Time and time again.
Notes about Frankie Mann, a glance at past writing connected to present happenings, and recommended musical events for the week ahead.
Apologies for the tardy arrival of this update—grappling with a minor back-to-school bug of some sort has set me back a bit a minute across the board.
It would be impossible to overstate how joyful and restorative the concert by composer and performer Frankie Mann felt on Saturday night. (I wrote a bit about this in advance last week.) The event – Mann’s first NYC presentation in more than 20 years, and the opening of the Issue Project Room 2024–25 season – felt like a family reunion before a single note was played. I spotted Peter Gordon, Tom Hamilton, Pauline Kim Harris and Conrad Harris, Joseph Kubera, and Elliott Sharp and Janene Higgins in the crowd; likely there were more I missed.
The evening opened with an unaccompanied improvisation by percussionist Sarah Hennies, a pealing, clanging soliloquy for bowed and struck vibraphone and crotales, punctuated with a pair of gongs. I told her afterward I’d never been so struck by the individuality of a single crotale’s wave form; she cited in response Closed Categories in Cartesian Worlds, the ultra-intense crotales-plus-sine-waves project by composer Michael Pisaro-Liu and percussionist Greg Stuart.
The first piece in Mann’s set, Descent, featured John King on viola and banjo, David Behrman on piano and autoharp, and Hennies on percussion (including her deeply personal menagerie of tiny bells), with the composer contributing electronic tones and field recordings. I didn’t have a score or detailed program notes, so I’m reluctant to stick my neck out, but it sounded to me as though recorded piano and viola parts often preceded entrances by Behrman and King, who tagged along with a miniscule imprecision I found oddly touching.
Plainspoken melodies and straightforward harmonies grew melancholy and strange amid found-sound atmospheres of weather and birdsong, with a burbling electronic motto signaling transitions between one section and another. Hennies hewed mostly to ringing and pealing objects, but in one animated passage rapped out a busy pattern on wooden spoons in sync with Mann’s recorded bongos.
King’s assertive banjo scrubbed against another recorded track, a relaxed funk beat. A telephone jangled; “You have 24 hours to live,” Mann proclaimed, deadpan. Another ring; “You have 23 hours to live.” Behrman shadowed a piano figure that sounded much like the hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”
And so on, ambiguously and allusively. My inner reviewer longed for details! But ultimately I tried to put matters of form and technique out of mind, and simply enjoyed a piece that felt original, fascinating, and curiously moving.
Near as I could discern from Mann’s spoken introduction, the other piece on the program, Songs: 3+3, wedded three older songs – sung here by interdisciplinary artist Allison Easter – with three more recent responses voiced by Mann, who accompanied with recorded tracks and glockenspiel. (This surmise was bolstered when Easter distinguished a “walking grenade” from a “Waltzing Matilda”—a phrase Anna Kisselgoff mentioned in a 1983 New York Times review.)
Mann’s art-pop songs – “quirky melodies superimposed over simple rhythmic patterns,” as Tim Page wrote in a 1985 New York Times review – felt fresh and brightly appealing. Just when you’ve deemed the lyrics observational curiosities and trifles, she tugs at your heartstrings with something like this:
It’s your oddity, your quirks
Peculiarity
The way you view me every day
That mean so much to me
The concert left me delighted, moved, and hungry for more. Here’s hoping fervently we won’t have to wait 20 years for the next update.
My back pages.
I don’t intend to make this newsletter a repository for old press clips, many of which are accessible in some manner from my old-school blog. (Someday I hope to create a proper writer’s archive site—but not today.) But once in a while, someone or something brings to my attention a past bit of writing I feel moved to share, so I hope an occasional indulgence won’t offend.
This is a brief preview I wrote for Time Out New York in late January of 2003 ahead of a festival of electroacoustic music called AMPLIFY 2003: elemental, curated by Jon Abbey, then and now owner of Erstwhile Records. Abbey posted a photograph of the article, ripped from the magazine, on Facebook over the weekend.
Seeing this clip transported me instantly back to a time when Abbey was presenting shows semi-regularly, when TONY was a vital force for covering music, and when Manhattan was amenable to small venues supporting creative music. Since TONY never embraced the notion of archiving anything online – rendering 14 years of my past work invisible, apart from a limited amount accessible via trawlers like the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine – I’m taking the liberty of sharing it.
Amplify 2003: Elemental featuring Keith Rowe + Toshimaru Nakamura + Günter Müller + Lê Quan Ninh + Bhob Rainey + Greg Kelley + I-Sound + Tim Barnes + Tetuzi Akiyama
Diapason Gallery; Wed 5
Tonic; Thu 6Most music festivals celebrate the past, offering an array of proven stars who gamely trot out their hits for a bigger crowd than usual. That’s not the case with Amplify, a more-or-less annual series curated by Jon Abbey, who also runs the electroacoustic-improv label Erstwhile. Like the label, Amplify is designed to unite sympathetic performers in untried permutations, an effort that thwarts predictability and adds another level of risk to an already challenging music.
This year’s Amplify, though, is centered on two duos that have recorded seminal documents for Erstwhile. On Thursday 6, Keith Rowe – whose guitar tone-fields with the British collective AMM have laid the foundations of this scene for more than three decades – will reunite with Toshimaru Nakamura and his “no-input mixing board,” a feedback generator that he wields with infinite patience and sinuous grace. Weather Sky, their prior collaboration, is a crepuscular blur of agitated electrons that reveals more at each pass, but the inherent entropy of Rowe and Nakamura’s respective approaches prohibits straightforward repetition. The other proven combination, electroacoustic percussionists Günter Müller and Lê Quan Ninh, created dreamlike vistas of tensile strength and tactile beauty on their La Voyelle Liquide, and can be depended upon to do so again on February 7.
Don’t infer from these reunions, however, that electroacoustic improv has already settled into a comfortable rut. All four musicians will be recombined into new configurations during a two-night stand at Tonic and adjoining evenings at Diapason (Wednesday 5) and Engine 27 (February 8). They’ll also interact with other players, including Japanese guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama (whose 2001 solo acoustic-guitar disc Relator, on Slub Music, offers a parched, disembodied blues for a rootless cosmopolitan culture); Boston-based microsound pioneers Bhob Rainey and Greg Kelley (a.k.a nmperign); and local heroes Tim Barnes and I-Sound—virtually all of whom represent not Erstwhile’s past, but its future.—Steve Smith
My review of this festival for The Wire, along with takes from Jon Pareles, Michael Rosenstein, and Nirav Soni, can be read on the Erstwhile website, here.
Keith Rowe’s extraordinary career in music extended well beyond this writing, but has been curtailed in recent years by Parkinson’s Disease. I’m finding little evidence of work by Günter Müller beyond 2019; insights would be much appreciated. Craig Willingham (I-Sound) has transitioned to the field of urban food policy, and does not appear to be active in music. Tim Barnes and his family are enduring a challenging journey through extraordinary health issues, information about which they’ve provided on Caring Bridge.
Everyone else mentioned herein continues to contribute to the world of music in fresh and stimulating ways. So does Abbey, whose newest release, Wovenland 3 by Toshiya Tsunoda and Taku Unami, is No. 100 in the Erstwhile catalog and his 129th release overall, and marks 25 years of trailblazing activity. And newly available for pre-order is 47 Gates, on which the abovementioned Bhob Rainey makes his label debut (!!) in collaboration with composer/sound artist Ernst Karel.
The Night After Night Watch.
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time.
NOTAFLOF = no one turned away for lack of funds.
11
Craig Taborn
Glass Box Theatre, The New School
55 W. 13th St., Greenwich Village
Wednesday, Sept. 11–Saturday, Sept. 14 at 8:30pm; $20 cash only
thestonenyc.com
Prodigious, profound, and poetic pianist and electronic musician Craig Taborn comes to The New School for a Stone residency that begins tonight with a solo set. Thursday’s set features a quartet with fellow pianist Matt Mitchell (credited with “electronics”) and drummers Dan Weiss and Tim Angulo. Friday brings a trio with cellist Tomeka Reid and drummer Ches Smith; the run ends Saturday with another trio, Weird of Mouth – Taborn and Smith with saxophonist Mette Rasmussen – celebrating a self-titled album due Oct. 4 on the Otherly Love label.
12
Gelsey Bell
Green-Wood Cemetery
500 25th St., Brooklyn
Thursday, Sept. 12–Saturday, Sept. 14 at 6 & 7:30pm; $65
deathofclassical.com
Gelsey Bell is a wry, intelligent, and seductive vocalist and composer, whose range extends from surrealist oddities with thingNY to passionate lyricism in outings like Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812. She’s performing under the auspices of the Death of Classical series at scenic Green-Wood Cemetery—quite likely an ideal setting for mɔɹnɪŋ [morning//mourning], her compact opera envisioning life on a post-human planet. Admission includes a pre-performance gathering lubricated with select adult beverages.
Composer Portrait: Courtney Bryan
Miller Theatre, Columbia University
2960 Broadway, Morningside Heights
Thursday, Sept. 12 at 8pm; $20–$35
millertheatre.com
Miller Theatre opens this season’s Composer Portraits series with a program devoted to works by Courtney Bryan, a 2023 MacArthur Fellow whose music finds common cause among contemporary classical, jazz, gospel, and more. The International Contemporary Ensemble works with singer Damian Norfleet and Quince Ensemble in a program focused on vocal works, including her esteemed Requiem and a live performance of Blessed, her Opera Philadelphia video collaboration with artist and filmmaker Tiona Nekkia McClodden.
13
Dave Douglas Alloy
The Jazz Gallery
1158 Broadway, 5th floor, Midtown East
Friday, Sept. 13 at 7:30 & 9:30pm; $39–$50
Livestream tickets $22
jazzgallery.org
Presented under the auspices of the Festival of New Trumpet Music – which commenced last week with virtual events, and offers in-person events throughout this week – festival co-founder Dave Douglas leads a newly reconstituted version of Alloy, the band he initially formed with veteran trumpeters Baikida Carroll and the late Roy Campbell. This time Douglas is the senior member, working with fellow trumpeters Dave Adewumi and Alexandra Ridout; vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, bassist Kate Pass, and drummer Rudy Royston complete the lineup.
Tashi Wada
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn
Friday, Sept. 13 at 8pm; $30, advance $25, seniors and students $20
roulette.org
Los Angeles composer-performer Tashi Wada recorded What Is Not Strange?, his first full-length solo album, in a period marked by the death of his father, Fluxus composer-performer Yoshi Wada, and the birth of his daughter with partner Julia Holter—as recounted in an excellent Bandcamp profile by Jennifer Lucy Allan. Holter is on hand for tonight’s live performance, along with Ezra Buchla, Devra Hoff, and Corey Fogel, with visuals by Dicky Bahto.
14
Yuhan Su
The Jazz Gallery
1158 Broadway, 5th floor, Midtown East
Saturday, Sept. 14 at 7:30 & 9:30pm; $28–$39
Livestream tickets $22
jazzgallery.org
Having caused a stir late last year with her prodigious quintet release, Liberated Gesture, vibraphonist, bandleader, and composer Yuhan Su comes to The Jazz Gallery with a new set of compositions titled Over the Moon and a turbocharged octet with Alex LoRe, Anna Webber, and Matt Mitchell in the lineup.
15
Taka Kigawa
Le Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker St., Greenwich Village
Sunday, Sept. 15 at 7pm; $25–$30, advance $20–$25
lpr.com
Taka Kigawa, a stalwart and stylish advocate for contemporary composers, presents works by Karlheinz Stockhausen. The program includes the Klavierstücke I, V, and X, plus Kontakte with percussionist Chris Graham.
“A Tribute to Virko Baley”
Ukrainian Institute of America
2 East 79th St., Upper East Side
Sunday, Sept. 15 at 2pm; $35, seniors and students $20
ukrainianinstitute.org
Soprano Corrine Byrne, baritone Thomas Meglioranza, and pianist Reiko Uchida are among the participants in a matinee concert celebrating the 85th birthday of distinguished Ukrainian-American composer Virko Baley.
16
Peni Candra Rini
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn
Monday, Sept. 16 at 8pm; $30, advance $25, seniors and students $20
roulette.org
A renowned figure in contemporary Indonesian music, the vivacious composer-performer Peni Candra Rini made a show-stopping splash in her featured spot during the Kronos Quartet 50th-anniversary celebration last year at Carnegie Hall. She’s here at Roulette to celebrate the recent release of Wulansih, issued in July on New Amsterdam, as well as its forthcoming follow-up, Wani, due on the same label in October.
17
Shara Lunon’s Heavy Florals X
Sisters
900 Fulton St., Brooklyn
Tuesday, Sept. 17 at 7:30pm; $20 suggested donation (cash/Venmo at door)
sistersbklyn.com
Billed by improvising vocalist, composer, and organizer Shara Lunon as “a sanctuary for individuals of color and their chosen allies, offering a space to exhale and explore,” Heavy Florals returns tonight in a collaboration with the redoubtable Dada Strain. The lineup includes Fay Victor’s Jean, multi-instrumentalist Eden Girma, and multi-hyphenate artist Tan’d Blew.
[EDIT Sept. 11, 1:45pm: Piotr “Dada Strain” Orlov clarifies that he will be the DJ at this event, and Tan’d Blew – a.k.a. Amani Fela – will perform live.]
More vital directories of new-music destinations:
Find even more events in Night After Night Watch: The Master List, here.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.
The TONY listing/preview days have such a halcyon, bygone era feeling at this point given the current moribundity of concert listings.