苏格拉无底的音乐

提起牙买加这个加勒比海岛国，即使你的地理知识乏善可陈，只要你的音乐阅历足够丰富，你也不会对她感到陌生的——雷鬼（REGGAE），这种原本为牙买加所独有的轻快跳跃、节奏鲜明的音乐，当年被在牙买加首都金斯敦土生土长的“雷鬼之父”鲍勃·马利（BOB MARLEY）和他的“哭嚎者”（THE WAILERS）乐队以狂飙一般所向披靡的气势几乎是在一夜之间就传遍了北美和欧洲，一时间，北美和欧陆众多流行音乐家如奉纶音，齐齐向雷鬼乐顶礼膜拜，金斯敦当然也就成为他们心中的“圣地”，前往“朝圣”取经者直如过江之鲫。 　　这，是来自第三世界的音乐首次全方位地征服西方，绝对骄傲地在北美和欧洲乐坛叱咤风云。随后，雷鬼乐那令人舒心畅快的节奏，越来越多地被融进了摇滚乐、电子舞曲和蓝调布鲁斯，甚至被融进了爵士乐里！ 　　在牙买加人的习惯用法里，“YARD”这个词的意思就是“家”。2000年10月5日和6日，接连两个寒冷的夜晚，牙买加旅美爵士钢琴家蒙蒂·亚历山大（MONTY ALEXANDER）把他的家乡金斯敦所特有的热带动感带到了美国的“钢都”——宾夕法尼亚州西南部城市匹兹堡。在5位牙买加乐手（吉他、贝司、键盘、鼓与手鼓）的伴和下，蒙蒂·亚历山大在匹兹堡著名的爵士乐演出场所“曼彻斯特技工行会”（THE MANCHESTER CRAFTSMEN’S GUILD）举行了一次相当轰动的演出。本文要介绍的蒙蒂·亚历山大最新唱片《回家》（“GOIN’ YARD”，CD编号TELARC CD-83527）收录的就是从这次演出的现场录音中精挑细选出来的11首乐曲，唱片标题“回家”本身就直接地揭示了蒙蒂“回归牙买加”的意图。 　　蒙蒂·亚历山大于1944年出生在金斯敦。才4岁的时候，蒙蒂就显露出了在钢琴方面的一种天生的甚至可以说是本能的才华。6岁时，他开始学习钢琴课程，一直到13岁。不过，对他来说，这种学业还不够，在50年代末金斯敦那大大小小的录音室里，还有更加高妙的音乐“教育”等着他。15岁时，蒙蒂辍学了，和一帮牙买加顶尖的录音室乐手一起演录，这些乐手中有次中音萨克斯手罗兰·阿方索（ROLAND ALPHONSO）、长号手唐·德鲁门德（DON DRUMMOND）和吉他手厄尼·兰格林（ERNIE RANGLIN）等。在当时已经成型的一种特殊的牙买加爵士乐诠释风格基础上，这些似乎本就是为节奏而生的录音室艺术家又创制出了一种特殊而不朽的爵士节奏，这种节奏在这个岛国当时的一些录音中曾得到鲜明的体现。这期间，作为特邀乐手参加美国爵士乐大师路易斯·阿姆斯特朗（LOUIS ARMSTRONG）和艾迪·海伍德（EDDIE HEYWOOD）在金斯敦加勒比戏院的演出，无疑是蒙蒂音乐成长过程中的重大事件。此时，蒙蒂还组建了自己的乐队，名叫“蒙蒂与飓风”（MONTY AND THE CYCLONES），时不时地参加一些录音和舞台演出。 　　蒙蒂在牙买加接触到了美国爵士钢琴大师艾罗尔·加纳（ERROLL GARNER）、奥斯卡·彼得森（OSCAR PETERSON，原籍加拿大，在美国发展）和阿特·泰顿（ART TATUM）等人的音乐，这些音乐对他来说不啻是一种召唤，促使年轻的他于1961年义无反顾地渡海北上，追寻他的美国爵士之梦，而在金斯敦积累下的录音以及舞台演出的经验当然也给这位开始前途未卜的爵士乐“朝圣”之旅的年轻人以必要的自信。在抵达美国几个月后，蒙蒂得到了在迈阿密一家夜总会演奏的机会，在那里他遇见了一些迈阿密最优秀的爵士乐手，其中包括“加农炮”艾德利（CANNONBALL ADDERLY，爵士萨克管大师）乐队的成员，后来还和他们同台演出。1963年夏天，蒙蒂应邀到拉斯维加斯与阿特·蒙尼（ART MOONEY）的管弦乐队合作演出，观看演出的纽约城俱乐部老板吉利·里佐很赏识蒙蒂这位年方19岁的牙买加音乐家过人的才华，就在自己的俱乐部里给蒙蒂安排了一个乐手的席位。在为吉利工作期间，蒙蒂曾为很多著名的艺人伴奏，其中就有吉利的密友、“瘦皮猴”歌手弗兰克·西纳特拉（FRANK SINATRA）。蒙蒂还与米尔特·杰克逊（MILT JACKSON，爵士铁琴即颤音琴大师）、雷·布朗（RAY BROWN，爵士低音提琴大师）、迪兹·吉尔斯皮（DIZZY GILLESPIE，爵士小号大师）、克拉克·泰瑞（CLARK TERRY，爵士小号与翼号大师）、桑尼·罗林斯（SONNY ROLLINS，爵士萨克管大师）以及莱斯·麦克凯恩（LES MCCANN）等爵士巨匠建立了稳固的音乐合作关系，后者还担任了他的首张个人专辑《亚历山大真棒》（“ALEXANDER THE GREAT”）的制作人。 多产的蒙蒂迄今已经灌录了50余张专辑唱片。在蒙蒂近年来的爵士乐录音里，似乎都奔涌着一股强有力的不容漠视的牙买加“潜流”，明眼人谁都看得出，蒙蒂在下意识地“回归”牙买加——毫无疑问，牙买加是他情感上和音乐上的双重故园。近两年美国TELARC唱片公司就为蒙蒂录制出版了一系列雷鬼化爵士乐唱片，其中包括1999年向“雷鬼之父”鲍勃·马利致敬的专辑《鼓动》（“STIR IT UP”，CD编号TELARC CD-83469），以及2000年蒙蒂和牙买加最好的鼓与贝司二重奏组合“斯莱·邓巴与罗比·莎士比亚”（SLY DUNBAR AND ROBBIE SHAKESPEARE）合作演录的专辑《蒙蒂遇见斯莱和罗比》（“MONTY MEETS SLY AND ROBBIE”，CD编号TELARC CD-83494）。《回家》自然是最新的一张唱片。相对于蒙蒂以前作为爵士三重奏的一员留下的一些LIVE现场录音而言，这张唱片是颇具挑战性的。蒙蒂的音乐把加勒比海地区特别是牙买加的节奏特点演绎得淋漓尽致，同时又体现了他对爵士乐的复杂性与包容性深刻透彻的了解。在举行此次“回家”音乐会的全过程中，蒙蒂一直都在验证这两者之间无法离断的关系。他说：“对我来说，使得这场音乐会与众不同的地方在于此前美国观众已经知道我是一个爵士钢琴家，总是和一个三重奏合作演出，而我这次来到匹兹堡却带着我的牙买加之‘根’，这样一来美国观众们可能会‘抓瞎’了，说‘这些人是干什么的’？他们不是经常有机会听到和看到6个牙买加人演出的。还有，我所带来的节奏不是他们听惯了的4/4拍摇摆爵士。最妙的是我们只是以音乐内在的精神去打动他们，而他们最终的反响是极为热烈的！”的确，即使仅仅从《回家》这张LIVE版唱片所收录的63分钟音乐中，我们也能如临其境般地感受到演出现场气氛的热烈，感受到观众们对蒙蒂和他的牙买加音乐灵魂的深深敬意。 　　唱片的开场曲是《大毒蛇》（“THE SERPENT”）。此曲是蒙蒂自己的作品，曾于12年前在他一张充满了灵性的专辑《河流》（“THE RIVER”）当中首次推出。此曲展示了蒙蒂在狂暴烈性的重击和精致纯美的舞蹈之间游刃有余的惊人技巧。当年在《河流》专辑中为此曲操手鼓的是著名的“天气预报”（WEATHER REPORT）乐队的手鼓手波比·托马斯（BOBBY THOMAS），而此次司手鼓的是小罗伯特·托马斯（ROBERT THOMAS，JR.）。后者的风格独树一帜，他在曲中的手鼓处理给人留下一种巧妙的“情节”印象，似乎毒蛇先是在强有力地攻击，然后又突然后撤。 　　《幼虫》（“GRUB”）这支节奏强劲的乐曲也是蒙蒂自己的作品，是他题献给在金斯敦无辜被人杀害的牙买加贝司手、绰号“幼虫”的卡尔顿·梅森（CARLTON “GRUB” MESSAM）的。“幼虫”在蒙蒂刚刚开始从事雷鬼乐和爵士乐融合的工作时曾经跟他合作过，蒙蒂一直很怀念他。《朝前看！》（“SIGHT UP！”）是蒙蒂写的一支著名的爵士乐曲，标题表达了他向内患多多的祖国牙买加致敬之情——不管祖国处于一个怎样的经济与社会困境，他都虔诚地祝愿她走向强盛。 《信任》（“TRUST”）和《希望》（“HOPE”）无疑是《回家》这张唱片中最具冥想气质的乐曲。蒙蒂的钢琴独奏先以低迷的基调进入，给乐曲染上一层忧郁的色彩，然后，在后段，节奏声部营造出一种微妙而坚定的雷鬼乐氛围，使得乐曲基调为之一亮。同样令人叫绝的还有一曲《飓风》（“HURRICANE”），它以丰富而新颖的爵士化语言形象地描绘了飓风生息的全过程：暴风雨前一片平静；开始乌云密布；接着是险恶的狂风暴雨；再接着又是久不停歇的倾盆大雨···最后，一切回归平静。 蒙蒂和他的牙买加同胞们还演绎了鲍勃·马利两首最受欢迎的作品——《你愿意被人爱吗？》（“COULD YOU BE LOVED”）和《大逃亡》（“EXODUS”）。前曲由蒙蒂以钢琴滑奏乐句引导众乐手演奏，蒙蒂自己和吉他手韦恩·阿蒙德（WAYNE ARMOND）还出声伴唱，整个曲子就象是一个令人兴奋的雷鬼乐游戏。后曲是鲍勃·马利1977年专辑的同名标题曲，美国《时代》周刊曾把这张专辑誉为 20世纪最伟大的录音。此曲描绘的是《圣经》中以色列人逃出埃及的故事，同时又极为巧妙地把由厄尼斯特·高德（ERNEST GOLD）谱写的同名电影的主题融合了进去，使得乐曲音乐性与戏剧性相得益彰。“我一直记得50年代这部电影《大逃亡》的主题，当我听到鲍勃·马利这支很流行的曲子时就确信：毫无疑问，马利下意识地抓住了电影的主题！”蒙蒂强调说，“马利有着海绵一样善于吸纳的博大心胸，他听民谣，他也听摇滚、福音和牙买加音乐，这样当最终做出自己音乐的时候，他已经成为一个音乐宝库了！”蒙蒂对此曲的诠释也颇为戏剧化，这种戏剧化的高潮表现，是在贝司手格伦·布朗尼（GLEN BROWNE）、鼓手戴西·琼斯（DESI JONES）和吉他手韦恩·阿蒙德轻描淡写营造出迷离氛围时，蒙蒂用音色优雅温润的钢琴奏出的一种半古典化的渐强音。 在《回家》中，蒙蒂还对牙买加音乐的另外两位代表人物表达了敬意，一位是奥古斯塔·帕布罗（AUGUSTUS PABLO），一位是绰号“胖王”（KING TUBBY）的奥斯伯恩·鲁迪克（OSBOURNE RUDDICK）。奥古斯塔·帕布罗于1999年去世，他主要是因为在自己轻松欢快的作品中创造性地用口风琴吹奏主旋律、大大提升口风琴在牙买加音乐中的地位而享有盛誉的。蒙蒂重新诠释了帕布罗1976年的作品《“胖王”遇到城里的摇滚一族》（“KING TUBBY MEETS THE ROCKERS UPTOWN”）。此曲是写来向当时已故的“胖王”致敬的 ，其演录充满了创新和活力，充满张力的牙买加鼓声令人耳目一新，不过最新奇的地方也许还在于音乐的声响被淡化，而精心编排的音效则几乎完全取而代之。诠释此曲时，蒙蒂的钢琴和和格伦的贝司之间的“对话”是相当引人入胜的，不能不激起人们对“胖王”本人甚至整个金斯敦音乐的莫大兴趣。 　　牙买加拳击手雷诺克斯·路易斯（LENNOX LEWIS）是一位令人难忘的斗士，每次与人在拳台上对抗时他都用雷鬼乐作伴奏，“SKANKIN’ LENNOX”一曲即以他为灵感源泉。《O日》（“DAY-O”）是蒙蒂在牙买加民谣《香蕉船之歌》（“BANANA BOAT SONG”）的基础上改编而成的。《香蕉船之歌》是加勒比海地区最著名同时又最受人喜爱的民谣之一，大约50年前被美国著名的男歌手哈里·贝拉方特（HARRY BELAFONTE，对发烧友来说无疑是不陌生的，很多人都收藏了他于上世纪50年代末和60年代初在纽约卡内基音乐厅开演唱会的两款极为发烧的录音）传唱普及到了北美。这两曲洋溢着清朗自然的牙买加风情，也是蒙蒂的雷鬼化爵士乐当之无愧的典范之作。 　　正象哈里·贝拉方特当年把牙买加的民间音乐与文化介绍给世界一样，蒙蒂现在也充当着类似的“文化大使”角色，努力使牙买加的音乐文化为全球所认知，甚至连牙买加政府最近都公开表彰蒙蒂的贡献，给予他最高的荣誉。 　　“即使我生命的大部分时间都留在了牙买加之外的地方，我也会在我的故土度过余生，我的灵魂与心跳永远和牙买加维系在一起！”这，就是蒙蒂的心声。

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自从得知我这个统共就没写过多少乐评的人也被选中了，我就开始在期盼和焦虑中度日。期盼的自然是专辑，焦虑的是如何不用我最讨厌的乐评模板写一篇像样，或者说好歹对得起这张专辑的评论。风格什么的我相信喜欢怪力的不会不知道，所以我还是决定将我的主观感受表达出来，如上。 观感 　　拿到CD后首先进入眼球的便是我着实无法适应并且觉得十分突兀的封面，诡异的沙丘诡异的人儿诡异的驴，当然，诡异的还有封面上那五个字体，不过话说回来既然名曰怪力那么会意便是。妄游记，所谓妄，即是荒诞不真实。所以你看到这个构图十分奇怪的封面别鸡动，打开CD拿出碟片，你看到了什么？对，是一柜子的锅碗瓢盆，即便是再纷乱迷幻的妄想最终还得面对现实。就想简介上说的“命如琴弦，运似轮盘，既如此，谁人执棋已不重要，直待捻花盘坐之时，世间自有定论”。我想这或许就是怪力想表达的，当然这只是猜想，猜想毕竟只是猜想。 　　带有一种“封面都整成这样了这玩意儿不能还那么悲催吧”的想法，我打开了歌词本。首先毫无疑问是乐队照片儿，文隽已然瘦的不需要再形容了，施旭东那光头如他的鼓般生猛。接下来便进入了他们的妄游：湖边，古城，枯树，大海，伴随着如封面般那种肆意妄为的颜色与字体呈现的歌名，当然此刻在极富听感的音乐下更有陷入乐曲的感觉。这也正是我个人的感受，当我无知无觉地陷入音乐的氛围中，无论是愉悦的伙食诡异的，那么我都会觉得这是动听的音乐，此时此刻，风格什么的对于来说就是扯淡。 听感 我不得不烂俗地说这个乐队最初吸引我的就是文隽，当我的朋友第一次跟我说起文隽的时候，我的第一反应其实是那位电影人，之后我便爱上了她，特别是她独特到没有类似的声音。当然在妄游记中我还是比较钟爱中文歌部分，那种在我看来很原味音色干净利落地让我沦陷了，特别是最近突然莫名其妙就哼出来“流散彩云现星河，在延续中的永恒投出折射”。英文部分总感觉很奇怪，说不上来，希望以后可以多些中文歌吧。 当初看到专辑制作人是方无行的时候楞了下，想不到兵马司这次会请来这位老骨头。我这个奥特帝对于中国摇滚这种幕后又无法忽略的人还是抱着很强烈的信任感的，当然，我很确信的是，这次方无行没有让我失望，或许老怪和怪力碰一起还真能催生出不可抑制的张力吧。至于宣传中所说的“铺垫上了20赫兹上下肉耳无法闻听的超低音频试验，人类的阿尔法脑波在此低频的干预下潜移默化被激发，一场无指向性的意识妄游便由此展开……”，不得不说仔细听了以后确实会感觉有点儿恍恍惚惚的晕厥感之后甚至会有焦虑趋势，切合着诡异的主题更有种妄游记的氛围。 Intro：作为开场在我看来已经完成了它的全部使命，让作为听者的我臆造出了个光怪陆离的远景，有点吹泡又有点盯鞋因而给力。好吧，一个题外话就是当我谈风格的时候我在谈一种感觉，通感的碰撞。 Hospital：给我的感觉就是生猛的鼓，简单有力直击人心。美中不足的便是歌词，意义不大也并没有给歌曲增色多少，甚至有点儿破坏了乐曲的整体，显得有点突兀。当然文隽的唱腔依然亮点，特别是穿插的几声高吟让我等三俗之人甚是心猿意马。 Flight of Delusion：似乎是妄游的开始，浑身散发着冲劲去探索前方的未知，“举手投足间无常幻化，抬眼遇见自己的背影”。当你尚且年轻，当你尚且冲动，当你尚且幻想，何必踌躇地做一注定被遗忘的蜉蝣，你可以说你我皆凡人，生在尘世中，可你的心呢？！启程吧年轻人，为了你的理想，为了你的坚持，就这样。我爱这首歌的歌词，特别是被文隽唱出来更有种勃发的感觉。当然编曲也是相当棒，特别亮点在于转副歌的那段曲子，不落俗套而且衔接的很有味道，怪力的味道。【当然我必须吹毛求疵一点，但是这是一个技术性问题：CD的曲目信息数据有错误，既然是正规发行那么工作必须要细致严谨。曲目信息是:Fight of Delusion，妄搏记么？希望今后不要再犯这种错误了。】 Midnight Hole：氛围感深化又不失细节的编曲，唱腔极具变化又让我欲罢不能的主音，整齐而又不失新意的乐器效果，还有在音乐中进行了更换而意味深长的歌词（希望我没有听错），都使得这首歌几乎完美。每回听到这首歌，都会被开头那串摇铃声迷惑地屡次回头有点渗人，歌曲中穿插的和声更让我眼前一亮，结尾处以吉他和鼓为主的那段纯乐器演奏也让我当时就嗨了。恍惚间甚至觉得这首歌充满了喜剧感，似乎是妄游中的调剂，抑或就是妄游本身，Let's Have Fun! Guai Li：作为乐队同名曲，怪力这段曲子就是在宣告着怪力的年轻。是啊，因为年轻，所以有了妄游的资本和最原始的冲动。总的来说中规中矩，不失水准。 The Model：说起这首歌我就兴奋啊，作为一个德国音乐的狂热分子看到我喜欢的乐队翻唱Kraftwerk的歌曲，那种感觉很“酷炫”。翻唱如果要为人所记得，我觉得要么就是做出来焕然一新的感觉，要么便是完美的继承原曲的色调。而怪力的翻唱让我难以归类，它用着极富青春的鲜明旋律以及偶尔显得可爱的主音，但却始终无法摆脱Kraftwerk的那种机械式的冷漠。贝司和鼓的配合很和谐，中文部分的填词虽说比较一般，但你能想象充满工业气味的编曲配合着诗意的歌词是有多别扭么。说个题外话，我还是喜欢战车翻唱的版本。 Laughing Gas：看到这歌名就能想到这应该是一首让人“这不就是飞么！”的歌，然而可能是过于想强调这种让人麻醉兴奋的情绪，此消彼长的导致编曲上有点不济。从这儿开始我们便迎来了妄游的最高潮，我们恍惚我们愉悦，我们有点儿无章，可是who cares？科普下，笑气（N2O）也是相当常用的麻醉气体，两百多年前被发现，具有良好的止痛与麻醉效果，最早被应用于十八世纪欧洲的宴会中，施放此种气体，会使得来宾在情绪上更为兴奋，故称为笑气。根据笑气的药理作用，人体在鼻子或口吸入约百分之三十至五十的笑气和氧气混合气体后，约一至三分钟之后就会感觉身体微温，而身体皮肤表面会有轻微的刺麻感，身体末端感觉更为明显。全身轻微倦怠感，对于周围环境的感知能力会稍为降低。和酒精的作用很像，但是感觉更轻一些。 Be Cool，活力。张扬。爆发。所有属于我们的特质都被蕴含在这首歌里，编曲演唱都在宣告着青春的力量，妄游的喜乐。就像歌词里，Whatever you will be,you'd better be cool。还要说啥呢，全都在里面了。Devil Rabbit，看了MV后我的第一反应就是“死亡幻觉”中的兔人Frank，好吧其实除了都杀了姑娘也应该没啥关系。说会音乐本身就是依然给力依然有范儿。 高潮后动物感伤，于是我们迎来了Slow Dream。可你说它黑暗，它却一如既往的暴躁；你说它伤感，你说“嘿哥们，咱都得挂”，他却告诉你“哥不在乎！”。矛盾氤氲着整首曲子，小伙们在桌上舞蹈而姑娘们却躲在下面，这究竟是一幅喜感亦或是悲催的画面呢。可是我们最终还是要被抓住扔进我们拼尽全力而出的有关锅碗瓢盆的生活牢笼，妄游从此处开始拉下帷幕。 可是按照我们的习惯，即使是妄游也得有个妄游感是不，于是空镜带着充满意境的词句舒缓地展开。看似不搭调的编曲却是在维持着整张专辑的基调，中间那段有点唐突的静默却也是在为后段那有点后摇的曲子铺垫，箱琴的音色搭配上清凉的主音让人在空境中结束这虚妄之游。 这是最好的年代，这是最差的年代。 这是你的年代。逼酷。 苏格拉无底 2010.08.29

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看到这张专辑的时候我是瞅着McCoy去听的，因为总会想起他与CC,KJ和HH的那张四重奏专辑，本张专辑里一如既往富含着旋律和弦的美妙。但是，如同Chick Corea当初吸引我注意的特点一样，我又被专辑里灵动的声音搔到了G点，果断Wiki之发现是Bobby Hutcherson擅长的电颤琴。 好吧，下面是查到的： Bobby Hutcherson是著名电铁琴手，七岁学钢琴，十五岁弃钢琴学电琴（Vibes）。加入Billy Mitchell-Al Grey 五重奏，才渐渐打出知名度。一九六一年迁居纽约，为知名的蓝调唱片（Blue note Records）乐手伴奏。个人第一张专辑「Dialogue」开创电铁琴的无限可能。水晶般的电琴声使「Whisper Note」是悠远的教堂钟声，让心安祥起来，有时又回到钢琴似的音色，低音键的节奏，有一丝调皮、可爱的行板，可以想成是孩子乡间郊游的笑与跑步声。 Bobby Hutcherson (born January 27, 1941, Los Angeles)[1] is a jazz vibraphone and marimba【马林巴琴 http://baike.baidu.com/view/539634.htm】 player. His vibraphone playing is suggestive of the style of Milt Jackson in its free-flowing melodicism, but his sense of harmony and group interaction is thoroughly modern. Attracted foremost to more experimental free jazz and post-bop, Hutcherson made early recordings in this style for the Blue Note label with Jackie McLean, Eric Dolphy, Andrew Hill, Grachan Moncur III, Joe Chambers, and Freddie Hubbard, both as a leader and a sideman. 【早期在蓝点做实验自由爵士和后波普，后面列出来的一系列人中孤陋寡闻的我只认识Joe Chambers，这个人据说相当牛逼，又能鼓又能钢琴又能电颤琴也就是广义上的各种手活好。认识他也是因为他跟Wayne Shorter的那张adam's apple】 In spite of the numerous avant-garde recordings made during this period however, Hutcherson's first session for Blue Note, The Kicker (1963) (not released until 1999), demonstrates his background in hard bop and the blues, as well as the early session Idle Moments for Grant Green, for example.[1] Many of his later recordings return to this hard bop and less adventurous, soulful sound 【先疯之外就是他那张最志明的The Kicker（才发现这张我听过 - -），展示了他的硬波普，布鲁斯背景（其实我一直都没法分清波普下面那些细分种类的区别。。。）后期的录音都转向了硬波普这块儿，剔除了冒险性而更加富有灵魂性的音乐】 Hutcherson appeared as the bandleader in the 1969 film They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, and as Ace in the 1986 film Round Midnight. 【这两部电影我去找找去。。请密切关注，如果你有兴趣】 好了，扯淡完毕

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AMM: SOUNDING MUSIC (Matchless Records, 2010) John Butcher: tenor & soprano saxophones Ute Kanngiesser: cello Eddie Prévost: percussion John Tilbury: piano Christian Wolff: piano, bass guitar, melodica Recorded at the 'Freedom of the City' festival, Conway Hall, Lonodn on Sunday 3rd May 2009 // Notes by Harry Gilonis Words on/and music I’m listening to a pre-release version of the CD that this text is going to accompany; and simultaneously reading a poem, written a long time ago and very far away, about listening to music. It’s by a mid-8th-century AD T’ang dynasty Chinese poet called Li Tuan. He’s relatively minor; known, really, for one poem in a famous anthology – a formal little thing, rhymed ABAB with all sorts of internal patterning: 聽 箏 鳴 箏 金 粟 柱 素 手 玉 房 前 欲 得 周 郎 顧 時 時 誤 拂 絃 What its five characters to a line mean is something like this: listening to music a gold-ornamented zither stands while pearl-white hands move to make it play wanting to catch a connoisseur’s eye she plucks a wrong note from time to time Ming, the first character, means sound – the cry of a bird, or human singing. A starting-point, then, for words and music both, the fact of sound and its sounding. Cheng next, the sound’s source; the gu-cheng, a trough-zither, usually raised on short legs and played by a seated musician with plectra on the fingers. Christian Wolff, sat at a table with a bass-guitar flat in front of him, is an elegant analogue. Interestingly the free-improviser Clare Cooper played the real thing at Freedom of the City a few years back. An instrument, its sound; the result is, in the poet Susan Howe’s lovely phrase, the articulation of sound forms in time – common to both poetry and music. Chin follows next - ‘gold’: ‘precious’, or ‘metallic’, or both - something gleaming, catching the light, the eye, momentarily, brilliantly. At 45:08 on this CD, over John Butcher’s high, quiet soprano sax whirrings, Ute Kanngeisser’s almost abrupt heel-of-the-bow work on the cello and Christian Wolff’s intermittent table-bass thunks, Eddie Prévost is loosing from a small cymbal upper-register scrapings and sussurations, each of which shines, gleams, glitters... Su is ‘millet’, with its little grains, often used in Chinese to signify smallness. Li Tuan combines it with the previous word, chin, to signify the gilt ornament of the cheng, but I’m more taken by graininess itself; resistance, grit, texture. Take John Butcher’s soprano from around 21:28; it’s not just textural, it’s structural. If you could magnify it I’ve a hunch it would be self-identical all the way down - or up. Unpredictable yet patterned; on the micro-level, granular. Chu means ‘pillars’ - the legs of the cheng, embossed with the millet-grain detail; the word is also used figuratively: ‘to support’. Throughout the performance I hear what I took for ‘background’ becoming foreground, what seemed transitional turn out to be complex ensemble-playing. All aspects of the music, the musicians, are supportive. Su – a different su – begins the second line. It means, for Li Tuan, ‘white’, but also ‘plain’, ‘unornamented’, ‘ordinary’; even ‘matter’, in the physical sense. I’m interested in matter, the material, that which something is, that of which something (something musical) is made. You could see it as the converse of ‘form’; but for AMM form emerges through material contingency (yet is retrospectively inevitable). Dynamic movement shapes what is, what was; in Hugh MacDiarmid’s phrase, ‘every force evolves a form’, acting materially. Shou follows, meaning ‘the hand’, as well as, figuratively, that which is ready-to-hand, convenient. Henri Lefebvre says of the hand that it seems no less complex or ‘rich’ than the eye, or than language – both as much part of being human as hands. Yü is Li Tuan’s next word; it qualifies shou, meaning as it does ‘jade-white’ (jade in Chinese poetry is always white). Jade is very highly esteemed in China, and the word yü also means any precious stone – or just that which is valuable. Made by hand, made by the hands, by labour: hence its value. Fang, next, means ‘house’, ‘building’, ‘room’. One commentator on Li Tuan’s poem says the word, when combined with shou (‘hand’), indicates the operating space above the cheng where the hands move when playing. I find myself thinking with a wider sense of ‘performance space’ of the room in which our musicians performed: the Conway Hall in London during Freedom of the City 2009. Space still manifests itself; a lull between 30:40 and 30:52 is punctuated by the scarcely-audible sound of John Butcher breathing through his saxophone – and by someone’s chair squeaking (which fits in perfectly). Contingency: what happens finds its space. Ch'ien ends the line. An uncomplicated word (the Chinese call such ‘empty’), it means ‘before’ in both senses – ‘formerly’, ‘in front of’. As time passes every nano-moment moves into ‘formerly’, is ‘before’ what follows it. Their accumulation a sort of expanding sphere of sound moving out from the initial Small Bang of John Tilbury’s intensely meant chords (augmented by Christian Wolff’s high, spare grace-notes). From then on in, anything was possible; moving through space, through time, by extension. Yü (a different yü than before) begins the third line; it means ‘on the point of’, ‘about to’, ‘next’. If we are to place any credence in Louis Zukofsky’s insistence that ‘a’ and ‘the’ carry serious poetic weight – and what listener to AMM could doubt it? – then it is the tiny particles – of sound, of language – which permit the whole its operancy, as ‘befores’ dissolve into ‘nexts’. There is more to this yü, though, than nextness; it also means ‘to long for’, ‘to wish’. I’m thinking of the way much of most music is in transit as well as transient: an(y) event is always itself, and yet emerges and submerges, resistant to conclusion. There are beginnings, middles and ends (though free improvisation cannot have a pre-planned ending). There is implicit, then, a wishing for the ‘not-yet’, the yet-to-come; a desiring. Te, which follows, modulates a range of possibilities: to ‘acquire’, ‘attain to’, ‘effect’; ‘have to’, ‘need to’; ‘can, may’; ‘must, ought to’. A matter of having and holding, or being in a position to, capable of. A sense of the array of possibilities opening up when a player first desires, and then, through extension, achieves; that wished-for forward movement. I want a participle here which will (ironically, even cruelly) leave the action uncomplete - leaving room for more desiring: having... Chou was the surname of Chao Yü, a Han dynasty military hero, architect of the famous ‘Battle of the Red Cliff’; he died young, a good 500 years before Li Tuan wrote. He was also known as a musical aficionado, capable of hearing a wrong note in music at social gatherings. The character that makes up his name, chou, also means ‘complete; entire; the whole’; rightly, as it is the perfect listener, not the perfect cadence, that brings music to its fruition, its completion. Lang, next, goes with chou; it means literally ‘young (gentle)man’ – a term of respect, a ubiquitous honorific that ended up as little more than a third-person pronoun. Let’s rethink the persons and re-distribute the regard, that latter extant between Chou Yü and the cheng-player, between the members of AMM in the Conway Hall on the 5th of May 2009, and between the players in the poem, and on this CD, and their listeners - then and now: mutually respecting. Ku, which ends this line, almost concurs with my re-jigging of lang, meaning as it does ‘to care for’, ‘to regard’, ‘to turn the head to look’; apt in all senses for both parties in Li Tuan’s poem. Ku also means simply ‘therefore’; it is wilful, perhaps, to read it as I do, against the grain, in its further meaning as an adversative particle, ‘on the contrary’. A little whiff of dialectics; but, after all, AMM proceed by contradictions that are agreements, concurrences that are clashes, discords that turn out to be harmonious. At 31:44 breathy saxophone underli(n)es piano chords when – from out of nowhere – there’s a bluesy, almost maudlin melodica. Objectively, this should not ‘fit’; but it does, and yet better when it recurs, quieter and higher-pitched, at 32:49. We’ve been readied for that by its similar precursor. Here I praise dialectic and contraries. Shih opens the final line. It means ‘time’, and also ‘opportunity’; that which becomes possible within time. In English ‘time’ is the beat, the ‘signature’, of domesticated music; whereas AMMmusic suspends awareness of the passing of time. Shih, the same character, recurs next. In Chinese poetics such repetition acts as an intensifier; but I’m resistant to handling it thus in English. Partly because I can’t see what ever does repeat exactly – in AMMmusic or elsewhere. Even a feeling of sequence is undercut by the different temporal position of composite moments. Assuming one could say, as if of a pair of sonic snowflakes, that two of Eddie Prévost’s cymbal-scrapes were ‘exactly’ the same: what could that mean? Even Li Tuan’s repetition is intended to imply ‘from time to time’ – which phrase refuses regularity. What I find in shih’s repetition is what I see on the page; is what I hear when ‘similar’ events succeed one another: after-ness,varyingly explicit. There’s an apt word: aftertime. Wu, which now follows, means ‘impede’, ‘interfere with’, ‘be mistaken’; also ‘mistake’ or ‘error’. Li Tuan speaks of the cheng-player’s meticulous mistakes, for her the right wrong notes. I’m not going to pin-point it, but during the performance on this CD a player inadvertently sounds a too-loud note in an unhelpfully too-quiet passage. Tyros will know what might have happened next - the mistake hangs in the air, the perpetrator ‘freezing’ for just too long to do whatever would make the ‘error’ read as really an intention. Here the glitch was collectivised; in an instant another player echoed the duration of the event, at a lower volume level; then another picked up the pitch, again a little quieter; next, a third player re-iterated the timbre. Gently, delicately, everything was reintegrated. One might speak of that hindrance that works to let things flow; of impedance. Fu, which comes next, can mean literally ‘brushed away’, the term Li Tuan uses for the stroking of the cheng’s strings. The AMM ‘mistake’ isn’t exactly ‘smoothed over’ but acknowledged and worked-with; fu (dialectics again) means ‘shake off’, ‘expel’, ‘oppose’ – and also ‘to assist’. Impeding and helping turn out to be one and the same in a collectively-made music in which all are assistants, all proffer assistance. Hsien closes Li Tuan’s poem: ‘the string of a musical instrument’ (cheng, piano or bass guitar); but also ‘a thready pulse’, a suggestive phrase which intrigues me yet which I cannot plumb; and, finally, ‘the chord of an arc’. AMM’s performance was an arc, curving from John Tilbury’s intent opening figurations through to the delicate sussurus of Ute Kanngeisser’s cello 50-odd minutes on. All works together; splendidly, it all coheres. I think back to a brief passage around 05:16 to 05:36 or so. Emerging from a hiatus,an almost-silence, Christian Wolff, at that point still working the upper echelons of the piano, hits a lone high note. John Tilbury evidently has a hand inside the piano’s workings, for another single note is immediately plucked; a gentle, very quiet tam-tam stroke from Eddie Prévost thickens the sound, and as it dies away Ute Kanngeisser plays two rapid but separate pizzicato cello notes, instantly joined by John Butcher’s soprano saxophone. That note is prolonged - and then everything goes into exact reverse. A fuller, longer run of cello notes is joined by the tam-tam, this time louder, fuller; a mid-range piano flurry follows, and the sequence concludes with another plucked piano note. This precise formal retrograde was (obviously) entirely unplanned; and in some sense any twenty-second sequence in the 50 minutes would be as musically rich – if not always as generous to analysis. The whole of this performance can be listened to – as it was performed – that intensely; each musician, each moment, being, in every sense that the dictionary allows, instrumental. words on/and music sounding music glitters granular supportive materially hands value space extension desiring having completion respecting contraries time after-time impedance assistance instrumental Harry Gilonis for John Cayley 2010 // Review: The Watchful Ear So to Sounding Music then, the new album by AMM. The release contains the recording of the quintet performance from last year’s Freedom of the City Festival that I wrote about here. The AMM group on that occasion was made up of regular members Eddie Prévost and John Tilbury alongside recent frequent collaborator John Butcher, the American composer and previous occasional AMM collaborator Christian Wolff plus the young London based cellist Ute Kanngiesser, a regular at Prévost’s weekly improvisation workshops and here the first woman to appear on an AMM record. I have listened to this CD almost constantly since I received it on Monday, perhaps I have listened to it through some fifteen times already. Going back over the post I wrote following the concert in question I have picked out a few of the thoughts I had at the time. I mentioned in the comments after the post that the music did not feel ground-breaking, but it did feel like AMM Music, perhaps more so than on any of the other occasions I had seen the group since the departure of Keith Rowe. I also mentioned that while he fitted well into the group, Christian Wolff seemed to play the disruptive role in the set, taking things out of what might be perceived as “safe” AMM territory more often than not. Listening back to the recording now, I have mixed feelings about these thoughts now. Certainly in places this sounds like AMM through and through. When Prévost and Tilbury are working together it really cannot be anything else. I find myself hearing the connections between these two musicians through everything else, no matter what other sounds are there to be heard. There are the little climaxes, the slow arcs towards the small explosions of expression, the way Prévost uses his bowed sounds as the scaffold for the others to climb up and over, the sprinkling of Tilbury’s piano sounds throughout in just the places Tilbury leaves them, the connections between these two sets of sounds leaves the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. They did eighteen years ago when I first hear them live, they still do now. Then though, there are the elements in this recording that stand out as something new, sounds that do not seem to belong traditionally in AMM, and yes most of them here do come from Wolff, the little burst of pocket harmonica, the tapping of stones together that ends the performance, the single plucked guitar note that ends a section of the music twenty minutes in, but they don’t sound so intrusive here, just little elements that catch your ear as unusual. Kanngiesser also stands out now and again as something new, the moment two thirds of the way through when after a mini climax the sounds drop away to find her bowing a series of slow notes in a fluid, almost tuneful manner really catches the ear. So what we have is AMM as we know them, augmented by some new elements. John Butcher by the way, plays wonderfully, and sounds completely at home in the group, none of his contributions sound out of place at all. No matter how familiar the end results here might end up being, the one thing that has occurred to me over the past few days listening to this music is the amount of risks that were taken in its creation. Risk-taking has always been a part of the AMM philosophy, and the danger involved with potential failure has always been something encouraged rather than shied away from. For this recording, there is the obvious risk taken through the assemblage of a quintet playing percussion, piano. sax. cello and a table top electric guitar. The history the group has with that arrangement of instrumentation left a great weight of expectation hanging over the performance. Then there was the inclusion of Kanngiesser, her gender of course not a risk at all, but her relative inexperience compared to the weight of musical history on stage around her could perhaps been seen as a risk, certainly it is unusual for someone so young and without many years of playing experience to join the group. Then there was the uncertainty concerning the health of John Tilbury, who had been at a hospital that very day and was recovering from a stroke. He played with just one hand on the day. Despite all of these things, some unavoidable, some deliberately created by Prévost and Tilbury the music contained on this album is wonderful. It captures AMM, where AMM are right now, or where they were on the 4th May 2009. It shows a spirit of invention, a challenge to the musicians involved as new musical relationships needed to be forged, and also a sense of playfully creative mischief in the return to the quintet format. The group has always changed, always evolved, often sounded different, but the underlying ethics, the way the music is approached, considered and subsequently played is as strong here as ever. There is no resting on laurels. The group didn’t have to be expanded for this performance but it was. If Trinity was the album that really convinced me that the group was as vital a force as it ever had been, then Sounding Music is the album that shows that the music can still be stretched and expanded outwards into new areas successfully. So not groundbreaking in any wider sense, then that has never really been a goal of AMM, but considered as new ground broken for a group with a forty-five year long history then most certainly. Wonderful people, wonderful music, thoroughly inspirational. Richard Pinnell The Watchful Ear 15th April 2010

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