Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Richard Teitelbaum, Solo Live

The area of "new music" is a lively zone that takes on the "seriousness" of Western modern classical and some of its sounds and trajectories, but it may also incorporate elements of rock (as we saw in yesterday's post), jazz and improvisation.

On the improv-jazz side there has been especially fruitful combinations, starting principally with the influence of Cage and his works, then also Stockhausen. Groups like MEV and Il Gruppo set the stage for improvisatory avant music, and many others followed. And of course the "New Thing" in jazz saw much important, related music being made starting in the '60s with Coltrane, Coleman, Taylor, Cherry, Shepp and others.

Into all this came Richard Teitelbaum, an electronics-synthesizer improviser and composer who by the early '70s and his work with Anthony Braxton and others had established himself as an important figure in the music.

That he has not rested on his proverbial laurels can be heard on a new download-only release of his music, Solo Live (Mutable Music). For this outing Richard uses a laptop, a sampling synthesizer, piano and various other instruments to create a series of soundscapes that incorporates the natural environment with spacious electronic panoramas that invite the listener to travel fantastically-virtually to other places. He also holds forth on piano towards the end in dramatic ways.

The extent to which his music is improvised versus pre-planned isn't always clear, but the immediacy and personal quality of it certainly is.

You can find out more and download the album at http://mutablemusic.com/mm/teitelbauminfo (please copy this URL into your browser and hit "enter").

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