Thursday, May 14, 2015

Solo Gig Then and Now by Davey Williams



THEN AND NOW



Things being forgotten in the passage of time. The earthen Native American mounds in Alabama, mysteriously abandoned by the tribes who built and inhabited them. Lost in meaning to their buIlders' descendents, even before the arrival of the white men.



Descendents losing touch with their ancestors' intentions. Happens all the time. With history the past is problematic, beca use we living people weren't there when "it" happened, so we're not really sure what happened to begin with; or even what "it" is.



This is not necessarily so with our music making, which has no fundamental need to draw upon a veriflable pasto An unknown or imagined past may be accurate and present during any given moment, though it may well go unnoticed. A color, or a tone, showing through from behind the layers of varnish.



Of course, I can only speak based on my own experiences. It's like those books on extraterrestrial alien abductions, or the writings of Carlos Castaneda. Truth or flction? The distinction blurs, or even becomes irrelevant.



Belief in a reality of potential or empirically unproven facts; this has always been popular. Facts are of course mutable. Beliefs can be fact-free; many of mine are. Personally, I pray because of what I know, not what I believe.

I love you.

 Art by Fernando Zobel
Dave Williams
SOLO GIG

01.- CALL IT ANYTHING YOU WANT 
10.- WHEN IT'S OUT OF OUR HANDS
11.- GLAD WE DIDN'T ORDER THE SPECIAL
12.- WORKING JUNG'S RIFF
13.- KNOW THE ENEMY
14.- THE MUTABLE FORM 

15.- CONCERNING INMORTALITY
16.- MACH NUMBERS
17.- CONDITIONALITIES OF QUIETUDE
18.- THEN AND NOW



Based in a noted musician's decades of personal experiences, his book Solo Gig: Essential Curiosities in Musical Free Improvisation (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011) examines some crucial and far-reaching aspects of musical free improvisation, with particular regard to live performances. In this illustrated collection of narrative essays, the author looks both into and from inside this uniquely paradoxical, challenging and rewarding way of making music, within the context of an inherently eccentric milieu. 
Available here. (U.S.A.) (Europe)