Commissioners of the North

Expwy - Dance Maul

2011-03-06T17:11:00.002-05:00

Written while bumming around New York, sleeping on couches and with Luc Sante's Low Life, Burroughs and Wallace's Gotham, Herbert Asbury's The Gangs of New York and All Around the Town and his guitar as his only possessions Matt LeGroulx returned to Montreal to record this latest Expwy album. Coming less than a year after the debut this new one takes a completely different tack. Drum kits replace drum machines and guitars and mandolins replace synthesizers. Guitar solos abound and what guitar solos they are! In LeGroulx we have a new kind of guitar hero. While still classic rock in flavour they show am emotional connection and flair for improvisation closer to John Coltrane than Eric Clapton. And the guitars pop up everywhere, acoustic, electric, harmonized, in oddly rhythmed unison. Had this record been made in 1973 it would be today on people's short lists of the greatest unheralded rock albums of all time along the lines of Shuggie Otis's Inspiraion Information.

Highly recommended.

-Lawrence DuBois (Montreal Mirroir)

1. NYC To Thee, Wake Unto Me (Mermaids)
2. Armory Hall
3. Park Row
4. Maiden Lane
5. The Bloody Angle
6. On The Boat
7. Round and Round and Round
8. A Fatality About Shops?
9. Bridegrooms at Giants (A Perfect Enigma)
10. The Sidewalks of New York

http://soundcloud.com/expwy/sets/expwy-dance-maul/

Expwy

2011-03-06T17:11:00.001-05:00

Montreal Brazilian retro/lo-fi/electro group. Expwy is really a one-man-band project of Matt LeGroulx. The debut album Border Vacuums came out in 2010 followed by Dance Maul in early 2011.

Border Vacuums shows a strong Brazilian influence musically while lyrically it's on an urban planning theme with some of the lyrics taken directly from Jane Jacob's The Death and Life of Great American Cities. The album made a few end-of-year Best Album lists but remained under the radar.

Dance Maul was written while LeGroulx was living in New York for a year with no apartment. New York's history provided the lyrical content of the album. LeGroulx even claims to have been accosted by the ghost of Peter Stuyvesant near the former location of the old Director-General's peach tree in Manhattan. Musically the album is reminiscent of early-70's classic rock but with mild progressive elements.

Work (The Compositions of Thelonious Monk)

2010-07-31T23:32:00.004-04:00

I set up a new blog for my Monk project. I'll be making videos for every Monk tune from A to W. Here 'tis:

http://monkswork.wordpress.com/

You can also keep track with on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/mattlegroulx

LeGroulx, Kesley, Grillot, Lobo - Redemption (Black Bowler)

2010-06-29T10:43:00.005-04:00

1 - Kitchen Physic

2 - Kicksies

Chris Kelsey - Alto Saxophone

Francois Grillot - Bass

Joao Lobo - Drums

Matt LeGroulx - Guitar

Download here or here!

Considering the fact that none of us save Chris and Francois had even spoken to each other before this date came off pretty well. Besides hilighting my desperate need for a tuner it also shows off my inability to let go of a particular musical idea, obsessing over it like Steve Reich with O.C.D. Playing with musicians of this caliber was a total blast, and this recording hopefully won't be a personal monument to that one time I got to play with some free-jazz heavies. About those heavies, Chris Kelsey, Francois Grillot and Joao Lobo played their asses off. Chris spewed fire and joy, Francois was alternately Godzilla stomping Tokyo and a live million-volt power line and Joao was constantly reacting to and kicking our asses. And at one point, I swear I looked over and the ghost of Ed Blackwell was playing Joao like a marionette. But I had had a couple of drinks and beer doesn't treat me well. On top of that my 8th place Montreal Canadiens were in the process of eliminating the defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins from the Stanley Cup Playoffs, a fever dream if there ever was one. A great big thanks to Andrew Bergman from Troglodytes and Iced Ink for booking this show and a great big thanks to Chris, Francois and Joao for even entertaining the idea of playing with me. A quick word about the album and track titles, the album title, though super-ultra-corny is derived solely from the cover image, taken around the Brooklyn Navy Yards on a walk through Vinegar Hill. I suppose it also represents other stuff, the redemption of the Montreal Canadiens, etc. But really it's all about that image. The track titles are taken from The Rogues Lexicon in honour of the Lower East Side, the site of the performance. Kitchen Physic is food, plain and simple and Kicksies are trousers.

Pay to Play

2010-06-22T10:08:00.000-04:00

I'm broke. I'm also a musician and so to make ends meet I was going to try busking in the Metro for spare change. When I contacted the STM to see what procedure needed to be followed I was given the number of the the "Regroupement des Musiciens de Montréal," Montreal's buskers "union." Apparently formed to weed out non-musicians (which seems absolutely ludicrous as most people I've seen play in the Metro were truly awful shills) this organisation collects money from prospective Metro musicians, $20 for one month, $30 for two and $50 for three, and forces them to audition. I'm all for organized labour but in this case there is nothing to organize to protect against. The STM doesn't charge people fees to play so where is this money going? Well, I guess to pay the secretary, and other employees who I'm assuming since they have real jobs now are no longer busking. Nice racket but I won't be paying Dino's salary to make $3.45 in change. They'd also like to play down the fact that they're begging. I'm sorry, but providing an unwanted service and asking for money is begging, guys! According to the McGill Tribune:

"The current situation spreads the misconception that all buskers are beggars. After one of Dunlevy's performances, a man came up to him and offered him the remaining $1.80 on his Subway gift card, and came back a few minutes later with a couple shirts.

"I said 'Look, I really don't need charity. I've got clothes! This is just a way to make ends meet and to practice my art,'" he said.

Listen, buddy, if you don't need the money practice at home. And do you really think that your made-for-smooth-jazz-radio rendition of "Unchained Melody" is gonna' get you anything but beggar's pity change? I understand that you need to pretend that you're not begging so you can look your kid in the eye when you tuck him into bed at night without breaking down into a slobbering ball of shame and tears. I get it, it's embarrassing, it really is. So, I understand why you've formed the "Regroupement des Musiciens de Montréal." Now when you tuck little Tyler in instead of saying "Daddy needs to go sing and dance like a circus monkey so that strangers will fling pocket change indiscriminately at him so that we can have Kraft Dinner for supper tomorrow" you can say "Daddy needs to do some paperwork." I get it. I'm pissed but I get it. And you won't be getting my money, of which I have little. If only I could get a cushy secretary position at some nice non-profit organisation.

Solo Guitar #4 - Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)

2010-06-13T16:24:00.002-04:00

Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away) by Deftones from their 1997 album Around the Fur. Contrast and compare!

All of my solo guitar videos can be seen on my YouTube page:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MattLeGroulx

So far I've done:

One Red Rose That I Mean (Captain Beefheart)
New Sneakers (Deerhoof)
Overnight (Gonzalez)

Pirates! or Why Used Record Stores Are Evil (And File Sharers Are Not)

2010-06-08T11:51:00.008-04:00

I'm moving. Now is a good time to dump some weight and lighten my load. I've so far sold my bike (which I can't ride due to exercise induced panic attacks), a projector screen and am in the process of selling off some of my cds and dvds. So, I went to the used record store, in this case Cheap Thrills here in Montreal to unburden myself and of course I got shafted. I knew I would be but I need the money and I need to lose the weight. I've also been thinking about Millisong.com and how they've been selling my music, music that I give out for free and it hit me like a ton of bricks; Millisong is basically a used record store, files downloaded for free or a fee and then sold again. Now, Cheap Thrills does the same thing except they sell actual products, physical objects that were the result of lots of hard work and money spent by the artist. The artist of course doesn't see any of this resale money and no one seems to care. Millisong sells ones and zeros that were easily copied and cost nothing to produce. So, is Millisong actually less evil than Cheap Thrills? I really think that that's the case. All that time that I've spent in used record stores, I realized, I've been the in the evil clutches of a monster! Granted, used record stores pay for the merchandise and websites like Millisong.com don't but I think that's more than offset by the the evilness of the resale. As for file sharers, they reap no reward from the "piratery" only the music they cherish. They are "sharers" not "pirates" and all they've "stolen" are 1's and 0's. so, who's the real pirate here? I say those vultures, the used music retailers, re-selling the carcasses of other people's work for their own personal gain and not the file sharers who gain nothing but music. The one thing saving Cheap Thrills form being completely evil is that they sell new music and, as they put it on their website "specialize in jazz, avant garde, experimental and blues" and they do stock copious amounts of local artists. For this they should be commended. But perhaps to make that a viable business model they have to sell the used stuff. The vulturing pays the bills, I suppose so I'll give them a pass. Not all used record stores have so noble a calling and on those I call pirates!

Thieves!

2010-05-22T19:48:00.002-04:00

The website Millisong is apparently selling my music without my consent here:

http://www.millisong.com/index.cfm/hurl/idzAlbum/IdAlbumz85562/mLinkz1/85562.htm

DO NOT BUY IT! DOWNLOAD FOR FREE HERE:

http://www.zshare.net/download/72370862b9aa6c06/

If you're a musician yourself check them out to make sure they're not ripping you off, too.

A Brief History of Drum Kit Playing - Pt. 2

2010-03-06T11:26:00.011-05:00

Bebop

Ah, yes. Bebop. As desperately as I may try (on guitar, I mean) I just can't seem to play the stuff. It's my favourite style of jazz, the only one I really want to play and yet no matter how much I study the intricacies of bebop phrasing, I just can't seem to play it right. I kind of feel that you have to be of the right time to be able to play it. There's something somewhat archaic about it at this point, at least melodically and harmonically. Rhythmically, though it never sounds old. Just listen to Kenny Clarke.

Klook never sounds dated, he's too awesome! Of course,the same could be said of Roach, Blakey, "Philly" Joe Jones and all the great bop drummers, all of such varied styles and all awesome.

At Minton's (see Charlie Christian clip in the previous post) people got to really hear what Klook was up to. I always heard it as kind of a hyper-interactive Jo Jones, reacting immediately and audibly to the events unfolding around him. Unfortunately for Kenny Clarke, Max Roach came along stole some thunder.

Clarke is still well remembered in the jazz community but Max Roach is more well-known outside of it, probably because he stayed state-side while Klook moved to France for good in 1956, reducing his American visibility. Roach could play at crazy fast tempos conversationally, something drummers today still have trouble with. Lots of people can play fast, but not musically.

"Max had rescued me." Indeed.

Max Roach and Kenny Clarke rescued a lot of people from a life of pretty much straight time keeping. Now drummers were free to be more involved in what was going on. If you weren't seriously cookin', it was painfully obvious as Mr. Cosby had so deftly demonstrate. They spawned a whole two or three generations of drummers and not just jazz drummers. Their influence would eventually infiltrate even popular music. Bebop had actually been the beginning of a pan-stylistic revolution in drum kit playing.

R&B

The other side of the coin was bebop's contemporary, rhythm and blues. This would eventually become rock and roll. Early r & b artists like Louis Jordan mixed jazz and the blues to come with a style that was at once sophisticated and earthy. Drumming consisted of a swing rhythm on the hi-hat and maybe a shuffle on the snare with bass drum, creating a roiling but steady undercurrent of rhythm.

Rock music would eventually make a caricature of this later on but at the time it was still fresh and those early rock and roll records have a palpable energy. It was at this point that kit playing splintered and from here on out I'll be trying to tie together splinters into a bundle of splinters.

Early Rock and Roll

Rock drumming from this period became the template for all rock music in the future. But something changed as the 50's turned into the 60's. Rock drummers began incorporating jazz ideas into their playing. What they did was actually very simple. Take some of those licks you learned out of the "Bebop Drummers Handbook," and loop them to create distinctive and unique beats.

Suddenly popular music drum parts were becoming more complicated, moving past the "neanderthal with clubs" cartooned typical rock and roll drummer. Rock drumming, for good or ill (I say ill) was on the road to respectability. It would still be a few years before rock music produced it's own virtuosos but they were coming. When it did they would be heavily indebted to their jazz progenitors and those years or practicing para-diddles, para-diddle-diddles and tripple-single-stroke-para-plegi-diddles would change hit parade kit playing. Unfortunately, as we'll see next week, it wouldn't last very long.

A Brief History of Drum Kit Playing - Pt. 1

2010-02-26T15:11:00.005-05:00

The drum kit. That wonderful assemblage of noise-making doo-dads so ubiquitous in most music today has really only been around for about a hundred years and in that time it's evolved from a simple collection of percussion instruments into today's monstrous behemoths (dig Terry Bozzio's kit). In between it's development has branched off in innumerable directions. As with everything else, though, all of today's variants stem from a catalyzing invention, in this case the pedal. Pedals made it possible to play more than two drums at once and once the hi-hat entered the equation in the 1920's the drum kit was ready for the big time.

Early kit players like Baby Dodds unfortunately couldn't display their full abilities on recordings of the time, contemporary recording techniques couldn't handle all that sound so they were often relegated to some woodblocks, a snare drum and maybe a cymbal. I think the closest we can get to hearing what the early kit players sounded like are these recordings by Baby Dodds:

The drum set was made for jazz and the early jazz players really set the table for what would come later. Dodds and later Sonny Greer and Gene Krupa basically created modern kit drumming like Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young created modern tenor playing. In fact, take this Eddie Condon record with Krupa on drums from '28. Krupa's dropping bombs like a stiff Kenny Clarke!

Is it just me or does it sound like he's throwing Joe Sullivan off with those things? So, while early drum set playing consisted mainly of playing your array of percussive objects as you would in an orchestra the pedal system really opened things up. Early swing drummers could play a 4/4 rhythm with the bass drum on every beat while adding accentuating touches with the hands and maybe a hi-hat click on the off-beats. Here's a great example, Ellington's Jack The Bear and Sonny Greer clearly playing a four-on-the-floor bass drum beat:

Great for dancing, huh? People still think so even though no one listens to this anymore and this type of beat can be heard on any number of electronic dance music records. It's still the beat of choice when it comes to dancers. Go to any rave and you'll hear the ghosts of Greer, Krupa and Chick Webb. Kit playing was about to change, though thanks to "Papa" Jo Jones. Playing in Count Basie's band Jones stopped hitting the bass drum on every beat and used it to accent more while moving what used to be the bass drum's job to the ride cymbal or hi-hat. This created a more fluid style:

Sounds like he's playing pocket change at the beginning (!) but then switches to the hi-hats and finally the ride cymbal when Young kicks in for one his greatest solos. This lighter style would lead directly to the next development in kit playing pioneered by Kenny Clarke. Clarke is generally considered the first bebop drummer. In this recording from Minton's Playhouse from 1941 you can really hear the debt to Jones but also the much more interactive style Clarke developed:

Next week I'll go more in-depth with bebop and take a look at early rock drumming.

THIS is History!

2010-02-22T23:37:00.004-05:00

I think Walt Whitman and I maybe share a perception of time.

Everyone interested in history at all should read "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." In fact, anyone truly interested in history should feel the same as Walt as does here. He really nails it. THIS is history!

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

1
FLOOD-TIDE below me! I watch you face to face;

Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I see you also face to face.

Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes! how curious you are to me!

On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose;

And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.

2
The impalpable sustenance of me from all things, at all hours of the day;

The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme—myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated, yet part of the scheme:

The similitudes of the past, and those of the future;

The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings—on the walk in the street, and the passage over the river;

The current rushing so swiftly, and swimming with me far away;

The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them;

The certainty of others—the life, love, sight, hearing of others.

Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross from shore to shore;

Others will watch the run of the flood-tide;

Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east;

Others will see the islands large and small;

Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high;

A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,

Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring in of the flood-tide, the falling back to the sea of the ebb-tide.

3
It avails not, neither time or place—distance avails not;

I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence;

I project myself—also I return—I am with you, and know how it is.

Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;

Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;

Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d;

Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried;

Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the thick-stem’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.

I too many and many a time cross’d the river, the sun half an hour high;

I watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls—I saw them high in the air, floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,

I saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies, and left the rest in strong shadow,

I saw the slow-wheeling circles, and the gradual edging toward the south.

I too saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,

Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,

Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light around the shape of my head in the sun-lit water,

Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and southwestward,

Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,

Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the arriving ships,

Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,

Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops—saw the ships at anchor,

The sailors at work in the rigging, or out astride the spars,

The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine pennants,

The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-houses,

The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels,

The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sun-set,

The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening,

The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the granite store-houses by the docks,

On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank’d on each side by the barges—the hay-boat, the belated lighter,

On the neighboring shore, the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly into the night,

Casting their flicker of black, contrasted with wild red and yellow light, over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets.

4
These, and all else, were to me the same as they are to you;

I project myself a moment to tell you—also I return.

I loved well those cities;

I loved well the stately and rapid river;

The men and women I saw were all near to me;

Others the same—others who look back on me, because I look’d forward to them;

(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)

5
What is it, then, between us?

What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not.

6
I too lived—Brooklyn, of ample hills, was mine;

I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters around it;

I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,

In the day, among crowds of people, sometimes they came upon me,

In my walks home late at night, or as I lay in my bed, they came upon me.

I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution;

I too had receiv’d identity by my Body;

That I was, I knew was of my body—and what I should be, I knew I should be of my body.

7
It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,

The dark threw patches down upon me also;

The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious;

My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre? would not people laugh at me?

It is not you alone who know what it is to be evil;

I am he who knew what it was to be evil;

I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,

Blabb’d, blush’d, resented, lied, stole, grudg’d,

Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,

Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant;

The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me,

The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting,

Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting.

8
But I was Manhattanese, friendly and proud!

I was call’d by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me approaching or passing,

Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me as I sat,

Saw many I loved in the street, or ferry-boat, or public assembly, yet never told them a word,

Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping,

Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,

The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like,

Or as small as we like, or both great and small.

9
Closer yet I approach you;

What thought you have of me, I had as much of you—I laid in my stores in advance;

I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.

Who was to know what should come home to me?

Who knows but I am enjoying this?

Who knows but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?

It is not you alone, nor I alone;

Not a few races, nor a few generations, nor a few centuries;

It is that each came, or comes, or shall come, from its due emission,

From the general centre of all, and forming a part of all:

Everything indicates—the smallest does, and the largest does;

A necessary film envelopes all, and envelopes the Soul for a proper time.

100

10
Now I am curious what sight can ever be more stately and admirable to me than my mast-hemm’d Manhattan,

My river and sun-set, and my scallop-edg’d waves of flood-tide,

The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the twilight, and the belated lighter;

Curious what Gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I approach;

Curious what is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face,

105

Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you.

We understand, then, do we not?

What I promis’d without mentioning it, have you not accepted?

What the study could not teach—what the preaching could not accomplish, is accomplish’d, is it not?

What the push of reading could not start, is started by me personally, is it not?

110

11
Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!

Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!

Gorgeous clouds of the sun-set! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me;

Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!

Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta!—stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!

115

Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!

Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!

Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house, or street, or public assembly!

Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my nighest name!

Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!

120

Play the old role, the role that is great or small, according as one makes it!

Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you;

Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current;

Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;

Receive the summer sky, you water! and faithfully hold it, till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you;

125

Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one’s head, in the sun-lit water;

Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail’d schooners, sloops, lighters!

Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset;

Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses;

Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are;

130

You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul;

About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest aromas;

Thrive, cities! bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers;

Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual;

Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.

135

12 We descend upon you and all things—we arrest you all;
We realize the soul only by you, you faithful solids and fluids;
Through you color, form, location, sublimity, ideality;
Through you every proof, comparison, and all the suggestions and determinations of ourselves.

You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers! you novices!	140
We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward;
Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us;
We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently within us;
We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also;
You furnish your parts toward eternity;	145
Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Any historian who doesn't feel that in their bones is only half a historian.

Expwy - Friday Was All About (Video)

2010-02-18T09:32:00.003-05:00

Here's Expwy's new video. Don't forget, there's a link in the post below this one to download the album. Our gift to you!

Expwy - Border Vacuums

2010-02-09T21:42:00.004-05:00

Matt's completed a new album of lo-fi, electronic, Brazilian, Krautrock-y goodness under the name Expwy.

Sample here.
Download here.

Here's a review from Montreal's venerable "Mirror:"

With Tiny Iota on break, Matt LeGroulx has some time on his hands and he used that time to record some Brazilian influenced stuff under the moniker Expwy (Expressway?). What we have here is an album that could fall into the "chill wave" category, kind of a Brazilian Neon Indian, (Neon Brazilian? Bahian Indian?) but whatever you want to call it, it's a bit too peppy to go under "chill wave." Dusty old organs mesh with squelchy old synths to bossa and samba rhythms drenched in reverb to create something like a very lo-fi Arto Lindsay. It's a quite pleasant combo and at 31 minutes leaves you wanting more.

by Bronwyn Eklof

Whoa, I never noticed that before! #2

2010-02-05T08:39:00.004-05:00

Emerson, Lake and Palmer - A Time And A Place

Seriously, I don't how I missed this one for so long. ELP quote Thelonious Monk's "Thelonious" at 1:38 or so, then again at 2:12. Dig...

New Venture!

2010-01-24T23:20:00.004-05:00

Matt's Montreal Tours!

Let Tiny Iota's own Matt take you on a food, history and culture tour of Montreal. You know Schwartz's but do you know where the REAL best smoked meat in town is?

Find out along with oh so much more!

http://montrealtours.blogspot.com/

Matt LeGroulx - Chamber Music, Vol. 1

2010-01-23T16:07:00.006-05:00

A new album of my chamber music is available here:

Download Chamber Music, Vol. 1

Here's a review from the Montreal Mirror, January, 2010:

Contemporary chamber music gets short shrift these days. While jazz musicians whine about their own lack of popularity their orchestral/chamber music counterparts wallow in real anonymity. No one knows what these people do holed up in their apartments and houses, scribbling away on manuscript and their music is rarely heard so it's refreshing when a young composer records on his own and releases it on his own as Matt LeGroulx has done with Chamber Music, Vol. 1. The music ranges from Reich-ian minimalism to Beefheart-ian guitar composition to Nancarrow-ian automated complexity. In fact, the best pieces here are those dedicated to Nancarrow, the four fugues for piano. The voices are so closely arranged that they produce the aural equivalent of fractals, the melody created by the transpositions of the voices can be heard in every nook and cranny. The result is remarkable, so finely detailed that it's impossible to listen too hard or too much. He may never reach the level of popularity of a Nico Muhly but props to this young composer for taking his legacy into his own hands.

- Lukas Shapiro

And here's the tracklist:

01 - Fugue in Seven Voices for Farfisa Organ (2010)
02 - Fry's Dog Seymour (2002)
03 - Four Fugues for Conlon Nancarrow - One (2006)
04 - Four Fugues for Conlon Nancarrow - Two (2006)
05 - Four Fugues for Conlon Nancarrow - Three (2006)
06 - Four Fugues for Conlon Nancarrow - Four (2006)
07 - Fall (2003)
08 - It's About Time (2005)
09 - King Magnus the 3rd of Norway (2007)
10 - Unison Rhythm for Two Guitars (2010)
11 - Sometimes When I Close My Eyes I See My Dead Dog (2005)
12 - Two Microtonal Fugues on the Same Subject for Transposed Guitars - One (2008)
13 - Two Microtonal Fugues on the Same Subject for Transposed Guitars - Two (2008)
14 - Tim's On 2nd (2004)
15 - Ever Do That (2005)
16 - Les Filles de Campagne (2005)

This...is...Radio..Claa...ImeanIota

2009-12-31T12:01:00.006-05:00

Tiny Iota was on the radio (102.3 F.M., Montreal) this morning for an interview and to play some tracks (not live). Check it out. Thanks to Marc Sauvageau who did an excellent interview job and for having TI on his show. Fair warning, it's in french:

102.3 Interview 31-12-09 (French)

New Single-Disc Version of To Hell With All That

2009-12-15T19:21:00.002-05:00

We realize that To Hell With All That can be unwieldy and most of you will never try to play both discs simultaenously. While trying to make the discs listenable simultaneously some decisions had to be made and some stuff just doesn't hold up on it's own. So, as a gift this Christmas season we present to you the single disc configuration. Only the best and most important-to-the-narrative songs, no skipping needed. Just follow the link on the right or this one.

Here's Ye Olde Tracklyst:

01 - Balloon Chorale
02 - I have the pleasure of sending you this first dispatch ever telegraphed from an aerial station
03 - Knot The Mines
04 - Sheet Iron and Brine
05 - Bois De Ville
06 - The Aerostat At Gaines' Farm
07 - White Feathers
08 - Deeps
09 - Lewiston, Ho!
10 - Close and Oblique
11 - Commissioner of the North
12 - The Tank Song (Engage)

Research Update for the New Album - # 2

2009-12-08T10:40:00.013-05:00

Thursday morning I woke up to some items in my e-mail inbox of note. I had e-mailed the Biblioteque at Archive Nationale de Quebec (BANQ) the night before about getting my hands on some maps and they generously sent me links to insurance maps of Montreal dating from 1890 to the 1950's. After some digging I found what I was looking for, the area above St. Antoine,
pre-highway. These are from 1950. (Click to view full-size.)

As you can see there's a street above St. Antoine called Plymouth Grove. The name struck me as a the kind used on developments to attract a certain clientele, like Vinegar Hill in Brooklyn or a thousand others. When I looked up Plymouth Grove I couldn't find anything about a Plymouth Grove in Montreal but I did find this on Wikipedia:

"84 Plymouth Grove is a grade-II-listed neoclassical villa in Manchester, England which was home to the Gaskell family between 1850 and 1913...The Gaskells moved into the house (then numbered 42) in June 1850, after the publication of Elizabeth Gaskell's first book, Mary Barton."

Elizabeth Gaskell was very well-known at the time and decidedly upper crust so this fits in perfectly with my hunch that it's a real estate development that's trying to attract, I suppose in this case a middle or upper-middle class english clientele. Well, I kept digging and found this on Sister Mary Vance of 152 Plymouth Grove, First World War nurse. It's unknown whether or not she survived the war. She was 38 years of age at enlistment in 1918. There's no 152 on the maps nor is there a 2152. Plate 52 skips from 2074 to 2215. Maybe she was staying at St. Anthony's on St. Antoine but it's Roman Catholic and according to the Great War Project listing she was Methodist. Going further into the Great War Project I turned up other listings having to do with Plymouth Grove. Private Oliver Forrester who's next of kin, Mary Forrester lived at 74 Plymouth Grove. Sergeant Philip Martin, son of Philip and Bridget Martin (nee Brady); husband of Mary Martin (nee Nerney), of 116, Plymouth Grove. Private James Monahan, husband of Dorothy Monahan, of 58, Plymouth Grove. All three died in the war. It's obvious that the street numbers were different 30 years prior to the map I have but I can't find a map from the war's time period to corroborate this. At any rate, Plymouth Grove definitely has an interesting history thus far and the ties to the First World War really adds a poignancy to my story. Maybe Mary Vance in old age unsuccessfully tries to fend off the city and their destructive highway proposal, leading a charge by Plymouth Grove's ancient residents? Just when I get into another topic WWI pulls me back in.

Research Update for the New Album - # 1

2009-12-03T12:17:00.009-05:00

As those of you who are familiar with us know, we here at Tiny Iota research our album themes heavily. As we've begun work on our new record and the themes have been chosen I'll be doing updates on what we're up to. The themes chosen are the Ville-Marie Expressway in Montreal, the Quebec government's Turcot Interchange proposal and the human cost of displacement on these projects. The story will trace the battles of the people of Plymouth Grove in the late 1960's and early 1970's whose homes were destroyed for the Ville-Marie and today's residents of the Village des Tanneries who are fighting to save their homes from the impending Turcot project.

Away we go!

The first thing I did was to try to find some online information about highway projects in Montreal. Here's what I found:

-An old CBC report with Jane Jacobs comparing Montreal and Toronto in 1969. This may have been right in the middle of the era I'm looking at but she doesn't mention the Ville-Marie. Still quite interesting and fun to see Jacobs even if she does seem a little uncomfortable in front of the camera.

-A design brief for the southern section of Decarie. It also doesn't mention the Ville-Marie but is still quite an interesting read.

-A Radio-Canada radio report on the Ville-Marie, though mostly having to do with Westmount and southern Westmount but also Ontario Street. There goes Selby Street. And here it is now thanks to Google Street View. Lovely.

The Radio-Canada bit was helpful and quite informative and help put me in the direction of researching the area above St. Antoine in St. Henri. The next thing I needed to do was to find some maps of the area to see what was there before the highway.

Next time I'll be getting into said old insurance maps from the 1950's of the area in question and how this led me to a little street called Plymouth Grove and the First World War veterans who, if still living in the neighborhood, would have been expropriated.

Chairs @ Casa Del Popolo

2009-11-26T12:23:00.002-05:00

In case you missed it here's a video:

Two Dimensional

Hot Crackers! EP

2009-11-19T22:37:00.001-05:00

Get it while it's hot, folks! Right here. A new EP, mixing live covers, unreleased To Hell... tracks and the soundtrack to Tiny Iota in Hot Crackers!

Dig this review from the upcoming Montreal Mirror:

Joshua R. Simek (Montreal Mirror, December 2009)

After dropping the double-disc bonanza that was To Hell With All That last summer Tiny Iota's latest seems positively puny in comparison. One disc? I mean...c'mon! It is what it is, though, an assortment of odds and ends and live tracks. Audio quality on the live tracks is generally lacking but somehow they manage to put across the intense energy these guys give off on stage and while there may be some meandering (a 9:36 version of Africa by Toto, eight minutes of Safety Dance) these covers are definitely the highlight of the set, especially the opening salvo of Monkey Gone To Heaven. This is certainly the masterpiece of this record and they play all the right cards. The loud/quiet dynamic, the 'cello melodies arranged for guitars and the out of sync, minimalist ending. These guys know ho to change things up good. Who else would do a free-jazz version of Africa?

Tiny Iota on the Radio

2009-11-10T12:08:00.001-05:00

December 31st at 8:30 a.m. on 102,3 FM (Radio Centre-Ville) in Montreal. Tune in live or listen on the website later!

Ethan Iverson Plays James P. Johnson

2009-10-21T20:12:00.002-04:00

Live @ Smalls

The Syncing might be a little off!

It was a total fluke that I managed to record this at all and unfortunately I had to head out and couldn't catch any of the other pianists. Thanks to Smalls, though, you can listen to the entire concert here:

http://www.smallsjazzclub.com/index.cfm?eventId=2142

If Smalls or Mr. Iverson wish me to take this down I'd be happy to comply.

Tiny Iota - Deeps

2009-09-15T19:33:00.000-04:00

Live at The Pound, Montreal - 05/30/09

Tiny Iota - Sheet Iron and Brine

2009-09-13T21:46:00.001-04:00

New TI live video from The Pound, 05/30/09. Two, count 'em, TWO camera angles. Notice at the beginning that the shot on the bottom right is being shot by the guy who's back you see in the shot on the top left.

Pure snazz!

What's With Lame Jazz Tune Names? (The Kids Hate It)

2009-08-24T06:39:00.009-04:00

Just read this article by Nate Chinen on the Strickland brothers and E.J.'s new album contains a track called "New Beginnings." So, I thought, "Wow, that is one lame name for a tune. I wonder how many other people have used it." A quick song search on AllMusic.com turned up 186 results including Gerald Albright, Don Pullen and even Faith No More and Judas Priest. Judas Priest? Fine. Don Pullen? Come on! Don Pullen was one cool m***erf***er. He's certainly had better ones (whoever came up with "Poodle Pie"... genius). Anyway, this got me thinking about how jazz musicians, at least these days, tack such lame names onto their albums/tunes. Just get any issue of JazzTimes or Downbeat and scan the album reviews. For example:

JazzTimes, October 2006

Ron Horton Everything in a Dream
Dimitri Vassilakis Parallel Lines
The Yellowjackets Twenty Five (they'd been together 25 years, of course)
David Benoit Full Circle (Peak)
Carla White A Voice in the Night
Rossano Sportiello Heart and Soul (bonus points for an awesome album cover)
Jason Kao Hwang Edge
William Hooker/Lee Ranaldo The Celestial Answer
John Lee Hooker Jr. Cold As Ice (another great cover)

Not to mention the band Mujician. Keith Tippett? Awesome. Paul Dunmall? Again, awesome. Mujician? Why not just call the band Wizard Bong? Or Prestijazzitation?

And that's just one issue of one jazz magazine. So, what's going on here? Why are these creative musicians so un-creative when it comes to naming stuff? Not every jazz musician is so incredibly, unbelievably bad at naming things. Anthony Braxton's come up with some really great stuff like "Composition 76." That's the spirit! (Actually I kinda' wish he'd called it like it is, "Geometric, Differently Coloured Shapes over Equations Connected to Bits of Notation by Dotted Lines." Has more "zazz.") But even someone like Matt Wilson who never takes himself or his music too seriously can name something "A Dusting of Snow."

Yarg.

I think this is one reason why today's youth aren't that into jazz. What teenager wants to download an album called "Night Wings." I love Pat Martino but that is real lame. If they only knew that Count Basie had a tune called "Dark Rapture." Or Thelonious Monk wrote "Ba-lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are." Or Sun Ra...

Sun.

Ra.

Ra was probably the most prolific and talented namer of tunes ever. Just a sampling:

Appraoch of the Eternal Tomorrow
Call For All Demons
Cosmo Enticement
Cosmo Rhythmatic
Dance of the Cosmo-Aliens
Dance of the Language Barrier
Advice for Medics
Pin-Points of Spiral Prisms
Starships and Solar Boats
Disguised Gods In Skullduggery Rendez-Vous
Street Named Hell
The Order of the Pharaonic Jesters
Gods of the Thunder Realm

Gods of the Thunder Realm! Awesome! What kid wouldn't be into that?

The Tiny Iota Show - Episode 3

2009-08-22T22:40:00.000-04:00

One Big Note

Whoa, I never noticed that before! #1

2009-08-02T19:24:00.005-04:00

Ok, here's a new segment called "Whoa, I never noticed that before!" This week?

Artist - Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band
Song/Piece - The Clouds Are Full Of Wine Not Whiskey or Rye
Album - Lick My Decals Off, Baby

I've listened to this song hundreds of times but not until this past week did I notice this mind blowing bass/marimba hookup at 2:05. They're pretty much together for the whole tune but that bit where everything kind of falls apart... there's Rockette and Ed, like ancient iron nails barely holding together a dilapidated century-old barn in the face of a wicked nor'easter. You might notice a couple of things missing from this recording, of course and that would be Don and Bill Harlkeroad. I pulled them out of the mix to better hear this amazing feat of synchrotude. I was able to do that thanks to Rockette himself who sent me a couple of discs of only the bass, drum, guitar and marimba tracks from that album so I would be able to figure this stuff out. Now, if anyone cares to see what the intro looks like on paper look no further than this transcription sent to me by the great composer Arthur Jarvinen.

The Tiny Iota Show - Episode 2b

2009-07-18T18:50:00.001-04:00

Hot Crackers! A Silent Film

Did Rodd Keith Recycle Backing Tracks?

2009-07-05T13:11:00.004-04:00

Yes, he did! Check it out!

Rodd Keith - How Can A Man Overcome His Heartbroken Pain/I Dreamed Too Long Woke Up Too Late

Now, around the 2:30 mark things start to get a little out of sync, probably a tape speed thing because all the drum fills are exactly the same. Now, whether Rodd liked really liked this tune or just desperately needed some tracks I don't know but I actually really like listening to it this way, pseudo quadrophonically. He also reused chord proegressions as in "This" and "The Day Snowflakes Were Born." Same chords but different recording.

I've been really obsessing over this stuff lately. It's quite something else and I've been thinking about doing it with Tiny Iota.

So send us your lyrics, folks, and we'll set them to music!

Want to know more about song-poems? Visit:

Rodd Keith
American Song-Poem Music Archive
Off The Charts (An amazing documentary about the history of song-poems)

The Tiny Iota Show - Episode 1 - Bread-Branes

2009-06-09T21:48:00.000-04:00

New Tiny Iota Live Videos

2009-06-04T19:34:00.001-04:00

From The Pound (Montreal), May 30th, 2009

Lovingly shot by one Swenson Clane.

TI

TI and Chairs

Tiny Iota - The Makings of You Contest

2009-05-17T16:38:00.006-04:00

If you can identify at least TWO stylistic components of this Curtis Mayfield song (i.e. the intro sounds like Black Sabbath, the second part sounds like Grand Funk Railroad, etc.) you win a handmade copy of To Hell With All That, INCLUDING a DVD.

So, what are the makings of this cover?

E-mail your guesses to: commissionerofthenorth at gmail.com

David King and Tiny Iota and Superimposed Metric Modulation and Time Signatures

2009-05-15T09:45:00.016-04:00

Whew, what a title.

I've been enamored of this Dave King drum solo for a while and I actually transcribed it about a year ago but moved and lost the paper I wrote it on and I'm far too lazy to do that all over again. He does some stuff I really like, though and so I'm just going to try to highlight those parts which would be the superimposed metric modulation bits at the beginning.

I love this stuff and it's something we do a lot in TI, especially on To Hell With All That (To access it though, you have to play both discs simultaneously as per the instructions.) If you're not familiar with metric modulation it's actually a very simple concept. Take a note value, say quarter note triplets and modulate to a new tempo in which the former quarter note triplets are now the base quarter notes. Elliot Carter is usually considered the father of metric modulation though he preferred to call it temporal modulation which is actually way more accurate and I'm sure musicologists could tell me of several hundred pre-Carter compositions that use this technique.

What we're going to talk about is superimposed metric modulation, so playing the new tempo over the old. We'll also talk about superimposing time signatures over one another and finally how Tiny Iota used tempo superimpositions on To Hell With All That.

To start, Dave King and his solo on Cheney Pinata in this video from the Village Vanguard:

He starts by superimposing four quarter notes over three then starts playing a 4/4 beat in a new tempo, the tempo being that four over three bit and then finally changes it up so that he's superimposing a beat in 4/4 over 3/4, in the original tempo this time which he also does at the very end. Fun stuff!

We do a lot of this kind of thing in Tiny Iota as well. On To Hell With All That (double album, both discs playable simultaneously, available directly from us in hand-made packaging) there are several instances of superimposed tempos. As an example I'm going to use Turkey Shoot and Deeps. Turkey Shoot starts at 145 bpm while Deeps starts at 125 bpm. Deeps then changes to 145 to sync up with Turkey Shoot, like so:

As far as live applications we're currently working on a splice of the two songs, starting with Fig. A. Drums come in with the Deeps Beat and guitars slow down and fall into tempo with the same figure. Once everyone's in the proper tempo we then superimpose Fig. B over the Deeps Beat so 4/4 over 5/4. Play that 15 times and, BOOM, straight into Deeps. Here's the original recording so you can hear the parts I'm talking about:

Hopefully, I'll have some video of this up soon on our YouTube channel.

In the meantime there's always Do The Math and if you'd like to check out Tiny Iota you can do so here.

The Tiny Iota Show - Episode 1

2009-05-09T20:40:00.007-04:00

This is episode one of the Tiny Iota Show which we will hopefully begin to shoot this summer. We'll be posting all episodes on our YouTube page where you can also find more TI related material. We might also need people to play a role or two so please contact us if you're interested.

Here 'tis, the Tiny Iota Show, ep. 1

Cold opening: Establishing shot of Chris’s place. Cut to inside where the band sits boredly twiddling silently for roughly 20 seconds.

Chris: Ah-

Establishing shot of Chris’s place. Cut to inside to Jimmy, Jeremy and Dan.

Jimmy (to Jeremy): Hey, suck-ass!

Jimmy smashes an instrument belonging to Jeremy and leaves.

Jeremy: That was my favourite instrument. I hate Jimmy. I’m going to kill Jimmy.

Matt and Chris walk in.

Matt: I love Jimmy.
Chris: Yeah, me too.
Jeremy: I hate Jimmy.
Matt (holding a doughnut): Jimmy gave me a doughnut.
Chris (holding a loonie): Yeah, Jimmy gave me his last dollar.
Jeremy: I’m going to kill Jimmy.

Jeremy leaves.

Matt: Man, I really want some cookies.
Chris: I like cookies.
Dan: Let’s go get cookies.

Establishing shot of the dep. Inside Matt, Chris and Dan peruse the cookie section.

Matt: Wow, these cookies are really cheap, I wonder if they’re retarded.
Dan: What?
Matt: I said, these cookies are really cheap, I wonder if they’re expired.
Chris: No, you said “I wonder if they’re retarded.”
Matt: That’s ridiculous, how can a cookie be retarded?
Chris: That’s what you said.
Matt: I didn’t.
Dan: You did. You said “retarded.”
Matt: Whatever, I’m buying these cookies.

Matt, Chris and Dan check out and go outside whereupon they run into Jeremy.

Jeremy: Zane. Check it out, I built a time travel wristwatch so I could go back in time and kill Jimmy before he smashes my favourite instrument.

Long pause.

Matt: Does it work?
Jeremy: I’m about to find out.
Chris: Let us know how that works out.
Jeremy: Oh, you’ll find out when Jimmy is dead. Yesterday.

Jeremy leaves.

Matt: Milk?
Dan and Chris nod “yes.”

Jeremy stands outside Chris’s place. Jimmy walks past.

Jimmy: Hey, suck-ass!
Jeremy: Hey, Jimmy come here a minute, I wanted to show you something inside Chris’s oven.
Jimmy: Cool!

Jeremy and Jimmy go into Chris’s place. There’s some thumping and screaming. Jeremy emerges from the apartment and repeatedly slams the door as if on Jimmy’s head, blood squirting out. Jeremy walks away looking content.

Establishing shot of the dep.

Matt: Wow, these cookies are really cheap, I wonder if they’re retarded.
Dan: What?
Matt: I said, these cookies are really cheap, I wonder if they’re expired.
Chris: No, you said “I wonder if they’re retarded.”
Matt: That’s ridiculous, how can a cookie be retarded?

Outside:

Jeremy: Zane. I just killed Jimmy.
Chris: Really? ‘Cause he looks pretty good.

Jimmy appears and knocks Jeremy’s drink out of his hands.

Jimmy: Hey, suck-ass!
Jeremy: What the hell, I just killed him! I bashed his head in!
Matt: His head looks pretty intact.
Jeremy: (while walking away) Damnit! I have to kill him again.
Pause.
Matt: Milk?

Dan and Chris nod “yes.”

Jeremy stands outside Chris’s place. Jimmy walks past.

Jimmy: Hey, suck-ass!
Jeremy: Hey, Jimmy come here a minute, I wanted to show you something inside Chris’s oven.
Jimmy: Cool!

Shot of Jimmy’s legs dangling. Matt, Chris and Dan walk in.

Dan: Jimmy?
Chris: I think he’s dead.

Pause.

Matt: Man, I really want some cookies.
Chris: I like cookies.
Dan: Let’s go get cookies.

Establishing shot of the dep.

Matt: Wow, these cookies are really cheap, I wonder if they’re retarded.
Dan: What?

Outside:

Jeremy: Zane. I just killed Jimmy.
Chris: Really? ‘Cause he looks pretty good.

Jimmy appears and knocks Jeremy’s drink out of his hands.

Jimmy: Hey, suck-ass!
Jeremy: What the hell, I just killed him! I killed him twice!
Matt: He looks pretty intact.
Jeremy: (while walking away) What is going on?

Pause.

Matt: Milk?

Dan and Chris nod “yes.”

Jeremy sits down on a bench next to Shawn looking confused.

Shawn: Time travel problems, huh?
Jeremy: How did you know?
Shawn: I’m from the future.
Jeremy: Oh.
Shawn: I’m what you might call the “Time Police”, my “beat” is the first ten years of the 21st century and you, my friend, have been massively screwing things up in hyperspace.
Jeremy: Oh.
Shawn: You must be pretty confused about why you haven’t been able to kill Jimmy, no?
Jeremy: Yes.
Shawn: As a consequence of your crude time-travel technology you haven’t actually been going back in your own time. You’ve been creating alternate universes everytime you’ve gone back or forth.
Jeremy: So I’ve been killing alternate Jimmys.
Shawn: Right. Two of them so far. See, your universe, all universes exist on membranes floating in hyperspace. When you went back the first time (Shawn holds up a slice of bread) you created a new membrane with a new universe. When you went back to the future (Shawn holds up another slice of bread) you created another. One in which Jimmy was alive and well. Now, at this point (Shawn holds five slices of bread) you’ve created four alternate universes to your own.
Jeremy: Zane.
Shawn: All of which must be destroyed.
Jeremy: Uh huh.
Shawn: And one of which we’re in right now.
Jeremy: Hm.
Shawn: I’m here to escort back to your own universe.
Jeremy: Ok.

Shawn and Jeremy walk off camera.

The band is together for rehearsal at Chris’s place.

Jeremy: Hey, where’s Jimmy been? I haven’t seen him in days.
Matt: His mom died so went back to B.C. to be with his father.
Jeremy: Oh.

The band sits boredly twiddling silently for roughly 20 seconds.

Chris: Ah-

Jane Jacobs Ccompares Montreal and Toronto in 1969

2009-05-05T12:47:00.007-04:00

I just found this quite interesting video. Anyone out there have anything more recent that Jane Jacobs has said about Montreal?

Mostly glowing reviews for Montreal but what of the Decarie Expressway? She says nothing about it. I mean, come on! Look familiar?

The Cross Bronx Epressway wasn't exactly popular among the citizens of the Bronx and Jacobs herself certainly didn't approve. So, she lays into University Ave. and the Spadina Expressway in Toronto but nothing on the Decarie.

According to Wikipedia: "Many have blamed the Cross Bronx Expressway for worsening the decay of neighborhoods in the South Bronx, with the prominent example being the neighborhood of Tremont. In Robert Caro's The Power Broker, the author argues that Moses intentionally directed the expressway through this neighborhood, even though there was a more viable option only one block south. Many of the neighborhoods it runs through have been continually poor since before its construction, primarily due to the lowered property value caused by the Expressway. This is partially responsible for the public opposition to many other planned expressways in New York City that were later cancelled."

Like the Lower Manhattan Expressway for instance. So how much opposition was there to the Decarie? Well, I haven't been able to find anything on the internet about it but I did ask a friend of mine who was around and old enough to remember when it was built and he said that there was quite a bit of public outcry. Not enough to change anything other than curving the path enough to avoid destroying Notre Dame de Grace Church but people were not happy. It got built, anyway and was rammed through several neighbourhoods in much the same style as the Cross Bronx. Though to my knowledge (and I certainly could be wrong) the Cross Bronx Expressway has never flooded.

Here's a really interesting Design Brief from Concordia's Advanced Urban Laboratory.

And here's a really interesting talk by Robert Caro about Moses and The Power Broker.

Billy Bauer: Plectrist and Reluctant Modernist?

2009-04-21T20:29:00.042-04:00

Billy Bauer is normally overlooked in the history of jazz guitar which usually goes something like Eddie Lang to Charlie Christian to Django Rheinhardt to Wes Montgomery, etc. and some excellent musicians have been all but forgotten, ignored by everyone but hardcore jazz fans and fellow guitarists. Tiny Grimes? Why, he was only the next most important six-stringer (well, four-stringer since he played the tenor guitar, thanks Colm) in the creation of bebop after Christian. Arguably even more important since he made some of earliest bop recordings with Bird and Dizzy. So with Billy Bauer, First Herder, proto-free jazzer and educator. Bauer was the first recorded free-jazz guitarist and if you trace that lineage forward you have to wait a while before you hit the next one which would be, um, Derek Bailey? Sonny Sharrock, maybe? (Well, the guitar wasn't a favourite instrument of the jazz avant-garde until they started making some real noise in the 1960's. The electric guitar's noise-making capacities are unparelled, after all.) Billy Bauer was really a straight-ahead kind of player, though, judging from his post-Tristano work. His album Plectrist played side-by-side with another jazz guitar classic of the period, Johnny Smith's Moonlight in Vermont sounds pretty tame. Super swinging with impeccable playing but after listening to the Tristano records, pretty conventional. Makes you think, did Billy Bauer really want to play Tristano's music? As Bauer tells it in his autobiography Sideman:

“I didn’t get into Lennie’s scene. I don’t know why he kept me on. I went along with it. I don’t know how I did that.”

and Arnold Fishkin also from Sideman:

Bauer said to Tristano, “‘Every time I catch you harmonically you go in another direction…Maybe you’d be better off with a drummer instead of me.’ Lennie would chuckle, ‘No, Billy, I don’t want drums. Just keep on doing what you’re doing. It’s just fine.’”

It really seems that Bauer wasn't into the whole Tristano thing and his solo on the studio recording of Wow seems to point in that direction (please forgive my crummy handwriting and inaccuracies).

He sounds a little uncomfortable, a little unsure. There's a muffed note near the end and a couple of instances where he sounds a little tentative, certainly sitting between Konitz and Marsh and the two most striking things about this solo are the pedal-point phrases in bars 2 and 9/10. This recording was made in 1949 and Bauer had been recording with Tristano since 1946 so it would seem that he had enough time to get comfortable with Lennie's ideas. He just doesn't sound like he is here. But what a difference a year makes. Check out Billy's solo on this club date recording of Wow from sometime in 1950:

Wow, indeed! He sounds so much more relaxed, more integrated into the rest of the group. This is some pretty "out" guitar for 1950, no one was playing quite this way. Dig his opening phrases:

What a cool, weird little idea. And he plays slight variations on it at :39, :52 and 1:11. This is some pretty remarkable guitar playing for 1950. Who else was playing stuff like this?

Listening to Plectrist though, you really hear where Billy's heart is. He was as great a chordal player as Smith (check out It's a Blue World from Plectrist) and as great a single-line player as Farlow (see Lincoln Tunnel, also from Plectrist), two players who almost completely overshadow him, props-wise. In the end Billy Bauer's deepest impression was made more on his students than in the jazz history books through his work with Billy Bauer's Guitar School in Roslyn Heights, Long Island and his Guitar Instructor Series. Whoever studied under Billy has only fond memories and to end this post I'm going to include an obituary written after Billy's death in 2005 by Lane Steinberg, former Billy Bauer pupil and a prolific and quite awesome maker of music and Mustafio.

BB (That's What Bird Called Him)

I just read that Billy Bauer passed away. Many things going through my mind right now. I studied with Billy twice, once in my teens and later in my twenties. When I came to him the second time, I told him that I didn't care about becoming a virtuoso, just a better songwriter.

I was musically stuck. I was stale. I hated everything that was coming out of me. I needed some fresh perspective. Billy started me playing a C scale with a metronome. Slowly. Very slowly. I was, like, "What the fuck is this? I know the C scale", and he'd look at me and tell me to play it over and over again, in every possible configuration on the guitar, week after week. He was trying to clean me out, get me back to the beginning. He was trying to re-groove me. He told me I had to slow down my mind, that I was going too fast. I later read that Voltaire said a mind that goes too fast is diseased. I would hang out long after my lesson finished, just talking with Billy. He had a drug-like effect on me. I would feel altered after I left him. Calmer, but more aware. He broke down my ego and helped me rebuild into something more rooted in humility. He told me that I had to swing not just in music, but in life. I'd be playing that damn C scale and he'd reach over and grab my torso and push me forward on the "two" and back on the "four". "Swing, man. RELAX! Swing!" He had his bad moods. He could be cutting and blunt, especially if he saw that you were becoming impressed with yourself. He despised braggards. This was a guy who played with Miles, Billie, Bird, Lennie, and would never bring it up unless you did. But he didn't bullshit, either. He rarely gave out compliments, but when he did, they meant the world. He smiled once when I told him I was enjoying a Bobby Hacket record, and commented on his identifiable sound. He told me that was the key, finding one's voice. He said that was something that no one could ever take away from you. We studied Lester Young's solo on Billie Holliday's version of "Mean To Me", and had me sing it for weeks before we'd ever play it on the guitar. He'd put on the recording and we'd sing it together. He had a squeaky voice, but he'd be belting this solo out like Pee Wee Herman imitating Ella Fitzgerald. He said I had no right playing it until I could sing it. I fought him and questioned him. Why was I doing this, singing Lester Young

solos with this old guy in a stuffy room on Long Island? He was very patient with me. He'd look at me with all the tenderness of a parent, lightly poke me in the chest, and say, "I'm trying to get you to understand YOU". Many of his former students would talk about these "Billy Bombs", little bits of insight into music and life that you would barely notice at the time, but would silently explode in your subconcious and emerge later in the full flower of understanding. He said a lot of things both deep and funny. He once said that most drummers don't keep good time. "If you ever find a good drummer, chain him to your leg if you have to, but don't let him get away!" After a
time, I stopped studying with Billy formally, but we always remained in touch. We were working on a project together to re-master all these tapes he had lying around of these informal jam sessions, some of which were fairly amazing, but he wanted me to edit out all his solos because he said everyone was playing good except him! Not surprisingly, we didn't get too far. A few years later, I proudly sent him my first solo CD, and he said, "Jeez, there's so much music in this music!" It was the nicest thing he could have said to me. We talked often, about our families, about music. We talked after 9/11. Nothing seemed to really faze him. When Marion, his wife of many decades, passed away he said, "What are you gonna do? Everyone dies." But I knew he wasn't going to last very long without her, and he didn't even make it through the year. Two weeks ago I was driving home on the Long Island Expressway, coming back from IKEA. I was going to pull off exit 37 and go say hello, but it was 9:00PM and I felt it was too late. Little did I know he's past the week before. I'll miss and remember him always.

There's a great article written by Harvey Pekar from an old issue of JazzTimes (thanks JazzTimes!) about Billy as part if their Overdue Ovation series which is where I stole the quotes from, not the actual autobiography and here's two web sites about Billy:

http://www.billybauersmusic.com/

and

http://www.siterrific.com/Bauer/

Of course everyone even remotely interested in this music should go right out and pick up Sideman (myself included) and Plectrist.

Peter Bernstein Trio - Monk

2009-04-19T11:12:00.005-04:00

Peter Bernstein owns the guitar. You really get the feeling that he can do whatever he wants with it but it's never gratuitous. Listen to the way, for instance, that he comps for himself so effortlessly. Or weaves chords into his single-note lines. Or improvises so melodically that one could take any number of bits from his solos and write entirely new tunes from them. I'd give specific examples but they're everywhere, from the beginning of Let's Cool One to the end of an overdubbed Reflections. Peter Bernstein owns the guitar. It's also helpful to keep in mind just how hard it is to do what he's doing here. The intervals Monk used on the piano are extremely awkward to play on the guitar and not only does Bernstein do it but throws these harmonic shards into the middle of his single-note improvisations just like Monk did at the piano. He also does it all while retaining his own voice, not merely copying Monk's licks and rhythmic style. The duo of Doug Weiss and Bill Stewart on bass and drums keeps things moving nicely. Stewart's the more interesting soloist but Weiss plays some solid, swinging solos, too and neither shy's away from engaging the guitarist on their respective harmonic and rhythmic levels. One does wish Stewart would be a little more aggressive in his accompaniment, though and that's what keeps this date from being the kind of hard swinging affair a Thelonious Monk date was. Bernstein also plays two tunes solo, Monk's Mood and Ruby, My Dear and both illustrate just what he can do. All of the traits mentioned above come to the fore and this record is never more satisfying.

New Videos

2009-04-13T17:34:00.000-04:00

Quoditium

Guitar Solo #1 - Bois De Ville

Guitar Solo #1 - Bois De Ville

Tiny Iota On Tour!

2009-03-24T20:17:00.000-04:00

Catch us if you can!

24 Apr 2009