Saturday, April 16, 2011

The Two of Anything Band at Barbes



At the end of March I played a set of new music at one of my favorite Brooklyn music haunts, Barbes in Park Slope. The show was part of the Palimpsestic Music series curated by saxophonist Oscar Noriega. I played with a new quartet called The Two of Anything Band with Jeremy Viner on saxophone and clarinet, Eivind Opsvik on bass and Flin Van Hemmen on drums.
I started writing music for the show when I got back from Bolivia in the beginning of March. The material came from recording myself improvising on wurlitzer electric piano and synthesizer, and transcribing parts that I liked. As I was listening back, I found myself more aware than usual of the connections to my various musical influences coming through the music. I decided to embrace this, and as I was developing the material into compositions, I gave each piece two dedications.

Here are a few tunes recorded live at Barbes:

"Research and Development" is dedicated to composer Lou Harrison and my teacher Paul Caputo. There's a part in the piece (not included in the recording) where I play a long line on both keyboards and it has a strange resonance that reminds me of Lou Harrison's gamelan-influenced music, and his keyboard music with different tunings. I developed the lines into a 3-part counterpoint section at the end, and I always think about my lessons with Paul when writing contrapuntal music.









Research and Development by JPSchlegelmilch


"Plant" is dedicated to Jim Black and Werner Herzog.


Plant by JPSchlegelmilch



"Slow Century" is dedicated to Phil Elverum from the bands The Microphones and Mount Eerie, and also to composer Carla Bley.


Slow Century by JPSchlegelmilch