W – X – Y – Z

All artists filed by last name under W, X, Y and Z :

Big Hammer No. 5 | Iniquity Press

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William Carlos Williams wrote of Alfred Kreymborg: “Crude symbolism is to associate emotions with natural phenomena such as anger with lightning, flowers with love it goes further and associates certain textures with. Such work is empty. It is typical of almost all that is done by the writers who fill the pages every month of such a paper as. Everything that I have done in the past – except those parts which may be called excellent – by chance, have that quality about them. It is typified by use of the word “like” or that “evocation” of the “image” which served us for a time. Its abuse is apparent. The insignificant “image” ma be “evoked” never so ably and still mean nothing. With all his faults Alfred Kreymborg never did this. That is why his work – escaping a common fault – still has value and will tomorrow have more (Spring and All).” Continue reading →

Big Hammer No. 15 | Iniquity Press

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REMEMBERANCES

I don’t remember the reason we sat in front of Rite Aid that night. Someone needed a prescription filled. I do remember my mom banging her paims on the steering wheel, Asking, “Why did you ever become a writer?” “I don’t know mom. it was you and dad that bought me a desk for Christmas.” “That’s because your 6th grade teacher told us you had potential to be a professional writer. Not poetry, music and that other stuff.” She was visibly angry at the situation which brought us together. We were picking up pills for her husband Bob I now remember. It was the eve of his disappearance. Entering one hospital after another. Finally – allowed to rest – we surrounded Bob with the Lord’s Prayer. Such remembrance strangely triggered by a Leonard Cohen self-portrait – A drawing of his face – left lobe opened – in which he scrawled:

I never found the girl
I never got rich
Follow me

– John Lunar Richey Continue reading →

Joe Weil | The Pursuit of Happiness | Iniquity Press

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I like Joe’s precision of language, his insights: “I need a place (Elizabeth, New Jersey) where poets aren’t expected / I would go nuts in a town where everyone read Pound…I don’t think Manhattan needs another poet / I don’t think Maine could use me,” and, lower on the page, “Where nothing is sacred, everything is sacred / Where no one writes, the air seems strangely / charged with metaphor.” On the strength of that I recommend his work to you. — Harvey Pekar Continue reading →

Cal Haines Trio | The Bright Side

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In 2005, Lewis Winn composed “Count Me In” after seeing a Basie band video. The fast-moving line that has him and Michael playing like a horn section pays homage to the swinging sound. There is an unusual element similar to a shout chorus where guitar and drums “solo” together, launching the remaining guitar solo. “So Near, So Far” had to be on my first CD because I tried but couldn’t get any band I’m in to play the tune. The guitar counter-melody is a joyous line against which to play the afro-cuban 12/8 rhythm, and the Joe Gilman lyrics gave new interpretations to the meaning of the title. Michael’s 2008 “Middle Side Topwise” uses the changes to a familiar standard as a vehicle for the bass and borrows a quote from the Simpsons for the title. Continue reading →

Chris Weller’s Hanging Hearts | Chris Weller | Cole DeGenova | Devin Drobka

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Chris Weller’s Hanging Hearts formed 2013, is a dynamic musical trio dedicated to the fearless exploration of group improvisation. Their music, organic and raw, bridges the gap between jazz, rock, and experimental music. The band features it’s leader Chris Weller on tenor saxophone and compositions, Cole DeGenova on keyboards, and Devin Drobka on drums. While Chris and Cole grew up in Chicago, playing professionally in jazz and blues clubs by the age of 15, the trio was completed at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where all three members graduated. While the trio’s repertoire consists mostly of Weller’s original compositions, they are also known to deconstruct popular songs and freely improvise. Continue reading →

Nate Wooley | Hugo Antunes | Chris Corsano | MALUS | No Business Records

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An often inspired study in post-noise atmospherics, Malus brings together three pioneering improvisers in their late thirties. Nate Wooley deploys vocalisation and extreme extended technique to turn his trumpet into a hissing steam engine and a bubbling cauldron, channelling electricity to create groggy lo-fi textures. Chris Corsano is in a reflective, exploratory mood, dragging objects across amplified skins to create queasy high-pitched drones and dull metallic rings. Double bassist Hugo Antunes steadies the ship while Wooley and Corsano scramble up the rigging, yet he’s far from conventional: hear him loom into orbit on ‘Seven Miles From The Moon’, carving monolithic obsidian slabs out of deep space silence. The trio’s sense of timing, texture and space is impeccable. In ‘4 Cornered’, a manic Wooley declaims over Corsano’s accelerating scuttle before Antunes walks the muttering trumpeter home. Wooley’s compositional nous, meanwhile, radiates in the Andalucian blues ‘Gentleman of Four Outs’. — Stewart Smith Continue reading →