Related Papers
Projeto English Nuggets
Gladys Quevedo
Jazz and Electroacoustic Music, Early Encounters: the Mwandishi Band
Bob Gluck
Beyond the writings of George Lewis (Lewis 1996, 2002, 2007, 2008), little attention has been given within the electroacoustic scholarly community, to African-American musicians. The work of black musicians who have engaged with electronics outside of popular music, for example Charles Stepney, Eddie Harris, Muhal Richard Abrams and Miles Davis has been treated with controversy and skepticism. A fascinating and little discussed example may be found in the music of the Herbie Hanco*ck Sextet, a group active in the early 1970s. Popularly known as the Mwandishi band, this group evolved from an excellent, largely acoustic jazz ensemble into one that engaged electroacoustic music aesthetics and practice. The argument of this essay is that Herbie Hanco*ck's Mwandishi Band belongings simultaneously and fully within the worlds of jazz and electroacoustic music. This paper prepared for Electroacoustic Music Studies Network (Sorbonne, Paris, June 2008) was a precursor to the author's book "You'll Know When You Get There: Herbie Hanco*ck and the Mwandishi Band" (University of Chicago Press, 2012; paperback 2013).
Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference
ELECTROACOUSTIC, CREATIVE, AND JAZZ: MUSICIANS NEGOTIATING BOUNDARIES
2009 •
Bob Gluck
Throughout its history, electroacoustic music has viewed itself as distinct from what are perceived as popular musical forms. This is problematic because a parallel experimental musical universe has existed within jazz and other African-American musical traditions. This presentation explores collaborations between electroacoustic and jazz musicians during the 1960s and early 1970s, through the lens of the personal experiences of members of Herbie Hanco*ck's "Mwandishi" band, and of electroacoustic musicians including Richard Teitelbaum and Gordon Mumma. The discussion interrelates racial and musical segregation, and argues for the inclusion of jazz and "creative music" forms within the domain of electroacoustic music.
Eno and Devo.pdf
Jon Stewart
Published as a chapter in Albiez, S. & Pattie, D. (Eds) 2016 "Brian Eno: Oblique Music" London: Bloomsbury Academic Brian Eno produced and mixed Devo's first album "Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO!" at Konrad Plank's "Conny's Studio" in the small German hamlet of Wolperath, near Cologne, in the winter of 1977-78. This chapter explores Devo and Eno's shared interest in creative technology, which found expression in an innovative "analogue underscore" that runs throughout the album. It also examines their differences, exemplified in Devo's refusal to engage with Eno's famous Oblique Strategies cards. It draws on new and pre-existing interview material, including the author's own conversations with Gerry Casale and Patrick Gleeson. It argues that the awkward relationship between producer and band contributed to the remarkable rhythmic and harmonic tensions in their music.
Jazz: the twenties and Louis Armstrong, 1979
1979 •
Leta Hendricks
American Musicological Society Annual Conference
"A Frankenstein Piano": Herbie Hanco*ck, Improvisation, and Electric Lutherie
2018 •
Mike Ford
The late 1960s saw the emergence of jazz fusion, a genre that blended elements from not only jazz and rock, but also funk. Drawing from this last genre, fusion groups added synthesizers to their instrumental line-up. However, these instruments, sold by Moog, ARP, etc., were still developing in terms of sophistication. Two particular issues that hindered streamlined performances were the initial lack of capacity to save patch configurations and, until the introduction of MIDI in 1981, the inability of synthesizers of different brands to be connected efficiently. This led to indeterminate settings in which musicians created patches on the fly, unsure of their sonic results. In this paper, I argue that the uncertainty of manipulating, combining, and recombining early synthesizers generated a form of improvisational lutherie, creating sutured-together hybrid instruments. Understanding improvisation as comprising indeterminacy, analysis of conditions, agency, and choice (Lewis 2016), it can be both an “in the moment” practice as well as a process that can take place over longer periods of time. I demonstrate how Herbie Hanco*ck and his sound engineers Patrick Gleeson, Bryan Bell, and Keith Lofstrom improvised instrument- building both on-stage and off-stage, in their continual acquisition and exploration of electronic instruments and the sonic possibilities of their combinations during the early 1970s, providing new ways of musical improvisation. While these indeterminate conditions of constructing and combining electronic instruments have been noted in recent scholarship (Fellezs 2011; Gluck 2012), such forms of lutherie have not been understood as improvisational. This paper adds not only to the slowly growing discourse on jazz fusion, a genre that has been historically neglected in jazz scholarship, but also to electronic organology and the study of the early development of synthesizers.
The Turkish Ambassador's Residence and the Cultural History of Washington DC 2013
Caroline Mesrobian Hickman
Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies
‘‘All Rock and Rhythm and Jazz’: Rock’n’Roll Origin Stories and Race in Australia
2007 •
Jon Stratton
University of California at Santa Barbara (2nd edition)
The Banjo on Record - A Bio-Discography
2021 •
Rainer E. Lotz, Uli Heier
It’s hard to believe we published The Banjo on Record in 1993 - in the previous millennium! We put it together largely with typewriters and a 78rpm record player, using our personal collections and a few grey cells between the ears. The internet was still in its infancy. Today's researchers have the convenient option of using search engines, Wikipdia, Facebook, YouTube, email and countless other sources Every discography begins to become out of date the moment the ink dries. With this in mind, the work is astonishingly complete and remarkably flawless. In the past decades it has proven to be a valuable resource, especially for musicians, collectors, music librarians, or researchers. We were all the more pleased about the letter from Brian Rust, the nestor of jazz discography, who had willingly accompanied the work in its creation: “The great book arrived a few days ago, and I must say I think you've done a great job, one I am proud of having assisted. It is the realization of my dream of 1965 or whenever it was, of a book devoted to records of banjo solos, but one that has been taken much further than I thought all those years ago. It looks good - it is good. Congratulations to Uli Heier and your good self! " (Rust to Lotz, Aug 13, 1993). George Bohee's legendary wax cylinders for the Edison Bell Supply Company (Liverpool, before May 1898) have not been found to this day. On the other hand, sensational early banjo solos by minstrel Charles Asbury have surfaced, which are dated between 1891 and 1897 and thus originated before the Columbia cylinders, which we had already noted in the Banjo Discography (and where we had wrongly identified Asbury as white). Several knowledgeable specialists, from Frank Andrews to Steve Walker, have since pointed out inevitable mistakes and omissions. However, we the authors are now octogenarians and leave it to others to compile updated revised editions. This is the “digital reprint” of the original, only this introduction has been added. Uli Heier & Rainer E. Lotz, January 2021
