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.

click on the post’s link to listen to the music!

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

Here’s a musical snippet from the last performance at the Bowery Poetry Club in NYC.  (see this post).

This venue has been home to many colleagues of mine over the years and it was a pleasure to perform its stage!

As many may already know I’ve been busy writing  music for several albums and there’s no better way to develop new ideas than to hash it out on live – It was a lot of fun playing with these guys, and I’m eager to keep delving deeper into the sound of this repertoire.

London-based improvising saxophonist Simon Rose and I got together one afternoon to play freely.  Two alto saxophonists blowing their asses off simultaneously has the potential to be nauseating, but this encounter was really intuitive and refreshing.  We played completely free, a total improvisation without any set parameters or compositional ideas.  I like to do this  sort of thing with musicians I first meet, it’s like a handshake of sorts – you get to feel each other out on a whole other deeply personal level.  Afterward, I left the room feeling like a huge weight was lifted off my chest.  It’s kinda like therapy – music therapy for improvisers!

Listening back on the recording, it sounds like there are more than just two saxophonists playing at once.  I think that was the coolest part of this experience – bending reality so to speak.

simon rose – alto sax
curtis macdonald – alto sax