Marc Ribot @ The Brecht Forum 5/9/09

This was an awesome kickoff show for Marc Ribot's birthday retrospective. I loved this music. It was along the lines of modern classical. The music and band were phenomenal. It was a quick and enjoyable hour of stellar music.

The bass flute was very interesting. It was made of wood (or bamboo?) and really appealed to those of us who have "seen it all". The pieces were alternated between these fabulous solo pieces and ensemble pieces. It was all wonderful.

My favorite parts were the guitar solo done by Marco Cappelli. He played it on his lap like a drum and a lap string. You had to be there, it was amazing. My other favorite were the last 2 pieces, which were pretty intense.

It was very different and spectacular. I can't wait to hit many more of these shows this week.

Marc Ribot & Ensemble Dissonanzen with Special Guests

Scelsi Morning

featuring
Marc Ribot (guitar), Tommaso Rossi (flutes), Marco Sannini (trumpet), Marco Cappelli (guitar and bass), Francesco d'Errico (synthesizer) and special guests Christine Bard (drums) and Jenny Lin (piano).

Marc Ribot's 2003 album Scelsi Morning was a wink and a nod towards "that very tiny and probably narrowing subset of people who get the Joni Mitchell and the Giacinto Scelsi reference." Inspired by the late Italian visionary composer, the album contains no sprightly '60s pop covers. Indeed, it's one of the guitarist's most challenging efforts, further fleshed out in collaboration with new-music guitarist Marco Cappelli and his Italian-based ENSEMBLE DISSONANZEN, with whom Ribot has performed in Europe. Marc says, "What they've put together is quite beautiful. If you want to hear Giacinto Scelsi solo pieces, you'll get to hear the flute piece, the piano piece, the organ piece, the guitar piece and even the trumpet piece. It's more of Scelsi's solo work than you'll ever hear in one place in a good long time, and then you get my record thrown in, too."