Wednesday, December 28, 2022

"S.E.X.Y." Holland Greco — Putting the Fun Back in Funk with No Regrets!

"S.E.X.Y."

Holland Greco
Putting the Fun Back in Funk
with No Regrets!

Søren Kierkegaard Mick Jagger Keith Richards

But if I never start, then I can always stop, for my eternal starting is my eternal stopping. Experience shows that it is not at all difficult for philosophy to begin. Far from it. It begins, in fact, with nothing and therefore can always begin. But it is always difficult for philosophy and philosophers to stop. This difficulty, too, I have avoided, for if anyone thinks that I, in stopping now, actually stop, he demonstrates that he does not have speculative comprehension. The point is that I do not.
—Søren Kierkegaard from "Either/Or"
I've been running hot
You got me ticking, now don't blow my top
If you start me up
If you start me up, I'll never stop
Never stop, never stop, never stop
You make a grown man cry
You make a grown man cry
You make a grown man cry
—Mick Jagger / Keith Richards

Now Brother Kierkegaard, or savvy Søren as he might have been known, thought alot about the deciding to go out, or whether to believe the girl, marry or don't marry, and he came up with nothing but regret. He was a philosopher, after all, and let's just say dating advice from a modern philosopher is about as good as a deaf piano tuner. In the long run, Kierkegaard's advice was not to go for it kind of ever, and if we all followed that advice the human race would be finished in a single sanctified generation.

Believe a woman, you will regret it, believe her not, you will also regret that; believe a woman or believe her not, you will regret both; whether you believe a woman or believe her not, you will regret both.
—Søren Kierkegaard from "Either/Or"

I personally think the poor guy got hurt real bad, and it sounds like he is a bad choice to ask for advice about whether or not to go out dancing with friends in the clubs. But he won't shut up about it, and the next part of his little quote offers the same advice about hanging yourself, and that isn't helpful so lets just move on to The Rolling Stones.

You make a grown man cry
You make a grown man cry
You make a grown man cry
Ride like the wind at double speed
I'll take you places that you've never, never seen
—Michael Jagger & Keith Richards

Now, I really thought these two would offer something we can use, but I personally think the drugs have gotten to them a little, and kind of picked a fight with subtlety and the drugs won! We don't need no "Riding the Wind" and any reference to speed is a red flag where it comes to clubbing. I have seen some wonderful places, but among the ones I have "never seen" are some of the really trashy places I don't want to see. And what is this thing they have about grown men crying, anyway? Sounds like they have been talking to Brother Søren and maybe got a little too stoned before issuing the advice from the Rolling Stoned.

So to hell with Søren, Mick and Keith. All three are lousy role models! One is an awful buzz kill who can't dance, and the other two are just drunks with a drug habit acting selfish and sloppy and self-important. Ipso facto, there is no real contest here. Without yet presenting her opening argument, Holland Greco has won debate! Let's listen to what she has to offer, because we already know it will be the only good advice in this review.

Now I know it may be a little unusual to start a review of a Nu Funk dance tune with Søren Kierkegaard and The Rolling Stones. It may sound funny, but I mean it and here is why. Brother Søren saw life as a series of choices — always at the crossroads — and he identified a certain truth in that observation. My brother taught Kierkegaard at Yale when he was earning his Th.D in Theology and Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament. Kierkegaard represents those sages among your friends who would caution to make a list of pros and cons before going out dancing. And they sound so smart, but life doesn't work that way. While you are contemplating the meaning of things, life will pass you by. Rev. Albert Camus is a better choice, but ultimately I will side with Sister Holland Greco.

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
—Albert Camus

And If we are not going to overthink our lives, and Deacon Mick and Alter Boy Keith are too stoned to decide, then Holland has a third solution that will satisfy both parties involved. She chooses to exercise her "phone a friend" option, because it is better to go out with a crowd to dance with friends where it is safe because friends won't let friends do whatever it is you really knew shouldn’t be doing anyway.

The unlived life isn't worth contemplating. Let's go dancing with Holland Greco. I swear it's not too late!

How do you solve a problem like Holland Greco? Well, that might have been my first approach. So, I am at this fundraiser at Bordello for the much-loved drummer Michael Jerome maybe 15 years ago. My favorite artists are there and Cydney Robinson and Buddy are performing that night, and several artists I know tell me, "Billy needs to meet Holland Greco." I learn that she was signed by Zappa’s label, and that is always a good sign. Last minute, Michael called to ask me to speak, and I did my best, but Michael would have done better. The music was amazing, but this Holland Greco character was slated as the closer. Wow!

So her slot comes up and this perfect doll appears in a 1950s wide black & white polka dot pleated skirt, flaming red hair, a great rhythm section and she isn't nervous at all. The drums and bass hit it HARD, and Holland begins to play... a ukulele! Seriously! And it rocked.

The real gift of the night was Holland's voice. She is pitch perfect and really knows how to sing like she wants you to get what she is singing personally, it works like a flash bomb taking everybody's attention by the throat and she won't let go. Now, she does all this ruthlessly, but also cute! How in hell does a body do that? I pity the fool who would try to turn away, but nobody was so foolish that night.

Fast forward: I left Los Angeles for a catfish relationship that tore me apart and became a security guard in the cold of Cincinnati's Night Shift culture, which is a culture of isolation and neglect. I read a bunch of audiobooks such as Homer, Proust, Dante and Joyce, but no music and no writing. And then I moved to Mexico, wrote 14 reviews, and got a Messenger text from Holland Greco!

I am obviously pre-disposed to listening and liking, but I was also raised Pentecostal and can't write about sex without raising red flags. So thank heck this song she sent is "S.E.X.Y.," and I will be emphasizing the "Y" and it turns out that's what Holland does, too.

Her voice I remember was great, but this is better than memory! I try to avoid comparisons but I fail this time and she is like: Helen Humes, Gwen Stefani, The Spice Girls, Christine from Redcar, Björk, Tina Weymouth, Hayley Williams, Melanie... Hold on a minute! Helen Humes had something to say about this sort of thing:

“I've been called a blues singer, a jazz singer, and a ballad singer - well, I'm all three, which means I'm just a singer'.
—Helen Humes

Holland Greco reminds me of every singer in an upper register who can sing clearly over the band however loud and feel intimate with every listener in the room. Damn! She is just a great singer! From now on, I will compare those other singers to her! Greco has a fast subtle vibrato so emotional I hear it as a timbre and not a warble. That tiny fast movement in the tone — and a sweetly insinuating upward flip at the end of most of the phrases — draws me in. It sounds like the sweetness of a kind Canadian saying "eh?" at the end of each definitive statement, but in Holland it is “sexy.” I like listening to her. She sounds like a friend. Nothing about her feels threatening. She makes me happy.

“No one can penetrate me. They only see what's in their own fancy, always.”
—Ray Davies

So from the gitgo, my take on Holland was that she must be a master of disguises, decked out all cute and approachable like the friend every wished they had. That must be a brilliant tongue-in-cheek façade crafted by her publicist and skillfully performed by this striking girl with stems that go all the way to the floor. Yeah, well I think I just outsmarted myself. I kept pressing and I flash the wonderful Ray Davies quote expecting a kind of "gotcha" moment, but nothing. She returns my volley with the following:

"I’m just a person with a song in her heart who loves the medium of songwriting, recording, and working with other artists. Song worship and creation…"
—Holland Greco

With Holland Greco, in all of my experience of her, what you see is exactly what you get. She is incredibly cute, but I now find it credible. She loves people, and enjoys going out with good friends dancing, and there isn't a dark side or anything clever or cheap about any of it.

Holland Greco presents as a whip-smart, crafty artist who knows everything about the production of a modern song, full of intention and joy. She even included a hidden quote from the Psalms, probably to appeal to this clueless music journalist:

HOLLAND: S.E.X.Y. is a love letter to my friends and the extra fun confidence & strength I feel exploring life with them.

BILLY: Music cross betwen R&B and P Funk. Without the treacherous failure to pay the talent.

HOLLAND: Haha. I like that. We also referenced Zapp & Roger, Vanity, Deee-Lite, The Beastie Boys, and Tom Tom Club.
With this song, it’s mostly a lighthearted, idealistic, joyful noise
The music reflects what makes me happy and want to dance.
There are great musicians on the track too. Shawn Davis really shines on the bass. Guitars and horns are live.
I cleaned up the original demo tracks that were made with Starvon Washington & we added everything else on top. The demo had a certain authentic electroclash magic to it that I wanted to retain.

I was looking for some hidden twist, a diss, or something up her sleeve! Instead, I got a hidden Psalmaic quote and extremely smart, sensitive and crafty self-awareness. My tail stops wagging and I realize I have outsmarted myself, but at least I let the artist set me straight. This song is as good as virtue ethics to me now.

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. ; Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
—Psalm 100

But what about the whole club scene? Isn't there some darkness in that? I mean I think there is supposed to be. I watched it on Entourage!

I have had quite a nice time in clubs over the years. And like you, met many talented musicians who’ve inspired me.
—Holland Greco

She got me! Yes, I met many of my closest friend in Los Angeles in the music scene and never felt unsafe, and never had a problem that I didn't create myself.

So now I have listened to "S.E.X.Y" with a new set of ears, and it and Holland are absolutely delightful! She does in fact "make a joyful noise" in an inviting way to a social event this very night where there will be friendly people and dancing. I can see it now. Look! Over there to my astonishment Miley Cyrus is dancing with Mister Rogers! That Rogers can dance. Is he related to Ginger? Elizabeth Lea’s trombone solo gets a cheer from the dancing crowd! And look! The celebrated couple of Hollywood! Its Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg clearly doing some sort of tandem thing, though I honestly wouldn't say they are both dancing the same dance. They are dancing together and that is what counts!

One thing for certain! If you don't "go out dancing" or something like it, you may become like an old bitter Night Shift security guard in the cold of Cincinnati baby sitting a building. And that can make a person bitter and sad. When we go out and choose to be "sexy," that is when we choose to admit we have a body, and we might be grateful for what we have, or even what we have left in older age. Everytime I leave my apartment here now in Mexico, I live a little. I risk a little, but turns out people like me fine. I am not longer bitter. Yes, my friend, I was that security guard. (What a cheesy reveal.)

The club scene in Los Angeles always treated me very very well. I love so many people I met, and I even found out phenomenol singer songwriter Meiko has a last name and it is Sheppard! Being a security guard without music or writing and damn near no (non virtual) friends killed me a little everyday. And it made me doubt Holland Greco. So I listened to the song and liked it. And then I bought her earlier double EP, and discovered that Holland sings Funk, R&B, Rock, Pop, Punk, Indie, and Post Punk! She is the OG real deal as a musician, and she can sing a phrase with sparkle and personality over a loud damn band and reach across the footlights with her voice to deliver the song. And she is cute as a button, though that may be the opinion of an old man. I still say "cute as a button" because it has never yet got me into trouble.

Holland Greco knows her craft and she cares for her friends. This song is delightful. Holland Greco is delightful. I danced to this song on my patio today. I don't ever dance, so that it more than an endorsement, it is a minor miracle. And you know what? It felt really good to dance. I never did that in the clubs. Who knew?

CLICK THESE WORDS TO GO TO THE NEW VIDEO ON VIVO

S.E.X.Y.

Lyrics

I feel like makin’ a couple calls

To see who’s down to hit the afterhours
You know it gets better when the group is big
All of our friends are doin’ their thing
And if the kid looks fly, better say hello
He could be real nice and you never know
And if you feel shy
Hey, then baby, that’s cool
There’s room for you in the neighborhood
(Let’s do it now, don’t hold back let’s do it now)
We’re bustin’ out
(We’re bustin out, don’t you wanna join in and get down)
We paint the town
(Just gather round, let’s have fun like no one else)
Put on a fashion show
(So get involved)
Show me what you got
We’re S.E.X.Y.
Because we want to
Because we need to
We’re feeling S.E.X.Y.
Because we like to
Because it’s good for you
We pump through speakers the whole world round
From the big city to the tiny town
Reach new heights and it feels so nice
No fights. Get tight. So...
Drink your milk like a good little kitty
Makes a girl strong and the boys look pretty
Jet black hair or platinum blonde
We all shake tail and get along. C’mon.
(Let’s do it now, don’t hold back let’s do it now)
We’re bustin’ out
(We’re bustin out, don’t you wanna join in and get down)
We paint the town
(Just gather round, let’s have fun like no one else)
You like the sound
(So get involved)
Show me what you got
We’re S.E.X.Y.
Because we want to
Because we need to
We’re feeling S.E.X.Y.
Because we like to
Because it’s good for you
We’re S.E.X.Y.
Because we want to
Because we need to
We’re feeling S.E.X.Y.
Because we like to
Because it’s good for you!

credits

released May 6, 2022
Written by Holland Greco & Starvon Washington
Published by Carpe Delirium Publishing & S1V Music
Producers: Holland Greco, Starvon Washington, & Joshua Lopez
Lead & Background Vocals: Holland Greco
Bass Guitar: Shawn Davis
Electric Guitar: Joshua Lopez
Keyboards: Starvon Washington & Joshua Lopez
Trombone: Elizabeth Lea
Trumpet: Dayna Drew
Horn Arrangers: Dayna Drew & Elizabeth Lea
Percussion: Holland Greco
Mastering Engineer: Mark Fuller
Mixing Engineer: Todd Monfalcone
Sound Engineer: Tyler Karmen
Art work by Somsara
Photos by Piper Ferguson
Recorded at 64 Sound & in Starvon & Jlo's private studios
license
all rights reserved

HOLLAND GRECO LINKS

Website

Twitter

Email: billymwb@gmail.com

Submissions accepted. Send a link, not a CD. Lyrics and artwork plus any information is appreciated. Access to artists for interviews encouraged.

Sunday, December 11, 2022

"Strand in Strands" Kastning/Clements "The Story of a Lifetime"

STRAND IN STRANDS

Kevin Kastning & Carl Clements

THE STORY OF A LIFETIME

When I first heard the sound I thought that I had imagined it. It was an improbable one to hear in the middle of that bridge, the sound of a tenor sax, floating to me in faint recurring fragments through the bright empty air...

—Ralph Berton, Metronome Magazine (1961)

Ralph Berton heard Sonny Rollins beneathe the bridge playing alone to find a new sound. If Sonny had wanted to find a commercial sound, he would have made his search in the clubs like everybody else had done. Sonny was already a legendary sax player, but his music had been eclipsed by Charlie "Bird" Parker and John Coltrane. He wasn't searching for jazz, but a sound. A new sound. A "sound" that he could feel. Ralph Berton was also searching for a sound, because he wrote about music. So the music found its mark in him. That is important.

In music and in love, if you know what you are trying to accomplish, you aren’t doing it right. Music resists all efforts to control or contain it, especially real-time composition or what has been labelled "improvisation." Musicians make the best music when they are seeking and searching, and the worst when they are "auditioning" to impress the crowd. Most listeners can feel the difference, but the greatest music — that new sound — is out to change the listener and bring a new way of feeling to the world.

I'd say that what we hear is the quality of our listening.

—Robert Fripp

This new album of new music requires a new way of listening to feel it fully, and that new listening may stick with you for the rest of your life. Kevin Kastning has been an instigator for this new sound for a couple of decades. I believe he was born to bring real-time collective composition into this world, so that we listeners could be transformed and learn to hear the music wherever it happens. Because, in the words of good listener Paul Simon, "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."

Improvisation is the ability to create something
very spiritual, something of one’s own.
—Sonny Rollins

Now, I am using a lot of Sonny Rollins in this writing, but don't get the wrong idea. I could have used Jody Diamond on the same subject, because she just wrote to me about the Rollins quote: "This is how I feel playing gamelan." You got that right! She worked for decades with Lou Harrison and has been a global gamelan activist for 50 years.

I knew if I wrote "Introduction" at the top of this page, readers like me would skip it and maybe say, "I don't read preambles." But I believe the mission of Strand in Strands is to change you, and now you have heard that from me and you can take it or leave it, but you have come this far and you know the changes in music have always been good, and you ain't never wanted to go back before, so you probably won't want to go back now.

They call me The Seeker

I've been searching low and high

I won't get to get what I'm after

Till the day I die

—Pete Townshend "The Seeker"

STRAND IN STRANDS

I believe Kevin Kastning was born to bring
real-time collective composition into this world.
—Billy

The thing is this: When I play, what I try to do is to reach my subconscious level. I don't want to overtly think about anything, because you can't think and play at the same time - believe me, I've tried it (laughs).

—Sonny Rollins

Carl Clements responded to this Sonny Rollins quote:

I think most mature jazz musicians would agree with this quote, and it relates to a quote attributed to Charlie Parker: “You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.” Hopefully you practice enough to develop an internal language that your subconscious can access. It seems right to me, but it’s pretty hard to pin down what exactly is happening in your subconscious. But I keep feeding it and hoping for the best.

—Carl Clements

CAVEAT

Improvisation is really not so much remembering things. And this is what I do when I play. I forget things. When I go on the stage, I want my mind to be a blank, so that I can - things can come into me without my knowing where they came from.

—Sonny Rollins

Strand in Strands is not a jazz album. Carl Clements and Kevin Kastning are looking for that "sound" in a strand among strands of musical lines and eddies and whirlpools that live beneathe the bridge between Beethoven, Bach, Paganini, Mozart, Morton Feldman, John Adams, Henryk Gorecki, Charles Ives, and all the best of the new. All that improvisation and spontaneous creation was lost when written music became the product a composer could sell. Musicians were paid to play what was on the page. These new real-time Classical composers Carl and Kevin can explore a new form and discover a new "sound" in a public way. They are bringing back a tradition of exploring real-time what music there is in the moment.

There is a fascination with what is difficult, and the phrase "finding a new sound" can bankrupt a record collecting dreamer and might be grounds for divorce. But there comes a time when the soul demands a new song.

The Fates

The Three Fates (Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos)

by the Italian artist Giorgio Ghisi (1520-82)

The Moirae, or Fates, are three old women who are charged with the destinies of all living beings, including heroes and heroines, and these destinies were represented by a string. They were called Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. The 1885 painting A Golden Thread, depicting the Fates.

THE MUSIC — SONG BY SONG

1. Resolution Pending (1:14)

There is a haunting sound coming from the room where tapestries are made. A river of windy sounds has interlaced itself with the "too many strings" guitar. Something is about to happen, and it starts with a sound as haunting as Paul McCandless in his yearly Winter Solstice gathering near Cincinnati. These are ghostly naïve sounds that seem to have come from some other multiverse and maybe don't yet feel at home.

2. Magnetic Anistropy (7:00)

Magnetic anisotropy is defined as the dependency of magnetic properties on a preferred crystallographic direction. It is the required energy to deflect the magnetic moment in a single crystal from the easy to the hard direction of magnetization.

Patterns are developing. Something new. Angles are explored and angels are dancing their best Merce Cunningham to this song. We peak into the room where the tapestries are made and see two of The Sisters: one spinning and the other weaving. There is the savory smell of onions and veggies steaming from the kitchen where a third Sister works alone. Questions are forming, but they may be rhetorical questions. We are in another world, or the world backstage where all the directions come from. The "play" tells the story of the beginning of a new life. Amorphous cotton or bags of wool in skeins cloud the air until one sister makes them into strands at the spinning wheel. There is physics afoot in this dance of hidden laws and tendencies in the soul of the sound. The Second Sister takes the strand and combines it with other strands at her fateful loom. Kevin attacks the strings with industry. He runs up the strings and then we hear hammering. Carl explores the air like a flock of butterflies aimless and beautiful. Body and soul are singing, as the loom is set up and The Weaver begins to weave.

3. A Question, Lingering (7:25)

What is going on here? Where are we going with this? Some chords or clusters question it all like the first questions of a newborn baby made articulate by this plaintive wail of wind from Carl. We are hesitating at the loom as interlaced patterns are tentatively explored, but the weaving has begun in earnest. The strands are flowing fast from Clotho the Spinner to the Lachesis the Weaver, and the loom moves with purpose as though some path was growing underfoot in response to a need of the foot to travel. We linger, but there is a limit to the lingering. Carl sings, "We are only free at the moment of choice!" But Kevin counters, "He who waits too long has decisions made for him." A restlessness developes. Carl explores first words in a new language combining nouns, and verbs, for the Magic in the sound. The heart begins to beat, and the driver of this vehicle takes his position in the seat of the heart. Good things come to those who wait, but he who hesitates is lost. The first paradox has formed in the fabric of a new life.

4. The Weibel Instability (6:16)

The Weibel instability is a plasma instability present in homogeneous or nearly homogeneous electromagnetic plasmas which possess an anisotropy in momentum (velocity) space. This anisotropy is most generally understood as two temperatures in different directions. Burton Fried showed that this instability can be understood more simply as the superposition of many counter-streaming beams. In this sense, it is like the two-stream instability except that the perturbations are electromagnetic and result in filamentation as opposed to electrostatic perturbations which would result in charge bunching. In the linear limit the instability causes exponential growth of electromagnetic fields in the plasma which help restore momentum space isotropy. In very extreme cases, the Weibel instability is related to one- or two-dimensional stream instabilities.

The fog of newborn feelings are replaced by the "terrible twos" as the sound begins tell a story. The Weaver has chosen techniques to make this tapestry in its own unique tale. Consciousness of consciousness spins in circles, giving Carl some self-conscious spacial modes, with funny little dances going up, and different two-step prances going down. He asks his questions with authority and passion. In the very high notes, there is ecstasy and grit. Kevin launches into the weave with some bold attacks with fast feet skipping the stairs in between, and new notes, and modes and mischief. This dialogue resembles a fine abstract weaver's masterpiece, as the strand maker spins faster and faster. It is only then that the father of all meaning in a tapestry is let into the room. His name is Baba! The father of purpose and meaning. Baba like Baba Ram Dass in his "Only Dance There Is," but this is fabric, so it is the world famous Baba Black Sheep here to give the story some detail.

Bah, Bah a black Sheep,

Have you any Wool?
Yes merry have I,
Three Bags full,
One for my master,
One for my Dame,
One for the little Boy
That lives down the lane.

—Tom Thumb's Songbook (1774)

5. Filaments, Interlaced (7:24)

Sure enough the black thread from Baba Black Sheep takes us straight to the heart. Baba has done this before and always adds heart and definition to the story of the tapestry. Colors are forming in the dirty brown of the wool, which isn't the only miracle in filaments, interlaced. The right pattern does a trick in the light, and that is all the color we see. Baba's black thread makes the colors pop out and that moves the viewer of this nacent tapestry to something just this side of tears. Baba makes it all more interesting. Without a little border of Baba's black, the colors would look muddy. This the black surrounds each hue with definition. That is the way it has always been done. We are watching and listening the birth of a life both in the music and tapestry, so long as the expert weave surprises The Weaver, and the musicians stay the hell out of the way and play what they hear. It is damn fine work and its beauty describes nothing short of what is the moment right now at the center of the soul of everything. This is like William Burroughs wrote of the "Naked Lunch," where every morsel is revealed in detail at the tip of every fork. Hang onto your heart, we are headed somewhere! The fabric and the music are haunted and haunting. Spirits fly into existence briefly and then they disappear everywhere in the room, and some of them melt into the fabric permanently giving it all a a shimmer and a glow.

6. Interstitial Inquiries (7:40)

More questions! Don't we know by now there are no answers to the fundamental question? Of course we do, but these interstitial inquiries continue as the tapestry, and music, and the story of a life grows from one stage to another. We have progressed tomid-life questions, that is why it is sometimes called a crisis at the crossroads in time. We question, and there is some hesitancy because now the end is in sight. We are no longer growing and taking shape. Some of the patterns have been established, and the decisions have been made. What that will mean to us is not yet absolutely clear. We have been barreling toward a full form, but now it becomes clear that nothing will lasts forever, and all things must pass. And we might consider going back to start again, but there is no turning back the time.

If you had just a minute to breathe

And they granted you one final wish
Would you ask for something like another chance
Or something sim'lar as this
Don't worry too much It'll happen to you
As sure as your sorrows are joys
And the thing that disturbs you is only the sound of
The low spark of high-heeled boys

—Steve Winrood / Jim Capaldi "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys"

7. Dialogues in Distance (5:46)

Time for introductions: Did nobody ask the names of the three sisters? They are Clotho, Lychesis and Atropos. They are the Moirae. They are The Fates. They existed before anything was born and before the Gods. To contradict The Sisters is the greatest of sins for the Greeks, and that is called Hubris. We are feeling a poignancy in the music, and the story of a life in the fabric has taken full shape and is heading towards a conclusion, though as yet there is a little time. The Spinner is where birth begins and birth continues through every new thing. The Weaver makes the arrangements of each Strand in Strands. The music has begun to sense the story now, and there is some feeling of surprise at knowing this "freedom" was only to deliver the song from another world, and we are only the vehicle and never the music, and never the tapestry, but only the vessel. This Dialogue in Distance knows that every distance is not near, but that every journey arrives somewhere and then the journey ends. Acceptance is the key if this music is to remain beautiful. Carl and Kevin come together in the realization there is no choice but to play through to the end.

8. Transparencies in Transition (7:33)

Familiar sights can be seen out the window of the sound as it moves in its chariot back to our home town. We have poignant, plaintive skeins of hope awaken the feeling that there may be some way to begin again, or something similiar as this. The food in the kitchen is starting to fill the room with savory, and the Spinner and Weaver begin to feel hungry for the meal after the tapestry is completed. Carl and Kevin explore with some nostalgia the beginning of their song where all the possibilities existed but nothing was certain. Some attempts at new and sweeter new song are explored. The wisdom is spoken: It would be better not to begin, but once begun it is better to finish. We hear sounds in the kitchen of chopping. The smell of fresh onion fills the air. The third Sister is preparing the final condiments for the meal, and they are chopped up last. So time is nearing a conclusion.

9. Intersecting Dispositions (6:37)

Dispositions are labels used to document, track, and report on the outcomes of calls and chats. There are two types of dispositions you can use to track call and chat outcomes: system dispositions and agent dispositions.

We have discovered mourning and hope. He that would learn would feel pain, says Aechylus. That longing can be heard in the music, and the resonnant visual in the story of the fabric. Baba's wool continues to flow, but he is nearly shorn. He is happy, because the wool that is now the story was heavy, but he wants to finish and go back to the field. The music now is a memory, but Samuel Beckett once warned in his essay on Proust: "The past is with us, heavy and dangerous." The effect is dispositive, but also intersecting. Will we come to the same conclusion together, or dissipate into a mist at the end of this life? There are no answers but only wait and see. Carl plays a little longer after Kevin has tapped out. He knows he can feel a little longer, but no one is allowed to mourn their own life.

10. Pending Resolution (1:23)

Nothing can stop the inevitable, and the big question here is whether we can reconcile to that knowledge in time to pass gently. There are warm broken chords, and baited breath, and a sweet tune in search of conclusion. The Cutter comes back into the room where the Spinner and Weaver look nackered and ready for their meal. And she brings a sharp knife to the tapestry and expertly cuts the fabric and the story is complete. The three of them admire this life in silence. Then together they take the tapestry to the Hall of Our Lives, and they hang it on the wall. That done, they clear the table and eat. Miraculously, Baba is rapidly growing another full body covered with black wool. Another story will begin after The Sisters finish their meal.

THE INTERVIEW

Billy’s questions to Carl Clements

For the album “Strand in Strands,” can you please tell me how you came to work with Kevin Kastning, and some story or stories about your many collaborations over the years. What have you discovered to be the idiom of this combined music? What has it made you feel? How has this form of collaboration changed your approach to improvisation, listening and teaching.

Thank you. A paragraph or two or as much or as little as you provide will weave into the review perfectly. What does it feel like? Is the most important question. It will help the listener frame their own listening experience. For instance, I thought at first that the disjointed or angular parts were warming up to the Eureka moments, but now I don’t hear that all. I love the moments with more space, and less of a direction. I hear in that the music that lives most uniquely in this form. Every note is music, every phrase is melody. This music seems to reach to the place where music is formed, and it may be the most beautiful before it reduces itself into the simpler flow of song.

UPDATE

When you are improvising together, we have established that there is a process of trusting the music that you are hearing and playing that about which you don’t feel a sense of personal ownership. The process is too fast for calculating and controlling. I believe that fosters a mindset similar to “mindfulness.” How has your adaptation to real-time collective composition affected your processes in real life? Have you been able to incorporate listening for the music in family interactions or daily decisions? Has the required processes that create this music changed your decision-making process? Has this music taught you to live differently? Are you living more in the moment?

(I believe it is necessary when listening to this music to adopt the same mental processes in order to hear it completely.)

Carl Clement’s reply:

Kevin and I first met in the mid-‘80s while we were both attending the Berklee College of Music. We were roommates for several years, and we played together in Kevin’s band at that time (the Kevin Kastning Unit). While we were serious students of jazz at that time, I think we really connected because we were both looking for personal approaches to improvisation and composition that transcended boundaries of genre, style, etc. While listening to John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Bill Evans, etc., we were also listening to Bartok, Webern, Stravinsky, etc., and trying to work out how all this (and so much more music out there) could help us find or own means of expression.

After our Boston years in the ‘80s, I went to CalArts for my MFA, then to New York, then India, back to Boston, back to New York, and now the Pioneer Valley (where I teach at Amherst College). But we remained closely in touch throughout this time, and I’ve continued to think of him as one of my closest friends and musical collaborators. Once we were able to resume making music together, the years in between only seemed to strengthen our rapport. I’d been delving into North Indian classical music quite deeply (it was the subject of my Ph.D. dissertation), continuing to play jazz in its many forms (or many of its forms – there are too many variants for me to pretend to cover them all), and listening to diverse forms of music from 20th-21st century to musics of Latin America, South and Central Asia and around the world. Kevin had similarly been exploring diverse musical forms and ideas, and maybe because of our common foundations, personal rapport, and passion for improvisation without boundaries, our musical connection had just gotten stronger.

Our latest album Strand in Strands is our sixth duet album, and I think we both feel that it’s taken our collaboration a step further. It’s difficult for me to pin down a single idiom, genre, or style for this album or our other collaborations. We don’t think of it as jazz, though I still continue to play music that might be considered jazz. I don’t know if I’d call it contemporary classical music, since the degree of and approach to improvisation doesn’t really match approaches in 20th-21st century European-derived art music that I’m familiar with. But in the present day, diverse musical forms seem to be finding common ground, and genre boundaries are fading among the more progressive musicians and composers in various genres. In the end, we just express ourselves as honestly as we can using the various musical languages and modalities that we’ve encountered and studied.

For me, my collaborations with Kevin, including our trio work with Sandor Szabo, have been essentially conversations that allow us to communicate in ways that I haven’t found to be possible through words. Maybe a kind of collaborative musical poetry in the form of dialog? The languages we’ve developed aren’t ends in themselves – I think we really just want to draw on whatever will best enable us to say the things that can’t be said. It’s an ongoing dialog that doesn’t have any resolution that I’m aware of. I don’t know that there’s any arrival point, but I find the journey to be very fulfilling. It’s based on intensive listening to each other, being sure to take in what the other is saying and responding in kind. Hopefully the recordings can bring receptive listeners to some of the same places we’ve traveled, and maybe they can participate in the dialog at some level.

In response to your follow-up question about the music’s affect on real life, I can say that for me there would be some parallels to “mindfulness.” I suppose it affects every aspect of my life in some way, including personal interactions, daily decisions, teaching, etc. But I don’t know if I can really delineate to what degree the music has affected my life or my life has affected my music. They’re really all part of the same thing. There’s so much interplay between my life and my music that cause and effect becomes very difficult to determine. But I can say that my decision to make music the center of my life was largely based on the realization that I didn’t think I could be completely whole or completely sane without dedicating myself to music. Interestingly (to me, at least), I’ll be doing my first 10-day meditation retreat later this month. The fact that I haven’t done this previously is I think due both to my hesitation to be away from my instruments for that long, and the idea that my music has been its own form of meditation, or “mindfulness.” But I can say that my musical dialogs with Kevin have been wonderful opportunities to enter into a kind of shared transcendental state – that is to say, the immediacy of interaction and response displaces all other thought and allows us to explore places that I don’t think we would encounter in any other way (though I believe that all of the arts have the potential to allow for similar journeys).

I do think that with fully engaged listening, the listener can at least be aware of the places we traveled, and ideally experience their own journey. Whether that’s the same journey Kevin and I experienced (or whether Kevin and I shared the same journey), I can’t really say.

My previous comments to Billy:

It's hard for me to say where the boundary between conscious and unconscious is in our collaborative composition. It tends to be too immediate to call it completely conscious, but nonetheless, there is some conscious though sometimes entering into the process. For example, I'll often take note of a particular idea, whether melodic, rhythmic, a collection of notes, etc., that either of us has played, and have some consciousness of how I might develop, transform, contrast, etc. that idea. But the way that actually manifests is decided in the moment based on where the music has traveled since then, and what is happening at a particular moment.

INTERVIEW OF KEVIN KASTNING

BILLY's Question's to KEVIN KASTNING are in BLUE
KEVIN KASTNING'S responses are in BROWN

“Strands,” can you please tell me how you came to work with Carl Clements, and some story or stories about your many collaborations over the years.

I met Carl in early 1985. We were housemates and were students at Berklee College of Music. Carl and I played our first concert together in June 1985 at the Berklee Concert Pavilion in Boston. That concert was with The Kevin Kastning Unit, which was my jazz group that played in Boston in the mid to late '80s. I wrote all the material for the Unit, but Carl also contributed some pieces. At that time, I was playing electric 6-string guitar only, and Carl played mostly tenor saxophone, but later in the group's existence he branched out to soprano sax, too. The Unit stayed busy, and there are some studio recordings from 1987 and 1988.

As my compositions became more complex and were arguably no longer within the jazz realm, I disbanded the unit and focused on composing for a few years. By this time, I was composing chamber works such as string quartets, wind quintets, piano sonatas, and other chamber works. There are also some chamber orchestra pieces. In the late 1990s or so, Carl and I again started playing a few duo performances together around Boston and New York City. We recorded our first duo album, "Dreaming As I Knew," around 2005 or so. "Strands" is our sixth album together, with more already in the works.

Since the first time we played together, Carl and I have had a strong artistic connection. It's just always been there. We became close friends almost immediately, and I think that strong friendship connection may have further enhanced our artistic connection as well.

What have you discovered to be the idiom of this combined music?

For my music, I don't really think in terms of labels or categories. Over the 30-plus years that Carl and I have worked together, we've gone from a jazz framework of music to music composed in real-time, which is the direction and approach for each of our duo albums.

Carl and I have many musical and artistic influences; most of those are shared. Carl’s principal area of influence is jazz; Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane. When I was studying and playing jazz, my primary influences were Bill Evans, John Coltrane, and various artists on ECM records. Prior to my jazz period, I studied classical music, and still do. My principal influences are not, nor were they ever, guitarists. My influences and heroes are classical composers: Bach, Weiss, Beethoven, Schoenberg, Webern, Shostakovich, Carter; too many to mention. Additionally, I’ve been strongly impacted and directed by the solo piano works of Keith Jarrett. Carl, too, is passionate about classical music, so we have large areas of overlapping influences. We also live in the world of real-time improvisation, and over the years have had hours and hours of discussion surrounding this approach. I believe that no matter the compositional medium; be it manuscript paper or tape, composed music is as valid as music composed in real-time. They are equal. I see composed music as frozen improvisation, so the two models have far more in common than most people realize or consider. However, to be effective in real-time composition, I believe that you have to first be a composer.

What has it made you feel?

Working with Carl brings a sense of freedom, which is true of all my collaborators. Carl is not just a player, but also a composer, so we can move in the same directions at the same time. It brings a feeling of no boundaries, really.

I don’t think the music or its direction has impacted my day-to-day life. However, I believe that if you’re an improvising musician, who and what you are is what is heard in your music. Ergo, for me, life and music are so tightly integrated that it’s hard to say where one leaves off and the other begins.

How has this form of collaboration changed your approach to improvisation, listening and teaching.

I no longer teach, so it’s had no impact on that. However, when you’re in the realm of non-solo real-time composition, listening is key. It’s the first and most important thing; it’s the prime directive. Not only listening to the other person or persons, but to the composition itself. I’ve been working in duo settings since before Carl and I started recording together, so I can’t say that this collaboration has impacted my approaches beyond any kind of real-time duo setting. However, Carl and I tend to have a kind of mental telepathy when working together. Of our six albums, the first five were recorded at my old studio. We were in separate rooms with no windows and no visual contact. Visual cues were obviously not possible, but when you listen to those records, it all sounds composed. I credit most of that to our long-running partnership, and the rest of it to listening. “Strand in Strands” was recorded as a remote project, where one of us would record our part and send the tracks to the other person for them to record their parts. I like working in both modes, and tracking remotely worked out very well for us. I usually prefer being “live” in the studio, but remote recording projects are equally valid given that you have the right people, and just another method or approach. I feel that “Strand in Strands” is our strongest record to date.

CONTACTS

Kevin Kastning on:

Kevin Kastning’s Website