Re: Paul Dresher / Was Re: essential loop recordings

[Kim Flint <kflint@loopers-delight.com>]

At 11:37 AM 6/26/2003, ArsOcarina@aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 6/26/03 10:45:24 AM, improv@peak.org writes:
>
> >Paul Dresher and Ned Rothenberg: Opposites Attract, New World Records
> >1991: I'm not sure how essential this is on the larger scale, since I
> >seem to be the only person to have ever bought this record, but it
> >was certainly a huge inspiration to me. Paul Dresher has done a lot
> >of work with tape-based looping systems.
>
>I'm a big Dresher fan too. I dug his "Liquid and Stellar Music" (1984).
>I had the great privilege of witnessing Paul do this mucic live in the
>small auditorium of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Hs method

Paul is a wonderful musician and composer, I've really enjoyed what I've 
seen and listened to of his. I think he should be on the "essential" list 
too, since a great many people were inspired by his looping in the 80's, 
and it seems he really had some innovative ideas. Which album would be a 
good choice?

I saw him perform with Joel Davel the other day at the Chapel of the 
Chimes* event in Oakland. He played a home made instrument that he also 
used for his recent "Sound Stage" theatre show, about a 15 foot long piece 
of wood with piano-type strings stretched across and pickups at both ends. 
He plays it in various ways - bowed, plucked, hammered with metal rods, 
rolling a metal ball down the strings, prepared with rods inserted in the 
stings as "frets" etc. It makes an extraordinary sound, with the long 
strings giving such rich harmonics and the pickups at both ends getting 
different sounds (and pitches sometimes) off the strings. Paul uses three 
Echoplexes for loops, set up as a multi-track looper where he controls 
them 
independently. Joel played the amazing Buchla designed Marimba Lumina, 
which is quite a marvel in it's own right. I'm not sure how to describe 
the 
music and do it any justice. There were very playful moments where both 
Joel and Paul played the big stringed thing together, some very textural 
moments with loops, and some very rhythmic pieces that had more of a dance 
music feel. I think some of them were pieces from "Sound Stage", if any of 
you had the opportunity to see that.

(*what a great event that is, 4 hours in the huge, labyrinthine, Julia 
Morgan designed Columbarium, with 30 or so new music performers tucked 
away 
in the various chapels and rooms and nooks and crannies. You just wander 
around the building and discover all this fantastic music among the dead 
people. Chris Muir from this list played with Henry Kaiser, Pamela Z was 
there doing her looped vocal pieces, plus numerous others who I wandered 
by 
and enjoyed a lot. This event happens each year, and I recommend it to 
anybody in the area.)

kim


______________________________________________________________________
Kim Flint                     | Looper's Delight
kflint@loopers-delight.com    | http://www.loopers-delight.com