Harvey Pekar passed away yesterday. In 2003, Harvey invited me to his home in Cleveland after I asked him to record some voiceover narration for a documentary of jazz musician Albert Ayler I was producing. Harvey and illustrator Gary Dumm (also the brains behind "American Splendor") created an incredible series of panels on Ayler's life. I found Harvey to be incredibly gracious and extremely passionate about music and art (and everything
else, it seemed!) His work has always been a big inspiration to me. He
will be missed.
Christian Marclay was one of the biggest influences on my radio show Free Association.
The Whitney Museum in NYC is presenting a festival of Christian Marclay
exhibits through September 26th. I'm going to try to make it when I'm
in NYC again. More information here. Here Christian is performing on the short-lived television show Night Music. To the casual observer, he's just screwing around. Closer inspection and listening reveals a methodical approach to spontaneous block composition. For example, fast decelerated spins serve as loud, sharp transitions between melodic ideas.
For those in NYC, the Ghost Train Orchestra will be performing this Friday night, 10pm at Barbes in Brooklyn. The orchestra is Curtis Hasselbring (trombone), Andy Laster (saxophones), Oscar Noriega (clarinet), Jessica Lurie (reeds), Mazz Swift (violin, vocals), Cynthia Sayer (banjo), Ron Caswell (tuba), Rob Garcia (drums), and me on trumpet. Reedman Oscar Noriega and banjoist/pianist Cynthia Sayer from the Woody Allen Band will be making their first appearances with the GTO.
