[this was composed in October 2011, and I pulled it out of the "draft" folder to kick off what I hope will be a short run of similar posts]

A 300-foot wide mountain range in Connecticut

There is a huge physical and social divide that runs through Hartford’s southwest and continues through to New Haven.  It may as well be a mountain range, or a continental-scale river.  It is a railway thoughfare.  Parts of it are home to an infrequent Amtrak run, and parts of it are completely unused. One thing that becomes obvious upon even a casual browse of the area with a tool like Google Earth is that there are very few road crossings.  Maybe that is normal… bridging a railbed costs money.  But take to the streets, preferably on foot or by bicycle, and you find another layer to the problem.  Most of the cross streets are designed to move only cars.  Cedar Street, between New Britain and  Newington, is a deathwish trip for the cyclist or pedestrian.  large stretches of it have no sidewalks, and the shoulder lines are painted right against the curbing.  What should be a conduit for all types of transit was built to serve only one: the automobile.  New Britain Ave (174), same deal…  South Street in Berlin, same deal…

Other unused railways in the region, not the least of which is the Farmington Canal Line, have been retooled as greenways, providing a route for non-motorized transit.  The railway right-of-way that is in play for the New Britain – Hartford busway could easily be a candidate for the same treatment.  It could actually be argued that suburban greenways are redundant, and urban and fringe-urban areas benefit more from these transit projects.  But that is moot since the current plan is to put a rubber tire busway on the railbed and prevent non-motorized transit from accessing it.

My perspective on this situation was heightened when I sketched out a bike-to-work route through New Britain, through Newington, and into Hartford.  The streets are very familiar to me, but not linked into a contiguous bike route.  The ride into New Britain was a doddle… pretty much a short leg of my usual recreational bike loop.  Crossing east through New Britain on Monroe and Ellis Streets was equally a piece of cake.  Watch out for sleepy car commuters backing out of driveways, no problemo.  Now bang a left onto East Street… as a former resident of the Arch/Monroe area this was not foreign territory, but it was not exactly bike-friendly.  Basically a “take the lane and be seen” stretch of road.  Not dicey, but not relaxing by any means.  Crossing in back of my old alma-mater CCSU is equally not anything new, but there is less shoulder and more traffic with each passing mile.  Cedar Street is where the fun starts… Now, I could have crossed into Newington on South Street or Newington/New Britain Ave (174), which aren’t any easier.  They also put me in the feeder streets for the Berlin Turnpike, so more traffic and still no bike lanes.

What I found was a host of bad choices, each of which led to a different kind of not-so-great scenario.  I took the direttissima and dealt with running the gauntlet on Cedar Street.  At 6:30am in the summer it is not so bad… good weather, high viz clothing and a blinky light help with being seen.  But still, Cedar street exists to allow the maximum number of automobiles to cross the railway at very high average speeds.  Eastbound is relatively easy compared with the nonstop retail/convenience traffic on the westbound side.

Speaking of Google Earth, you can draw some very interesting casual conclusions about the railway from some high-res sat images.  You see a mix of residential and light industrial development.  The railway forms a “backyard” for both types of development.  In this case NIMBY really means MBY…

One big upside was that I was able to road test Animoog on he iPad as a performance instrument and the verdict is: we have a winner.  This app is everything I ever wanted in a synth, and is so much deeper than I expected.  The good news is that you can call up a preset and get right down to playing music on it.  Pick a keyboard layout you like and let it rip.  Beyond that you have a level of control over synthesis that is unbelievable.  Everythig from initial parameters, evolution, multitouch and extended-touch gestures, delay settings, built-in looper…. daummmmmmmmmm.

That also means that Moog, Inc. is doing something that was by no means a fait accompli: They managed to take a company that could have fallen over a cliff after Robert Moog’s passing, or worse been sold to some crap-factory like Korg*, and is now making a fantastic line of real tools for real musicians.  The analog synths they are making now are among the best they have ever created, and are probably just flat-out The Best.  They have a range from entry the level Phatty to the Voyager XL.  All the while making MoogerFooger modules and Moog Theremins.  Oh, and they make a couple of killer iOS apps, and have very nice merch. Pay them a visit.  Warms my heart, it does.

I’ll revisit this soon, and be posting links to some JttTP audio real soon now.  There are a few clips up at my Soundcloud.

* I own Korg gear, and it is not crap, but it is not Moog either…

Peter and I go back a long way, and it is great to be playing some music together again.  A few years as bassist in his band the Sawtelles was a major turning point in my musical life.  Playing in an ensemble while being able to retain my own voice on the instrument is something I had never truly enjoyed, and playing in the Sawtelles opened a door to that process that I continue to develop today.

They want Gail Zappa, Dweezil Zappa, and Joe Travers to be the sole custodians of the legacy of Frank Zappa?  Really?  The “Three Stooges” are getting their way lately thanks to some witless co-conspirators.

There are real questions about what is and is not appropriate when it comes to performance rights.  We have seen the ZFT attempt to treat the FZ catalog as theater, so performing any piece would be like playing an excerpt from CATS.  They have also claimed to be unaffiliated with any of the performance-royalty agencies like BMI or ASCAP.  But missing is the fact that BMI and ASCAP are private enterprises and separate from actual copyright law.  They aren’t like the IRS, a government agency created to manage tax law enforcement.  Meaning: even if you are not under agreement with ASCAp or BMI you still have to play by the rules.  As I have said before, this means that you cannot say “no” to a performance.  Compulsory licensing and fair-use issues don’t evaporate because you claim to be self-published.  By the same token the ZFT can send cease-desist orders just like anyone else.  The band RUSH recently sent a letter asking walking-human-excrement Rush Limbaugh to cease using their music on his show.  That specific complaint involves the use of a RUSH recording, an actual published piece of recorded music.  If it was the use of a cover-version, or thematic material, they would be on shakier ground because there would be issues of substantiality, but if the version was clearly based on the original it would be a simple process to continue the C&D beyond the original injunction. The ZFT wants a level of control that goes beyond fair use, and into “no use”, which is monopolistic and not supported by US Copyright law.  They also will not engage in actual legal action because they don’t have the desire to lose in court again.  I’ll leave the details to the actual copyright lawyers, but I feel very strongly that the legal onus has to be on the ZFT at some point.  They have made many claims on a personal/subjective basis.  That is definitely not supported by the law.

I write this as I listen to Dutch guitarist Corrie van Binsbergen, who has never made any bones about being a student of Zappa.  Her music is strikingly original, but she also works within the Zappa oeuvre.  When she plays an homage like Zoot Suite, is it “good”? Is it “sincere”? Is it “disrespectful”? Is it legal?  …and the list of what it is or is not goes on to the horizon. When Terry Bozzio gets paid handsomely to perform a 45 minute drum clinic at a festival, and performs The Black Page as a *solo*, just as he did with Zappa Plays Zappa, is he breaking the law?  Was he breaking the law when he played it with ZPZ?  Is the ZFT breaking the law by allowing Dweezil to perform Zappa music for free, while preventing others from playing his music *at all*?

Most artists avoid this quagmire by just acknowledging that their music was performed and broadcast to a huge number of humans over a period of decades, and other people learned to play those songs and might play them in live performance.  Nobody is out there claiming to have written Zappa’s music… claiming his compositions as their own.  Similarly, Zappa did not claim to have written Whipping Post, or Stairway to Heaven, etc… which he performed with his band in 1988. Subjective as well is the possible decision by an artist that the world is better off with the music in the public eye, and if the cover version is horrible then it just makes the original that much more valuable/desirable.

YouTube presents a very interesting case in “fair use”, because they don’t stop anyone from posting anything up front.  You want to put up a video of a still image of a goat with a rip of an album cut playing in the background?  Go for it.  Prove that it isn’t a post modern artistic commentary on the vapid nature of popular music and the media. Unless someone complains… which is kinda weird, really.  YouTube bears no burden in this process?  Where they facilitating the infraction?  That would require a legal decision, and legal costs.  As it stands they operate in a gray area.  What makes them any different than thepiratebay?

Notice here that we aren’t talking about using original recordings as backgrounds in a beer commercial.  Rarely does a corporation appropriate content without the consent of the owner.  That may seem like an issue of scale, but it really is an issue of intent and fair-use.  Mos of the ZFT issue revolves around musicians who have performed music which is based on a Zappa composition, or purports to be derived from a Zappa recording.  Since nobody can replicate the recording exactly, it is an artistic interpretation.  Is it substantially derived from the original?  Again, that is for lawyers to decide.  And to date the ZFT has received zero legal judgements in their favor on this issue.

If I am on stage in mid performance and quote a Lennon/McCartney composition, was I supposed to corral the instinct, even though it was rooted in a memory of hearing it in 1968?

This could go on ad-infinitum, but I believe that the overarching issue is not purely legal, or purely objective.  The issue at hand is one of an emotional turf-war.  After a career that began over 45 years ago, involving about 80 official audio releases, many video releases, public speaking appearances, collaborations with other artists, and thousands upon thousands of live performances, is the public supposed to sit on its collective hands and let one person decide how they will be influenced by that legacy?  Is one person allowed to dictate the actions of others to that degree?  As I stated in the previous post, this is the kind of control that was attempted under some of the most oppressive political regimes the world has ever known.  These regimes hoped to exact a level of social control so absolute that only their words were allowed to be considered “truth”.  All those who disagreed were punished, silenced, and worse.  Right now we are seeing a silencing of those with the audacity to perform this forbidden music.  Look ahead, if you can, into a future where this approach has been completely successful, and think about that landscape.

The past week or so has seen an uptick in the ZFT’s takedown notice activity.  To be clear, the media in question were not Zappa recordings, videos or performances.  They were live performances that involved thematic material from the Zappa catalog, references to the composer, homages to the composer, and lyrics based on Zappa’s lyrical concepts.  Gutless organizations like YouTube know it is far less expensive and less involved to take down videos at the drop of a hat and let the account owner and the takedown notifier deal with the particulars in a court of law.  So the ZFT gets what they want up front.  Gail couldn’t ask for more.  I have been witness to a decade where the ZFT went from non-participant in the Zappa legacy, to employing anti-democratic tactics that would make Goerbels blush.  The ZFT’s hypothesis that they can stuff Frank Zappa’s music legacy back into the bottle and dispense it on an ad-hoc basis MUST be challenged in a court of law, and challenged successfully.  Until then the musical world will be a poorer place, and the freedom of expression that Zappa himself enjoyed will be denied to generation after generation of artists and the public at large.

This is my immediate reaction to the recent events:

nobody can take away the importance that the man and his music have had on my life, but equally, i can not be compelled to participate in what his legacy has become. everything that has been done in his name since december of 1993 has been less than what the man himself did. no musician or composer has effectively enhanced the legacy that zappa created during his life. homage has been paid, some fine music has been made, souls have been stirred…. but none of it has moved the needle in comparison to the actual works that zappa oversaw during his lifetime. nothing that the zft ever does will enhance his legacy. nothing that his lox of a son tries to do with his cute little cover band. and frankly, nothing that *any* of the people playing zappa’s music since his death will *ever* do will matter one iota in comparison to the actual legacy of zappa’s own work. i’m content with that, and content with taking the odds that there is a chance that i might live to see zappa’s music set free to inspire the world in an active way. but ironically, in the 21st century, his widow has forced musicians around the world into the same situation endured by those living under the communist regimes of the soviet union, china, czechoslovakia, east germany, and other oppressive regimes where zappa’s music was spoken of in hushed tones and played out of earshot in secret locations. it is officially ILLEGAL to perform certain music without a dispensation from the authorities.

New Haven Improvisers Collective ran through a suite of Stockhausen pieces for the January workshop. The forms were taken from the composition “Auf den seben Tagen” (From the seven days). The pieces are very open to interpretation, thankfully, and the group really dug in and did some fine work. Jeff Cedrone, Paul McGuire, Peter Riccio, Bob Gorry, Nate Trier, Me, and Bill Beckett on “infinite nothingness”.

“If a man plays for a certain amount of time – scales, licks, what have you – eventually a kind of order asserts itself.  Whether he chooses to notate that personal order or engage in polemics about it, it’s there.  That is, if he is saying anything in his music.  There is no music without order – if that music comes from a man’s innards.  But that order is not necessarily related to any single criterion of what order should be as imposed by the outside.  Whether that criterion is the song form or what some critic thinks jazz should be.  This is not a question, then, of” freedom” as opposed to “non-freedom” but is rather a question of recognizing different ideas and expressions of order” – Cecil Taylor to Nat Hentoff, Downbeat magazine, February 25, 1965

While I can read music, albeit slowly, I mostly learn parts by ear and my charts are diagrammatic as opposed to using standard musical notation.  It has never really been in question: I am firmly in the improvisors camp, and have been as long as I can remember. So when I go to a festival like Rochefort en Accords, and I am relying on my ears to get me through multiple sets with multiple leaders in multiple styles, it can get ugly.  It GOT ugly.  I picked up some useful techniques for enhancing my schematic approach to song structure while at that festival.  But the central problem is that I play improvised and minimally notated music all the time, and when I have to play “inside”, what to me seemed like vast expanses of “inside”… where there are set parts and sight reading skills would make it an easy gig… I’m pretty much fucked.

On the other hand, I ended up playing bass in two groups in the same night, back to back sets last December (see previous post for a summary) with minimal rehearsal, and I knew that I would be fine.  I trusted my bandmates in Rochefort, but the circumstances were completely different.  The band drilled on set compositions with a lot of synchronized stops, starts, and changes…  When I am playing with New Haven Improvisors Collective I trust my NHIC bandmates to work as a unit, and improvise as a unit, and they reward that trust magnificently.  A comparison might be the difference between trusting drill-team partners to know their spots, and trusting your fellow birds to make wheeling turns as a group.

As a musician and listener, some of the music that I love would not have been possible without standard notation.  It might be fair to say that the majority of it is rooted in conventional concepts of notation for ensemble performance.  It is a good way to communicate musical ideas, it transcends spoken language, and it allows musicians who read to perform parts as an ensemble with a lot less of a learning curve.  If you are trying to get a horn section to play as a unit, write the parts, or at least write the harmonies.  If you need the bass to play specific parts, write them. But when the issue is improvised music, free music, instant-composition… you don’t expect or tolerate any less skill on the bandstand.  Improvisation has everything to do with communication, and rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic knowledge is essential to communication.

The one thing the two approaches have in common is that you can’t help but develop skills if you do either of them long enough with enough focus.  You might develop some whacky shortcuts to reading charts, but you will develop chart reading skills after years of effort.  And the same is true with improvisation.  The idea is to build a skillset that allows you to function in your intended area(s) of performance.

And example that is dear to me is ear-training: My ears, they have been schooled to hear implied harmony and rhythm, counter lines, tensions, pedals, etc… very well, though I might not be able to call out the pitch.  That is a skill developed from years of making my instruments work in a dynamic and improvisational manner.  If I had spent the past 40 years reading charts, my ears and overall skill set would be totally different.  I imagine that I would hear true pitches better (maybe…) and not get thrown as bad when I hear the harmonics stronger than the actual notes.

For me, playing “in” is harder than playing “out”.  And it would be easier to say “of course” and yes, reading hard-ass written parts is an art and very few people do it well.  But the other truth is that improvisation takes the same dedication, the same level of practice and commitment, but it doesn’t hold up to the european-classic concept of “skill”.  And that’s fine with me, but it took a long time for me to get there.

nhic:atlas (Bob Gorry pronounces “NHIC” as “NICK”… go figure) was a blast to play with, and was in the odd position of having a CD release show with 50% new lineup and 80% new material.  But hey, this isn’t a commercial thing, so no worries.  We had Mike Paolucci (Sandy knows him as “octopus boy” due to his fluid style behind the kit) on drums and he was a swingin’ rock of funky rhythm.  Gabriel Kastelle is always a joy to play with as well.  I love an in-tune violin or viola, and he has great pitch.  The Gorry-Asetta-Matlock front end from the original Atlas lineup was intact, and sounded great.  The swingin’ new rhythm section, and new blood in the violin-family chair brough a totally different feel to the group.  Where the original nhic:atlas was leaning toward a formal chamber-jass feel, the new lineup was more funky and leaning more toward a propulsive feel.  On my end, I was playing my Tacoma acoustic bass guitar in place of the original upright bass, and it filled that role like a champ.  No feedback issues, and the deep, resonant sound fit the arrangements like a glove.

NHIC Electric was the new kid in town, bringing a familiar two-guitar NHIC setup to the stage, but we had Peter Riccio on drums.  One thig is for sure, among his many talents, he has a very deep knowledge of jazz, and especially free jazz and hard bop.  I know, because most of the stuff I heard as a kid, I heard out of the record collection at his house.  That one factor gave the group a feel that I haven’t heard in the past.  Not that Peter doesn’t know world music, or prog, or polyrhythmic complexity, but he brought some strong jazz drumming to the party.  My rig was fretless Zon Sonus 5, Line6 M5, and Radial Tonebone handling the switching and fx loop for the M5.  I also ran loops off my iPhone to handle some synthy noises.  It has been a while since I have run effects at a show… and it was a weird feeling, but it was a reminder that I *can* do it if I want to deal with it.  The simplicity of playing bass-cable-amp (and often not running an amp) can be seductive.  I did enjoy blasting some delay and some phaser action in small doses.  I can’t wait to hear some rough mixes of this band.  Should be a hoot.

Thanks to NHIC, firehouse12, and the folks who came out to support the gig.  It was very cool.  I hope to be sharing soem audio and video in the coming months.

nhic:atlas is bob gorry, guitar; steve asetta, saxes; adam matlock, clarinet, accordion; gabriel kastelle, viola, erhu; michael paolucci, drum kit; pete brunelli, acoustic bass guitar

NHIC Electric is: bob gorry, guitar; jeff cedrone, guitar; paul mcguire, soprano sax; peter riccio, drum kit; pete brunelli, fretless electric bass

The Halloween Storm did a number on things here at the ranch.  A few trees down, a week without power, and a general setback for musical, photographic, and otherwise enjoyable productivity.  If productivity involved a rake or a chainsaw, then yes, it has been a productive period.

Got a gig coming up with two NHIC groups at Firehouse12 on December 3rd. 8:30pm and 10:00pm.  The first is nhic:atlas, a six-piece mostly acoustic affair.  I am playing my Tacoma CB10F fretlsss ABG and it sounds really nice with this group.  The second is NHIC Electric, a noisy electric affair.  That is a job for the Zon Sonus. I am in hog-heaven as a bass player because Atlas will have Mike Paolucci on drums, and he played in my short-lived jazzy Soul Cryptographers band.  I really enjoy playing with Mike and it is good to be working with him again.  NHIC Electric will have Peter Riccio on drums, and that is VERY badass.  I had been hoping that we would have this opportunity, and it is sounding very nice in rehearsal.

If there is any bright side to this “winter” it is that we are still getting warm temps.  Last weekend I put on about 20 miles on the bike, in short sleeves!  getting that opportunity after Thanksgiving in New England is rare.  I am definitely not complaining.  My friend Chris James calls it Global Weirding… Well, let’s keep it weird!  Oh… rising sea level and food chain disruption?  P’shaw!