HENRY KUNTZ: Nepalese Flute & Soprano Recorder (played together), Morocco double-reed Rhaita, Tenor Saxophone. Performance of July 25, 1999 Beanbenders at Fine Arts Theatre Berkeley, California. On-location digital recording and original mastering & mix by Michael Zelner. Thanks to Dan Plonsey who invited me to play at Beanbenders and to Michael Zelner who exquisitely captured the diverse sounds of the instruments. Continue reading
For the second-ever performance by the ENVISION ENSEMBLE, the players expanded instrumentation and instrumental range, moving more fully into multi-dimensional “festival form”. The ENSEMBLE’s formal expansion more or less flips the concept of a usual approach to improvisation, that in which players “listen” to and complementarily match what other players are doing while only occasionally moving into an entirely independent space. The ENVISION ENSEMBLE begins in independent space. The players hear the whole as well as listen to the parts, creating beyond the strictures of standard complementarity. The intent is to fashion an experiential rather than compositionally logical totality. Continue reading
From the beginning, in creating the multi-track pieces, I’ve brought into play a concept I refer to as “festival form”, an idea that has been an essential part of the overall creative approach to what I call Total Music. — Henry Kuntz Continue reading
An all-inclusive portraiture of the group’s seamless melding of worldly percussion, horns, and stringed instruments into a free-flowing modus operandi.” – Glenn Astarita, All Music Guide Continue reading
What is amazing to me is that Henry is able to layer these strange and unique sounds into something solid that speaks to us like the long lost or buried voices of ghosts.” – Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery Continue reading
Subtitled “Multi-Track Works-In-Process Miniatures”, this is a collection of pieces for overlaid saxophones, vocals and exotic percussives, although the latter are not present in all the tracks. Kuntz appears very interested in the generation of ritualistic moods through the concurrence of different pulses, the presence of the Javanese gamelan adding evident metallic/melodic tints in episodes like the opening “Celestial Forest”. But if we pretend to be transported in a parallel dimension, this recipe leads to the magnification of an innocent-sounding density, a child playing with a series of reed instruments in a room full of clocks. The segments where only amassed saxes are featured are more comparable to the gathering of seagulls fighting for food on a beach, kind of a semi-chaotic superimposition of pattern-within-pattern designs which translates into a peculiar type of entrancement, a bunch of Poppy Nogoods who have had a few too many. Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes Continue reading
All of this music was recorded outdoors on basic equipment in “real life” circumstances, under conditions far from optimal for recording. Yet the ambience, excitement, and electricity of the music shine through in ways that fully reflect its cultural authenticity. It is to provide a small cultural looking glass into a world or worlds barely known to most of us that these recordings are presented. I hope they will encourage you to want to know more, to open your world up more to the many fascinating and diverse worlds around us. — Henry Kuntz Continue reading
This music was recorded in open-air pavilions on basic equipment under conditions far from optimal for recording. Yet the ambience, excitement, and electricity of the music shine through in ways that fully reflect its cultural authenticity. Earth Series is releasing this material because of its uniqueness and general unavailability on the commercial market. — Henry Kuntz Continue reading
The album’s title is reflective of that experience and was suggested by a relief above a doorway of the palace at Palenque, Chiapis. To the Mayans, cross eyes were considered a mark of great beauty. — Henry Kuntz Continue reading
Jesus said: “I am the Light that is above them all, I am the All, and the All came from me and the All attained to me. Cleave a piece of wood and I am there; lift up the stone and you will find me there.” — The Gospel According to Thomas Continue reading