In the course of transforming the tones and rhythms of American speech into vocal music, the composer and inventor Harry Partch created work that radically broke from the classical European models that his peers drew from. Partch came up with a whole new approach to achieve this goal, one that utilized microtones and drew inspiration from ancient Greek culture, Chinese music, and other exotic sources.

Rudolph Wurlitzer, The Drop Edge of Yonder (Two Dollar Radio, 2008), Peter Conners, Emily Ate the Wind
(Marick Press, 2008), Carl Watson, The Hotel of Irrevocable Acts (Autonomedia, 2008)

When trumpeter Jesse Selengut first thought of putting on a jazz festival in Williamsburg, he almost gave up before he started. At first, he imagined an outdoor event, but he quickly realized that would mean dealing with liquor permits, stage rentals, possible rain delays, crowd control, and other hassles.

I know this older guy who follows new bands but instantly dismisses 99% of them. When he heard one hotly hyped recent CD, he deadpanned, “I’m glad these young men have found something to do with their excess energy.”

While twentysomething indie rockers were busily toying around with various retro (and once innovative) styles, performers/composers old enough to be their parents—or grandparents—were still pushing boundaries.

Words have their own music and music has its own language, and on two recent reissues, speech and sound merge, mingle, and clash.

Plenty of recent pop albums feature fine production, tasteful arranging, and hummable tunes. The drag is that so many of them endlessly wallow in pop’s past glories; they’re based on worn templates-the sounds of another time and another place

Plenty of recent pop albums feature fine production, tasteful arranging, and hummable tunes. The drag is that so many of them endlessly wallow in pop’s past glories; they’re based on worn templates—the sounds of another time and another place—that were created decades ago.