I just found out that
Sal Mosca died. He was a singular modern jazz pianist, even though he was obviously a disciple of the legendary Lennie Tristano. If you don't know his work, listen to the 1971 Lee Konitz recording, Spirits, with Ron Carter on bass and Mousie Alexander on drums. It's fabulous music, clean as air (used to be).
I was looking for material about the poet F.T. Prince, and saw Mosca's name on a list of obituaries at The Guardian. Here's the obit:
Richard Williams
Thursday August 9, 2007
The Guardian
The chances of finding the jazz pianist Sal Mosca, who has died from the effects of emphysema at the age of 80, playing in a New York club some night in his seven-decade professional career must have been infinitesimal, given the long absences because of his preference for private practice over public performance. There he was, however, one night in November 1981, co-leading a quartet at the Village Vanguard on Seventh Avenue with the tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh, another fugitive figure and fellow graduate of the informal school of jazz named after the blind pianist and teacher Lennie Tristano.
The music they created that night, like everything they ever played, bore Tristano's hallmark: an air of detachment that derived from the intensity of their involvement in their source material. Mosca was among the most gifted of those acolytes who, even in unbuttoned surroundings, continued to devote themselves to an austere investigation of the inner workings of chord sequences borrowed from standard Broadway tunes, rather than go for the cheap emotional outreach.
Mosca, born to first-generation Italian immigrants in Mount Vernon, New York State, was fascinated in boyhood with the sounds from the household pianola and was soon attracted to the music of such early jazz pianists as James P Johnson and Fats Waller. At 12 he began formal lessons at the keyboard; three years later he played in local nightclubs, a moustache disguising his age.
After Mosca's two years of wartime service in an army band ended in 1946, the GI bill enabled him to enrol at the New York College of Music, where he studied classical composition by day while listening to such giants as Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum in the clubs of 52nd Street at night. Soon he met Tristano, a controversial but magnetic figure who, over the next eight years of study, shaped his destiny.
His fellow pupils included Marsh and the alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, and it was with these two distinctive young musicians that Mosca made his first recordings in 1949, the powerful influence of Tristano on his own playing apparent on pieces such as Marshmallow and Tautology. By 1957, on a Konitz album titled Very Cool, his real originality emerged in a series of short solos full of startlingly asymmetrical phrase-shapes, mixing close-voiced chordal passages with agile single-note lines that seemed to double back on themselves.
Konitz and Marsh remained his most frequent musical companions and a 1971 recording with Konitz, titled Spirits, contains several duets that demonstrate how adventurously the pianist had developed away from his model. He also made a few poorly distributed solo records, including A Concert, documenting a 1979 recital in New York and displaying the full extent of his technical resource and emotional rigour.
Like his mentor, Mosca spent most of his career shunning the public gaze. Instead he concentrated on practising and on passing on his knowledge to younger musicians at his home in Mount Vernon, where he adapted Tristano's specialised teaching methods.
He is survived by a daughter, two sons, and many pupils. Among these in the mid-1950s was a 13-year-old, Bob Gaudio, from New Jersey. For the first few weeks of tuition, Gaudio was required to do nothing but learn to scat-sing Louis Armstrong solos. Then he was invited to play classical pieces on a piano with weighted keys, to help develop speed and dexterity. Three years later Gaudio went on to join three other Italian-Americans, including the lead singer Frankie Valli, in a doo-wop group called the Four Seasons, for whom he co-wrote a string of million-selling hits. Then he gave Mosca the most unexpected, and incongruous, credit of his career on the cover of the Four Seasons' 1969 post-Sgt Pepper concept album, Genuine Imitation Life Gazette. "Salvatore Mosca: Private instructions," it said.
One pupil had not forgotten. Nor did anyone lucky enough to have witnessed his artistry one random night in Greenwich Village, more than a quarter of a century ago.
· Salvatore Joseph Mosca, pianist and teacher, born April 27 1927; died July 28 2007
Rembetica: Historic Urban Folk Songs From Greece
Rounder Select
1992
Certain kinds of Greek folk music remind me very much of traditional Irish music, that driving, lilting, tilting, intoxicating thing, that groove, that brings out my deranged inner Celt. And this is that kind of Greek music. My friend Tom Mandel gave me this disc a few years ago. Thanks again, Tom.
Here is travel writer Matt Barrett:
“Rembetika music is the music of the Greek Underground. It originated in the hashish dens of Pireaus and Thessaloniki around the turn of the 20th century and was influenced by oriental elements that came with the forced immigration of 2 million Greek refugees from Asia Minor. It gave way to Greek Popular Music (“Laika” in Greek) which used the same instruments in similar ways during the early 1950s.”
It’s clear that Greek folk music got its singy-singy bits from Europe (esp. harmony vocals), and its dancy-dancy bits from the East (not surprisingly, after 400 years of Turkish occupation). Solo vocals do have that trance inducing eroticism found in Eastern music.
L. H. Kritikos has a good, informative site, here:
http://home.earthlink.net/~lkritikos/index1.html
The recordings on this disc were made between 1906 and 1946, although most of them were made in the 1930s. They are unusually vivid for their vintage. The opening track, “Sousta politiki” by Adonis Dalgas, just takes right off. Rolling accordian, Eastern-bluesy vocal. It’s amazingly uplifting. Rembetica, like jazz and blues, has that compelling blend of sorrow and joy. Roza Eskenazy’s “Ime prezakias -- tsifte telli” starts with Dimitrios Semsis, the "best violin in the Balkans" and then in comes “the great lady of Smyrna,” and it’s all atmosphere, and very dancy-dancy, amazing vocal, all ecstatic gravita.
“Taxim – zeimbekiko” by Markos Vamvakaris has some fabulous guitar and
baglamas play – a baglamas is a Turkish stringed instrument, not unlike
the bouzouki. There’s a good deal of magnificent playing on this disc,
superb harmony and solo vocals. I must mention Rita Abatzi, who was
Roza Eskenazy’s big rival, it seems. She, too, has a zeimbekiko (a
typical Rembetika dance, Turkish influence). Rita’s voice is limited,
but her singing is not. Her “O psilos” is another great track.
“Taxim – zeimbekiko” by Markos Vamvakaris has some fabulous guitar and baglamas play – a baglamas is a Turkish stringed instrument, not unlike the bouzouki. There’s a good deal of magnificent playing on this disc, superb harmony and solo vocals. I must mention Rita Abatzi, who was Roza Eskenazy’s big rival, it seems. She, too, has a zeimbekiko (a typical Rembetika dance, Turkish influence). Rita’s voice is limited, but her singing is not. Her “O psilos” is another great track.
I lived on the island of Paros for three months in 1968, then most of 1969, and was back again for a couple of months in 1971. Paros was very different then than it is now, based on what I’ve heard. There were only two cars on the island (both taxicabs). There was no paved road around the island. And the port, Parikia was the only one of its four towns with any life in it. It was a tourist spot, mostly for mainland Greeks, who came to visit the Church of a 100 doors (which had 99 doors). Otherwise, there were some Americans, Brits and Germans, mostly. The Americans tried to speak the language, at least. The Brits were appalling, speaking more loudly and slowly in English to waiters who understood only Greek, and did not understand, despite the growing emphasis and impatience. There were a couple of modest high-rise hotels, nothing much really. And the ferry boat, the Elle, came once a day. Television appeared on the island during my second stint there. Now, there’s a heliport, a paved road, lots of cars, rows of high-rise hotels along the shore, and masses of international tourists. I was happy to learn that the Aegean School of Fine Arts, an American-based art college where I taught creative writing, still exists there.
When I lived on Paros, there were feast days about two or three times a week, seemed like, and there was always music. One of my all-time records is a 45rpm disc by Irini Konitopoulou, “I’m Going Back to Paros.” She came to Paros and performed while I was there. Awesome singer. Very different than the popular Greek music of the day, which I liked well enough, but nowhere near as much – the Mikis Theodorakis / Zorba kind of thing. I guess that was more “Laika.” The music on Rembetica reminds me of Irini, very much. There is a Women of Rembetica disc, also.
Photographs, Paros, 1968:
Sirena Recorder Quartet
Sitting Ducks
BIS 2000
How many recordings of serial music by recorder quartets do you own? Exactly. It's either none, or this one.
This one consists of:
Karina Helene Jensen, soprano, alto, tenor and bass recorders
Helle Nielsen, soprano, alto, tenor and bass recorders
Marit Ernst, soprano, alto, tenor, bass and C bass recorders
Pia Loman, sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor and bass recorders
They formed an ensemble at the Carl Nielsen Academy of Music in Odense, to perform both newly written compositions and early music. Sitting Ducks is all new stuff, some of it composed for this quartet specifically. There are ten compositions by five composers on this disc, the oldest of whom was born in 1930, the youngest in 1957.
Four of the compositions are by Ryohei Hirose (b. 1930), including the serial piece, Lamentation, and two others that are more archaic sounding, and very pretty. My favorite is the title piece, by Chiel Meijering (b. 1954), a brilliant piece of minimalism and lots of fun. The playing is superb throughout the recording, with wonderful intonation and great, playful creativity with timbre.
It is music that requires attention, preferably through repeated listening. It does not do well as background music. although, when I was playing the disc after I had just acquired it, five or six years ago, I was at my computer, typing, and I thought there must be a truck backing up right under my window (that beep beep beep beep), but, no… it was Sirena, having fun.
Antigoni Goni
Laureate Series, Guitar
Naxos 1997
For those who like to listen to classical guitar music, this is a first rate recording. Goni manages the vital issue of repertoire well. She has work by five modern composers. And her playing is dazzling without being flashy – superb phrasing, gorgeous tone.
Carlo Domeniconi’s Koyunbaba suite is pretty hypnotic. Its Turkish influence is evident throughout. I was unfamiliar with this Italian composer, and would like to hear more of his work.
Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo is famous for his Concierto de Aranjuez, and his Invocacion y Danza from Hommage a Manuel de Falla has much as of the same feel as the concierto.
Federico Mompou has been spoken of as the Spanish Satie in relation to his piano music, not inaccurately, since he was very much influenced by the French composer. Mompou’s piano music is even more minimalist than Satie’s, and very meditative. There’s an excellent 1993 ECM recording by Herbert Henck of his Música Callada Book 1-4. His Suite compostelana on this CD is similar to his piano music, very compressed and subtle.
I was very glad that Goni included Agustín Barrios Mangoré’s Un sueno en la floresta. This virtuoso guitarist and wonderful composer was a contemporary of Segovia, and he is reputed to have made the first ever recording of classical guitar music. Barrios was greatly influenced by the folk music of his native Paraguay. Un sueno en la floresta is, “…a spell-binding exercise in tremolo, utterly idiomatic to the guitar, as are all of Barrios’ works.” The Naxos liner notes say it much more precisely than I could. Barrios was a poet, also. Viva Barrios!
The widely admired Cuban composer Leo Brouwer is known for using indeterminacy as part of his compositional methodology, and his El decamerón negro does have a kind of edgy feel to it. Brouwer's influences include Messiaen, Bartok, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky. Like a good amount of the music on this disc, El decamerón negro suite is kind of brooding. No speedmetal here, sweetheart, but plenty of intensity.
My Guitar
There is a deep mystery in your sonorous
Garden heart, guitar of mine,
You enjoy suffering, and in your joy
Ecstasies of passion, teardrops of crying.
The sweet Moor gave you your heart,
The Iberian gave you your untamed soul
And Virgin America, you might say,
Put in you, because of its love, all the treasure.
And so on your supreme strings
That vibrate with an almost human accent
There is, at times, your voice, like a lament.
As a sigh from your lonely heart
In whose sad and mystical plan
Sentiment forever flourishes.
Agustin Barrios Mangoré
Wolfgang Tillmans
at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Independence Avenue at Seventh Street SW
(Metro: L'Enfant Plaza)
Through August 12
Open daily 10 to 5:30.
Wolfgang Tillmans achieves two things with this exhibition. He subverts the hierarchical value system of (fine art) photography; and he subverts the standard functions of museum exhibition and museum exhibition viewing. On July 6, Smithsonian curator Merry Foresta gave a precise, informative and provocative talk about this show, the fulcrum of which was an argument about the concept of the archive, and how this was relevant to the exhibition. My simplification of this would be that the contents of a photography archive depend on the input of a viewer for meaning and for cultural significance to be established. This is somewhat like the idea of negotiation in literary reception theory, formulated by Hans-Robert Jauss, in which the meaning of a text is determined according to the individual’s set of life experiences and cultural background. This theory was to some degree an amplification of Hans-Georg Gadamer idea of a “fusion of horizons” in which the reader takes measure of the text’s history by reconciling it with their own history. What reception theory achieved was the displacement of a concern with the author’s intention by a concern with the activity between reader and text as a way of establishing meaning. What Merry Foresta achieved in her talk was recognition of the photographer’s intention being based on these ideas, directly or not. The archive, i.e., the entire exhibition, or, archives (each of the ten separate galleries housing the exhibition on the second floor of the Hirshhorn), form a kind of neutralization of both standard museum function (instruction, authentication), and the viewer’s practice (relatively passive reception). Thus, the fusion of horizons is activated. The beauty of Foresta’s talk was that it jump-started the processes of appreciation in a very particular manner.
My immediate responses to the show, before hearing Foresta’s talk, were all about how anti-museum the show was, and, in some ways, anti-photography. The latter, insofar as it clearly challenged the hegemony of aesthetic purity in photography; the former, insofar as it ignored the standards of exhibition. It was a thrilling thing to see. Most of the photographs were unframed and taped to the wall. Many of them were snapshots (size and style). Many of them were the size of postcards. Some were massive blowups. Placement was erratic, and some were too high on the wall to be seen clearly. One room was full of tables with photographs and texts concerning war, poverty, AIDS, homophobia and other social issues. This room was called the “Truth Study Center” – and its impact managed to be both ironic and passionate at the same time. Another room was full of blank photographic paper (or, photographs of blank photographic paper), including a huge grid of dark blue and black vertical rectangles, called “Memorial for the Victims of Organized Religions".
After hearing Merry Foresta’s talk, it was much easier to appreciate what kind of “fusion of horizons” was possible in viewing the Tillmans exhibition. Most especially, it was feasible to consider the limits of one’s own cultural background as they were being challenged by Tillmans. Also, it was possible in my case to see how some of my own biases were being validated. It seemed to me that the Tillmans show was the first I’d seen that clearly belonged to the age of the Internet, an age in which all information was made equal, in some respects, almost in the manner described by a famous American motto, “God made men and women, Samuel Colt made them equal.” In terms of photography, this made me think about John Berger distinction regarding the uses of photography
(in About Looking), “…photographs which belong to private experience and those which are used publicly." I wonder what Berger thinks about Flickr and other online photo sharing. Anyhow, issues concerning public and private, high art and mass art and not-art all came to mind. The dominance of a high art mentality in fine art photography came to mind. But, yo, we were in the archive now. No high art, no mass art, no not-art. Not yet. My own bias was not anti-high art, but anti-high art exclusivity, anti-high art contempt for mass art. This has been complicated in recent times by one’s having been beaten over the head by POPULAR CULTURE, with the fetishization of everything from film noir to Britney’s knickers. Which brings us to Kant.
In a comment on a recent post at Mark Wallace’s Thinking Again, David Michael Wolach said, ”There is a Kantian argument here, that is: poems needn’t justify being—they are ends not means.” The question arising in the archive is, if the photographs are the ends, how is that end arrived at? And, how many ends does it consist of? I am a populist by nature and inclination, and the bias that was validated in the archive for me was one that was against the prescribed limitations to what might be experienced looking at photographs. In a subtle way, Merry Foresta’s real impact was to give us viewers permission to think, to really think for ourselves. Not a popular activity, like driving, or eating. No, an unpopular activity, like listening.
OK, much of this is not really that new, maybe. I’m no expert on photography, by any means. I’ve looked a lot and I’ve read some. And I am intensely attached to the work of some photographers, such as Andre Kertesz, Sylvia Plachy, Steve Szabo, Francesca Woodman, Sandra Rottmann and Marcus Haydock. But I am vastly ignorant concerning the critical history of photography and the contemporary issues involved. And I don’t know that much about Gadamer and Jauss, either. I’ve owned books by both of them, but I’ve never read them, at least not thoroughly – just enough to get some ideas, which I may well have misunderstood. As a matter of fact, I don’t want to be an expert on anything. I’ve worked in academia for almost four decades, in Wales, in Greece, and here, and I have no interest in becoming an academic. Academia is about territory, and that’s just not my bag, man, you dig? It’s not that I don’t love academia, I do, truly. All those scholars, sussing stuff out and all. Que wow. Their work is an endless source of pleasure and enlightenment. And I don’t mean to apologize for my dumb ass, either, you dig.
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