Moe! Staiano’s Moe!Kestra! | Two Rooms Of Uranium Inside 83 Markers: Conducted Improvisations Vol. II

Moe! Staiano founded the Moe!kestra! project back in the beginning of 1997. The idea came from a show he did in 1996 in Berkeley at a place called Beanbenders where he gathered some dozen or so musicians to do a simple instruction, playing a one sustained note from soft, quite, crescendoing into a loud frenzy before playing free and all totally out while Moe! destroys several television sets and lighting off Whistling Pete’s fireworks (a frantic and future Moe!kestra! player Bill Horvitz had to momentarily stop Moe! to save his guitar amp that was in harms way). At the end of the show o all the excitement and cheering, Brian Hall (from Ubzub) was shouting “Moechestra! Moechestra!” This gave Moe! the idea of working in a large orchestra format and started writing text instructional scores (Moe! has no music theory, so he needed to describe how the musicians play his scores though there are some notated parts, both traditional and graphically) and wrote Piece No.1: Death of A Piano, which was loosely based on the 1996 performance and literally requires the actual destruction of a piano, which has been performed in about six times total. Continue reading

Noertker’s Moxie | Sketches of Catalonia Vol. 2: Suite for Miro | Edgetone Records

Catalonia is the birthplace of many innovative artists, among them Joan Miró Antoni Gaudí, and Salvador Dalí. In 1995, and again in 2005, I was able to make a pilgrimage to Catalonia to see the works of these great artists in person. Out of these experiences came an extended suite of music, Sketches of Catalonia. This CD is the second part of this suite and is inspired by the life and work of Joan Miró. A CD based on Dalí is already available on the Edgetone label. A CD based on Gaudí will follow. In the last decade, Bill Noertker has composed over 150 original pieces of music for jazz ensemble. His compositions point to the continuity between the jazz tradition and the avant-garde. His use of group improvisation and his attention to the individual voices of each of his bandmates call forth the human element so sorely missing from much of today’s jazz. Continue reading