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| Dec. 21 – Bertoia Sound Sculptures + 12 Master Improvisors = Sculpting Sound Pyroclastic Records presents Sculpting Sound, a groundbreaking collection of six once-in-a-lifetime performances bringing together twelve master improvisers with the sound sculptures of visionary artist Harry Bertoia These captivating performances, available on the Winter Solstice, December 21, 2023 via SculptingSound.org, feature Nels Cline, Ben Monder, Ambrose Akinmusire, Nate Wooley, Ingrid Laubrock, JD Allen, Jen Shyu, Brandon Seabrook, Marcus Gilmore, Dan Weiss, Kris Davis and Craig Taborn The visually gorgeous, sonically rich and artistically inventive performances on Sculpting Sound feature a dozen of music's most forward-looking artists playing with, and on, sound sculptures by Harry Bertoia. Presented by Pyroclastic Records and premiering on the Winter Solstice, December 21, 2023 at 10:27 p.m. ET, SculptingSound.org offers free and complete access to a series of revelatory performances recorded at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. The musicians were given unprecedented access Bertoia's sculptures. The results blur the lines between music and visual art and provide an opportunity to hear strikingly fresh and innovative work from some of the most vital improvisers of our time and to explore Bertoia's work, not just visually, but as he fully intended: sonically. The heart of the website is the collection of six high-definition concert films. Each hour-plus long concert places two musicians famed for their distinctive voices in dialogue with Bertoia's Sonambient sculptures: guitarists Nels Cline and Ben Monder, trumpeters Ambrose Akinmusire and Nate Wooley, saxophonists Ingrid Laubrock and JD Allen, acoustic string players Jen Shyu and Brandon Seabrook, drummers Marcus Gilmore and Dan Weiss, and pianists Kris Davis and Craig Taborn. All twelve musicians are known for their genre-crossing and expansive outlooks, and here they push their art even further by engaging in a complex interplay with each other, their instruments, and the sculptures—which ring with bell-like tones, vibrate and shimmer, boom and whisper, echo and reverberate, chime and crash, sing out and sing on. The music that emerges is unique—a new collaborative form at the juncture of improvisation, ambient and experimental music, art, and chance. Although Harry Bertoia (1915-1978) was best known during his lifetime as one of the greatest furniture designers of the 20thcentury, he has since become revered as a visionary visual artist. Following the commercial success of his iconic wire chairs, Bertoia dedicated himself to sculpture. Central to his practice were a series of sound sculptures, his Sonambients, whose evocative, encompassing tones could be called forth by a passing wind, ambient vibration, or the touch of a hand. Bertoia himself captured their sounds on eleven LPs released during the last years of his life. Until now, however, musicians have had precious few chances to interact with these works. In 2022, the Nasher Sculpture Center included many sound sculptures among the more than 100 pieces in their exhibition Harry Bertoia: Sculpting Mid-Century Modern Life. Writer, poet and record producer David Breskin seized on this opportunity to create and curate a week-long festival called SCULPTING SOUND: Twelve Musicians Encounter Bertoia, during which the expressive possibilities of the Sonambient pieces could be fully explored. Breskin's long career has often straddled the worlds of contemporary music and art. In 2002, he brought Bill Frisell to the work of German painter Gerhard Richter, which resulted in the creation of Frisell's 858 Quartet and the multimedia book Richter 858; and then, in 2010, married Nels Cline's music to Ed Ruscha's paintings, producing the poetry/music/art mashup DIRTY BABY. More recently, Breskin has produced an eclectic array of albums for artists including Mary Halvorson, Patricia Brennan, Kris Davis, Ingrid Laubrock, Cory Smythe, Craig Taborn, Brandon Seabrook, Dan Weiss and Ches Smith. Best known as the guitarist for Wilco, Cline is also a six-string experimentalist named by Rolling Stone as one of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Monder has enjoyed a notable career in jazz and creative music, contributing to David Bowie's final masterpiece Blackstar before joining the irreverent jazz group The Bad Plus. Akinmusire melds styles from post-bop to hip-hop, new music to avant-jazz, while Wooley is a master of extended techniques who has worked with cross-genre pioneers including Anthony Braxton and Éliane Radigue. Laubrock explores the borders between musical realms via multi-layered, dense and often evocative sound worlds. Allen is one of modern jazz's leading tenor voices, and his trio is one of the most celebrated ensembles on the scene. Seabrook is a guitarist and banjoist whose ferocious style veers from art-metal to chamber music; Shyu is a multi-instrumentalist, multilingual vocalist and dancer whose work has examined personal and cross-cultural experiences. Gilmore is a multiple Grammy Award winner who has worked with such legends as Chick Corea, Pharoah Sanders and Pat Metheny. Weiss' innovative drumming draws from classic and avant-garde jazz, Indian classical music and heavy metal. Taborn's widely lauded music intertwines investigatory acoustic piano and an expansive palette of electronics, and Pyroclastic-founder Davis is an acclaimed bandleader and pianist who shared the Best Jazz Instrumental Album Grammy for Terri Lyne Carrington's 2022 album New Standards Vol. 1. In addition to the six concert films, Sculptingsound.org includes a half-hour documentary on the making of the concerts; landmark historical footage detailing the creation of the Sonambients and Bertoia's practice; and a revealing 1971 interview with Bertoia himself. An interview with David Breskin provides insight into his vision for the concerts and his process of selecting the pairings of musicians. The concerts were shot by Quin Mathews and Daisy Avalos, and recorded by legendary sound engineer Ron Saint Germain (Ornette Coleman, Bad Brains, Sonic Youth, Soundgarden, and hundreds more). The concert films were edited by the American artist and filmmaker Frank Heath, who has also created short films for four recent Pyroclastic projects: Patricia Brennan's More Touch, Cory Smythe's Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Ches Smith's Interpret It Well, and Nate Wooley / Columbia Icefield's Ancient Songs of Burlap Heroes. write your comments about the article :: © 2023 Jazz News :: home page |