Keith Rowe

[jon abbey]

huh, that's interesting rowe's with the cunningham company. do you have any more info jon? do you know how/why? the website has precious little info. cunningham obviously has a long history with the musical avant-garde, and i know they've worked with jim o'rourke and sonic youth, but aside from that i haven't heard much about them working with improvisers outside that sort of "new york school" circle.

I just think christian wolff introduced him/his work to kosugi a couple of years ago, and he's been playing some tours with them ever since, mostly in the UK.

[jelle]

I missed this, a Belgium Rowe show, apparently with visuals...

I was there, decent and sober set, different from the last time I saw him. They played in the center of the room and were surrounded by TV screens showing snow, during the set there was interaction between the sound and the snow. Didn't like the other acts much to be honest.

[J.F.]

I'm not very familiar with Keith Rowe's roots and stuff, but I found this one interesting:
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/galatabridge/1960.htm

- he played in the Mike Westbrook-band from ~1960 to ~1965. Maybe this already has been mentioned somewhere... anyway I found it a surprise. I wonder how the Westbrook-band - and Rowe - sounded back then

[Brian Olewnick]

There are no releases from that era (actually 1958 - 65) though Keith has some old, oddly formatted tapes that he's yet to have transferred digitally (might not be possible). But basically, Westbrook came out of Ellington and Mingus, playing things like "Chelsea Bridge", wrote fairly knotty and advanced charts and enlisted a bunch of fine players including Mike Osborne and John Surman. Keith resisted playing in a standard manner, began using clip-outs of pie advertisements or Klee paintings instead of a score, etc., aggravating the more conservative members of the band, intriguing the more adventurous, Westbrook being somewhat in the middle. I'm guessing his sound was somewhat proto-Bailey, certainly (as of '63-'64) having next to nothing to do with chord changes.

[Alastair]

That gig list is fascinating. John Surman went from playing Treatise with Cardew, Rowe, Sheaff, Gare, Prevost, Tilbury and others in April '67 to playing St Louis Blues with Humphrey Lyttelton's band in December of the same year, both recorded by the BBC.

I also notice a "Keith Rowe Quartet" at the Padgate Jazz Festival on 12 February 1966. I assume that Surman was part of that Quartet, otherwise it wouldn't have been mentioned - wonder who the other members were? Gare and Sheaff? Sheaff and Prevost?

[Brian Olewnick]

I think the Padgate thing was probably AMM without Cardew (who couldn't always make shows due to other commitments). Westbrook was pretty good about getting gigs for his alumni as openers for his band. I'm at work now so can't check if that appears on the gig listing included in the booklet with...which was that, The Crypt?

[Brian Olewnick]

Yep, heard from Keith. It was an AMM gig (just a quartet), may have been the first proper one, in fact, for AMM (post-woodshedding period). Waiting to hear back on that as there's a little confusion between this and another festival gig from around the same time. Keith has a poster from the event actually, which I'd include if I could figure out how to post an attachment.... but no, Surman wasn't part of the quartet, just appearing on the same bill.

[mudd]

in the 'upload a file' section of the post reply screen, there's a 'browse' button. you have to click through to the directory where the image file is, select it, and then it will be attached when you make your post.

if the image is currently in an e-mail attachment that might be a little difficult to find through the file browser. maybe save a copy onto your desktop, attach it, then put it away.

unless it's something else which is giving you difficulty...

m

[Brian Olewnick]

D'oh, didn't see that....

[mudd]

awesome.

"merseysippi"

the listing of gare, prevost, and rowe indicates they're the members of surman's quarter?

m

[Brian Olewnick]

No, it's a separate group. Just figured it out and this one's the same one I've discussed with Keith before (confusion between the names Warrington and Padgate). The funny aspect of it was that AMM drove up in a van and had car trouble, causing them to arrive after Surman's and Westbrook's bands had already performed. There was some disgruntled opinion on the latter's part that they had made this maneuver intentionally so as to grab the "star" slot on the program. Heh.

So this was AMM's first actual gig as such (the name having been arrived at around New Year's, 1966), per Keith in a "darkened, unoccupied classroom" in front of a handful of people.

[jon abbey]

nice interview by John Eyles:

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article ... 33846&pg=1

[Jesse]

This is a fantastic articulation of something that becomes apparent the longer I hear Rowe's work:
What I do is painting, and the vehicle for it is sound. There is no painting at the end of this process. I do other kind of painting where there is a painting. In this form of painting there is no painting and it is so heavily disguised that you cannot locate the painting.

The disguise comes from Duchamp. It was extraordinary that he gives the impression that he has stopped working but actually continues producing things. Everyone thinks he has stopped but he is still producing. That was a kind of inspiration for me on the guitar to kind of adopt the process of painting and the agenda of painting but actually put it in the form of sound, which means there is no commodity; there is no painting to be traded. There are CD's but they are never going to sell for three million.

-Keith Rowe/AAJ interview

[p_ano]

fascinating thread. thanks for the good reading guys..

and thanks for the good music keith.

[Nim Chimpsky]

Jazz at Padgate College

Jesus! This place is about 5 minutes walk from my mum's house and where I did some German night school classes.

[Charon]

nice interview by John Eyles:

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article ... 33846&pg=1

fascinating, thanks for this link, Jon

[javier4w]

Do you understand spanish?

A radio broadcast about Keith Rowe in the program "Ars Sonora", Radio Clásica, RNE (Radio Nacional de España). They talk about Keith Rowe, and play "November" from N:Q and "Erstlive 007".

http://www.arssonora.es/index.php?optio ... icle&id=94

[J.F.]

Has anybody here heard Keith Rowe play with Trevor Watts' Amalgam? (and can say something about it?)

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

here's an interview with Keith Rowe + solo-set on Dutch VPRO-radio.

audio-stream available if you click the link under 'Audio'

First you have ten minutes or so out of The Room, about 5 minutes introduction in Dutch, then a part of the 4th track of AMMMusic, then the interview, and afterwards a Keith Rowe solo-set in WORM, on 29 March 2007, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

>>> http://www.vpro.nl/programma/cafesonore ... /40131160/

(aired on 2 November 2008)



"It's not about music, not about composition, it's about making audible what I feel."

In the interview, he talks about his music having more to do with painting too, btw. He further says that the most important thing in painting is originality, finding your own voice, and he opposses this to the field of music that has been more like a craft up untill Cage, and the likes. He also talks about the importance of the eraser and being able to be correct mistakes while improvising, for which you need a broad compositional overview, etc. He also quotes Christian Wolff: "Think fast, play slow." and talks about that, talking into account the history of music and your own history in your playing, etc. In the final questions he talks a bit about the difference between playing solo and in group.

The bummer with this stream is that you can't pause it or ffwd or rwd, but it's worth a listen.

[jon abbey]

up...

Keith's coming to the US in March, and his plans are starting to solidify, more details as things become definite. what's sure is that he's doing a workshop and solo set at Oberlin on March 11/12, then going to Boston and playing a duo set with Jason Lescalleet there on the 14th (!!!). he'll stay in Boston and be part of a Christian Wolff set of performances through the 18th before coming to NYC. nothing is definite yet for NYC, but there are some extremely exciting things almost finalized which I'll post here if and when they are definite (a NYC concert would be on 3/20).

those are the only cities he's playing this time, Oberlin and Boston sponsored this trip and he needs to get back to Europe on the 22nd because of other commitments.

OK, more details to come, hopefully...