Billy Bang | William Parker | Medicine Buddha | No Business Records

Billy Bang was a brilliant human being, always much more than himself, especially when he surrendered to his true calling—that of musician, one who transforms music into magic, dancing instead of walking, jumping instead standing still. Billy Bang was an American original, an original musician, an organic person who had tapped into the river of sound and was riding on a boat drenched in blues-soul-funk and space. — William Parker Continue reading

Misha Feigin | Only One Road Revisited

Misha Feigin – classical guitar, voice 1-17 / balalaika 17 | Marc Vainrot – viola de gamba 3,4 | Segei Proshutinsky – medieval flutes, crumhorn 2,3,4 | Sergei Kopchenkov – piano, harpsichord 7,11 | Alexander Ivanov – keyboard 6,11 | Sergei Gurgbeloshvili – saxophone 7 | Mark Pekarsky – percussions 9 | Mihail Utkin – cello 9 | Lliya Lungin – flute 10 | Moscow String Quartet 9 | Mark Hamilton – electric guitars, electronics 12-17 | Dannie Kely – bass 12-17 | Hussam Al-Aydi – oud, keyboards, voice 14. Cover photo by LaDonna Smith. Insert photo by Misha Feigin. Back cover photo by Valentin Mitskevich Continue reading

Butch Morris Conduction Jazz Radio Show | Free Download

Butch Morris was quite eloquent and specific about what he needed from his music —- He came up in that modernist age where everything always had to be new, and he had enough perspective to see what parts of “new” were useful and what wasn’t —– He worked hard, the conduction method wasn’t born over-night, it took years to develop —- I was lucky to know him from our California days in the 70s —- and J.A.Deane was a close associate of the maestro and lived here in New Mexico at the time, so a radio show with his perspective was within our grasp —- I had interviewed Butch via telephone already a couple times on this Thursday jazz show, and he even called during this broadcast to say Hi and that he was listening in NYC via the Net —- (J.A. Deane was the production engineer for the 10-CD box set TESTAMENT that covered the first 50 conductions. Dino was a participant in many subsequent conductions with Butch performing all over the world. Dino also explored conduction from behind the podium himself when he launched his own long-standing ensemble Out of Context in 1996.) At the time of this radio show we did not know that Butch’s body had been assailed by cancer, nor did Butch. We were innocent that such dire history lay ahead. (Dino & Colleen relocated to Colorado in June 2o14.) — Mark Weber Continue reading

Andrea Marutti | Fausto Balbo | Detrimental Dialogue | fratto 9

Andrea Marutti and Fausto Balbo have met in 2005 at Lab12 in Vigevano; both active in music making since more than fifteen years, their friendship has grown over the years on the fertile ground of the interest that they share about electronic experimentation and their wide and open-minded listening habits. “Detrimental Dialogue”, their very first collaboration, deeply explores various types of analogue and digital synthesis (additive, subtractive, Physical Modeling, FM, Phase Distortion, Granular, etc.) and live electronics elements. Recorded together in the authors’ studios and then worked out in seclusion between 2007 and 2009, the tracks on “Detrimental Dialogue” were subsequently redefined during a one-week long collective mixing session rigorously made with analogue equipment and precious outboard effects at Fausto Balbo’s studio. Continue reading

Maia Penfold | The Red Buddha | Hcolom Press

A FEW WORDS FROM THE EDITOR Maia Penfold, known at the time as Gerda Penfold, drifted into my life in 1974 via an envelope packed with poems. I read those poems in one setting, published them and others in a chapbook titled Done with Mirrors, and from that point on, over the next turbulent thirty-six years, Maia has been a spiritual and creative running mate who remains fiercely independent and disinclined to compromise. She is a force of nature, no less so at the age of 82 than when she was a young girl in Saskatchewan and a young woman in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and her poetry is charged with this force, an elixir of wonder and innocence, biting wit and easy sophistication, an intelligence that drills to the core. She may be the most overlooked poet of the second half of the 20th century, and it came to me (as these things tend to do) in a flash of inspiration that I needed to collect as many of her poems as I could locate and put them into book form—Maia’s life has been hard and nomadic, and many of her poems have been lost along the way. Not long after that I found myself on a ferry to Bainbridge Island off the coast of Washington where Maia then lived. Continue reading