I hardly ever buy CDs. I would have to buy too many… would want to buy too many to satisfy my need ‘to know everything’. That’s why long ago I decided not to create a nice collection of favorite music. (Meanwhile I have 600 cassette-tapes and about 200 GB of mp3s).

Saturday a package from Italy arrived: the 2 CD / 1 DVD box of Gruppo Improvvisazione Nuovo Consonanza. I guess I’ve surfed to the site of Die Schachtel ten times at least to look at the box: http://www.die-schachtel.com/. Last week I finally ordered one.

Well what to say… Being used to listening to mp3s I’m first of all amazed of the sound — or is that because of the music and not only because of the sound quality?

Secondly I become agitated and even angry: this music is so good! How is it possible that this is the very first time in my life that I (consciously) hear Gruppo Improvvisazione Nuovo Consonanza? Of course, I’ve known of their existence since years (this after all is the collective of composers that Ennio Morricone was part of), and true, I never dug deep enough into libraries to get my hands on one of their LPs. Their music was never played in any radio programme, hardly was mentioned at any time (except in some books). Of course it’s nice to that you can discover something new that is so close to your heart when you’ve been on this globe for more than 41 years. But also imagine what this says about the quality of our life, or our media, what ‘they’ play back to us.

This is also a lesson for myself: don’t compromise. Please don’t compromise. Life’s too precious for that.

… as a record of my enthusiasm.

http://www.die-schachtel.com/html/ds13.htm
http://www.nuovaconsonanza.it/

One of my favorite mp3-blogs Church Number Nine of Atanase recently put up a blindfold test. Thanks to the stuff that Atanase uploaded I have been able to fill in some significant gaps in my knowledge of seventies free jazz (Frank Lowe, Air, Sam Rivers, early Anthony Braxton). There is so much good music around, and so much great music made in the past…

http://churchnumber9.blogspot.com/.

I downloaded the 19 tracks of the blindfold test and have been listening to it for a week. I think I know quite a bit of free jazz and free improv, but I couldn’t do much better on this than wild guesses and just thinking, “well, this is great music, but I have no idea whatsoever who this is.” I only was certain that one track was Derek Bailey with Anthony Braxton and I was sure one other was Kaoru Abe.

These were the tracks:

1. Chicago Underground Quartet – Same – A Reoccurring Dream (Thrill Jockey USA)
2. Chicago Underground Duo – In Praise Of Shadows – Pangea (Thrill Jockey USA)
3. Flaherty, Corsano Duo- Full Bottle – Blanket Bombing (Ultra Eczema BELGIUM)
4. Rauhan Orkestri – Same – Suklaamuusi (LaLaLa FINLAND) Ltd 300
5. Masayoshi Urabe, Hiroshi Hasegawa – Duo 88 – Side B (Siwa USA)
6. Spontaneous Composition – Same – Bird Dirge (Private Press USA)
7. Braxton, Bailey – Live @ Wigmore – Another Rehearsal Extract – DBL LP ((Inner City USA)
8. Laterna – Laterna – Piesn Opuszczonej Latarni (OBUH POLAND)
9. The Pyramids – King Of Kings – Mogho Naba (Pyramid Records – Private Press USA)
10. Blowhole (Jeff Jerman) – Guerrilla Jazz – Frig (Zabriskie Point – Private Press USA)
11. Sphere (Larry Nozero, Eddie Nuccilli, Keith Vreeland, Jimmy Peluso, John Dana) – Inside Ourselves – Alicia (Strata USA)

DISC TWO:

1. Milo Fine (Fine, Maureen Mailey, John O’Brian, Curtis Wenzel) – Improvisations– Quartet (Shih Shih Wu Ai – Private Press USA)
2. Masahiko Togashi (Togashi, Albert Mangelsdorff, Takashi Kako, Jenny Clark) – Colour Of Dreams – Crystal (Take One JAPAN)
3. Nedley Elstak Trio + Voice (Elstak, Sofie van Lier, Martin van Duynhoven, Maarten van Regteren Altena) – The Machine – The Machine (Fontana-ESP UK)
4. Harrissa (Mark Sims, Mike Ellis, Jacques LeRoy, Raouf Jasouli, Beb Drewry) – Harrissa – Harrissa (Acoustic Life Records – Private Press FRANCE)
5. The Blue Notes (McGregor, Pukwana, Dyani, Moholo) – In Concert Vol 1 – Manje (Ogun UK)
6. The Trio (John Surman, Barre Phillips, Stu Martin) – Conflagration – Malachite (Dawn UK)
7. Jothan Callins – (Callins, Joseph Bonner, Norman Conners, Cecil McBee, Roland Duval) Winds Of Change – Winds Of Change (Triumph Records – Private Press USA)
8. Music Improvisation Company (Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Hugh Davis, Jamie Muir, Christine Jeffrey) – Same – Dragon Path (ECM GERMANY)

Huh? Okay, strange that I didn’t recognize The Blue Notes and, being Dutch, I should’ve guessed Nedley Elstak. I did get the Braxton right. But Kaoru Abe was Masayoshi Urabe with Hiroshi Hasegawa. And for the rest, so many names that I have never ever heard of… amongst a few known names. Yet it’s a great collection of 19 tracks…

Friday March 9th, big party — well, multiple parties — at Mediamatic: http://www.mediamatic.net/artefact-14430-nl.html, the DIY Goodbye Party: goodbye to Radio Rietveld@SMCS, goodbye to Martin Butler’s Girlfriend Experience, plus the second Open DI-night, curated by DNK in the Mediamatic Garagebox, plus plus: Bong-Ra (!), and more.

A-and I’ll be doing a short solo-piece for laptop + cd-player (uh… well, actually I’ll simply be mixing & manipulating soundfiles) in the Open DI-programme. A-and, oops, my name is in this list: Juan Parra Cancino, James Beckett, Barbara Luenenburg & Nick Fells, Matthijs Kouw, Seamus Cater, Viljam Nybacka, POLYPHAKE, ciao! bird, Andre Avelas, Dirk Bruinsma, Mike Otten, Koen Nutters, Arie Altena, Sylvi Kretzschmar, Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec.

Well, it’ll be a crazy night.

Oorbeek-tribute to Karel Appel, movie made by Maarten Hepp – in 2005 –, now on YouTube: http://youtube.com/watch?v=sZQ6AWBlmKoM.

It was a stunning DNK-concert (co-production with PSWAR), last monday at OT301. We’d hoped for a big crowd, we got more than the maximum audience of about 160 to 180 persons. There was no way to fit in more. People were sitting right up to the tables of the musicians and behind them even. About 20 people were standing outside, able to listen, but not see. And they were totally silent. Otomo, Doerner, Sachiko M and Brandlmayr played their music at the lowest possible volume. It was quite an experience.

And then after the break, ‘mayhem’ broke lose when Phô started to play, as if a short-circuit occurred: fireworks. Morten Olsen (by far my favorite drummer, maybe even of all time…), Nicholas Fields (who broke his bass-peddle halfway through) & Bjornar Habbestad on flute + electronics start at the highest possible intensity of playing & stayed there for more than half an hour continuously, without ever, not even for a second, bringing it down.

Yesterday (euh, friday) another great concert at OT301 – this one organized by Colin McLean. The well-known duo of Terrie Ex & Andy Moor kicked off, playing more subtle and more varied than I’d heard ever before. Then the floor was to a freejazz blow-out of Ken Vandermark (http://www.kenvandermark.com/) and Paal Nillson-Love – another stunning drummer from Norway. And a quartet of both duo’s to end. Very nice to hear some “good old-fashioned” freejazz…

And well, monday there’s another interesting night at DNK: http://www.dnk-amsterdam.com/. A double bill of Kapotte Muziek (‘Broken Music”) followed by the Libanese free improv trio of Mazen Kerbaj, Sharif Sehnaoui and Raed Yassin. Mazen Kerbaj is the new director of STEIM and was world famous in ‘the blogoshpere’ last summer during the Israel-Libanon war because of his drawings: http://www.kerbaj.com/ & http://mazenkerblog.blogspot.com/.

http://throat-singing.blogspot.com/index.html is the (very nice) blog of Robert Beahrs – he writes about his travels around the world, researching throat singing. He visited the Jew’s Harp Festival, last summer & saw Koichi Makigami performing with Oorbeek. He calls is a “life changing performance of honest musical dialogue”.

Wow.

Not to be missed if you’re living in or around Amsterdam — well worth the travel if you come from a bit further away — next monday, 29th of january a DNK – PSWAR co-production at OT301 a concert with the incredible line-up of:

1
Yoshihide Otomo – turntables
Sachiko M – electronics
Martin Brandlmayr – drums
Axel D̦rner Рtrumpet

(They’re touring Europe & this is their only peformance in the Netherlands).

2.
Phô
(Bjornar Habbestadt, Morten Olsen, Nicholas Fields)

I’m looking forward to a packed OT301. 4 euro’s, 21.30, Overtoom 301.
Check http://www.dnk-amsterdam.com/?dept=AGENDA&article=20.

Blogging at a very low pace – too many things on my head (Dutch: “te veel andere dingen aan mn kop”).

For instance, another Oorbeek-appearance at the Stedelijk – saturday 27th, 16.00 – 18.00 at Radio Rietveld. This is our third Stedelijk-gig: 1. “illegal” roof concert organized by Mediamatic. 2. Mark van Tongeren concert in the (now defunct???) series of modern music. 3. Radio Rietveld. Funny.

http://www.rrsmcs.nl/new.html
http://www.radiorietveld.nl/
http://www.oorbeek.net

My ears aren’t used to a ‘bass’ anymore. A whole long year long I’ve been listening to music & barely been able to hear a good low bass sound. I’ve been listening to loads of mp3s through either little headphones or the tiny speakers of my powerbook. There’s no bass there.

I just connected my powerbook to ‘real’ speakers – Tannoy MX1’s – that have quite a heavy bass-sound. I do not believe my ears. I do not understand anymore what I am hearing. My ears have to adapt. The sound is so much richer, and it is so ‘low’…

It makes you wonder – again – what the iPod-craze is doing to our perception of sound and our perception of music.

(Not that I am a stereo-freak. Far from it. I think one’s ears do adapt, fill in, filter, imagine what is missing. Maybe when listening one always imagines what the music should sound like?)

I bought an ipod-nano — for all the train travelling I’ll have to do next year. I must say, it’s such a stylish & fashionable thing that I feel very tempted to cover it in ugly stickers.