programmed drums & piano II
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Friend and composer Darren Miller recently wrote a series of several short pieces for the digital player piano – in fact, for the very same instrument I wrote something for last fall – (see previous post here). This time, I asked Darren to give me the audio he recorded from the player piano – I felt driven to add drums and other misc percussion to his piece. After many wakeful nights tucked away behind samplers, I constructed this little hybrid.
There are hundreds of samples used in this piece, some of which originated from the drums of Nasheet Waits , Eric MacPherson and Jim Black. (see previous post “Nancarrow Arrangement” and This Mention on Post Classic). I took it further this time, employing drummer Max Goldman in the studio one afternoon – I recorded him performing all sorts of techniques across 2 drum kits, plus additional percussion improvisations. He is the drummer featured the most in this little experiment.
Look at this sort of thing like this: take a bundle of magazines, cut out letters from various attractive headlines and then piecing it all together to create a collage-like message. Today, composers are able to utilize attractive “found-sound” audio bits in very much the same way as drawing notes to a page. It’s the same process, different interface! One helps the other.
cmac group @ tutuma’s social club
The Curtis Macdonald Group Live @ Tutuma’s Social Club
Monday, March 29th at 10pm
Featuring:
Cody Brown – Drums
Dave West – Piano
Rick Rosato – Bass
Lucas Pino – Tenor Sax
Yours Truly – Alto Sax/Compositions
at the tea lounge
Wednesday, February 17th at 9pm at
The Tea Lounge in Brooklyn, NY.
The Curtis Macdonald Group:
Jeremy Viner – Tenor Sax
Dave West – Piano
Chris Tordini – Bass
Greg Ritchie – Drums
curtis macdonald and friends III
Hello Friends!
Come to Coco68 on Friday, January 15 to hear:
9PM
Kyle Wilson – Tenor Sax
Hayden Hawkins – Drums
Ryland Kelly – Bass
10:30pm
Alexandra Grimal – Tenor Sax
Pascal Niggenkemper – Bass
Dave West – Piano
Cody Brown – Drums
Curtis Macdonald – Alto Sax
the viper matrix vol.1
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Friends often become collaborators and whenever I team up with someone, I like to push the boundaries. This case, I wanted to see what could be done with a particular harmonic and rhythmic matrix. The sky is the limit! After much tweaking, a few hits and bowed pianos, I came up with this little gem.
The coolest part about this piece is that it is very intuitive to perform. This track is easily performed live, and is constructed so that no matter how hard you try it will sound different every time. This opens up many ways to improvise and interact with additional instrumentalists… As a bonus, all of the samples are acoustic. The goal was to make a live, interactive patch that sounds as if it were a musicological field recording.
sound design for dance
Last summer at the Banff Centre for the Arts, I met a brilliant choreographer Aszure Barton. I was blown away when I first saw company in rehearsal and was fortunate enough to sneak into her Ballet commissioned by the NBOC (The National Ballet of Canada) in Toronto. This past weekend she asked me for some help with the sound editing and design for her recent premiere at The Juilliard School and her current European Tour. I saw the performance on opening night and was so glad to have been able to contribute to the production.
After now having seen a handful of her work, I am particularly inspired by how she employs counterpoint – her content is so compositional and ripe with richness. If you have the opportunity to catch a performance of hers, it will certainly not disappoint. I look forward to next time already, and I have something new to study for it’s compositional content – choreology!
Here’s a little sample of her work with her company, a piece that I saw them work on intensively and worked on the touring production, it’s an excerpt of “Busk”.
rose live music
The Travis Reuter Group:
Bobby Avey – Piano
Andrew Carrico – Bari Sax
Cody Brown – Drums
Greg Chudzik – Bass
Travis Reuter – Guitar
The Curtis Macdonald Group:
Cody Brown – Drums
Jeremy Viner – Tenor Sax
Pat Reid – Bass (Special Guest!)
Pascal Niggenkemper – Bass
Dave West – Piano
Curtis Macdonald – Alto Sax
Thanks to Chris Conly’s Brooklyn Experiments Series at Rose.
And Syndrome Design for joining our design team!
telematic music for peace
Telemusic mastermind Chris Chafe brought this new project to my attention last week. The same concept-project I worked on over the summer is now flourishing with a huge global consciousness arising as a result. This concert is sponsored by the United Nations, and featured some of today’s most respected creative improvisers. This is truly breakthrough technology being used for all the right reasons – bringing people together to create. Featuring such luminaries as:
Jane Ira Bloom
Oliver Lake
Samir Chatterjee
Mark Dresser
More info from their website:
curating brooklyn part II
The Curtis Macdonald Group
Chris Tordini – Bass
Cody Brown – Drums
Jeremy Viner – Tenor Sax
Dave West – Piano
Yours Truly – Alto Sax
The Aki Ishiguro Group
Aki Ishiguro – Guitar
Nick Anderson – Drums
Pascal Niggenkemper – Bass
Sean Wayland – Keys
Alex Terrier – Sax
The Bobby Avey Trio
Bobby Avey - Keys
Cody Brown – Drums
Chris Tordini – Bass
extra style in the word “curate”
Tim Gough - NYTimes
New York Times reporter Alex Williams caught wind of how I used the idea of ‘curating’ to add a sense of community to venue promotion, people for recordings, and my overall ideals for production in general. Clearly, as his article examines, the term “curate” is no longer reserved for museums, or at least not here in New York City:
“They’re young, discerning and enterprising, and they’ve got a code word to tout it.”
“They don’t simply put on an event, they have an eye for it.”
Curtis Macdonald, a Brooklyn musician, also says that “curate” precisely describes his job: hiring bands for a local site.
“When given to opportunity to curate an evening of music, choosing the right bands is very similar to curating a museum,” Mr. Macdonald explained in an e-mail message. “Since I, the ‘curator,’ choose personnel based on a particular aesthetic, I am able to think of creative ways of presenting music beyond the traditional ‘call-up a venue and ask for a gig’ way of presenting.”
Check out the Full Article.
cmac produces JB3
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I like seeing my old friends from school take necessary initiative and elevate their music to the next level. Ever since graduation, I have been impressed with how much of a following my colleague, RnB artist Jesse Boykins III has generated for himself. He’s been busy all over the U.S. showcasing his music, touring with one of my best friends and outstanding drummer, Adam Jackson, has been featured on numerous blogs and rose to the near summit of the BETJ charts; not to mention fostering several noteworthy collaborations with producers such as JMost, who is also a hugely notable school chum.
Jesse and I have always talked about doing a track together but this summer we finally made it happen. He gave me a scratch a capella vocal track and then I proceeded to mix in the rest. Hopefully this will just be the beginning of a very warm series of collaborations. You can follow Jesse on twitter: @Jb3Music
DOWNLOAD the entire remix album Here.
good times @ sweet rhythm
Sweet Rhythm has been hosting my band since it’s early beginnings and it makes me happy to return to their stage with the new and improved Curtis Macdonald Group.
Greg Ritchie – Drums
Craig Akin – Bass
Jeremy Viner – Tenor Sax/Clarinet
Yours Truly – Alto Sax/Tunes
Thank you to the New School University’s Jazz & Contemporary Music Program for supporting their alumni and booking us for this gig.
cmac group at solo kitchen bar
Greg Ritchie – Drums
Chris Tordini – Bass
Jeremy Viner – Tenor Sax
Yours Truly – Alto Sax/Compositions
Solo Kitchen Bar is a venue in Brooklyn faithfully curated by fantastic guitarist Aki Ishiguro.
Click Here for a Map on how to find Solo Kitchen Bar.
curating brooklyn
Coco66, a venue in Greenpoint Brooklyn asked me to curate a evening of music… I jumped at the offer! This sort of thing is right up my alley. This will be a night of solid, no-cover music starting at 9pm. A central stage is conducive to creating the good-summer vibes perfect for a Friday night in NYC! (…my favorite night to play :)
Here was my thought process in choosing these groups:
Each bandleader is a great composer: Corey King (Trombone/Composition) writes some awesome music inspired by jazz history both past and current, and is a formidable sideman in here in New York, having performed with Dave Binney, Mos Def, Ludacris, and Jason Moran to name a few. And Kenny Warren (Trumpet/Composition) writes for his band in the style of a Balkan dance party! On top of that, he stretches the music to it’s primitive, creative, most transcendent essence…
Curtis Macdonald and Friends Part I
Corey King’s Band:
Kyle Wilson – Tenor Sax
Hayden Hawkins – Drums
Peter Schlamb – Vibes
Clay Schaub – Bass
Corey King – Trombone/Tunes
The Curtis Macdonald Group:
Adam Jackson – Drums
Chris Tordini – Bass
Jeremy Viner – Tenor Sax/Clarinet
Yours Truly – Alto Sax/Tunes
Kenny Warren’s ‘Hala Hala’:
Ila Cantor – Guitar
Greg Chudzik – Bass
Jeff Davis – Drums
Kenny Warren – Trumpet/Tunes
the bonus track for the 2009 compilation
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Every year, the Banff Centre releases a compilation album of all the best recordings from the International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music, fittingly they title it “Centre Pieces”. And yes, that’s centre - the Canadian spelling of “center” :-)
Artistic Director, composer and trumpeter extraordinaire Dave Douglas asked me to create a remix track as an addition to this year’s jazz compilation album. In doing so, I recorded as many sounds as I could from the participants during my time at the workshop. All in all, I sifted through approximately 8 gigs of source material all of which were recorded with nothing more than my pocket-sized field recorder (the Sony PCM-D50 to be exact).
Then the fun began!!
I loaded everything up in a session and played around with all the various individual sound bites. Please note: everything on this track is ‘programmed’ – that is to say these clips were all live, acoustic, and improvised recordings. They were then later re-sliced, effected and synced in an entirely new context quite unique from their original:
Featured on this track is original sound from these musicians:
(in order of appearance)
Adam Miller – Tablas
Michal Vanoucek – ‘Extended’ Piano
Brian Seligman – Acoustic Guitar
Ryan Butler – Electric Guitar
Anu Junnonen – Voice
the joker is released!
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Last year I showed you all an excerpt of a piece I created for recorderist Terri Hron (to see the previous post, click here). Well, I am happy to say that her album “bird on a wire” has just been released throughout Europe, Canada and the U.S., It’s really a great example of several artistic collaborations on many levels. The album’s music is comprised of several composers Terri commissioned for this project, and the audio production is of the highest, warmest quality possible – something that is difficult to achieve when electronics and real-time processing are so widely (or should I say wisely?) utilized. This is a really unique and special album that I am happy to be apart of and encourage you all to seek out.
Terri Hron – Recorder
Dan Porter – Engineering
Yours Truly – Producer/Composer
