daphne Oram, Clara Rockmore, Elaine Radigue, Else Marie Pade, Maddalena Fagandini, Glynis Jones, Pauline Oliveros y Beatriz Ferreyra.

Derbyshire y Oram trabajaron para el taller radiofónico de la BBC en los años 50 y 60, usando la edición de cintas (cortando y pegando), y la filtración y síntesis para crear evocadores sonidos para piezas de teatro y documentales para la radio. El más famoso, y asombrosamente futurista, tema de Derbyshire, fue para la serie de ciencia ficción “Dr. Who”, que se adelanta a Kraftwerk por más de una década. Rockmore era una habilidosa intérprete del theremin en 1930, justo después de que el instrumento “gestual cantante” hubiera sido inventado. Si Ursula Bogner puede encajar plausible y confortablemente en esta línea de mujeres dedicadas a la música electrónica, su creador (Jelinek, el Dr Frankenstein de la Sra Bogner) puede también formar parte de otra, igualmente admisible, tradición: la del grupo de artistas masculinos con un alter ego femenino. Aquí, lo admito, encontramos más precedentes en el mundo de las artes visuales. El abuelo francés del arte conceptual, Marcel Duchamp, tenía un alter ego femenino, llamado Rose Selavy.

El ceramista británico Grayson Perry se viste regularmente de Claire, una niña pequeña con su vestido de fiesta. Por supuesto también hay ambiguos indecisos en el mundo de la música: Terre Thaemlitz, Genesis P-Orridge y Pete Burns se han transformado en mujeres o han optado por la cirugía para hacer sus cuerpos más femeninos. Los artistas musicales que trabajan en el género conocido como “clicks and cuts” puede ser que tengan un interés especial en cambiar de género. Después de todo, si estas editando música sintética todo el día – abrir, cambiar, guardar archivo – ¿por qué no aplicar los mismos principios de flujo y fluidez, activismo y artificialidad a tu cuerpo, a tu género?

¿Si ningún sonido es “natural” para el músico electrónico, por qué debería haber algo natural o predestinado acerca del cuerpo en el que resulta que has nacido, o el género asignado al mismo al nacer? ¿Por qué no hacer click y cut con tu propia carne, y editar tu identidad? ¿Por qué no sintetizar? Y ya que estás, hacer lo que ha hecho Jan Jelinek con Ursula Bogner; enviar tu avatar al pasado para efectuar una pequeña cirugía plástica en la historia, sólo para ver cómo queda.

Uno de los músicos que nos ha ayudado a vivir más cómoda y holgadamente en ésta cámara, en este mar en que nadamos, en estado permanente de resonancia, es aunque muchos nunca hayan escuchado su nombre Alvin Lucier. Para Lucier la música, el sonido, no es sólo víspera que preludia todo un juego de reflexiones, sino que escuchar es un acto cabal que cada vez ha de presentar cara al resonar del aire de manera adecuada. Unas veces lo conveniente será la conocida situación concierto que todos practicamos alguna vez, pero otras lo que convenga será más bien la acción sónica o lo que se ha dado en llamar la performance, y otras la más reciente instalación. Esto es un maquinar con adecuado acierto para que el aire de un lugar cante y/o dibuje – mientras dispongamos – los pálpitos o ronrones del son. Cuando la situación “a”, o cuando la “b” o la “c” o uno de sus múltiples mixtos, es lo que decide – ¿compone? – el músico, también él en situación extendida o desaforada, es involucrado con su decisión en algo más que en concebirse y presentarse como creador. De hecho para Alvin Lucier la tarea de ser músico más que en construir mediante viejos andamiajes y arraigos artefactos sónicos con pedestal de autor, consiste en desopacar el aire, una tarea que más que de artistas diríase que lo es de filósofos de lo cotidiano. De ahí que más que de bello o no bello, las propuestas sónicas de nuestros días hablan de verdad o simulacro.

Y Lucier pertenece a la estirpe de hombres que se alinean en la tradición de la aletheia, esto es de esa actividad restauradora o descubridora a la que también con otras soluciones se sumaron en otro tiempo Satie, los futuristas, Duchamp o Cage cuando entraron en extrañamientos radicales enfatizando los distintos amueblamientos, ruidos, azares o silencios que más bien sonaban a errores y extravíos donde – perdiéndose – el yo podía atender lo auténtico tal y como lo concibe Heidegger quien se opone felizmente al culto del arraigo; en los momentos mayores de su obra enseñó que “el extrañamiento es un modo fundamental de ser-en-el-mundo”.

Ese extrañamiento, esa palabra, Alvin Lucier la corporiza en un escrupuloso atender los procesos o fenómenos naturales que conforman el hecho físico del sonar, y lo hace siguiendo al pié de la letra las instrucciones de Varése, quien se hartó de repetirnos que “la música, toda música, es un fenómeno físico”. Ese va a ser el teclado a accionar: los fenómenos acústicos, unos fenómenos tales como onda, reflexión, difracción, saturación, resonancia, pulsos, feedback, ecolalia, etc.

Para dar cuerpo, visualidad y hasta tacto a tan naturales manifestaciones, Lucier se sirve de todo tipo de adminículos tecnológicos, sean de los que se da en llamar de alta fidelidad (generadores, micros, amplificadores mesas de mezclas, etc.) sean de aquellos que se usan en la industria o la ciencia (en telecomunicaciones, o en medicina), sean en fin adminículos “lowtech”. Esto es juguetes, conchas o trastos, que usados de determinada manera nos revelan algún aspecto de la naturaleza.

Una naturaleza que para Lucier no es muda, ni siquiera parca en manifestaciones sonoras ni ronca, sino que más bien dispone de un buen arsenal “expresivo”. De ahí que insista en que “la naturaleza tiene una voz muy elocuente”. Pero junto a lo natural y lo tecnológico en interacción o interferencia mutua, las músicas de Lucier apelan a un tercer elemento en coalición o discordia: la concentración, la conciencia que es la que recoge y atiende, mediante convenientes inmovilidades o peripatéticas atenciones divagadoras ese temblor del cosmos pronunciándose.

Y ninguna obra más clarificadora para entender la complejidad de las propuestas de un Lucier que la fundacional “Música para Solo Performer” de 1965, una música que para darse – para tener lugar – al extremadamente sólo performer no se le pide que toque las notas exactas en el momento y con la intensidad apropiada, sino que se le exige, en palabras de Pauline Oliveros, la conciencia exacta, esto es el sosiego interior exacto como para producir las ondas alfa necesarias, unas ondas que, ampliadas, puedan producir respuestas resonantes en los instrumentos de percusión esparcidos por el espacio rodeando al tan “sólo performer”. Este es el aspecto composicional más importante: el autor enfrentándose a la “compositional people” que le impelían a componer una música para cinta magnética convencional en donde verter toda esa gramática de arte cisoria elemental (ese reiterado filtrar, reverberar, cortar y pegar de la música electroacústica), o que le estresaban con los consabidos argumentos del aburrimiento o de lo monótono de las ondas alfa, atrapa el meollo de la cuestión desatascando esquemas y entrando en el infinito espacio de lo experimental y desconocido, pues lo que él vislumbra “no es una idea sonora, sino una idea de control o energía”, una energía que “surge del cerebro, viene del interior de cada persona, pues todos tenemos un pequeño estudio electrónico dentro de nuestro cerebro”.

En efecto para no descafeinar este agónico presentarse de las fuentes del sonar, con sus intensos ribetes poético-dramáticos Lucier opta por componer una situación adecuada para su interpretación, presentación y audición. Para ello transpone esa situación de concentrada soledad que solo se da en ambientes médicos y hospitalarios a un contexto artístico, a un espacio donde estamos solo para concentrarnos escuchando. Cuando se acepta construir una situación como esta es cuando se saca de la lata a la música para devenir saludable encuentro con lo inédito, pues rápidamente la idea se aliará con los instrumentos adecuados para que vivamos en directo una celebración abierta al pasmo mas errático, en este caso frente a “una persona, sola, sentada, muy muy quieta, liberando un flujo de energía que empapa el espacio concierto”, esto es las ondas alfa que el cerebro del solista emite ante nosotros mismos si no se distrae y su concentración es la adecuada.

A partir de aquí Alvin Lucier no tendrá sino que desatascar también la situación concierto, donde se establece y fija el espacio-tiempo del aparcado auditor, y construir situaciones tan libres y elásticas como convenga para que cada quién construya sus recorridos o inmovilidades a placer, haciendo de su capacidad contemplativa un sayo poético que capte ese campo expandido en que se convirtió el desenvuelto son, materia o flujo huidizo pero que en manos como las de Lucier adquiere una cualidad escultural tangible. Puestas así las cosas, lo que queda de aquello que antes llamábamos componer no es más que disponer – o aceptar – cercanías, materiales, frotes, acumulaciones o rarefacciones, etc. en un espacio y en un tiempo a determinar, cada vez, a fin de que todo ese teatro del aire vivifique el espacio, el locus, mediante singulares ondas físicas que resonaran y empatizarán con determinados elementos – ¿instrumentos? – o lo que sea.

El aire, a base de extenderse o de intensificarse (mediante monotonías, más o menos hijas del continuo, la repetición o la infinita heterofonía) deviene ya no solo pasta, sino también paisaje de singulares líneas y horizontes cada vez, pero también puente a un más allá inexplorado de escuchas – estamos al inicio de la cosa – que sólo ahora comenzamos a transitar sin saber aún a donde nos pueda llevar. La partitura, siguiendo la estela de Cage, será puramente verbal y prosaica.

Se limitará a ser un manual de uso, de qué hacer, que sugiere modos de empleo. En realidad es la situación a construir la que dicta como hacer la pieza. Muchas veces la partitura se escribe no antes sino tras el “estreno”, clarificando y resumiendo lo que el compositor tenía en mente al proponer eso, aunque integrando aquello, imprevisto, que circunstancialmente algo o alguien provocó, y que se integra como fundamental.

Para rematar: el hecho de que a partir de 1982, Alvin Lucier sustituyera cada vez más los artilugios y los instrumentos de percusión, por instrumentos sinfónicos tradicionales, no es un ejercicio nostálgico con valor de refugio que invalida elocuencias naturales cargadas de excesos. Más bien las fortifica y afirma, pues el boquete ya está abierto, y los aires principiantes y atareados son ya patrimonio de cuantos acepten que la música es reflexión, y reflexión también de los no límites del imaginario sónico.

This just in from our better-late-than-never bureau, writer Ken Weiss’ extensive review of Vision Festival XIII, held in New York this past June, graces the pages of the December issue of Jazz Improv NY.  

The review, which spans four pages, including an entire page of original photos, covers a wide range of performances from three of the six nights of the festival, as well as the Saturday afternoon Emerging Artist Showcase.

It’s a great way to get a feel for the diversity of this seminal week-long event, which Weiss calls “New York City’s premier annual avant-garde mystical happening.”  He adds, “this festival continues to serve as the foundation that stabilizes the city’s creative jazz music scene, offering a meeting place for fans (many of whom come from Europe each year) and fellow musicians to experience some of the current integral soundshapers and also for industry types to congregate and make new connections with artists.”

If you don’t live in New York, where the magazine is distributed free at venues and other jazz-related sites, you can download this month’s issue, with Jimmy Heath on the cover, here (PDF).  The review begins on page 10.

Tonight I am thinking about listening. This is a recurring concept in my creative outlook, one that arises from my experiences with Butoh, various somatic forms, and an aesthetic that is continually fixated with subtlety. It finds resonance with the work and words of Pauline Oliveros and her practice of “deep listening”, an almost meditative practice of heightening sensory awareness as a method for creating, where creating (in her case music, in my case dance) comes out of absorbing, processing, responding, approaching an environment with an open mode of consciousness and letting the creative act arise from that form of engagement. This concept of listening is finding new echoes in subjects I am experiencing here in grad school: the concept of “emergent taxonomy” from Applied Technologies in Dance, the idea of an organization of material (which is what creating is all about) arising out of what is there rather than imposing an organizational structure hierarchically; also, the practice of “post-positivist research”, a way of looking as a subject without defining absolutely what it is you are observing, without deciding what form your findings will take, allowing the direction of the research to evolve from the practice of observation; in reading/reporting an article on Pauline Oliveros and the construction of gendered identity in her music. The author (Timothy D. Taylor) writes about Oliveros’ invocation of “feminine” characteristics in music such as intuition and sensitivity, as opposed to the “masculine” qualities of notation, prescription, and order. Gender politics aside, reading about the investigation of these approaches (intuition, sensitivity, listening) in the creative process was invigorating.

So, what I’m curious about is what this looks like in dance. There is certainly precedence, especially in areas such as improvisation, contact improvisation, Butoh, etc. Even in other choreographers’ creative process, the idea of a choreography emerging from the process/experience of dancing (such as appropriating/structuring improv experiences into choreography) is not unheard of. That is not typical of my choreographic approach. Typically, find myself fixated with a subject. I steep myself in that subject matter, then generate movement material as a metaphorical exploration of the subject. This material is given to dancers, structured, rehearsed, and eventually performed.

I am wondering what would happen if I deepen my research/understanding of these “listening”/awareness based practices (Butoh, somatic techniques, Oliveros’ “deep listening”, etc.), then direct dancers through experiences in these processes of listening with the body, and eventually allow choreography to surface from this practice of listening, even through to the point of performance, maintain a constant approach of dance and movement as listening rather than expressing. What would that experience look like? How would it feel for the dancers? For the audience?

More and more my aesthetic is drawn towards details/subtlety/nuance. I connect these propensities to this quality of awareness, or listening.

I have a sense that this might be the starting point of what might evolve into my MFA research project. I am interested in exploring other ways of listening. . . even this blog is an experiment in both speaking/authoring, but also listening, paying attention to what is emerging, what responses there are, and allowing that awareness to shape the content. That is part of how this blog is a creative activity for me, and how it is playing a role in the way I am thinking right now, especially in how I am thinking about my art. It’s very circular: something is set into motion, that motion is observed/listened to, that awareness loops back into the creative process to shape the direction of that which is being set into motion, more feedback, more response in the way in which information (movement, writing, graphic, etc.) is generated, etc.

What do you think?
How do you listen with your body, or in your own creative media? How can the act of creating also be an act of listening?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

-M

I just added a smattering of new links to my sidebar. These are mostly various sources of inspiration for me and my work- mostly artists and arts organizations, as well as complimentary physical practices.

I hope you take a look.

-M

Roland Dahinden

Flying White (Mode 2005)

http://www.mediafire.com/?ab7zjyajcem

I get positively tongue-tied when discussing classical music since I lack the context, background knowledge and musical vocabulary to do it any justice. I’ve always been a dilettante and a casual observer of classical music and have usually gravitated towards the repetitive minimalism of Steve Reich and the apocalyptic sounds of Gorecki, Penderecki and Ligeti. That’s kind of where my knowledge ends, so I cannot tell you who or what has influenced Roland Dahinden to compose such crushing compositions, but I can tell you that I am kind of obsessed with Flying White.

Roland Dahinden is a Swiss composer and trombonist who studied under Alvin Lucier and Anthony Braxton. In addition, John Cage and Pauline Oliveros have composed works for him to premiere. I guess Flying White does owe a bit to the drones and minimalism of Oliveros and Lucier, but it is also its own peculiar beast. Many of you will find Flying White to be a never ending parade of gently scraped strings and rumbling, but this isn’t for everyone. It is kind of a difficult listen in that each composition seems to bleed into the next resulting in a woozy and eerie atmosphere reminiscent of Artemiev’s soundtrack for Solaris. However, it definitely sets a mood, albeit a very uneasy and paranoid one. Flying White kind of reminds me of rough waters. Short swells of sounds that are immediately interrupted by something more unsettling that point to trouble ahead. There is no climax, only a constant build that is repeatedly interrupted before it can ever approach a climax. It is an exercise in frustration, but a gorgeous one at that.

let’s get caught up. nerd stylee.

what i’ve been reading -

iggy pop: open up and bleed by paul trynka. if you ever think you’ve made some bad decisions in yr life. read this. other people have made worse. every time you think, good god can it get worse for iggy? yes. yes it can.

uptight: the velvet underground story by victor bockris.

bowie in berlin: a new career in a new town by thomas jerome seabrook. nerdy revelations revealed!

handwriting; and the cinnamon peeler both by michael ondaatje.

what i’ve been watching -

my winnipeg by guy maddin. i love guy even more now that he’s revealed himself to be a labor loving, for the worker type. also, dude loves hockey. loves it. and aside from being an amazing director. he’s a genius with title cards.

solaris by andrei tarkovsky. slow and awesome. as opposed to aranofsky’s the fountain which was slow and fucking boring! i’m still waiting for that plot to start.

some awesome kraut rock performances on dvd. why did kraftwerk ever become robots? they ruled with a flute. seriously.

buffy again.

fishing with john.

and listening to -

pauline oliveros and joe mcphee – unquenchable fire.

tubeway army – replicas.

the ex – instant.

plastic crimewave sound – live at subterranean on june 21 2008. nick’s last show, which is sad. but it was a righteous show!

killer whales – live at pritzker pavillion on june 30 2008. a good lunch hour.

the partydowners – live at the empty bottle. fucking rock and roll party down! you call that a sport!

In a career, spanning more than 50 years, Pauline Oliveros has kept true to the principle that we need to be continually aware of sounds that surround us in our daily lives. She advocates disciplining our response so that you “listen to everything all the time and remind yourself when you are listening”.

Oliveros’ preferred instrument – the accordion – is an unorthodox one since it is more commonly associated with traditional folk or ethnic music. She plays neither.

She is a classically trained musician who believes that recording is not always best served by the relatively sterile environment of concert halls or recording studios. Take for example the album ‘Deep Listening’ recorded in a vast disused cistern (‘the cistern chapel’) at a former army base in Fort Worden, Washington, This record, made in collaboration with Stuart Dempster and Panaiotos, features the pure, untreated acoustic instrumentation combined with the remarkable reverb in the ‘chapel’.

Deep Listening is also the name she gave to her band as well as the institute she founded which “promotes innovation among artists and audiences in creating, performing, recording, and educating
with a global perspective”.

Oliveros’ belief is that sound has the potential to touch our inner selves ,or psyche, even to affect the way we see the world – “creative music”, she says, “or music that is newly composed or improvised can influence change by challenging habitual thought patterns” (Breaking The Silence – January 1998).

She shows that music can, and should, be so much more than simply establishing a pleasant ambience or creating a light diversion.

This weekend I didn’t see Pauline Oliveros at the X Avant festival in Toronto, despite having held tickets for well over a month.  I did go to the venue, the Music Gallery, but it turned out that I was having difficulty distinguishing between Saturday night and Friday night.  I was twenty-four hours late for the concert, by which time Pauline and her collaborator Anne Bourne were now just an echo living in the halls of the church.  I was too annoyed and disgusted at my own lack of practical date-knowing skills to possibly make myself interested in the Indian percussion trio who were on instead, so that was that.

On Saturday, then, Pauline Oliveros performed neither alone, nor with people.  Her set was neither long, nor short.   It was not silent, and it was.  There was an elephant in the room, but only because there wasn’t.  The accordion wouldn’t have mattered one way or the other, and anyway nobody applauded.  Not on Saturday.

This all left me rather disappointed, or maybe just simply pointless… but then it’s probably fitting that I missed the concert.  Oliveros’s Deep Listening programme is one of the more committed of New Music’s familiar challenges to the performance space — what need for concert halls when there is Deep Listening to be performed everywhere?

So there I was, trying and failing to get into a concert by a woman whose work I value for the way it suggests the redundancy of concerts and organised performance. There is a similar story about a professor of post-globalisation culture who traveled to a conference to deliver a paper enthusing about the possiblities of a world without borders and barriers… but was prevented from entering the country where the conference was taking place. There is a great value in these experiences that upset and make us think newly about the theories that have beome habit.

“Take a walk at night. Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears.” — Pauline Oliveros

The lovely people at The Music Gallery, Toronto’s “centre for new and unusual music”, have arranged for Pauline Oliveros to visit and perform next month as part of the annual X Avant festival.

As a composer of ghostly electroacoustic music (her Ghostdance record is a night-time, haunted-electricity favourite of mine), and as the founder of the Deep Listening Institute, Oliveros is hugely important to me as sound-maker and sound-thinker. In fact, perhaps the most important idea suggested by Deep Listening is that sound-making and sound-thinking begin (and develop) as exactly the same activity. In a way it seems quite funny that she should be coming to Toronto to play a concert — although I don’t doubt Oliveros’s ability as a performer, Pauline Oliveros is probably most emphatically Pauline Oliveros when she is simply a listener. But then the technicalities of arts festival administration probably don’t allow the possibility of shipping an artist in just to sit and listen.

Anyway, with all of this in mind, today I took a daytime soundwalk, and then a night-time soundwalk, through the local streets.

(A note about the sound-walk as a pastime — if I say that it takes in the flânerie of Baudelaire (and then Walter Benjamin), and the drift of Debord (and then Michel de Certeau), and combines these different takes on the good old-fashioned idler’s constitutional with a whole lot of R. Murray Schafer Canadian New World nature-spirit-communing speculation, then you’ll understand that I mean simply that it combines the things I love about Old Europe, with the best we can hope for from the Americas, which are best considered as a ghost waiting to be spoken with. * Good grief!)

During both my sound-walks today it was necessary to get away from the houses with their huge added-on air-conditioning systems (soundwalking is one of the few outdoor activities that is actually more enjoyable in the dead of the Canadian winter, than in the summertime); this meant taking shortcuts through several of the charming mini-parks that Toronto does so well. In the afternoon I could hear the minute, dry crunch of sparrows pecking for food in the scorched straw-like grass. In the evening, the sound is more general and average, with crickets competing with the air-conditioners. Given a valid excuse to hang around outside a stranger’s front door, I also had the pleasure of eavesdropping on a lovers’ break-up, audible through a second-floor window. Ever since she’d made out with another man, she had no longer been sure about how right they were, and he knew it — but he didn’t blame her, and she still cried hard and rhythmically… Another of Oliveros’s recommendations is that we identify objectively the sound and tone that is most beneficient to each individual in a community, and then allow that individual “a special place in the environment where he or she may visit his or her special tone and color in a manifestation which is most satisfying to the individual to carry it with them whenever they need it”, by the way.

And all the time I did not have a recorder with me, by choice, because I wanted to listen with my body and through my own bones, rather than through the usual cyborg extensions. The cyborg extensions will be re-attached tomorrow, thankyou very much. Back home in my apartment I have the busy tinkle of an aquarium-under-construction as a suitable sound to dream to.

“… And from time to time I lie back and listen to the sound of my hair growing white.” — James Joyce

*Sometimes the ghost of the chance of America–the America that might have been–is the most mystical thing I can think of. I hear it a lot in Phil Spector, actually.

Just added some new bits of Boulez, Nono, Oliveros and Xenakis today. Take a look.

Just a reminder for my (local) readership:

 I am premiering a new piece this week entitled “About.” It is being included the the OSU Dance Winter Concert. Here are the details:

Thursday, 12 March-Saturday, 14 March
8pm
Sullivant Theater
Tickets are $10 general admission, $5 for senior citizens, students, and anyone with a Buck ID

This concert is a presentation of student work, ranging from undergrad to grad, coming out of the OSU Department of Dance.

This new piece of mine is for seven dancers and includes sounds by Pauline Oliveros and Steven Halpern.

Also coming up this week is an LGBT film festival at the Wexner. It is the same nights of the Winter Concert, so I will not be able to attend, but if you come to the concert one night and have one or two more evenings free next weekend, I highly recommend this event. I see this sort of programming as an important step in developing a broader awareness of and respect for the LGBT community. By supporting these events, we communicate that sense of value to the Wexner. During a time in our country in which equality is still a question waiting to be answered, it seems increasingly relevant when highly respected, public institutions such as the Wexner issue statements regarding LGBT individuals, couples, artists, and rights in this country.

You can find out the details here.

from Love Songs being shown Friday, 13 February

Other events in which I will be involved a bit farther off are also at the Wexner and revolve around the work of William Forsythe. I have not discussed very much here, but this quarter I am participating in a workshop exploring the studio techniques, ideas, and technologies of William Forsythe, partially through the instruction of Nik Haffner, a former dancer with Forsythe’s company, and an important collaborator on Forsythe’s “Improvisational Technologies.” (“Improvisational Technologies” is a CD-ROM that was developed to illustrate Forsythes methods for improvisation, movement generation, and choreographic devices being employed in his company. Originally for use within the company as a way of educating new company members, the CD-ROM was published in the 1990s and now has become a public resource for informing improvisational and choreographic processes) This workshop, offered through the OSU Department of Dance, is culminating with these Wexner events.

The first is the performance of Monster Partitur delivered by dancer Alessio Silverstrin. Our role in this piece is the construction of sculptural objects and drawings that then serve as the “score” for the piece. You can read more about the piece and details for the performances here. This piece originated from Forsythe’s experience of the illness and death of his wife. In a meeting yesterday, even just hearing the story of how the piece came about became an overwhelming emotional experience. The piece is accompanied by an installation which includes a text written by Forsythe himself describing his wife’s illness. He spoke of her bleeding and of her becoming more and more bent, to the point at which she could no longer dance, set in painful contrast to her remarkable abilities before her illness. This loss of ability,loss of who she once was, and eventually the loss of her entirely, became the source of this piece. After her death, he unwrapped a Christmas present that had been given to her. It was a life-size cardboard skeleton kit. It is from kits such as those that we will create bent, irregular sculptures. It is the shadows of these sculptures that we will trace onto panels. And it will be these traces that will become the “score” for the piece.

from Monster Partitur. In the image you can see a version of the sort of sculptural objects we will be creating.

This performance is part of a larger exhibition entitled “William Forsythe: Transfigurations” that will be on display at the Wexner. Without writing a paper on Forsythian methodologies, I will offer that much of Forsythe’s research has been in the area of the “choreographic object,” (this article is written by Forsythe and offers a brief explanation of how he thinks of “choreographic objects”) and how the intrinsic information/knowledge in choreography might be explored or translated into other forms (apart from but not excluding the dancing body). This exhibition brings a collection of these “objects” into the gallery spaces of the Wexner. It is the first presentation of this significant body of work in the United States. You can read more about the exhibition here.

Finally, on April 1, in conjunction with both of these components relating to Forsythe’s work, the Wexner is holding a symposium entitled, “William Forsythe Symposium: Choreographic Objects.” This symposium is also coordinated with the launch of a long-term collaborative research project between Forsythe, the OSU Department of Dance, and ACCAD at OSU entitled “Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing, reproduced.” This research is going live online on April 1, and is the demonstration and explication work exploring this concept of “choreographic objects” and how they open new access points into the knowledge/information of choreography. More about the Wexner Symposium can be found here. 

Many things coming up. I wish I could offer more critical or analytical analyses of each of these events, but for the moment, simply offering the information is all that time allows. Mark your calendars, and I hope to see you there.

By Don Heckman

Los Angeles

- Feb. 2. (Mon.)  Emerson String Quartet.  The veteran, eight Grammy Award-winning ensemble performs amid a major retrospective showing of the art of painter Roberta Eisenberg.  The program includes Beethoven, Ravel, Webern and Schubert.  Cal State Polytechnic.  Pomona. (310) 216-5861.  http://www.csupomona.edu/~kellogg_gallery/.

Jacky Terrasson

- Feb. 4 – 7.  (Wed. – Sat.)  Jacky Terrasson Trio.  The always-intriguing French pianist makes a rare L.A. stop.  The Jazz Bakery  (310) 271-9039.  www.jazzbakery.com.

- Feb 5.  (Thurs.)  Klezmerata Fiorentina.  How’s this for eclecticism: Four principal players from Florence’s Orchestra del Maggio Musicale, performing Ukrainian-Jewish instrumental music in an improvisatory style. Expect to hear lots of tapping feet.  Skirball Cultural Center.  (310) 440-4500.  www.skirball.org.

- Feb. 5.  (Thurs.)  Ron Eschete Trio. The master of the seven string jazz guitar in action.    Steamers. (714) 871-8800  www.steamersjazzcafe.com.

Steve Tyrell

- Feb. 5 – 8  (Thurs. – Sun.) and Feb. 12 – 15 (Thurs. – Sun.)  Singer Steve Tyrell does his unique take on the Great American Songbook.  Catalina Bar & Grill.  (323) 466-2210.  www.catalinajazzclub.com

Feb. 6.  (Fri.)  Master Musicians of Jajouka.  William S. Burroughs described it as the “music of a 4,000 year old rock & roll band.”  But even that colorful beat generation description misses the intensity of the Jajoukas’ music, with its plangent reeds, wailing flutes and roiling percussion.  UCLA Royce Hall. (310) 825-2101.  www.uclalive.org.   (Also Feb. 11 and 12 at Yoshi’s San Francisco. (415) 655-5600.  www.yoshis.com.)

Orchestra Otmani

- Feb. 6.  (Fri. ) Orchestra Otmani of Fes.  A rare opportunity to hear Moroccan music in the Andalusian style.  Orchestra Otmani performs in both secular and Sufi traditions, and features the singing of 21 year old vocal prodigy Marouane Hajji.  Zipper Concert Hall at the Colburn School.  (866) 468-3399. http://www.zipperhall.com/.

- Feb. 6, 8, 13 and 15.  (Fri,, Sun., Fri. & Sun.)   Le Nozze di Figaro.  “Figaro” is always fun.  But rarely more so than in this self-described “boisterous new production” by Opera UCLA.  Schoenberg Hall. (310) 825-2101  www.arts.ucla.edu

- Feb. 6 & 7.  (Fri. & Sat.)  Another jazz saxophone weekend at Charlie O’s, with the boppish stylings of Lanny Morgan on Sat. and the Pink Panther tenor of Plas Johnson on Saturday.  Charlie O’s.  818- 994-3058.  www.charlieos.com.

- Feb. 7.  (Fri.)  An Evening with Edward Albee. The great American playwright tells how it’s done.   Royce Hall UCLA.  UCLA Royce Hall. (310) 825-2101.  www.uclalive.org.

Azam Ali

-Feb. 7.  (Sat.)  Niyaz.  The cross-cultural ensemble of singer Azam Ali, multi-instrumentalist Loga Ramin Torkian, oud player Naser Musa, tabla player Salar Nadar, bassist Miles Jay and keyboardist Ray Lee explore the surprisingly compatible linkages between Persian, Indian, Turkish and Western dance music.  The El Rey.  (323) 936-6400.  http://www.theelrey.com/.   Also Fri., Feb. 7 at Cal State Fullerton Performing Arts Center.  (714) 278-3371.   www.fullerton.edu/arts/events.

- Feb. 7.  (Fri.)  Rahim AlHaj and Souhail Kaspar.  Iraqi oud virtuoso AlHaj is joined by Lebanese percussionist Souhail Kaspar in a presentation of music from his latest CD, “Home Again.”  The Getty. http://www.getty.edu/.

KODO

- Feb. 8.  (Sun.) Kodo Drummers.  Disney Hall.  No that’s not the big one you hear, although it sometimes approaches the intensity of a major temblor.  It’s Japan’s Kodo Drummers, filling Disney Hall with their incomparable blend of sheer showmanship and body-shaking percussion sounds.  Walt Disney Concert Hall. (323) 850-2000.  http://www.laphil.org.

San Francisco

- Feb. 2 & 3.  (Mon. & Tues.)  Chris Hillman & Herb Pederson with John McEuen.  California country, rock and bluegrass lives.  Yoshi’s San Francisco.  (415) 655-5600.  www.yoshis.com.

New York City

- Feb. 3 – 8.  (Tues. – Sun.)  The perfect contemporary jazz storm: The Yellowjackets’ irrepressible beat  and Mike Stern’s take-no-prisoners guitar playing. Blue Note.  (No wonder they have two Grammy nominations.)  (212) 475-8592. http://www.bluenote.net/newyork/index.shtml.

- Feb. 4 – 7  (Wed. – Sat.)  Drummer Lewis Nash steps to the front of the stage with his own sterling quintet  (Jeremy Pelt, trumpet, Jimmy Greene, tenor saxophone, Renee Rosnes, piano, Peter Washington, bass)  Birdland.  (212) 581-3080.  www.birdlandjazz.com.

- Feb. 6.  (Fri.)  Up and coming pianist Helen Sung combines her youthful perspective with veteran bassist Ron Carter’s ever-adventurous overview.  Rubin Museum of Art. (212) 620-5000.  www.rmanyc.org.

- Feb. 6 & 7.  (Fri. & Sat.)  Pianist Mike Melvoin, bassist Jay Leonhart and drummer Bill Goodwin make a convincing case for the fact that jazz can be simultaneously lyrical, elegant, imaginative and hard-swinging.  The Kitano.  (212) 885-7000.  www.kitano.com.  Also at Scullers Jazz Club in Boston on Tues., Feb. 10.  (617) 562-4111.  www.scullersjazz.com.

- Feb. 6 & 7.  (Fri. & Sat..)  (10:30 & 12:00 AM)  Tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake’s envelope-stretching quintet, with pianist Dave Kikoski, guitarist Lage Lund, drummer Bill Stewart and bassist Matt Clohesy.  Smalls.  (212) 252-5091.  http://www.smallsjazzclub.com/.

Knoxville, Tennessee

- Feb. 6 – 8  (Fri.  -  Sun.) Big Ears Festival.  A cross-genre music and arts festival combining art installations, exhibitions, performance art, seminars with artists, and interactive experiences.  Confirmed artists include Philip Glass, Jon Hassell, Pauline Oliveros, and numerous others.  At locations around Knoxville, Tenn.    (865).684-1200 Ext. 2.    www.bigearsfestival.com.