Shortly before Gesshu Soko died on January 10, 1696, at the age of 79, he wrote these words :
Inhale, exhale. Foward, back. Living, dying. Arrows, let flown to each other meet midway and slice the void in aimless flight - Thus I return to the source.
312 years later I pick up a newspaper to see what is happening in the world and maybe have a laugh. The Guardian informs me German orchestras are using new EU regulations and refusing to play pieces louder than 85 decibels, condom factories using local tree resin are being built in the Brazilian jungle to save the Amazon, and walls are being built around the immigrant community in Padua, north Italy, to keep them in. I skim through these gems with Moroccan trance music to guide me back into the void, still in aimless flight :
Constant travelers like myself survive in a world limited to 20 kgs luggage. Taking away the weight of my Alto Sax and Bass Clarinet from this already paltry amount leaves me with 11.5 kgs to live with on the road. This is filled with 2.5 kgs of books and writing materials, 3.5 kgs of garments, 0.5 kgs of food supplements (ginseng being the main component in tea and bonbon form), 1 kilo of Sax repair kits, and 0.5 kilos of incense and essential oils to block out all the offensive perfumes and cleaning products and purify hotel rooms. The rest is taken up with my thoughts which vary between 1.5 and 3 kgs depending on the season. Adding my weight to this means that 94 kgs of thoughts, music (the carbon offset part) , and baggage is catapulted at an average distance of 97000 kms per annum.
This morning I walk through the “Temple of Heaven”. There are old men practicing calligraphy by writing with water on the concrete. Right next to them there is a group of elderly Chinese dancing Tango, then behind them a choir singing a rousing melody against the backdrop of one of the temples. Sublimely twisted Juniper trees encircle the tracksuit-clad pensioners who dance and dart around plating with a metal shuttle cock, trying to keep it up in the air as long as possible. Small red boxes on poles emit the sound of solo flutes and whispers. Soon, I find my square.
It´s magnificent tumult can be heard from afar through the cherry blossoms. There are dozens of elderly men sitting on park benches and bowing away on their Chinese violins. Women move in gracefully in front of the men, face them squarely, their handbags gripped tightly, and sing excerpts from Chinese Opera melodies as if the world were about to end. Standing in the middle of this square is pure joy, I can focus in on a mad duo or I can just let the heavenly chaos wash over me. Tears well up but my moonglasses are dark.
I set up my little stand of Master Fu CDs close to the Tai Chi practitioners and begin to hand them out. They are received with curiosity, as if I was handing them a strange animal. Actually I am in a way. Later, I leave 80 CDs lighter, zero yuan richer, and wearing a smile.
Not far off, an 80 year old cross-dresser performs comedy for a group of enthralled old women. Once this was the park where the Emperors gave thanks to heaven accompanied by their entire court. Now, sun burnt and fickle New Zealanders with a modest smattering of Chinese but all the best intention in the world to learn more give praise to the same forces who created such a perfect circus of the absurd. It as if we had all just fallen out of this deep blue sky over Beijing.
This music could either be Wullu Love Song from the Miao Villages of China, or a celebration song of hyperdimensional intellegence and goodwill from deep within the Cassiopeia constellation. You decide:
You can always rely on Harold Bloom for some entertaining annihilation of the likes of JK Rowling or Stevie King. The phenomena of Harry Potter was always a strange one for me, especially the argument that it is better our children read Harry Potter than nothing at all, well Bloom deals with this fallacy nicely here. Bloom 7 Potter 0.
My first impressions of Peking :
Cars where ever the eyes rest Green algae beer the colour of New Zealand grass
Old couples dancing tango in the parks with the grace of tai chi
A hotel room looking over an empty art gallery
I walk the grey streets in peace
Holding my sad black laptop like an orphaned baby
Until my wifi bar says yes, Hayden, use me now.
I see Sam Hunt does corporate functions now- my heart sank.
So I sing overtones to the picture of Mao
People look in vain for the source, police too.
The source is not easy to find, not even for me.
I am working on a new version of Moon Mirror for the museum in Peking. Here is the last part of the older one :
Storms and high winds whip through the northern tip of Mallorca. I am hunting for small chapels in which to record the first 3 Bach suites with El Señor Bohorquez next month which will be a Plush Music exclusive. I have also had a great time trying to find a local carpenter to build a cello podest to elevate the young soloist towards the firmament and explaining the task in Mallorquien. It is also quite a challenge in this day in age to find a spot where you cannot hear any traffic, often just when you think you´ve found one an aircraft comes thundering through.
Here is today´s little pearl cast out into the digital desert : a choir recorded in Beagle Bay, Australia early last century :
Robert just cut together a little film showing some scenes from our “Healing the Music” session last year in Nairobi, it is on youtube here. And how about the rowing song of a boat´s crew on the Yanjzi river in China in 1891 to lull you into Wester and the season of re-death?
This innocent little photo doesn´t tell us much at all about what was going on but the event depicted was one of the strongest musical encounters I have had this year. In the Kenyan hinterland I was leading a vocal workshop with two Inuit singers from Canada and an African vocal quintet. In the course of the session they picked up each other´s techniques and came up with a blend which was like something from another world. Like so many great first moments like this, no one was there to record it; it will stay like a little dream cloud until something else overwrites it on my fragile hard drive.
Today is the official release of “Healing the Music” and I celebrated with an eight hour train ride from Paris to Berlin and a bottle of pure Lemon juice sipped throughout. The scenery whipped by, Belgium was still cloudy, Venus shone out next to the sun behind Hagen, and I even dared to listen to a track from the album, something I rarely do. Listening to it took me back to our time last year in Kenya before the troubles flared.
Music takes me swiftly to another time or place but not as swiftly as a scent. The smell of rain on hot concrete or a freshly mown lawn rockets me back to New Zealand in 1979 faster than an Abba track could even do. Just as well there are not that many lawns for mowing in Germany, daily travels like this can be dizzying and full of nostalgia. And as we all know, even nostalgia itself isn´t what it used to be.
Here is a short interview with Nils about root70 and our tours of Russia. It´s sunny in Paris and the quality of the accordion players in the metro is classes above Germany. I listened to a guy today in the RER4 who had the lightest and swiftest touch I have ever heard on the instrument. I gave him every last cent I had and wished everyone else would do the same. Unfortunately for most an accordion is an accordion is an accordion.
The music for the Barbican show “Seduced” has now been released. The Barbican bookstore is selling them here and we hope to present the program in the Wigmore Hall later in the year. Here is one my tracks on the CD for solo Alto- “The Embassador´s Dream”, inspired by the Japanese Shunga prints in the exhibition.
Sunny and clear in Berlin. I am listening to one of the Jazz Mixes of my friend Stefan from Inchtime who has a great talent for putting these samplers together. This one begins with one of my favorite Roland Kirk tracks and takes some interesting turns along the way.
I am back from Kenya where I spent a week in Laikipia directing the music for the EARTH festival and avoiding lions. After the night of the performance I went back to our lonely tent flapping softly in the evening wind. In front of me were 7 lions watching my salty flesh carry the burden of my copper horn. They seemed unimpressed with my dusty appearance and were content to watch us go in peace. In the moment I didn´t realise what was really happening, it took some time to dawn on me. Somehow I liked the feeling of no longer being on the top of of the food chain , in fact quite a way off the top.
The festival itself including a fascinating array of musicians: soloists from the Narareth Arab Orchestra, The Bauls Of Bengals ( who kindly supplied me with the finest indian cigarettes and incense) , Inuit throat singers from Canada, a Klezmar trio from Israel and Italy, and some great African Percussion ensembles and Choirs. We played some small concerts around the Gallmann Wildlife Consevancy against the huge backdrop of the Rift valley. How small we looked with our humble instruments within that vast landscape!
It was a challenge to find a common thread between us all but within the space of the week some beautiful collaborations were born. The free Swahili vocals of Michel Ongaru met with the ancient texts of the Bengals, the Inuit throat games met with the Samburu Lion chants, and the Kurdish Oud of Adnan Karim wove in with the songs of Kenya´s Kenga Kenge. It was unique moments like these and especiallly the first encounters that made the time memorable. I also noticed that the musical structures that at first seemed the simplest were often the hardest for others to learn. The polyrhythms of the African drumming often morphed slowly over the space of hours.
After leaving the Rift Valley I settled into the WAB hotel of Nairobi again where we laid down the follow-up Embassadors Album with Michel. This time round I rearranged some early rock steady classics for the group as well as a few originals. For one week we were locked up in room 220 with a pile of Indian cigarettes, the best Avocados I have ever tasted and some old tape machines. We even set up a drum kit in the room for 2 days, now that is what I call an understanding hotel. It might have helped that we were the only guests.
I will be somewhere between a Bosnian Orthodox Monastery and an African plain for the next few weeks and thus unable to update this little blog. I will leave you in the meantime with one of my favourite tracks from the Berlin Phonogram archive, the “Kham Hom” Theater Ensemble from Bangkok in Berlin, 1900.
I spent the last few weeks in a beautiful wild part of southern Bosnia. With me I had the works of Ivo Andric and voices of some of my favorite poets on tape. It is an odd mix I made up spanning last century, voices from a time so distant to ours:
No comment.
Red rumped Tinker birds hidden in the rainforests of Bosnia when pensive and preoccupied sing like something like this : E.E. Cummings in the barren poetic wilderness of America thought aloud like this : and in Sumatran Karaoke Bars twice beneath a timelessness, hits like this were attempted in bizarre courting rituals only a Tinker bird in a fully concentrated state could understand :
Here is a short film from the performance of my Saxophone class at the 2007 Music Village Master Class series in Greece. It was a night time performance next to a tiny chapel in the woods. Pantelis Pavlidis joins us on Lyra towards the end as we honor the local centaur ghosts ( Pilios is the home of these creautres) with a “Thepat”. This was filmed by Thymios and as a small hommage to him, here his one of my favourite tracks he made in Greece with Maria Thoidou and Antonis Annisegos. This is the one I always had on repeat in the Namib desert when filming the Afrogreek project:Â
I found by chance the other day a recording of the piece that first made me fall for the Sax when I was nine or so. Johnny Hodges playing with Ellington the wonderful ballad “Passion flower”:
From a very distant, white place :
Beginning the year. I have taken the time out from travelling to write the music for the upcoming installations with Rebecca Horn this year. The premiere at the Wiesbaden of the work “Jupiter im Oktagon” will be on February 9. And the large installation for the Chinese museum in Beijing will be presented in October . Something I am very excited about is the launch of Plushmusic which is a live label I am working on with Adrian Brendel and Steve Jelly from Videojuicer. Root70 will be touring in April and I will be recording new songs in Kenya for the Embassadors follow-up on Nonplace. Otherwise I hope to have both my nostrils filled with crisp sea air and pure song inside my head throughout this year of the rat.
If there is one thing worth dedicating music to it would surely be places of natural beauty. Nils dedicated this song to the Lake in Zuerich. Sitting now next to the mirror surface of the lake at Interlaken I would like to dedicate again not only to this great body of soft swiss water , but also to the wifi providers from the cottage behind me. And for all the hifi gurus out there I offer you the studio version from Avatar NYC mixed by James Faber : and the live version from Cologne mixed by Wolfgang Stach:
Why not have a look at my new galleries under “photo”? This is Breathing from the root70 album Fahrvergnuegen :
I couldn´t resist playing a bit of Saxophone behind the words of Mr Celan. Hey, it´s that time of year where you can let your hair down and take the carrot out for a day. If my saxophone is a little on the soft side blame the acoustics in my ceramic bathroom, honestly! Paul, I hope your grave allows for sufficient turning room…or perhaps it´s not necessary, it is the time of mirror-calls after all…
I am more one to celebrate the orthodox Christmas on Jan 7 with my wild balkan family and clouds of eastern incense however for all my occidental friends and relatives here is a little something for you. The voice of my favourite poet, aka Porcelain, with my shakuhachi music and the sound of a distant storm brewing on mountains of Mallorca. These 3 elements met close to the open window of my little bathroom the other night and have been lulling me to sleep since their alchemistic wedding. A blind date that happened to come off nicely. Cherry Miss-mas, Possums!
There is dirt here and the strings are vibrating to a different power. We are in the middle of Catalonia´s purest gift to the world in the form of bone, flesh, hair, gut, wood, and cigar smoke. PC plays JSB : HAPPY 5th BIRTHDAY DEAR MAXIM!
I have purposely waited for the dust to settle before writing a few words after the death of Karlheinz Stockhausen last week. It is a sign of our times that media (how I loath that word!) reactions are swift and often lack thought or sensibility. A week after his death, seemingly all has been said. Everyone refers to the Beetles cover, his 911 quotes, his helicopter quartet, or his LICHT project. I can only assume these were featured in the press release from which the sad and pathetic profession called journalism licks up its crumbs and regurgitates them on their millions of circulated dead trees for their millions of dead and dying minds . I read a scathing, sarcastic obituary by some fellow in the Economist (dec 7 07)who oddly neglected to name himself.
Fact is, he has left behind an awesome body of work. English ignoranti will never be able to reach most of his writings which remain untranslated and are essential for fully understanding his contribution to the culture of sound (see “Texte zur Musik”). For the man himself, all of this “geht mir am arsch vorbei” (it goes me on the arse by!) and so it should- the essence remains for those willing to work to understand it.
As a small homage to a great soul here is a part from STERNKLANG, one of my favourite works from a master. Adieu!
The Embassadors website is finally up, as is the Amazingdaze page. I have touched up the canto section with some of my favourite albums of the year. The sounds of distant flutes accompany me :
I have wanted to put up for a while my list of essential items for survival in this world when constantly on the move. The biggest assault on my senses is no longer what I see ( it is easy for me to take out my contact lenses and I do it all the time) but rather what I smell. For this reason I always have a bottle of Cedarwood oil with me. I use it all the time, discreetly held up to my nose, on trains and planes to block out the violent fumes of perfumes and food that I otherwise can´t escape from. As I write now in this high speed train from Cologne to Berlin I am using it to protect me from the attack of curry wurst fumes filling the whole wagon with the speed of nerve gas
It´s not just a curry wurst or a Calvin Klein perfume I smell, it is the worlds of ignorance and defeat they represent I can´t bear, and so my small bottle of cedar wood stands proud below my nostrils in my defense. As does this track by Thomas Tallis in my headphones :
Here´s another one from the sad little airport of Stuttgart :
I HEAR, THE AXE HAS FLOWERED,
I hear, the place is not nameable,
I hear, the bread that looks at him
heals the hanged man,
the bread his wife baked him,
I hear, they call life
our only refuge
Sitting in the Cafe overlooking the Schoenhauser Allee/ Danziger Str. corner I stumble across this poem of my friend,Yang Lian. It cuts through the grey of the sky. I read it into my sad little deshevelled lap top, the coffee and the swelling in my mouth from yesterday´s dental ordeal both unable to hide the rough, unpolished spurs of a New Zealand accent ( which never ceases to surprise me) :
this infinitely big moment exposed by sunlight so big, this body/ exposing a mat of tightly-clustered golden down/ our heads are buried in it rubbing our cheeks a river valley
this moment what lies embraced is the shape of spring/ lined up for you eyes closed you feel the hills are below
birdsong making your womb contract with pink blessing
wind stilled bloodstains chasing the end of each finger/ catching the cleft you hide within your shyness/ soft and fragrant pushing the green banks of the river
so we see next breath there’s no scenery/ river valley bends into light lightspeed crumbling within each drop of water/ we know the destiny that makes the world bright and dizzy
complete in an instant this enchantment/ kiss the destruction of the moment the tight hug is the flower/ trembling erect burning point like a pistil or stamen
How about some romantic bagpipes? This film is just perfect for quiet evenings by the fireplace, overlooking the misty moors yonder the castle battlements. Note the details: Marcus´s crutch, my fine selection of wrist and neck chains, and the Chisholm tarten on my sack. Question marks abounded that mystical night in the Berlin Volksbuehne…
Here´s a short film of a rehearsal in Cologne with Burnt and Jacki. Storms brewing on Mallorca. Reflecting on Asia from the last few weeks all I seem to remember is traffic jams, airports, and the same mix of perfumes and exhaust fumes everywhere.Tracks like this and the words of Primo Levi kept me afloat amongst the fumes:
Were I a male Capercallie displaying myself in a pine forest , I would surely sound like this: As it stands I am in Mallorca in the middle of a torrential downpour, the sound of yesterdays bagpipes still reverberating in my head- I´ll spare you the sound of that for now.
In the last 10 days I have visited and played in Auckland, Sydney, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Frankfurt, Cologne, Budapest, Belgrade, Edinburgh, and now Glasgow. I am carrying with me an alto flute, a Japanese Sho, a Clarinet and a Bass Clarinet, an Alto and Sopranino Saxophone, and 120 GB of old movies- 33 kgs in total. I have drunk 32 espressi since leaving Auckland.The royal Jelly Honey in my suitcase leaked leaving my shoes and socks drenched in sweet liquid. Tomorrow I play in Glasgow here with my Scottish Highland Pipes attached to a sophisticated computer program and amplified to frighten the bravest of Scots, I doubt they will remain unscarred. Perhaps the scent of honey from my socks will console them. It will be at least twice as loud as Lou Read´s “Metal Machine Music” I played in Budapest in the weekend. I can´t wait. AMAZING DAZE with Marcus Schmickler:
Aleister Crowley´s response :
and a Mozambique Nightjar´s response in sandy scrub on the banks of the Zambezi:
For quite some time now I have been collecting my thoughts and notes about what I think is problematic with “free” forms of music as we find them today. I worked hard to condense my several notebooks of sketches and remarks into a single essay which I am proud to present here in its entirety.
My dear friend Jochen has completed his solo CD “Ride the Rueckert” and it is up here on CD Baby. To accompany the CD he has put together a book of his tour writings which has been selling like hot cakes on our tour of Asia. In it are stories from the road and over one hundred prints of Jochen in various hotel rooms which you can also preview on his flickr page here. You can order the book by getting in touch with him directly jochensucks@earthlink.net. I was privileged to write a forward for this work, some of which I give you here, interspersed with some tracks form the CD.
“The writings and photos of Jochen Rueckert are short stills of a life in music constantly in motion. They remind us of the comic tragedy of our time and strip away the romanticism associated with the touring musician. Whilst taking off my shoes for another security check or answering another endless hotel questionnaire I have often meditated on the absurdity of my situation as a traveling musician and wondered how I could relay this ongoing nightmare. The wait is over. Now Rueckert strikes back with this series of anecdotes and views into his traveling life that set the record straight. Too often we let stupidity and ignorance go by unpunished, here is a man who has just about had enough…
The buoyant, chatty Australian on the plane with sunglasses, the stewardess called Jennifer, the cocky promoters and over-sexed band members all spring to life as characters because they are so real. No one in these scenes escapes the magnifying glass of Rueckert´s all-perceiving eye and ruthless wit…
We are constantly reminded of the Maxim “the more you know, the more you suffer” and almost wish on our protaganist the “xanax-induced half-sleep” he speaks of to relieve him of the pain of communicating with the half-dead in the world he describes. Our sympathy goes out to him however, as he constantly tries to diffuse situations with his soft manners, come to the aid of his band members, and sometimes even accepts blame himself : “you return to your room to find it might have been your own mistake, not having slid the card through the reader at the optimal speed.”…
The bitter sweet taste of reality is never far away and the moments of relief in Rueckert´s world are short lived, just as the moment of orgasm passes one by before we know it, leaving us lonely and vulnerable…
´The exhilaration of arriving in the southern hemisphere in mid summer is tainted by the thought of the reverse effect you will eventually experience on your way home, arriving in NYC in the middle of winter´”
“Love Love Love” is another track by Horwitz that keeps me going in Kuala Lumpur between the fast-talking Malay Dentist and the massage place in China town tasked with repairing my broken shoulder :
This Ligeti etude plays when I wake at 4 each morning, still not quite adjusted to the local time:
And this is a little pop song wrote when I was on the borderline. It goes like this : “And when I´m water and I flow from your hands, you breathe us in and take us high up above, you never lied, feeling fine, so fine” :
Singapore is hot, sticky, and clear. After a breakfast of chinese dumplings I glide along the flawlessly clean streets (not a cigarette butt in sight) into a nearby Starbucks. Would Billy Holiday have minded her voice being the soundtrack of unbridled caffeine-induced imperialism? I try not to think about it too much and order a watered-down espresso. In my headphones (sorry, Billy) I have the sounds of Rameau. Allemande :
Sterile is the word that comes to mind when I look out into this urban wasteland where the malls frame the passage of rubber and oil burners from nowhere to nowhere. Every corner has a mall, and heading south, we begin to see the oakley wrap-arounds and rugby shirts of my dear homeland. There are no Kafkas, no Crowleys or Gurdjieffs here to meet me, only buyers and sellers.
The caffeine is now pulsing through my veins and my mood improves. Last week I wrote my first record review for a Malaysian rag. It is a little on the short side, maybe I will soon move into the genre of Haiku reviews. the original is as follows :
Rameau - Tzimon Barto “A Basket of Wild Strawberries” (2006, Ondine) Born in 1683, Jean-Phillipe Rameau was a prolific French composer well known for his single pair of shoes. Tzimon Barto is a contemporary body builder, pianist, and poet. The Album is called “A Basket of Wild Strawberries” . Enough said?
Perhaps the Haiku version could be something like this (sorry, I was on a roll and spurted out two haiku´s when really the rules allow only for one):
Rameau, Barto: a
sound strawberry collision
of two fine madmen
Now resonating
across the dead centuries
soaking us in red
What is it with the German countryside that makes me feel like Josef K. in “The Castle”? Walking the empty streets of a small village close to Frankfurt I can feel the eyes looking out through the shutters at this stranger in their midst. The Autumn is now clearly heading towards Winter and everything cries out for the soft relief of snow.
I pass my day in a huge white atelier preparing for the concert in Asia tomorrow. From this quiet German village I will be hurled into a surreal digital shopping mall called Singapore where the fertility is low and the haircuts are standardized, playing Jazz to unsuspecting hush-a-rich-ians. What a sublime absurdity!
Back in the village, usually I can see one or two lights on up at the Castle at night when I come back from my practice. Of course its best not to look lest they return your gaze and begin to ask questions. Later in my small room I watch a film about the Composer Gesualdo, wondering what all the fuss is about. Having suffered through three of his madrigals I turn back to John Kirby who keeps me company in the early morning hours before the nightmare ordeal of another string of airports begins.
Back in Cologne and the Autumn colors are out in full splendor. The word “Laub” refers to fallen leaves. It is one of my favorite German words, and one of the few I know where the sound of the word is so close to that which it describes.
I like to walk in Ebertplatz where there is a small lake surrounded by “Laub”. I circumnavigate the water on my left, the leaves underfoot. Then I sit close to the lake, listening to nothing in particular, thinking about my ride last night on my favorite stretch of Autobahn.
The highway A555 from Cologne to Bonn was one of the first built in Germany, opened as a four lane wonder by Conrad Adenauer in the early 30´s. It is a bizarre stretch of concrete and at night one passes a beautifully illuminated industrial landscape. A true nonplace of the finest order. I like to drive past at high speeds (so wonderfully smooth the German tarmac!) on a bike with this in my headphones:
Above 200 km/h, and with a Sarabande at under 52 beats a minute, time can be slowed down, even stopped for a moment.
Lisbon is bathed in light and I move quickly into the old city. Taking a taxi to the cafe where I was supposed to meet with Pessoa (or his statue at least) is the wrong move. You should always walk to important places or people, no matter how long it is. I realized this when it was too late. Being dropped right in front of Pesso´s cafe meant I was to see the statue and not the man, to see a swarm of tourists instead of an empty cafe with only myself, Ferdinand, and a team of three Baristas ready to keep our coffee intakes high throughout the day. You get no second chances with these things.
My fault. Only thing to do is to find the empty streets high in the Barrio Alto. This is just what I do and this is where I write from now. An empty street with the famed tiled walls now covered with posters and graffiti. A Sylvian poster for tonight´s show- another one cancelled. This means a full day in Lisbon to reflect. I remember the last time I was in Portugal and the Fado I recorded in a hazy state of semi-awareness :
I watch the light change slowly and meditate on what might have been, had I met Pessoa. I imagine it would have been nothing special as he wasn´t really a music fan, you feel that in his words. I would have asked him to speak in Portuguese, read some of his fragments and recorded them with the cafe sounds in the background. What a radical idea! Pessoa speaks in his favourite cafe. Listen once or twice, then buy your ticket back to Belgrade where the Toccata and Fugue is still playing in a loop at the Nikola Tesla airport.
I couldn´t get any further from my home than Portugal so what can I do but sit now in the sun, order a Port, meditate on building an ark to sail to New Plymouth, and play another last Fado :
There is a track that is with me a lot these days. One of those pieces that form a kind of backdrop to everything you experience for a while, like a sonic screensaver. Keith, David´s bassist plays on this record and gave me it last week. Here it is, a beautiful gem I found by Wayne Horwitz called “Ben´s music” :
There is no BACH to greet you in Moscow, only long cues, pallid complexions, and questionable cuisine. I was never one for congested boulevards and turban shaped rooftops.The only comfort for me is the Cyrillic.
Everything was ready for the concert in Moscow when, sadly, David was overcome by fatigue and the event had to be cancelled. I felt sorry for the fans who had looked forward so eagerly for this event so I went to the front of the theater and offered one of them my clarinet reed from the last gig which David had touched, he gladly took it and in return gave me the telephone number of Gurdjieff, who was back in town assembling a new group of seekers. Although I only had this evening I intended to make the most of my time here.
My experiences in Moscow have been always a little on the edge. Last time I was here I was almost arrested for playing bagpipes in a kilt on the red square, apparently on the wrong day. Our root70 concerts in Siberia were often marred by the audience´s shock at seeing jazz musicians in drag outfits.What a way to go that would have been! Having my throat slit in Omsk under suspicion of being a gay jazz saxophonist whilst touring under the protection of the German government.
Like the landscapes of Siberia there seems to be no limit to anything in this country. There are only extremes. I am speaking of logic, of life, and of all human liaisons. Only when it comes to Mr es.c.h and Tchaikowski I wish they could have better mastered the art of silence. Where are the rests? They hardly even glanced at the face of silence, let alone began to flirt with her.
I have a speech of Krishnamurti on my macbook and I thought we could watch it together over a few vodkas. Gurdjieff (whose cell number consisted only of sixes and sevens) liked the idea when he joined me in a seedy little dive on Mikailovska Street around eight. He doesn´t seem to have aged a bit, his shaved head glistened in the bright hospital-like light. We only managed to get halfway through, up to the point where Krishnamurtil describes the true nature of our defragmentation as human beings. Gurdjieff knows it all anyway and suggests we drink more and turn up the music. Being still a little fragmented myself, I agree, and hand the barman a CD of Casals. This never fails.
The C minor Suite in a seedy Russian dive :
To the sounds of dear Pablo he gives me his take on Silence. He speaks of the sounds of Moscow now compared to those of early last century.The Electric hum of the wires we no longer hear. A Bass drone that underpins our every action, a series of man-produced overtones underneath our lives that make our brief encounters with silence all the more unnerving. The drone of the boulavard outside produces a deep e that only I hear. I show him how this forms a major third under the whole movement of this suite, transforming the piece into something surreal, if you have the ears to hear it.
We get the pale looking waiter to keep the track on repeat. About 40 minutes later, when he finally could hear the Russian street drone under the Cello, he began to cry and painted canaries escaped from his jacket and filled the bar, almost drowning out the track.When I looked down at the grapes on the table they all contained miniature cellos. I bit into one and tasted the wood soaked in future wine. Whilst crying, he slapped me on the back so hard I was transported to Lisbon immediately.
Arriving at Belgrade airport from London I first hear smooth Jazz played on Baritone Sax (somewhat like tennis with cricket bats or bonsai with a sickle) and then, as I stepped up to the customs line, Bach´s Toccata and Fugue for Organ is played out loud to welcome us in. The full version in all it´s majesty accompanies me through the passport line and through to the baggage claim. People seem to walk slower. The music frames us in a scene of baroque tragedy. Our destinations melt away with the sound of the church organ. BACH- Breathe And Chase Harmony. Their sound system is impressive- the organ dominates the whole airport. What fine taste! What relief! All is not lost!Nikola Tesla is there to pick me up. He is wearing a striped Jacket with tiger colors, just like my old school one, only semi-illuminated from a device under the collar.I couldn´t have asked for a better guide and he wastes no time in getting us to to one of the last authentic watering holes in the area of Zema, a tiny bar where every new customer is greeted with three kisses on the cheek. Two guitarists give us high octane Serbian songs and Dire Straights , my air saxophone soars out fueled by the seven herbs in my cocktail. Nikola explains how the amplifier and beer pumps are powered by the vibrating guitar strings, forcing the players to extend their songs as long as possible. There is certainly a tingling on my left side and everything I touch gives me a static shock. Also, when I swallow the herbs I notice the a string on the guitar glow red. My left hand becomes covered in electric soft dew. I hear this song , and the words I imagine hearing speak of a love on one´s left and a joker on the right. I can´t understand the name of the bar in cyrillic so I name it “Repenthouse” for future reference the name came to me through a tiny bolt of lightning emanating from an old photo on the wall. Leaving the Repenthouse. I travel through the endless socialist blocks of New Belgrade, letting the static out through my fingertips.After the Sylvian concert in a beautiful old communist I edifice hear the usual “the concert was great but we couldn´t hear your Saxophone at all” . I don´t answer this and mumble something about the mix and 6000 kilohertz. Then I reply with “Nikola´s face should be on the one billion Dinar note, not on the 100, this is my message to Serbia!” and head straight for the repenthouse, pre ordering my double shot of 7 beauties at the door. Aida Polaku!
Before stepping into the Barbican to play music for the “Seduced” exhibition I took out my contact lenses. I often do this before large events, it means I can only see about 20 cms in front of my face and everything beyond that is blurry and dreamlike. People and shapes merge into one another. The more blurry the visuals the more exact and defined is the sound picture for me. This is why I think it is safer for me to cross the street with my eyes closed. But I digress.
Inside the Barbican hordes of Frieze Art Fair guests are crowding into the opening. Before I begin to play I notice Michael Nyman behind me- all the more reason to lace my solo with lush mircotones. When I begin to play my Saxophone the scent of rosewood comes from the bell, I wonder where that came from? Did I swallow rosewood earlier today? Was it the vial Aleister gave me yesterday? There are Tango dancers moving to the music and I walk through the gallery filling it with sound as best I can. Of course most people are too occupied with all the hermaphrodite sculptures to notice a blind redhead blowing rosewood tainted air through a copper pipe in their midst. When they stare at something, their ears usually close for lunch.
I continue to play throughout the evening until I am finally forced into improvising a Tango under the trees in the conservatory for the two dancers. The dancers know what they are doing, I myself don´t have the faintest idea about Tan-go ( Sunburn-Stop). Three glasses of 96 Barolo remove any inhibitions though. Were I a DJ with an invisible sound system I would be playing Rameau. Perhaps this, from the Suite in E :
Blind and tipsy I stumble into a Taxi to Brixton and bless the God who shrouded my vision and poured ambrosia and nectar into my ears. In the Cab I notice Chicken Fast Food on every block. The flash of my Camera scares away the Chicken eaters, whose body language in the cues is more like that of junkies. I return to Rameau, this time the Suite in D : This Rameau character is great for driving with in a London Taxi . Now the Chicken eaters too merge into a backdrop of dreams. Friday night in London. Rameau, rosewood, red wine.
Here are David´s photos of the “World is everything” Tour.
I get back to my hotel in Prague at midnight, helping Mr Sylvian to avoid all the autograph hunters on the way. Less than four hours later the alarm rings for my 0630 flight to London Stanstead. Not even half way into this tour, I already have bouts of nausea and moments where I can´t recall in which country I am. No amount of Espresso will help this kind of fatigue.
Aleister Crowley is waiting in the Costa Coffee after I come through immigration. We both take black teas to go and head the Stanstead Express. I am going to the Barbican´s “Seduced” Exhibition -Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now. Tonight I will create the music for the opening, carefully navigating my saxophones between marble statues, cocktail glasses,and jokes about my “sexyphone”. I ask him for something to get me by and he passes me a beaten up vial telling me to wash it down with rum before I start. It smells of sage amd mead. The Stanstead Express is on time- pure Magick.
And it is of the times we speak, grave ones indeed. After a short conversation about politics and art he understands that things had got worse not better. The Sun reflects clearly off his shaven head and I can make out the outline of a rook on his forhead. I lament that my chess is still not up to scratch. I tell him that I may need his help in Africa next year when I begin to slightly alter the social currents in Kenya with the music of the Embassadors. He smiles and says if I have the books and the Will that will be enough. Like the other Enchantress I know, his favourite track from the record is this one
The Korean Ginsing lollies are starting to kick in and I can even keep both my eyes open. We bid at farewell Liverpool St Station. It is sunny and clear in London, my Espresso at the station is just the right temperature, the Taxi driver says nothing and simply drives, I smell roses and cut grass whilst walking, and there are pounds jingling in my mended pocket. Magick is indeed at work today, yet still I can´t wait to get from the blackened Barbican back to the bedlam of the Balkans.
Three hours before the Sylvian sound check I call Franz K. at home and arrange to meet at the same Cafe. I leave my contact lenses at the hotel like yesterday, meaning I see no faces on the way into central Prague, only colors and shapes. Twice, I almost get hit by a Tram and wonder if this would be a less painful way to go than by being struck with falling roof tiles.
I take Franz to the sound check after another coffee. It takes a while to explain the idea of in-ear monitoring on stage. “But where is the music?”, he keeps on asking me. When he sees my silver alto flute he asks me if he could exchange it for some manuscripts as a gift for his niece. We chat happily about his niece and her flute lessons outside the theater and I play this Bach from my laptop speakers. It seems like the volume from these tiny devices is more familiar for him. I ask him if he ever writes to music. He replies that sometimes he likes to keep the radio dial in between stations so that he can hear a little of both stations and a little of the static, he says that reminds him of our condition. I want to ask “What condition?” , but realize that I knew the answer once.
Franz said he liked the words of David though he didn´t understand all of them as he only learnt business English. I had to explain him the meaning of ” pushing your consciousness deep into every atom and cell…”. I took one last photo of him and said good-bye. He mentioned that he has found a way of writing a full stop in italics. Before he disappeared down Borivojova street we listened to this last track in silence, leaning closer to the sound source to pick up the intricacy of the phrasing over the din of the passing trams.
After leaving the Cologne concert at 2am in the Nightliner we arrive in Prague early afternoon. In the Hotel Bar I enjoy three espressos with David Sylvian. Around us, young models with vacant looks are assembling for a show in the lobby tonight. Techno music plays and the coffee is strong. A wonderful capitalist-induced state of mindlessness. It is David´s first time in Prague.
I soon leave for a blind walk into nowhere. The Czechs have intent gazes and the women tend to die their hair. Whilst walking, I have this track with me, something I did with Marcus recently on bass clarinet. I walk the broad boulevards and remember how last time I was here, a tile fell from out of the sky and nearly killed me. For this reason I keep an eye on the roofs above.
I used to love Kafka just like I used to love James Joyce. I don´t know if it is possible to love his or anyone´s work for a life time however. I bought a pair of shoes from the Shoe shop that is now in the place of Joyce´s first house in Trieste to mark the end of my love affair with Ulysses. What will I buy here? A beer of course, a warm one in an oversized bottle. Thanks for the memories, Franz.
Another strong espresso close to the center of town nullifies the effects of the warm beer. There is Techno playing here too. Franz would have certainly enjoyed the strong coffee, I don´t know about the incessant beat though. Perhaps it would just give him bowel problems.
A couple sit and embrace on a park bench with beds of flowers surrounding them. Franz stops to watch them and asks me to take a photo with my wide angle lens. I oblige but comment on how hard it is to hold the camera straight after 5 espressos. He chuckles and mumbles something about the Techno beat. A tram passes and send ripples of smog through the flowers.
I invite Franz to the Sylvian concert tomorrow and let him know that in the second half I play a a solo on Snow borne Sorrow right after the line “Where is the Poetry, didn´t you promise us poetry?”. He asked me if I thought my Saxophone was supposed to be the poetry and I shrug. I tell him my Saxophone was made only 6 years after he died, hoping that is poetry enough for now. A lot can happen to the sound of copper in six years.
I write from Holland in a nondescript Hotel overlooking another architectural disaster combining all the shades of grey known to man, this particular one calls itself Eindhoven.Time for a Dutch Hotel Haiku:
The view-endless grey
counting the grey sheep
to sleep- one two three four five.
Jochen Bohnes, if you are out there, this track is for you :