The Butch Morris lecture on conduction was excellent. It started exactly at 10 and went to 11. It was fascinating. He had a bunch of musicians up there, that he said he worked with for 1.5 hours that day and then 1 hour each set. He pioneered notation and gestures for communicating with the musicians and others have taken it and put their own stamp on it. He showed us 5 different meanings of the repeat sign, how he communicates graphically and with signs, how he allows the artists to develop some information and how to give them information in the first place. It was fascinating. We got to ask questions toward the end. Someone was asking him about sampling, because that’s kind of what he was doing with some of the sounds with the musicians. It gave me a lot of insight into how a composition with a conductor still leaves lots of room for improvisation. I know that happens sometimes even when musicians have reading stands in front of them. It was pretty cool and I hope to get to his orchestra at The Stone or Nublu sometime soon.
12/11 Tuesday (GG)8 and 10 pmCONDUCTION 101: Butch Morris on Conduction
Butch Morris (conduction) Kirk Knuffke (trumpet) Tony Barba (clarinet) Christof Knoche (bass clarinet) Michael Attias (alto saxophone) Eivind Opsvik (double bass) Reuben Radding (double bass)
All audience members are encouraged to bring their instruments.
After that, we wanted a little more, and I was off the next day. So, up to Louis 649 for a nice double-sax quartet. Banjo Jim’s sounded good as well, but I opted for Louis anyway.
Here's a little more on Butch Morris. The Wikipedia article does a good job of summing up his technique:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Morris
http://www.scaruffi.com/oldavant/morris.html
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