Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Solo Gig Coming Under Fire



Coming under Fire

 
Musical images can become indelible, at least temporarily. Sometimes the sounds you want to forget become indelible.


 
For example, not too long ago the first lines od “Moon River” got stuck in my head. I like the song, but it played over and over, for more than three days, until I finally was able to dynamite it out with a CD of Krzysztof Penderecki`s “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima”

 
The most compelling music always has the power to dislodge other music.

By the way, my life was threatened recently, by a light operatic work. Though I couldn`t positively identify the perpetrator, I suspect it was the well-known sadist Jacques Offenbach.

 
 
However, with quick thinking and lightning reflexes I was able to thwart this dastardly assault by turning down the radio scene.
Drawings by Takahiro Shimatsu
 Dave Williams



SOLO GIG


01.- CALL IT ANYTHING YOU WANT 

02.- CONCERNING ACCIDENTS 
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
19.- WHY NOT SNEEZE
20.- WE PASSED JUPITER and THEN HEADED NORTH
21.- PRODUCT PLACEMENT 
22.- COMING UNDER FIRE
23.- LONGEVITY OF THE UNPREDICTABLE
24.- SIGNAL INTELLIGENCE
25.- FUBAR TO THE RESCUE
26.- What WAS THAT?




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)