playing tonight 7/17-stellar lineup at Cafe Istanbul, NOLA 10pm

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Tonight 7/17 will be a special Naked On The Floor show at Cafe Istanbul-  in the Marigny.

The lineup will be- 

Rick Trolsen- Trombone
Jeff Albert- Bass Trombone
Tim Green- Tenor Sax
James Singleton-Bass
Jonathan Freilich Guitar
Paul Thibodeaux- drums

   New arrangements, compositions, and band personnel.   

   Support for this great varietal of improvised, sociable music is critical and your presence is the provider. The playing will be spiked with musical titillation to show our gratitude for your attention.  

   You also get to be helping, by default, a great club that is showcasing many more varieties of worthy, novel , soulful expression.

 

Part 2 of Interview with saxophonist, Dan Oestreicher

Here is Part 2 of a very coherent interview with one of the hardest working horn players currently in New Orleans (or mostly out of it right now since he has been with the meteorically rising, Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue.)

 

Dan Oestreicher first hit the radar for this writer when he presented himself at a Naked Orchestra show at the Mermaid lounge and made clear that he should be playing with the group.  He did that for the rest of that evening and for a long time afterward.  

He played with many of the most forward thinking New Orleans musicians and frequently he is there right when they are looking the most forward.  This includes the The Other Planets, The Magnetic Ear, 3 now 4, James Singleton, Irvin Mayfield's New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, Roger Lewis's Baritone quintet (where Dan is playing Bass sax instead of his more heard, Bari sax,) The Naked Orchestra, The Jonathan Freilich group, his own group- The Diesel Combustion Orchestra, and more.  He is seen playing some tuba and really tends to go very deep when he is exploring anything, but especially music.  He also knows a good deal about saxophone lore and trade as well as the other end of the spectrum, analog synthesis.

He is in Trombone Shorty's band, touring constantly, and because of this he is in a unique position to discuss the meaning of New Orleans music (if there is really such a thing at all) and improvisation as it stands in the world outside of New Orleans. His perspectives are well informed and if nothing at all show a blazing mind for inquiry and a fearless and healthy statement of opinion.  He could go anywhere from here.  If you were into horse racing you might see him listed in the racing form as one to watch.

 

The interviews are still available as a podcast on itunes or from the interviews page here...

Roscoe Mitchell Trio at the REDCAT, Los Angeles- 10/2/2011

   Roscoe Mitchell!!?!!-  I am still trying to put into words what level of mind shattering sonic experience this was.  It started with a bass recorder and a whole universe came from there.  It felt like it was about the sounds inside the sounds.

What could the sounds inside the sounds mean?  

   There is a poise of delivery that can really make individual sounds have the appearance of a longer life in time.  I say the appearance of, but in terms of perception and our minds it could really be a longer life.  The mind gets closely in tune so that the delivered sound appears to sit in the consciousness longer than the time that it is really there.  This effect (and I don't mean it like a cheap veneer)thoug, is not what I am referring to in Roscoe Mitchell's presentation last night.

  This went deeper.  It was as if he was describing a more naked place where that sort of poised delivery, the one that can really help us hear,  might be arising from.  Probably for many it might have been difficult to listen to.  The initial sound palette would come across to many as screechy but if we relax and go inside of that, many other musical relations begin to unfold.  These were clearly vibrations that could be generated just as the diatonic notes can generate from a fundamental tone.  

The following day at a brief seminar I got to hear Roscoe Mitchell talk about music and some about the above mentioned music of the previous evening.  He talked about his work early on, in the 1960s on getting away from the 12 note system.  It wasn't not a matter of plain rebellion.  He pointed out a certain point that he loves tonal music when he was answering a question from a student about whether there is value in music if you want to hear it that way.  

Roscoe Mitchell is still interested in music- all facets of it.  Since he has been involved in such a deep exploration of its possibilities for so many years he has so much striking wisdom to offer.

He mentioned many intriguing things that afternoon, here are a few...

A major component of music is silence and this offers a serious challenge; since silence is always perfect, it is a difficult proposition to come up with something that fits with that perfection.  (I'm probably going to be meditating on that viewpoint for the rest of my life.)

Roscoe talked about the need and the existence of both creative musicians, and re-creative musicians.  It left me in a more positive frame of mind because these days I am so frequently agitated by the seeming over emphasis of the recreative across all the arts these days.

Best of all he said that music functions best when it is out amongst people (that they are using its techniques) and he mentioned to try to make it exciting which is something that I think gets left out of presentations of work by a good deal of the artform's explorers these days.

Roscoe just turned 71.  He's still out here with extremely vibrant contributions, real mind openers.  The other two players in his trio also completely took me apart- James Fei, and William Winant.  

Check them out.

Trio

RC show details

 

Interview with Tim Green

Tim Green is one of the most interesting saxophonists that you can hear in New Orleans.  Occasionally he travels, but most of his career has been within the city.  Over the years he has played with many of the greats that people associate most with the city- Walter "Wolfman" Washington, Irma Thomas, Cyrille Neville, Mem Shannon, Herlin Riley and many legendary others. In fact, he is one of the greats, but he plays a unique role by very particular design and musical conviction. 

His affection goes out most to original, creative, music projects.  He is interested in so much music and, has brought himself to a place where he can insert very creative ideas in almost any context without breaking the balance or excitement of a piece of music or its setting.  He was a large figure in many explorational bands from, Gulfstream and the Stick Band in the 80's, to Michael Ray, Naked On The Floor, and James Singleton, Dennis Gonzalez, and others like  Fred Wesley in the 90's.  In fact, he was a huge supporter of my own musical developments and projects and I think there are many things in life on which we see eye to eye and this really is something, speaking as a grateful collaborator, that Tim is able to show just by playing- support!

Tim has a very deep linguistic or conversationalist playing style that really has its best place on stages for live audiences.  Where the musical "moment" happens is where he strives to be and his best work is there.  For that reason, you won't find records under his name.  One day perhaps someone will be brave enough to release some of the extensive collection of recordings he keeps of his involvements in truly epic improvisational moments.

Tim's genius and where it resides really emerge in this relaxed, and probably pretty rare, interview