FTW, 9.10.2023

Don't review many books here, but Mike Faloon's The Other Night at Quinn's hit me so hard that I couldn't resist. Faloon's a teacher, DJ, punk rock drummer, and fanzine scribe, and his tome, pubbed by estimable DIY punkers Razorcake/Gorsky Press, is an earwitness account of the unlikely free jazz/experimental music scene that grew up around a diner-turned-club in the sleepy upstate New York burg of Beacon. (A 'net bud of mine lives there and says that while things have slowed down since Faloon's book appeared in 2017, Quinn's is still going.) 

It's not often I encounter a piece of music scrawl that crystallizes or encapsulates what I think about a lot of things, but Faloon's does just that for this particular moment in the history of creative music. (The latest entry in NYC guitarist-composer Max Kutner's blog does something similar.) I've long been geeked on the idea of music as locus for community, and know that the ideal environment to experience music is one where you can see the performers work in human scale, and feel air from drumheads and speaker cones moving your clothes around. Faloon excels at observing and describing musical performance, and isn't afraid to put his own life into his scrawl. He also realizes that scenes like the one at Quinn's are ephemeral, and need to be appreciated and valued while they're around. 

Closer to home, we visited the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth yesterday to hear Sounds Modern's Impure Music, presented in conjunction with the current exhibit, Robert Motherwell: Pure Painting. In response to Motherwell's contention that "pure music" should be free of external influences, the ensemble (in its various configurations) performed "impure" works including Dieter Schnebel's Pan, a duo for flute and cello inspired by the mythical fertility demon; a triptych of works commissioned by the Amorsima Trio to commemorate Beethoven's 250th birthday; Stefan Wolpe's Muzik zu Hamlet, composed for a Berlin production of Shakespeare's play; Morton Feldman's solo percussion The King of Denmark, a tribute to the Danish resistance to Nazi occupation; John Cage's Six Short Inventions, using the techniques of the composer's teachers Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg; and the premiere performance of Erik Ulman's The Golden Fleece, inspired by Motherwell's painting of the same name and dedicated to flutist/Sounds Modern director Elizabeth McNutt.

Sounds Modern always provides lots of food for hungry ears, and they did not disappoint. I was particularly taken by the gamut of emotions McNutt and cellist Kourtney Newton evoked via the seven vignettes in the Schnebel piece; the dizzying play with tonality the Amorsima Trio undertook during what I believe was Sounds Modern assistant director Andrew May's Flutter, Swoop, and Wheel; percussionist Christopher Teal's light touch on the Feldman (which requires the performer to use only hands and fingers); and the rhythmic irregularity of Ulman's premiere piece (it was interesting to contrast the sounds emanating from the ensemble with the steady meter of May's conduction). How fortunate are we to be able to hear this music for free in a good-sounding space. 

Finally, my jaw hit the floor when I saw the lineup for the second Molten Plains Fest, skedded for December 8-9 at Rubber Gloves in Denton: Joe McPhee, Zoh Amba, Sandy Ewen, Damon Smith, Dave Dove, Wendy Eisenberg, a host of worthy locals, and out-of-towners I need to find out more about. So I've got a ton of homework to do, but a couple of months to do it, at least. A major event for sure; save the date and check their website for updates.