70's Experimentalism: SoHo Scene by CJM [for DRAM]

DRAM Monthly Playlists
70's Experimentalism: SoHo Scene
Posted on Monday, October 06, 2008
Contributed by Chris McIntyre
[original URL]

[Blog Note: Links to recordings are password protected within DRAM site.]

Throughout the 1970's, the avant garde music community in New York City experienced a uniquely fecund period of aesthetic, cultural, and technological discovery. Conceptual and interdisciplinary work developed during the 1960's led to several strains of activity, all of which were manifest in or near the area in Lower Manhattan known as SoHo (a neologism meaning "South of Houston"). This playlist addresses two distinct yet overlapping areas of work prevalent within the so-called "SoHo Scene": Minimalism (of the drone, static variety) and Conceptualism. These now classic aesthetic modes were experienced most often in loft venues such as The Kitchen and Experimental Intermedia (among many others). These particular physical contexts, with their grandiose iron facades and vast wooden interiors of 19th century structures, are as key to this music as the sound itself, although recordings can at least give us an aural glimpse.

SoHo's Roots

The collective journey that led to the 70's zeitgeist in "Downtown" New York was indeed rooted in the lofts and film houses of Lower Manhattan. However, many of the better-known practitioners developed their early work in other parts of the country such Ann Arbor, Michigan and the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as an expatriate community living across the Atlantic in Rome. Typical histories of the period cite composer John Cage and his artistic philosophies as ubiquitously inspirational. Activities such as "happenings" (created by artists like Dick Higgins) and the Fluxus movement in general are seen by some as "Cageian" developments. I personally find this narrative to be overly monolithic, but there are few who deny the influence of Cage and his New York School colleagues (see Newton Armstrong's recent DRAM playlist) on the artists to be covered below.

The first three tracks identify a few key developmental figures:

David Tudor/John Cage - Rainforest II / Mureau - A Simultaneous Performance (Part I) (New World 80540)

The impact of John Cage and David Tudor's work with Merce Cunningham Dance Company on artists in the SoHo Scene is incalculable. Beyond the basic conceptual approach of complete independence of sound from the dance, the pervasive use of what became known as "live-electronics" revolutionized the field. The work of groups such as Sonic Arts Union and Musica Elettronica Viva (both of which are discussed below) seem impossible without the seminal activities of these two pioneers.

Pauline Oliveros - Bye Bye Butterfly (CRI CR728)

In the early 1960's, Oliveros and several other Bay Area composers (Morton Subotnick primary among them) established the San Francisco Tape Music Center. Epochal musical moments worthy of mention from SFTMC's history include: Terry Riley and Steve Reich's early tape experiments; the first performance of Riley's In C, and Subotnick's paradigm shifting work in developing analog synthesizers. Oliveros' electronic music and work with open, non-hierarchical forms was and still is influential to experimentalists in New York and beyond. Bye Bye Butterfly, from the key 70's document New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media, is a classic example of the type of sound world one experiences listening to an Oliveros creation.

Gordon Mumma - Megaton for Wm. Burroughs (New World 80632)

Gordon Mumma was a founding member of the loosely grouped quartet of composer/performers known as Sonic Arts Union (SAU). Along with Alvin Lucier, Robert Ashley, and David Behrman (the latter two of whom are represented in the playlist below), SAU was known for its irreverent and severe use of live-electronic instruments, most of which they built themselves. SAU grew out of relationships developed in Ann Arbor, Michigan during the legendary ONCE Festival. Also via introduction during ONCE, Mumma became involved in Tudor and Cage's Cunningham experiments with self-made circuits. Megaton for Wm. Burroughs was created for a theatrical, in-the-round performance during the 1964 ONCE Festival. The title refers to the weight parametric used for military artillery and, of course, the Beat writer William S. Burroughs.

Minimal SoHo

New York in the late 1960's saw the emergence of the now-canonical musical format known as Minimalism. A number of the primary musicians involved in its development, such as Jon Gibson and Steve Reich, had migrated from the West Coast after working at the San Francisco Tape Music Center. The work of a critical mass of like-minded artists in New York catalyzed an unusually unified aesthetic for the late 20th century. Even Philip Glass, who famously "discovered" the circumscribe aesthetic of his earliest work while in Europe, ostensibly required the nascent environs of what would become known as SoHo to bring his mature work to fruition.

It was within this wildly fertile milieu that two pioneering video artists, Woody and Steina Vasulka, opened The Kitchen at Mercer Arts Center (MAC) in 1971. Originally intended as a workspace for video artists to develop and show material, the Vasulkas were also interested in analog audio synthesizers as tools for live video events. This led to the hiring of a very young Rhys Chatham (student of Morton Subotnick at the time) to "curate" music events. The resulting music series, at both the MAC and The Kitchen's better known Wooster Street loft locations, became the epicenter for a particular way of making music; related to the motoric, rhythmically additive forms of Minimalism, but of a more static character, drawing listener focus more to sonic and durational concerns.

David Behrman - From The Other Ocean (Lovely Music LCD1041)

This track was actually recorded while Behrman was teaching at Mills College in Oakland, but I include herein because he was a central figure in the SoHo Scene before and after moving to California. Also, the sound world of From The Other Ocean and the technology used to create it are quintessentially of the time. Continuing the tradition that David Tudor and other Sonic Arts Union colleagues had of building their own synthesizers, Behrman taught himself the coding language for the first commercially available "microcomputer", the KIM-1. An early example of the now pervasive use of computer interactivity, Behrman "taught" the KIM-1 to trigger changes to the constant underlying harmonic drone when it "heard" certain pitches being played by the bassoon and flute, i.e. pitch sensing.

Phill Niblock - A Third Trombone (XI XI121)

Phill Niblock is also a key figure in the development of the loft community, both artistically and as the purveyor of Experimental Intermedia (aka XI), a non-profit organization and performance venue (as well as a record label) located (to this day!) in his loft on Grand and Centre Street since the early 70's. Famous for creating "tape pieces" that present singular, massive drones with complex frequency textures, Niblock's work is definitively SoHo: static, immersive, and especially when experienced at the loft, of extremely long duration. A Third Trombone can either be played back by itself or with a live trombonist manipulating natural frequency "beating" phenomena, adding another layer to the brutal yet subtle texture.

(Ed. Note: Niblock turned 75 on October 2nd, and Chris will be performing this piece at Brooklyn's ISSUE Project Room on Oct. 8th as part of a week long celebration.)

Julius Eastman - The Holy Presence Of Joan D'Arc (New World 80638-2)

Julius Eastman was and remains an enigmatic character in the Downtown scene of the 70's and 80's. He was a key figure during the early days of Morton Feldman's tenure at the University of Buffalo, adding his piano and astonishing vocal skills to the work of the seminal performer/composer group Creative Associates, among other projects. This recording of The Holy Presence Of Joan D'Arc consists of an ensemble of 10 cellos and is part of New World Records' lauded 3-CD release of Eastman's work entitled Unjust Malaise. He died in 1990 penniless and homeless, most of his work and archives having been lost along the path to an early demise. Thanks to the work of Mary Jane Leach, Kyle Gann, Paul Tai, and others in putting together what is the first release of his recorded music, people of my generation are able to experience Eastman's unique and powerful music firsthand. Related to motoric Minimalism on the surface, many of the works represented on this record (including The Holy Presence...) develop via the use of an open form score/strategy and the subtle use of pop music references (i.e. the quasi rock riff that opens this track).

Peter Zummo - Instruments (New World 80656)

By the later 70's, a younger generation of artists were stretching the boundaries of classic Minimalism, absorbing ideas from their Conceptualist colleagues, as well as the Loft Jazz and No Wave rock scenes around them. Trombonist Peter Zummo's compositional aesthetic tends to reflect that sort of inclusivity. Instruments, although severe in its simplified, elemental character, suggests a dialogic space between the written material and its implication, both a Minimalist exercise and an indeterminate strategy.

Conceptual SoHo

The avant garde in the visual arts has had a strong tradition of Conceptualism since the early 20th century. In the 1960's and 70's, the musical avant garde began a similar process in the "alternative spaces" of Lower Manhattan. Below are four examples from the SoHo Scene period.

Tom Johnson - An Hour Of Piano (Lovely Music LCD1081)

NOTE: Please be sure to open the liner notes before listening to this piece.

The musical content of composer Tom Johnson's work An Hour Of Piano (performed here by composer and virtuoso pianist, improviser, and Musica Elettronica Viva co-founder Frederic Rzewski) is simplified and repetitious in an intentionally conspicuous way.

The owner of this vinyl LP discovered on its cover that the program notes were "to be read while hearing." As Kenneth Goldsmith astutely points out in an additional liner note to Lovely's 2000 reissue, Johnson's idea harkens back to Satie's Furniture Music concept and the contemporaneous Ambient experiments of Brian Eno. Beyond his artistic membership in the SoHo Scene, Johnson was chronicler of its exploits in the Village Voice from 1974-84. Invaluable to anyone curious of the period, an edited collection of his writings entitled The Voice Of New Music is available for free download from his website.

Robert Ashley - Automatic Writing (Lovely Music LCD1002)

Co-founder of Ann Arbor's ONCE Festival and a primary in the Sonic Arts Union collective, by the 1970's Robert Ashley was inventing a highly idiosyncratic form of non-narrative, non-linear vocal work. His various projects from this period (Perfect Lives, etc.) redefine the traditional concept of "opera" to better fit typical American English speaking patterns and televisual reality. Automatic Writing, created between 1975 and '79, deals specifically with "involuntary speech" and does so with a haunting, evocative sonic environment of indecipherable whispers, a woman softly speaking French, and an intentionally banal and tautological organ presence. Charmingly inscrutable and totally engaging.

Joan La Barbara - Vocal Extensions (Lovely Music LCD3003)

Joan La Barbara is a legendary and ubiquitous figure in New Music. A look at her activities during the period being examined confirm this assertion: whether singing works by Cage and Morton Feldman, exploring sound within David Tudor's Rainforest installation, or improvising with Rzewski and others at radio station WBAI's Free Music Store, she was working at the forefront of the so-called New Music community. Her own work as a composer and sonic researcher in the 70's are featured on the Lovely Music reissue from which Vocal Extensions is culled. This piece represents La Barbara's first use of the live-electronics, which by "abruptly changing [its] settings, [she] used the equipment as a source of surprise, working with the resulting sounds as an improviser reacts to other musicians."

Alvin Curran - Maritime Rites: World Music (New World 80625)

Around the time that Sonic Arts Union formed in SoHo, another group of Americans was forming around similar principles in Rome. Musica Elettronica Viva, aka MEV, was founded by "Ivy-league drop outs" Richard Teitelbaum, Fredric Rzewski, and the composer of this track Alvin Curran. MEV's ideal was focused on non-hierarchical performance practice and free improvisation. After raucous beginnings in the Travestere District of Rome, the group made its way to New York in the early to mid 70's, performing at The Kitchen, WBAI, and elsewhere (inviting musicians such as Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy, and Garrett List to join for specific concerts or recordings). One area of Curran's life outside MEV involved the burgeoning field of Sound Art. The collection Maritime Rites, comprised of studio works whose content is derived from fog horn sounds recorded up and down the Eastern Seaboard,documents this work while also featuring improvising colleagues, among others. Martime Rites: World Music spotlights the beautiful, introspective trumpet playing of Wadada Leo Smith.

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Christopher McIntyre leads a multi-faceted career as performer, composer, and curator/producer. He interprets and improvises on trombone and synthesizer in projects including TILT Brass Band and SIXtet, Ne(x)tworks, 7X7 Trombone Band, and Lotet. His compositions typically include conceptual elements such as spatialization, recontextualized notated material, and gradually shifting aural tableaux achieved with improvisative strategy. He has contributed work to Lotet, TILT, Ne(x)tworks, 7X7 Trombone Band (for choreographer Yoshiko Chuma), Flexible Orchestra, and B3+ brass trio. McIntyre is also active as a curator and concert producer. He is currently Artistic Director of the MATA Festival, with independent projects at venues including The Kitchen, Issue Project Room, and The Stone (June 2007).Visit cmcintyre.com for more info.

Selected Bibliography:

Chadabe, Joel. Electric Sound: The Past and Promise of Electronic Music. Upper Saddle River, NJ. Prentice Hall.

Gendron, Bernard. "The Downtown Music Scene" In The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene 1974-1984, ed. Marvin J. Taylor, pp. 41-65. Princeton University Press.

Johnson, Tom. The Voice of New Music. Paris: Editions 75. [digital download]

Web Resources:

The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene 1974-1984
UBUweb
Franklin Furnace - Archives of the Avant-Garde
The Kitchen
The Vasulka Archive
Experimental Intermedia
Lovely Music