Littlefield

Doors @ 7:30pm
*first 12 people to arrive will receive a free copy of Community Immunity!

The Kris Davis Trio /8pm
Kris Davis, Piano; Tom Rainey, Drums; Eivind Opsvik, Bass.

The Curtis Macdonald Group /9pm
Curtis Macdonald, Alto Sax; Jeremy Viner, Tenor Sax;
David Virelles, Piano; Chris Tordini, Bass; Adam Jackson, Drums.

Chris Speed‘s yeah NO /10:30pm
Chris Speed, Tenor Sax; Shane Endsley, Trumpet;
Skúli Sverrisson, Bass; Jim Black, Drums.

$10 cover for the entire night!

Littlefield is located at:
622 Degraw St. Brooklyn, NY

pre-purchase recommended

PHOTOS:

Community Immunity | credits & thank yous

Community: A group of interacting species sharing a common environment.
Immunity: A condition that permits natural or acquired resistance.

All compositions composed by Curtis Robert Macdonald (SOCAN)
Published by CMACSOUND (SOCAN)

Engineered by Dae Bennett and Travis Stefl
Mixed by Tyler McDiarmid
Mastered by A.T. Michael MacDonald
Additional Engineering by: Rob Murray, Jake Leckie & Curtis Macdonald

Produced by Curtis Macdonald

Photography, Artwork and Design by Matthew Macdonald of Syndrome Design.
Recorded on October 13 & 14, 2009 at Bennett Studios, NJ

Thank you

Mom & Dad for unconditionally supporting my creative endeavors.

To the musicians who constantly inspire:
David Virelles, Chris Tordini, Jeremy Viner, Travis Reuter, Greg Ritchie, Michal Vaňouček,
Becca Stevens, Andréa Tyniec

To the sound engineers who labored over the details:
Tyler McDiarmid, Dae Bennett, Travis Stefl, Michael MacDonald, Rob Murray, Jake Leckie

For the unfathomable support and endless resource:
The Banff Centre Music & Sound Department
Theresa Leonard, Barry Schiffman, Steve Bellamy, John D.S. Adams, Geoff Shoesmith

Parsons, The New School for Design, Department of Art, Media & Technology
Charlie Pizzarello, Julia Salerni, Jane Pirone

The New School For Jazz & Contemporary Music
Martin Mueller, Pam Sabrin, Dan Greenblatt, Jane Ira Bloom, Brenda Barlow, Bethany Ryker

Greenleaf Music
Dave Douglas, Benjamin Levin, Jim Tuerk

To all those who aided either directly or indirectly, to the creation and realization of this album:
Chern-Hwei Fung, Meredith Bates, Katelyn Clark, Michael Culler, Meining Cheung, Terri Hron, Dan Porter, Audrey Arbeeny, Michael Sweet, Frank Vogt, Bobby Avey, Cody Brown, Kyle Wilson, Adam Jackson, Tobia Neufeld, Maurice Hogue, Franco Rinaldi, Matt Macdonald, Chris DiGirolamo, Scott Stickland

musings on language & vocabulary

More thoughts and inspiration from “The Act of Creation“ by Arthur Koestler; this time focusing on the subject of language.

“‘Logic’ derives from logos, which originally meant ‘language’, ‘thought’, and ‘reason’, all in one.  Thinking in concepts emerged out of thinking in images through the slow development of the powers of abstraction and symbolization, as the phonetic script emerged by similar processes out of pictorial symbols and hieroglyphs. Most of us were brought up in the belief that ‘thinking’ is synonymous with verbal thinking, and philosophers from Athens to Oxford have kept reasserting this belief.  The early Behaviorists went even further, asserting not only that words are indispensable to thought, but also that thinking is nothing more than the subliminal movements of the vocal chords, an inaudible whispering to oneself.”

The idea of thought as inaudible sound is quite interesting.  Perhaps thoughts have their place on the frequency spectrum.

“…the high aesthetic value which we put on visual imagery should not obscure the fact that as vehicles of thought, pictorial and other non-verbal representations are indeed earlier, both phylo-genetically and onto-genetically older forms of ideation, than verbal thinking.  Kekulé‘s ‘Let us dream, gentlemen’, is an invitation to regression and retreat–but a regression which prepares the forward leap, a reculer pour mieux sauter.” [Translation: "to draw back in order to make a better jump"]

“The necessity for this retreat derives from the fact that words are a blessing which can turn into a curse.  They crystallize thought; they give articulation and precision to vague images and hazy intuitions.  But a crystal is no longer a fluid.  ‘Language is not only the foundation for the whole faculty of thinking, but the central point also from which proceed the misunderstandings of reason by herself.’  This was written by Hamman, a German philosopher who had a great influence on Goethe.”

Thoughts are inherently fluid, carrying with them not only words, but images, feelings and instincts.  Words are a way of crystallizing thought, but perhaps the thought itself is liquid and thus its meaning is lost in translation when it embodies a different form.  This is the “poverty in vocabulary” that writer H. G. Wells points out: “The forcepts of our minds are clumsy things and crush the truth a little in the course of taking hold of it.” Koestler reiterates:  “…internal thought especially when creative, willingly uses other systems of signs which are more flexible, less standardized than language and leave more liberty, more dynamism to creative thought.“  Perhaps music’s power of encoding sensation in sound is why musicians gravitate to it as their medium of preference in the first place.

Moreover, the author writes:

“The scientists’ trouble with language is of a different nature.  He suffers not from the poverty of his verbal tools but rather from their over-precision, and the hidden snares in them… Words are essential tools for formulating and communicating thoughts, and also for putting them into the storage of memory; but words can also become snares, decoys, or straight-jackets.”

Taking words for their literal face value may only lead to a surface-level understanding of the content they reference.  Often, jazz is referred to as a ‘language’ but I wonder: if we’re putting so much emphasis on the language of jazz and its vocabulary, what are we glazing over in doing so?  Referring to an art form as a language implies that one needs a translator in order to decipher it.  If music is indeed universal, then why is there so much talk about the so-called language of jazz?

“Language can become a screen which stands between the thinker and reality.
This is the reason why true creativity often starts where language ends.“

Bar 4

Monday, March 7th
@ Bar 4
444 7th Ave, Brooklyn

9pm:
Curtis Macdonald – Alto Sax
Bobby Avey – Rhodes
Chris Tordini – Bass
Adam Jackson – Drums

$5 suggested donation

http://cmac.me/march7

Cornelia St. Café

Thursday, February 17th
at Cornelia St. Café
directions

8:30pm
The Curtis Macdonald Group:
Curtis Macdonald – Alto Sax
Jeremy Viner – Tenor Sax
Bobby Avey – Piano
Chris Tordini – Bass
Devin Gray – Drums

10pm
Kenny Warren Group:
Kenny Warren – Trumpet
Dan Peck – Tuba
Owen Stewart-Robertson – Guitar
Devin Gray – Drums

$10 cover/min

Reservations recommended!
212.989.9319