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JACK NEWMAN - SHOLEM ALEICHEM  From an obscure Yiddish LP entitled "Sholem Aleichem Readings" September 2008 1. Berl Isaac, ORIGINAL 7:25 2. Berl Isaac, with trombone 7:25 3. Version 2 7:25 June 2007 1. Naches Fun Kinder, ORIGINAL 7:13 2. Naches Fun Kinder, with trombone 7:15 ALEXANDER SCRIABIN  Op. 11 1. No. 15 2:28  July 2008 The first movement from Stravinsky's Sonata for Two Pianos (1943-44) Moderato 3:49 and that 32-bar introduction in the beginning of his Concerto for Piano and Winds (1923-24) Largo 1:36 (version II) VISUAL MUSIC  "I mean, no one truly understands it, just as no one's parents truly understand one's true love. Yet a work of art must have a life in society; once the artist has finished making it, it belongs to others. But he never made it with the idea of taking it into society. Any man that sets out to find a girl to introduce to his parents is never likely to fall in love. Any man that sets out to make a work for audiences is never going to make a work of art. A work of art is made for the most personal reasons--as an expression of love." - Stan Brakhage Artistic independence. As musicians, improvisers especially, we are often faced with the challenges and surprises of collaboration in order to realize the products of much of our creative, publicly displayed output. Yet, many equally necessary works of art have also been accomplished by the individual artist, privately, not the collective, publicly. I have found more and more over time that there is a crucial balance to be had between inventing alone and with (or around) others. Realizing in fact that oftentimes what is accomplished by oneself can feel more honest in some ways due to its having been less influenced by anyone else, place or thing. Less under any sort of outside "pressures" or certainly reliance in making, allowing the product to become this different, perhaps more direct, pure thing of oneself. Something which is simply up to us to do. So the compositional purpose of these particular pieces was really for no one else or thing per se, but just a sudden emotional necessity of wanting to hear myself within something very personal, abstract, and of the moment, incorporating indeterminate sound from old cassettes of my family. Admittedly, once the pieces are formed and alive to go, sharing them, letting go of them for others to hear within their own perspective, it becomes an equally important thing. Visual Music—audible simultanaeity, improvised and not, the associations run wild, coexisting elements, combinations of deliberate and chance procedures which help try and naturalize instrumental/physical ideas, motion and intentions further. These old family cassettes—joining those sound histories, improvising on the trombone first on my own, then searching through these semi-forgotten experiences, nostalgia, aligning the material to present-day tempos of musical and emotional schemata, re-using and in some ways preserving this material in a diary of sound. Rhythm, texture, harmony, melody, volumes—a search for those instantaneous solutions, alchemies of styles, of relationships necessary to produce a more honest or current music, a sound environment which in turn supports my individual fate working alone when I must, every day that chance to expand through our world, this brief moment of loving opportunity we have... December 15, 2007 [ 5:38 ] Happenings, Things, Pieces, Events [ 5:46 ] - October 20, 2007 Expansion on Bach/Celebration Song [ 4:48 ] - June 12, 2007 (Arranged to be played for my Mom first thing the morning of her birthday) Family Pieces - May 11, 2007 [ 3:52 ] Winter Reflections - March 8, 2007 [ 1:18 ] Family Cassette Collage - January 23, 2007 [ 8:16 ] Meditations From Behind The Couch, Vitreous - September 3, 2006 [ 3:32 ] Now Of August 31, 2006 - August 31, 2006 [ 2:15 ] "We need to find the link between our traditions and our present experience of life. Nowness, or the magic of the present moment, is what joins the wisdom of the past with the present." - Chogyam Trungpa, The Sacred Path of the Warrior Davidsong - July 4, 2006 [ 2:50 ] Once A Boy Was Born Into The World - June 25, 2006 [ 2:06 ] Dream of Flowers - June 9, 2006 [ 1:42 ] May 26, 2006 + 1977 - May 24, 2006 [ 2:39 ] For Brakhage - April 29, 2006 [ 5:25 ] (Stan Brakhage)  14:48 CARLO GESUALDO  April 29 - September 16, 2008 (work in progress) Sacrae Cantiones (1603). Gesualdo's first sacred publications for five voices. I. Ave, Regina coelorum 2:11 II. Venit lumen tuum 1:41 III. Ave, dulcissima Maria 2:20 IV. Reminisceremiserationum tuarum 1:18 V. Dignare me, laudare te 1:44 VII. Domine, ne despicias 1:14 VIII. Hei mihi, Domine 1:25 IX. Laboravi in gemitu meo 1:56 X. Peccantem me quotidie 2:50 XI. O vos omnes 1:34 XIII. Precibus et meritis beatae Mariae 1:19 AUTOMATIC SOUNDING  “The opaque weight of the world—both of life on earth and of death, heaven, and hell—is dissolved, and the spirit freed, not from anything, for there was nothing from which to be freed except a myth too solidly believed, but for something, something fresh and new, a spontaneous act.” — Joseph Campbell, “Primitive Mythology: The Masks of God” there or this CHOPIN Preludes, Op. 28 April 25, 2008 4. Prelude No.6 1:48 October 30, 2007 3. Prelude No.4 2:00 August 27, 2007 2. Prelude No.2 for solo trombones 2:13 August 25, 2007 1. Prelude No.5 :32 Martha Argerich, piano  PIERRE BOULEZ  March 26/April 7, 2008 of Messagesquisse (1976-77), with a recording of cello soloist Jean-Guihen Queyras and six others of the Ensemble de Violoncelles de Paris. 1. II. Très Rapide 2:04 2. IV. Aussi Rapide Que Possible :36 OLIVIER MESSIAEN  September 2008 La Nativite du Seigneur (work in progress) I. La Vierge et L'Enfant part 1 2:25 January 2008 An excerpt from Le Reveil des oiseaux 1. Le Reveil... 1:28 Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano From his Quartet for the End of Time, the sixth movement: 2. Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes 6:56 Luben Yordanoff, violin; Albert Tetard, cello; Claude Desurmont, clarinet; Daniel Barenboim, piano VIVALDI  Concerto for Strings in C Major, RV 111a, III. Presto Venice Baroque Orchestra April 15, 2008 1. Presto :58 Concerto for Strings in D minor, RV 127, III. Allegro Venice Baroque Orchestra October 10, 2007 1. Allegro 1:00 BELA BARTOK  March 22, 2008 selected Mikrokosmos (work in progress) 1. Notturno - #97 1:50 2. Diminished Fifth - #101 1:03 3. Harmonics - #102 1:22 4. Children's Song - #106 1:18 IGOR STRAVINSKY  January 24, 2008 The third movement from his Italian Suite for violin and piano. III. Tarantella 2:05 Vladimir Spivakov, violin; Boris Bechterev, piano January 7, 2008 That introductory statement from Movements for Piano and Orchestra (1960)... 1. Excerpt :20 Michel Beroff, piano March 31, 2007 The 4-voice fugue in the first half of the second movement in Symphony of Psalms Symphony of Psalms 2:48 ROBERT SCHUMANN  January 7, 2008 Tenth etude from the Symphonic Etudes... 1. Etude X :40 Murray Perahia, piano THE MUSIC OF TURKEY The Music of the Whirling Dervishes (Mevlevi) From the Anthology LP, choir and instrumental ensemble recorded at Konya, 1968  November 18, 2007 2. Track 1 35:39 by ELLIOTT CARTER 
In 1999 I rewrote his solo piano piece 90+ to play along with the record (so that all of the piece could still be heard) which I attempted semi-successfully in performance that same year at my senior recital in the Manhattan School of Music.
2003-4 I did the same thing to two other works of his for solo instruments, but keeping the "performance" aspect of it relatively confined to my NYC apartment.
The following music represents a body of short improvised compositions which
came from certain sudden inspirations to experiment with an idea - a feeling, an image, a sound, a seed - which I felt could grow
into a small, abstract sound-poem plant which never needed water.
Compositions which helped me to
convey something small and surreal, isolated from its influences. A short story.
1. Trombones VIII |
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