Tracking The Odds Podcast

Thoughts Around Mahfouz is a collection of compositions and improvisations inspired by the writing of Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz by composer Dave Douglas (trumpet and electrics) and an ensemble featuring Ikue Mori (electronic percussion), Jamie Saft (keyboards), and Kenny Wollesen (drums and percussion). Douglas is a prolific creative force as trumpeter, composer, educator, and entrepreneur from New York City known for the stylistic breadth of his work and for leading a diverse set of ensembles and projects. This program excerpts a live concert recorded at Roulette on 15 April 1998.

Two creative virtuosos coming out of Chicago jazz and blues meet for a wide-ranging exchange. Melford begins with solos including a remarkable rendition of Ornette Coleman’s Passion Culture and soulful original works. Jenkins steps in for the second half for open improv duos that both tickle and explode. Myra Melford is a composer/pianist whose projects like Snowy Egret and Tiger Trio reflect her inspiration working with Henry Threadgill, Jaki Byard, Butch Morris, Marion Brandis and many other influences including the poetry of Rumi and the Huichol Indians of Mexico. Violinist Leroy Jenkins emerged as part of the AACM and the Revolutionary Ensemble with bassist Sirone and the drummer Jerome Cooper and moved into more traditional classical forms influenced by Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, Bill T. Jones and others. Recorded live in concert at Roulette 21 April 2006.

Guitarist Thurston Moore in a solo performance, recorded at the Roulette Concert Series in NYC on October 25, 1997. Moore, a pivotal figure in the 80s alternative rock movement along with his band members in Sonic Youth, has also been an activist and collaborator on the experimental music scene, working with artists from Maryanne Amacher and Christian Marclay to Yoko Ono and Takehisa Kosugi. This recording is also a testament to his mastery of his instrument and musical imagination. A bonus track, ‘Cross The Breeze, from Sonic Youth’s seminal 1988 album Daydream Nation completes the program.

Ma la Pert is the duo of Jennifer Walshe and Tony Conrad, here recorded in concert at Roulette on 19 February 2010. They use voice, violins, viola, bass, autoharps, autotune, keyboard, shells, broken plastic, words, parts of words, stories, chanting, jigs, screaming, shouting, broken drum skins, bells, green furry outfits, breastplates, wire, bird calls, and old lady dresses. Walshe was born in Dublin and studied composition at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and Northwestern University, Chicago. Conrad (1940-2016) was a video artist, filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. He was a pioneer of structural film (flicker films), drone music, and tunings (beginning as a partner with LaMonte Young in the Theatre of Eternal Music). This is an excerpt from a two hour performance.

Virtuosos Stuart Dempster and Greg Powers in a Druphad style raga for didjeridu and trombone, recorded in concert at Roulette on March 4, 1999. Powers develops the raga on trombone while Dempster provides the drone on his beautiful brass didjeridu. Two Americans fusing European and Australian Aboriginal instruments in the tradition of Asian Indian Dhrupad music, the oldest of the three major vocal styles associated with Hindustani classical music and the most closely related to the South Indian Carnatic tradition. Stuart Dempster is a trombonist, didjeridu player, improvisor, and composer. He collaborated extensively with Pauline Oliveros and Panaiotis including co-founding the Deep Listening Band. He is credited with introducing the didjeridu to North America. Greg Powers is a pioneer in adapting Indian music to the trombone. He is a disciple of the Dagarbhani tradition and has studied with Jeff Lewis, The Dagar Brothers, and Uday Bhawalkar in Seattle and Mumbai.

A sound installation/performance recorded at Roulette on May 15, 1999. Entitled Ferris Wheel, the piece is designed as a sonic flashback museum of digital samples, an archaeology of ideas, and a post-war musical journey. Toshio Kajiwara is a sound artist and a stage director based in Kyoto, Japan. His obsessive interest in archiving obscure recordings from times past evolved into a series of performances using old phonograph players and magnetic tape machines in the early 90’s, working with artists such as DJ Olive, Christian Marclay, Shelley Hirsch, Aki Onda, Raz Mesinai, Marina Rosenfeld and many more. Taketo Shimada is a visual and sound artist, born in Tokyo and living in New York, whose work explores contemporary variations on the Drone formula pioneered by La Monte Young’s Theatre of Eternal Music, Yoshi Wada, and other Fluxus tone-worshippers.

The composer/keyboardist performing original compositions as well as work by mentor/alter-ego PW Schreck, “Father of Calamitonality”, recorded live in concert at Roulette on 28 October 1994. Along with Gosfield on samplers and piano are Roger Kleier on guitar and Christine Bard on drums and percussion. In addition to distinguished work for traditional ensembles, Gosfield is known to have an affection for jammed radios, broken pianos, air raid sirens, and other unconventional sonic sources. Gosfield’s discography includes four portrait CD’s on the Tzadik label including “Almost Truths and Open Deceptions” and “Lost Signals and Drifting Satellites”. A selection from the latter is included on this program. Gosfield is hosting a retrospective of her work, with a stellar list of collaborators, at the Stone at The New School, July 24-28, 2018. Tracking The Odds: The Roulette Concert Archive is a monthly hour-long radio special produced by Roulette Intermedium (roulette.org) and broadcast in partnership with Wave Farm’s WGXC 90.7-FM and Standing Wave Radio. The broadcasts feature selected highlights from Roulette’s New York experimental music space dating from the early 1980s to the present. Thousands of rare, formative, and often unheard recordings by innovators and adventurous musicians populate the archive. Tracking The Odds airs the third Thursday of each month at 1 a.m. ET and is archived at wavefarm.org.

The gentle and ferociously inventive guitarist Bern Nix (1947-2017), a former Ornette Coleman collaborator, and Egyptian bouzouki/guitar/flamenco/jazz master Ayman Fanous in duos and solos, restored from the Roulette archives. Recorded in concert in November 1996. Nix mastered Ornette’s theory of “harmolodics” and used it in his own practice. He also worked with James Chance and the Contortions, Jayne Cortez, John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Elliott Sharp, Jemeel Moondoc, Ronald Shannon Jackson, and many more. Fanous has forged a synthesis of both Arab tradition and Derek Bailey-style free improv. His collaborators include Frances-Marie Uitti, Tomas Ulrich, Jason Hwang, William Parker, Ned Rothenberg, Mark Feldman, Ikue Mori, and others.

This percussion duo performed at Roulette on 22 March 1995 in an eclectic cross genre, cross cultural program with Afro-Cuban, jazz, Middle Eastern, and Indian influences and utilizing instruments including frame drums, bendir, daq, djembe, tabla, dumbek, and trap sets. Hamid Drake was mentored by Fred Anderson who introduced him to Douglas Ewart, George Lewis and other members of Chicago‘s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). He has subsequently worked with Don Cherry, Adam Rudolph and The Mandingo Griot Society, William Parker, David Murray, Peter Brötzmann, Reggie Workman, Yusef Lateef, Wayne Shorter, Bill Laswell, David Murray, and many more. Michael Zerang is a Chicago new music legend, bringing his mastery of Persian and Middle Eastern traditions to improvised music, free jazz, puppet theater, experimental theater, and traditional ensembles. As a teacher and organizer he has held workshops and produced events in Yemen, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Europe, and the USA.

Jazz legend, saxophonist, and multi-instrumentalist Joseph Jarman appears here in a 1995 concert at Roulette with pianist Myra Melford and guitarist Mikele Navazio. In the early sixties in Chicago Jarman joined the Experimental Band organized by composer and pianist Muhal Richard Abrams along with Malachi Favors and Roscoe Mitchell, two of his later collaborators--plus Lester Bowie--in the Art Ensemble of Chicago. In addition to a remarkable career as a musical innovator and collaborator, Jarman pursues a rich spiritual life. In 1990, he was ordained a Buddhist priest and took the name Shaku. That year, he founded, along with his wife, writer Thulani Davis, the Brooklyn Buddhist Association.

Guy Klucevsek is one of the world’s most versatile and award-winning accordionists. He has performed and/or recorded with Laurie Anderson, Bang On a Can, Brave Combo, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Coleman, Dave Douglas, Bill Frisell, Rahim al Haj, Robin Holcomb, Kepa Junkera, the Kronos Quartet, Natalie Merchant, Present Music, Relâche, Zeitgeist, and John Zorn. His theater, dance, and film work ranges from Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood to Steven Spielberg. Klucevsek’s activism and advocacy for his instrument has extended its range and appreciation. He is a national musical treasure. This recording from 1993 showcases his early work as a composer and virtuoso.

Berlin-based guitarist Hans Reichel (1949-2011) in an improvising trio with Fred Frith, guitar/bass and Ned Rothenberg, alto sax/bass clarinet, recorded at Roulette on 24 October 1987. All three legends across many genres, Reichel is distinguished for his radical approach to his instrument and many innovations including altering guitars and basses with multiple fretboards and unique positioning of pickups and bridges. His Daxophone is a single wooden blade clamped to a surface often amplified with a contact microphone, and played by plucking or bowing (pictured here). Reichel was also an extraordinary graphic designer and typographer.

A live concert by the Matthew Shipp Trio, recorded January 22, 2004 as part of the Roulette Concert Series held at the Thalia Theater in Manhattan. The Trio features Shipp on piano, William Parker on bass, and Whit Dickey on drums. Shipp is widely praised for his synthesis of jazz traditions both as a pianist and composer. From Delaware, Shipp moved to New York in 1984, and has been very active since the early 1990s, appearing on dozens of albums as a leader, sideman, or producer. He was initially most active in free jazz, and his collaborative spirit and adventurous nature has lead to projects in genres including contemporary classical, hip hop and electronica. A bonus track of Shipp with the Anti-Pop Consortium entitled SVP, from their 2013 release, closes out the program.

Min Xiao Fen is a Chinese pipa player and vocalist, known for her work in traditional Chinese music, contemporary classical and experimental music, and jazz and has worked with numerous contemporary composers, including Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Carl Stone, Derek Bailey, John Zorn and Björk. In this program we hear the solo work, including covers of Thelonius Monk, traditional and pop Chinese tunes, and extended techniques for her instruments. These recordings come from two different concerts produced by Roulette, one from 2004 and one from 2010.

A performance by composer/pianist ”Blue" Gene Tyranny whose tonal yet asymmetrical compositions have inspired and tantalized artists from John Cage to Iggy Pop. He is widely known for his substantial contributions to the ensemble works of Robert Ashley and has also worked with Carla Bley, Laurie Anderson, Peter Gordon, Leroy Jenkins, and many more including The Stooges. This recording is one of his rare solo concerts presented at Roulette’s original Tribeca loft on December 1, 2004 playing songs from his CD, Take Your Time. A bonus track, X Marks The Spot (Daydream), from his 1994 Lovely Music album, Country Boy Country Dog, closes out the program.