Chris Becker

The Dogs Of Time

2008-05-09T09:42:00.003-07:00

River in Richmond, VA photo by Chris Becker (when he was able to get decent pictures with his cellphone...)

Very, very busy. Very blessed to be busy.

Busy conceptualizing and recording voices and sounds for the upcoming Cornelia Street Cafe show (June 1st) with Roald Hoffman, choreographer Rachel Cohen, and neon artists Kenny Greenberg and Clare Dunn.

Busy tracking, editing and mixing music for projects with my friends Jeremiah Hosea and Peg Simone.

Music for silent films, upcoming session and show in New Orleans...

Reading Alex Ross' The Rest Is Noise on the subways. Looking forward to reading George Lewis' A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music next.

Other cool things are coming up too...more later. Peace. CB

The Lepers Of Melancholy

2008-04-25T09:31:00.001-07:00

From my friend and collaborator Lynn Wright's ...And The Wiremen myspace page:

"Chris Becker, Paul Watson, and I will be heading to New Orleans at the beginning of August to enjoy the fine weather and make a free improv record that shall not be called jazz (ed. note We have nothing against jazz). Whilst in the city of crescent shape, much music, (ed. note and even more (fill in the blank)) we'll be doing a Music for Silent Films gig at Zeitgeist Theater (ed. note We're doing it on August 8th around 10:30pm, yo!) with bassist
Grant Curry who is engineering the aforementioned free improv album whose contents shall not be described with the j word that ends in z."

Upcoming

2008-04-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

Chris Becker in performance at ADA Gallery, Richmond, VA ((photo by Liz Swerdlow)

Is it Spring yet? I can't tell.

June 1st at the Cornelia Street Cafe as part of their "Entertaining Science" series, I will be joining Nobel prize winning chemist Roald Hoffman (who showed up unexpectedly at our ADA Gallery gigs in Richmond), neon artists Kenny Greenberg and Clare Brew, and choreographer Rachel Cohen for an evening of science, light, movement, and music. These shows at Cornelia sell out very quickly, so if you're curious - you'll want to try and get tickets in advance. Roald is also a gifted poet and playwright. His website is very informative and entertaining...and I guess that's the mission for June 1st. To illuminate and entertain.

Lynn Wright and Paul Watson in performance at ADA Gallery, Richmond, VA (photo by Liz Swerdlow)

And blog protocol seems to require I either post a photo of my cat or list what I'm listening to...I'll do the latter. Take care - Chris

Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts
The Beatles - Revolver
John Zorn - The Dreamers
Roberta Flack - First Take and (on vinyl) Chapter Two
Peter Tosh - Mama Africa

Spring and Summer projects...

2008-03-15T10:06:00.000-07:00

Paul Watson and Lynn Right at our recent music for silent films show at ADA Gallery in Richmond, VA. (photos by Liz Swerdlow)

Year of the Rat (photo by Chris Becker)

Recording wind chimes... (photo by Lynn Wright)

On the road...(photo by Chris Becker)

Mood shot (photo by Chris Woltman)

Some random photos until I can take time to talk about some very cool projects I'm working on for the Spring and Summer of 2008. Peace. CB

How do you know when to play and what to play..?

2008-03-01T16:10:00.001-08:00

After each performance of Like Dirt there was a moderated Q&A between the audience and Rachel, Patty, myself and the performers. At both Q&As the same question came up directed to the musicians which went something along the lines of: "How do you know when to play and what to play?" Meaning, it was apparent in performance that the musicians and I were all doing certain gestures at certain moments within the dance. But it was also apparent that there was a lot of freedom for expression within the score and overall performance.

Flip did a great job both nights explaining to the audience how my charts provide specific musical directions but that it is also understood that each musician once they understand the basic template of the score must take off and improvise with it. As the composer, my job is to create a series of landscapes with some definite boundaries - not in the restrictive sense of the word, but as if there were aural elements indigenous to the landscape and others that are not indigenous. I think there were only two moments where - in rehearsals - I told the ensemble that what they were doing was absolutely not what I wanted. And if I found myself stuck for an explanation or guidance when the musicians needed it - I would go back to a broader more general description of how I wanted the score to sound. This usually got things back on track.

One friend asked me how much of what Helga was doing was composed and how much of it was improvised. To be clear, she did improvise, but she was starting her improvisations with some specific compositional ideas (which came from me or came from a process of the ensemble playing and improvising together). Another important point to remember is that she was reacting all the time not only to the other musicians (and their interpretive powers) but to the movement as well. The musicians and I had to rehearse this music with movement - although initially we worked as a separate unit just to work out the charts and directions I had come up with.

This is a very enjoyable way of creating music. I have no problem composing for specific people and in an intensely collaborative situation. I know that's not how it is for all composers...but it's a world I enjoy exploring.

Like Dirt performance photos

2008-02-24T18:06:00.000-08:00

All performance photos of "Like Dirt" by Karen Garrett de Luna

Like Dirt, February 21, 23 and 24, 2008

2008-02-14T12:36:00.000-08:00

Re: Like Dirt. Rachel Cohen's choreography for Like Dirt is so fresh, so funny and so powerful I can't really describe it without sounding like an idiot. Patty Rosenblatt is the new addition to our team and she is rising to the occasion creating a variety of sculptural environments that will shift over the course of the open rehearsal and two performances. Yes, sculpture as performance...

And as always, I can't say enough about Flip, Helga and Lynn. Without these musicians I'd be lost. The live instrumentation for Like Dirt is laptop running Ableton Live, a Kaoss pad, electric guitar, trumpet and voice. We'll be running through amps (no PA) and balancing our sound accordingly.

Here's the details:
February 21, 23 and 24
Like Dirt
Composer - Chris Becker
Choreography - Rachel Cohen
Clay Artist - Patty Rosenblatt
Live score performed by Becker (laptop),
Lewis 'Flip' Barnes (trumpet),
Helga Davis (voice), and Lynn Wright (guitar)

Performers Joelle Arnusch, Katie Brack, Rachel Cohen, and Rebecca Ketchum.

Open rehearsal Thursday, February 21, 5-9pm, Free
Performance Saturday, February 23, 8pm
Performance Sunday, February 24, 4pm
tickets: $20, $15 students/seniors/groups of four plus
at The Secret Theatre (Long Island City)
44-02 23rd Street at 44th Road
Long Island City, Queens

Hope you can make it out. And if you do, please let us know what you thought and felt. Take care.

Like Dirt: Rehearsal notes...

2008-02-12T09:27:00.001-08:00

Like Dirt rehearsal photo by Chris Becker.

Rehearsals are going well...movement has come together very quickly and our initial tries with accompanying music have been exciting. The music as I've noted previously exists on four separate charts although we're coming up with some new stuff out of the blue as well. But the charts weren't created to match anything in particular movement-wise; they are simply collections of musical cues - albeit cues created with some overall compositional idea in mind (more on that later) - that we (the musicians) are trying out as movement is shown to us. Gradually (well, quickly actually...) the piece comes together out of this process.

More soon...

Like Dirt photo essay continues (or After The Flood)

2008-01-28T04:50:00.000-08:00

Photo of Racoco Productions dancer by Patty Rosenblatt.

Honey Gathering (Sketch for Like Dirt, Helga Davis vocals)

"As earth came back into view, Deucalion saw that it was an empty world, and tearfully told his wife how fortunate they were to have each other, but how precarious their hold on life still was. 'If only, by arts like my father's, I could create again the nations of the earth and breathe life, as he did, into the molded clay!'...They appealed for help to the oracle of Themis, who replied: 'Leave my temple, veil your heads, loosen your robes, and, as you go, throw behind you the bones of your great mother.' They were deeply perplexed until Deucalion interpreted their mother as the earth, and the bones of their mother as the stones in the body of the earth. So they picked up stones, and threw them behind their backs; and the stones grew, and changed into the shapes of men and women." (from Myths Of The Greeks And Romans by Michael Grant)

Liquid clay

2008-01-24T04:57:00.001-08:00

Photos of members of Racoco Productions by Chris Becker

Like Dirt: Pouring the foundation...

2008-01-15T15:15:00.000-08:00

Photo of landscape painting with clay by Patty Rosenblatt.

Rehearsals for Like Dirt have begun. Watching choreographer Rachel Cohen over the years work with dancers, costume designers and make up artists to put together short as well as evening length pieces has inspired me to gradually develop my own compositional methods into a similarly loose much more collaborative approach. To be clear, with regards to Like Dirt - I have not been asked to score a pre-choreographed dance. Like Dirt is more of a workshop styled series of rehearsals that culminate into a final series of performances. We are building the piece from the ground up, making up our own creation myth.

For the past couple months, Rachel, artist Patty Rosenblatt and I have been to some extent working on Like Dirt independently of each other. We’ve emailed each other excerpts from essays, articles, photos and samples of music all related to the concepts that are fueling Like Dirt. For example, Patty shared with Rachel and I a wonderful passage from Thoreau's Walden describing the earth as a sort of artist’s laboratory with wonderful descriptions of the human body as a natural malleable landscape. Earlier, I created "mix tapes" for the ensemble and Rachel of music that was inspiring my own compositional ideas for Like Dirt (Neil Young's soundtrack for the film "Dead Man," the famous Balinese Ketchak monkey chant and Blind Willie Johnson's haunting "Dark Was The Night, Cold The Ground" are a few tracks that ended up on the mix CDs). I also created a page on MySpace ((www.myspace.com/hoodoohouse) as a place for me to post my own musical sketches for Like Dirt for Rachel, Patty and the musicians to preview if they so desired. This weekend, the three of us plus dancers get into a studio to try movement with clay and music. The photo above is of a clay pour Patty has done in anticipation of our rehearsal; the clay will dry and crack and be used by the dancers to construct and interact with forms suggestive of geological formations. I may post some photos from this initial rehearsal in the future.

My music for Like Dirt currently exists as a series of cues - some notated, some consisting of written directions - that are realized as "charts" with names to set apart each chart according to the mood, style and construct of the music ("Building Groove," "Honey Gathering," "Blind Willie," etc.) Each chart can be interpreted by the musicians in rehearsal and performance according to the needs of Rachel's dancers. The dancers' movement will inspire (to list three concrete examples) the dynamics of a cue, the character of an improvised passage superimposed over a composed cue and/or the placement of musical punctuations. How movement - physical movement - inspires the musical decision making is a bit hard to explain...but I'd like to take a shot at that some other time.

I probably wouldn't be working this way if I hadn't already composed a lot of music for Rachel in the past. And I doubt most choreographers would be comfortable working with another composer in this manner unless they already had an intimate knowledge of that person's music and working methods. We are to a certain extent giving up some control to
the universe - assuming that it'll all come together in the process of rehearsals and experimentation. The trick is to not worry about the end result and instead focus on tapping into the collective spirit of the work and generating as much material as possible. It's a quirkier, more proecess oriented way of working - and I enjoy it.

Like Dirt

2008-01-08T09:02:00.000-08:00

Like Dirt is the new title for my collaborative work with choreographer Rachel Cohen and sculptor Patty Rosenblatt. For some time, Rachel and I have been combining movement, live music and clay in a series of pieces that blur the lines between dance, sculptural installation and musical performance. Like Dirt is our latest venture into this world.

The Secret Theatre in Long Island City (easily accessible via the 7, E, V and G trains) will be the venue for one open rehearsal (February 21) and two performances (February 23 and 24). I will be posting times for these events soon.

The music for Like Dirt will be performed live by myself on laptop computer and three incredible musicians. I'm really REALLY blessed to have these three on board for this adventure. My good friend Lynn Wright will be playing electric guitar. Lewis 'Flip' Barnes will be playing trumpet. Our series of shows as the Barnes, Becker and Wright trio have resulted in our becoming a powerful ensemble. Joining us will be vocalist composer Helga Davis who I first heard via the band Women In Love. Later, I discovered the breadth of her musical and artistic vision by way of an online archived interview with her (David Garland is the interviewer). To my delight, she immediately expressed interest in working on this project when I contacted her and so...here we go. LIKE DIRT.

I will be posting much more information about this production in the coming weeks. Hope you can make it out!

Special thanks to Steve Smith for adding a link to this blog on his Night After Night blog.

December 9th performance with Butoh dancers...

2007-12-17T17:36:00.000-08:00

Some photos from my December 9th performance with Tim Feeney (percussion) and Max Lord (drum kit) and Butoh dancers at The Tank. Florence Poulain is the photographer. Thanks to Ellen Godena and Max Lord for coordinating such a wonderful show. I was sick as a dog after it was all over but during the performances I was totally in the zone. Katherine, Stephanie, Bob and Ellen made the evening something special.

And props to Tim and Max who played with sensitivity and fearlessness. I felt very comfortable with these guys.

Tim Feeney, Chris Becker and Stephanie Lanckton.

Tim, Chris, Max Lord and Katherine Adamenko.

Tim and Chris.

Chris, Stephanie and Bob DeNatale.

Katherine Adamenko.

First Violin

2007-12-07T19:34:00.000-08:00

The above image “First Violin” comes courtesy of sculptor Patty Rosenblatt (I’m not sure if she or someone else took the photograph). Patty is collaborating with me and choreographer Rachel Cohen for our February 2008 edition of Thrown - a mixed media performance piece that combines movement, music and clay. Thrown is realized as a new piece each time it is performed although the basic materials and concept remain consistent. Patty’s “First Violin” consists of a violin first submerged in wet clay then photographed over time as it slowly reemerges from the drying clay. I saw this image on her website while working on some initial possible music for the February edition for Thrown. One of these initial musical sketches is actually a pretty simple arrangement of directions inspired by Blind Willie Johnson’s haunting blues recording “Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground.” Somehow, Blind Willie Johnson’s blues and Patty’s image exist in the same landscape. It may be that some of the movement in February’s Thrown will be very slow or even still with the clay actually taking on the role of a performer in motion (wet clay drying for example…).

Another early musical sketch for Thrown combines voice, electric guitar and trumpet with a simple yet unusual combination of rhythms cued and played via the laptop computer and Ableton Live. In rehearsals leading up to a performance, I often bring my work to musicians as an initial “sketch” in order to hear how things combine in the real world and as a result to hear the potential for the raw material to become something greater than the sum of its parts. The musical material I give them may only consist of a handful of tones, a few rhythms and a couple of cues. The musicians I work with are very sensitive and at each stage of the rehearsal process will offer helpful suggestions as well as their honest enthusiasm and support. I don’t have a problem telling a musician that I am not entirely sure what I’m doing. I guess I have a thick skin. Or rather, I’m not looking for anyone to pat me on the head in a rehearsal situation. By opening up my heart in such a situation, I hope to create a safe zone for the players so that they can try out their own ideas – to be who they are and not what anyone else thinks they should be.

The path where a large work like Thrown begins does not include a lot of signs indicating where to or where not to go. It's a (sometimes) scary place...where the ground beneath your feet may crack and bring forth a shattered violin and Blind Willie Johnson can be heard moaning a blues that sounds like an ancient incantation...

Chaos 9/10/95 New Orleans, LA

2007-12-02T13:24:00.000-08:00

Chaos (9/10/95 rehearsal)

I found this cassette recording of a rehearsal with an ensemble I put together in New Orleans back in the mid-90's. Hearing it again is a trip. For all of my own awkwardness as a conductor back in the day, the ideas were sound and the combination of players was inspiring. The musicians you hear include:

Meghan Phillips - Voice
Saadir Williams - Turntables
Matt Perrine - Upright Bass
Dan Sumner - Electric Guitar
Louis Romanos - Drums
Rich Vogel - Organ

Around the time of this recording I was first hearing a lot of Dub sound system inspired music coming out of England - Portishead, Massive Attack and Tricky all released ground breaking CDs that really inspired me as a composer. I was also just beginning to explore the recording studio as a compositional tool - and my approach to directing the band (as best I could) came from thinking of the ensemble as if they were tracks heard via a mixing board.

There are some wonderful moments on this recording. Around 4:29 you hear a sort of tug of war duet between the turntables and drum kit. Later at around 8:30 the band lays into a groove that begins with the turntables (Saadir later drops in some voices from a Mobb Deep track that I loved...). Dan sounds great - I think I wrote a few of the lines he's playing...or just gave him a pool of notes? I don't remember...And although it's very quiet, you can hear some lovely bass soloing just before the Mobb Deep beat drops. Rich plays with complete taste and is unusually restrained in this context (and this may have been a bad direction on my part...you can hear him these days in Galactic who are incredible and still going strong...).

Hope some of the musicians involved get a chance to give this a listen. It made me smile.

Sketches for February 2008 Thrown

2007-10-27T13:10:00.001-07:00

Photo by Karen Garrett De Luna. Elodie Escarmelle and Katie Brack in the March 2007 performance of Thrown.

Building Sketch (10/25/07)

The mp3 I've posted is a sketch for some possible music for the February 2008 installment of Thrown - my ongoing collaboration with choreographer Rachel Cohen. In performance, Thrown combines movement and live music with the medium of clay (we'll be joined by sculptor Patty Rosenblatt for the February installment). The work leading up to the performances are really less about rehearsal and more about creating a world where these three mediums interact with unexpected results. We of course now have materials from previous incarnations of Thrown to draw upon, but we are also pretty much starting from scratch as the performers, the space and the medium of clay itself exert a powerful influence upon the work. Thrown isn't a set composed work. It is somehow both conceptual and completely down to earth...

The music for February's Thrown will be performed live by myself on laptop, Lynn Wright on electric guitar, Lewis 'Flip' Barnes on Trumpet and Helga Davis on vocals. Having Helga in the mix has made me want to introduce more harmonic content into the music. Which is tricky, because up to this point, pretty much everything we've played for Thrown has been textural. Noise. But carefully crafted (yet often improvised) noise. In the March installment, I utilized some vocal samples I had from a session I did with composer/vocalist Sofia Koutsovitis. But there was nothing really grounding the vocalizing in terms of key...

I do hear sounds as if they were components of a musical ensemble. The difference between a guitar chord and the sound of a boiler recorded in someone's basement is all a part of the same spectrum for me. But with a vocalist in this mix, it occurs to me I could push the music so that it somehow straddles a line between noise and music (if that makes any sense).

The mp3 I posted is a chord progression I created, played via a MIDI keyboard, and then edited into a performance in Ableton Live. I then doubled up two notes that do not change throughout the progression with tones from two bells I have in my home studio (retuned in Ableton so they matched the pitches in the chords that I wanted to double). I wanted to get a pulse happening that was more like someone working a pottery wheel (which you actually hear in this mix) or maybe operating air bellows in a pump organ or in a furnace somewhere. The idea now is to try having the ensemble in performance double up the notes and lines in the chord progression. The imagined result being a sort of organic wall of chords with stray sounds and emphasized tones inspired by the movement as it is observed by the musicians.

Sketch number one. More to come. More thoughts too...

Projects for 2008

2007-10-20T15:00:00.003-07:00

Photos of October 13th Barnes, Becker and Wright vs Ballroom Dance Is Dead show courtesy of Kim Gilmour.

Thanks to everyone who came out to our gigs with guest bassist Grant Curry. We had a lot of fun – Saturday night in particular was pretty hot. We played the first two numbers without a break, with little introduction and at a much hotter volume than the previous evening. There was a nice momentum to the show that was a result of a few suggestions Grant had before we began playing. I discovered that I can and should talk less in between numbers.

Some of my dancer friends told me later they had to resist the urge to get up and dance during the middle section of my Shanty Town Suite which of course made me feel great. It was good to see some people I haven’t seen in awhile who I met back when Rachel Cohen and I were putting together If The Shoe Fits.

Grant has returned to New Orleans where he has a recording studio in Algiers. Hope to work with him again soon.

Coming up in February 2008. Another installment (two performances are scheduled along with open rehearsals) of Thrown - an ongoing collaborative work involving dance, music and clay with choreography by Rachel Cohen. We will be working with artist Patty Rosenblatt for this performance. I'll be composing the music and performing it live with Flip, Lynn and special guest Helga Davis on vocals. Future posts will outline the compositional and rehearsal process. Working with a live vocalist will be exciting and presents new challenges to me as a composer.

I am also collaborating again with Rachel as well as Nobel Prize-winning chemist Roald Hoffmann, and light artists Clare Brew and Kenny Greenberg for an multidisciplinary performance piece exploring light, color, and movement that will premier as part of the first annual World Science Festival in June 2008. More news on that too as it develops.

In other news…

Composer Carl Stone was kind enough to reference this blog in a recent article he wrote for NewMusicBox. Carl’s CD “Mom’s” made a big impression on me when I first heard it as a composition student at Capital University - particularly the title cut, but the whole CD was revelatory.

Barnes, Becker and Wright vs Ballroom Dance Is Dead

2007-10-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

(photo by Todd Carroll)

October 12 and 13 at Studio 111 (now called The Battle Ranch) Flip, Lynn and I do battle with Ballroom Dance Is Dead. BDID is an instrumental project consisting of Lynn Wright on guitars and Grant Curry (who will be here in NYC for these gigs) on electric bass. Tony Nozero plays percussion and drums on the CD. Lynn and Grant recorded the Ballroom CD in Grant's studio in New Orleans and we'll be reinterpreting some of the tracks in these two sets. Grant sent me wav files of tracks from the sessions and I loaded edits of these files into Ableton Live. We have created new arrangements that can change on the fly depending on the improvisational directions of the band - it's going to be really really cool. I also did a drastic remix of material from my Shanty Town Suite resulting in a very heavy dirge like dub. That is on the program as well. This will probably be our most rock and dub influenced shows with Flip steering us (as always) into even further unknown territories...

We'll also be officially premiering my piece Shanty Town Suite which we presented as a work in progress this past summer. Jeremiah Hosea made some nice contributions to the work at that early stage, and some of his effects heavy bass playing makes an appearance in one of the suite's three movements. Flip too was a big inspiration for this piece and you'll hear yet another side to his artistry in the performance. I thank The American Music Center who helped to fund this piece with their Composer Assistance Program.

If you HAVEN'T heard us PLEASE come out. We've done several killer shows since the Spring and while we hope to do more before the year is out, it may be awhile before we book a new round of gigs. Come both nights! Each night will be different...

Compositional Strategies of Dub pt. 2

2007-09-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

Jeremiah Hosea and Chris Becker ponder the mysteries of Cubase...(photo by Lewis Barnes)

"...recording technology was beginning to imply for reggae what improvisation had already implied for jazz: the notion that a "composition" must now be understood as a composite of endlessly multiplying, mutating, and potentially infinite elaborations over time." - from Michael Veal's book Dub

Shanty Town Dub (Slow Version)

So again I'm making reference to Michael Veal's excellent book on Dub music. The rough mix I've posted above is slated to become a segue between the second and third movements of my composition Shanty Town Suite which will be premiered here in NYC October 12 and 13 at The Battle Ranch (formerly Studio 111). This rough mix was created solely with material from the previously posted track Shanty Town Dub. Trumpet, trombone and bass as well as other effects heard in the upbeat dub now reappear in a seriously slowed down "version" (at 58 bpm) in a more haunted landscape of sounds, feedback and shouts. I'm considering adding some double time "chicken scratch" guitar and possibly additional live percussion to this slowed down version. As a segue, the audience will hear this track via a "boombox" playing a cassette mixdown of the track. Live playing out of the second movement will dovetail over the boombox playback and then bubble up again to lead the listening audience into the third movement.

The idea here is that the audience is hearing briefly a dub version of the live music they just heard but through technology of our recent past...time and space of course are tools for composition.

More later...

Compositional Strategies of Dub

2007-08-16T18:52:00.000-07:00

(Photos of Flip and Chris by Kim Gilmour from August 4th performance at Studio 111)

A new mp3. This is relatively quick mix that I plan to realize live albeit in a different arrangement as part of my current work-in-progress Shanty Town Suite (to be premiered October 12 and 13 here in New York City). The mix I’ve posted represents what will be the second section of this three section suite. It contains material tracked at the recording session I describe below.

Lewis ‘Flip’ Barnes – Trumpet, Voice
Jeremiah Hosea – Electric Bass
Dave Smith – Trombone
Lynn Wright – Electric Guitar
Chris Becker – Samples, Harmonica

Earlier this month, a grant from The American Music Center allowed me to bring trumpeter Lewis ‘Flip’ Barnes, trombonist Dave Smith and bassist Jeremiah Hosea together in a recording session with the goal of tracking performances that would later reappear in sampled form in a live performance of my current work-in-progress Shanty Town Suite. In an earlier performance back in June of Shanty Town Suite, I had played via my laptop computer and Ableton Live samples of Flip from a session we did some time ago for ESPN. This month’s recording session will provide me with material to sample similarly and should result in a more compositionally unified piece.

I am very interested in a fluid dialogue between the recording studio and live performance. Material realized in a live performance is later tracked in a recording studio then sampled and played back in another live performance in front of an audience where more new material comes to life...Although I'm not blasting my mixes over a PA in a yard outdoors...I would say that I'm describing a very dub like approach to composition. In his new book Dub (Soundscapes & Shattered Songs In Jamaican Reggae) Michael Veal does a great job explaining “studio technology and compositional strategies of the dub mix.” I hope to talk more about his book in later blog entries.

The recording session (which was engineered by Jeremiah) included tracking a 24 bar melody for trumpet and trombone. I had composed the melody for trumpet for the June performance and later thought a second melody underneath for trombone would sound really cool. I’m used to hearing Flip with alto saxophonist Rob Brown in William Parker’s quartet, and I think because of this writing the second trombone line came easily. Also, the combination of trumpet (or cornet) and trombone is something you hear a lot in ska – and I am definitely referencing ska along with dub in this suite. Check out tracks by The Specials like Ghost Town and A Message To You Rudy for reference.

I mentioned the “premiere” of Shanty Town Suite at the top of this entry, but will there ever really be a final “version” of this suite? There will be the version we play on the 12th and then the version we play on the 13th. My music includes sections of improvisation that allows the form to stretch according to the surprises (and mistakes – let’s be real) that occur in the heat of performance. And in the meantime, I’m sure I’ll be playing with the tracks we laid down to create additional “versions” with the same material. I’m already wondering what the groove would sound like slowed down from 116 bpm to say 56 bpm…whoa….

Shanty Town Suite

2007-07-10T18:53:00.000-07:00

(Photo above graffiti in Barcelona - I don't know who took the photo or who the artist is)

When I lived in New Orleans, I found a copy of a book called Cut n’ Mix by Dick Hebdige in a roommate,s expansive book collection. I was so taken with Hebdige’s short history of Caribbean music that I ordered my own copy. Several years later I am working on a piece entitled Shanty Town Suite for the trio of Lewis ‘Flip’ Barnes (trumpet), Lynn Wright (electric guitar) and myself (laptop) that – among other things – attempts to survey some Caribbean music such as ska and dub in a suite form with some scored parts, group improvisation, and DJing techniques. There’s even a moment of straight up musique concrete (albeit via a cassette boombox instead of reel to reel tape). I’m going to use this blog to put down some notes on this piece as it comes together this summer with a premiere scheduled for October 12 and 13 with the trio and guest bassist Grant Curry. I should quickly acknowledge that the premiere Shanty Town Suite is funded in part by the Composer Assistance Program of the American Music Center.

In this piece I am playing with the ideas of time, place and identity using various performance and compositional options (or “tricks”) that on one level simply create some evocative sonic textures while on another level reference social and cultural displacement as well as the ongoing historical hybridization (is that a word…?) of musical styles. While Flip and his trumpet act as the fulcrum for the structure of this suite, Lynn and I are also characters in this versioning of musical landscapes. This isn’t exactly a new theme for me as a composer. My CD Saints & Devils is a similar journey across an imagined American South using stories, songs and iconography to create the sonic landscape.

The first movement (at the moment…this may change of course…) begins with a loop cued via Ableton live that is a sliver of an electric piano chord covered in vinyl static repeating like a bell calling the faithful to prayer…well…maybe not. In addition to the loop I cue up a few samples of police car sirens wailing across the stereo spectrum. I cue up one at a time half a dozen clips of Flip’s trumpet (recorded in a session for music I was creating for ESPN) following some sort of pulse suggested by the vinyl piano loop, the police sirens and a recurring guitar chord and bass tone each played on the one every five measures and three measures respectively (creating a sort of mobile effect with the two parts). Flip responds to each trumpet sample I cue – sometimes by mirroring the sample, sometimes answering it – sometimes by remaining silent. He and I are having a conversation, but the dialogue is stern, terse and not leading to a resolution. This is the beginning of the suite.

More to come…

June 28 and June 30 shows at Studio 111

2007-06-25T12:39:00.000-07:00

June 28 and June 30, 7:30 pm, Studio 111, $5 suggested donation

Lewis 'Flip' Barnes - Trumpet
Chris Becker - Laptop, Compositions
Lynn Wright - Electric Guitar, Vocals

Special Guests:
Jeremiah Hosea - Electric Bass
Adrian Jevicki - Dance

Some more details on these upcoming gigs...

June 28th will be an "open rehearsal" which means we're going to put the final touches on pieces that are currently in an early stage of development. Before we begin playing, I like to address the audience, introduce the artists and describe a bit what everyone is about the hear and see. And throughout we'll try to get some dialogue happening between ourselves (the performers) and the audience and even ask for suggestions and feedback about the work.

I've found open rehearsals can have an incredible impact upon music - and it focuses a rehearsal in a way you don't experience without an audience.

June 30th will be the concert "for real." I'm hoping we get a nice turn out as all of the performers are incredible and the program is very strong. In March we had a great crowd - but who knows what'll happen this time around? You can go crazy trying to predict.

Anyway, we'll be performing two pieces with dancer Adrian Jevicki, material from my Saints & Devils CD and a new work-in-progress entitled "Shanty Town Suite" that I'm shaping as sort of a mini-concerto for Flip that touches on ska, dub and Charles Ives.

If you missed us back in March, check us out this time around. It'll be a lot of fun.

The Program for both dates:
Medicine Show (with Adrian Jevicki)
Wake Up Dead Man (Lynn Wright on vocals)
Shanty Town Suite - a work in progress
Stomp & Shout (with Adrian Jevicki)
Closing Improv

Photos from March 31 concert

2007-04-12T05:07:00.000-07:00

All photos copyright 2007 Karen Garrett de Luna.

Chris Becker and Rebecca Ketchum (hands) in performance of Cornell Box.

Lewis 'Flip' Barnes.

Sharrif Simmons as Stagger Lee with Lynn Wright and Flip.

Elodie Escarmelle and Katie Brack in Thrown.

Rebecca Ketchum in Thrown.

Thank you

2007-04-01T09:10:00.000-07:00

Thank you to everyone who came out to the open rehearsals, the pre-concert talk (which was a lot of fun) and of course Saturday evening's concert. Everyone involved was glowing afterwards. Flip told me that the evening started on a plateau and just kept going higher with each piece. I'm in complete agreement with him - I mean, we had some great rehearsals...but having the crowd there for us just energized the performers and we energized each other (Sharrif Simmons? Holy cow - you missed something if you didn't experience his performance of Stagger Lee) We had a full house (I wasn't sure if that would happen, frankly) and a LOT of new faces which is so important as an "emerging" artist.

I should have some photos up soon. Thank you to anyone who couldn't make it out but did keep up with the whole shebang via this blog, my or Rachel's websites and or MySpace. Take care. Chris

Cornell Box

2007-03-23T17:25:00.000-07:00

(Above photo: Cornell in Window 2, Copyright 1972 Harry Roseman, Used by permission of the artist)

I’m shifting gears again here on this online journal to talk about an unusual piece I’ll be presenting on my upcoming March residency with Racoco Productions. The piece, entitled Cornell Box, is inspired by the work and life of artist Joseph Cornell (1903 – 1972). In addition to his ground breaking films, Cornell is known for his completely unique box constructions filled with a carefully chosen objects evoking in their combinations both his own hermetic existence as well as his expressed passion for literature, history and popular culture. When I first saw a show of his boxes at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, I didn’t know that he lived most of his life in a home on Utopia Parkway in Queens, New York. That connection would come later to me. The Menil show was lit with incredible care so that each box was like looking into Alice’s rabbit hole: you looked into a small box and saw an entire universe expand before your eyes. Later, after relocating to New York City, I began to learn more about this influential yet reclusive artist.

Cornell Box (2004, rev. 2007) is performed on laptop using a PC program called AudioMulch to cue and mix live a collection of recordings (i.e. samples) that indirectly reference Cornell’s life and work. Sound is played through four speakers one in each corner of the venue. The samples move from speaker to speaker surrounding the audience in a complex quasi-quadraphonic manner creating an aural “box” of music and memories. Some of the prerecorded samples I cue are piano performances by my friend Daniel Kelly improvising freely in an ersatz Classical style that references Impressionism (Debussy, Faure) as Cornell loved French piano music. These piano samples (which I recorded on a handheld tape recorder) are mangled and colored with excessive vinyl and mechanical noise to evoke the sound of old 78 rpm records or similar attic treasures played on a turntable in ones mind. Another set of samples I cue and mix simultaneously with the piano samples are excerpts of actress Lauren Bacall’s dialogue from the film To Have and to Have Not. Cornell was an avid moviegoer and even created a beautiful blue-tinted box in homage to Bacall entitled Penny Arcade Portrait of Lauren Bacall (1946). In addition to feelings of nostalgia I am also touching on the emotionally charged fan relationship between a moviegoer and a (female) star on the screen.

Choreographer Rachel Cohen (director of Racoco Productions) created a visual / theatrical element for Cornell Box. Three dancers with only their arms visible inside of three Cornell-like boxes are placed before the listening audience in an asymmetric fashion. Inside the boxes, the dancers’ hands manipulate various objects chosen to reference Cornell’s life and work. The idea here is to have the visuals be confined to small areas while the sound immerses the audience like water in an ocean.

In this most recent revision of Cornell Box, trumpeter Lewis ‘Flip’ Barnes improvises with the live mix while walking around the seated listening audience – adding yet another dimension of moving sound to the experience. Guitarist Lynn Wright provides a bubbling bed of sometimes gentle sometimes abrupt tremolo and feedback sounds from his instrument again reacting to the piano and film dialogue I’m cuing and mixing. The piece has a short prelude – another live mix – of sounds I’ve recorded in the lobby of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (with their permission) and various subway platforms evoking the experience of a reclusive artist of living in a noisy metropolis.

At the pre-concert talk March 31st at 7pm at Studio 111 (111 Conselyea), choreographer Rachel Cohen and I will discuss how we collaborated on Cornell Box.

Thanks to Harry Roseman for allowing me the use of his photograph of Joseph Cornell for this journal.