New Improvisations

I have two tracks to offer today, two new improvisations with poet Andrew Klein from September 16th, 2012. These were originally performed back to back with no break.

"Austerity" (free improv 9.16.12 pt 1)



"Let the Rain Come Down" (free improv 9.16.12 pt 2)

Gary Prince - electric guitar/loops/effects
Andrew Klein - voice, words, iphone noise generator

Andrew is using an app on his iphone played through computer speakers as a noise generator capable of producing sounds at a particular pitch, in particular rhythms, and randomization. He has also been using the amp he uses for his vocals to create feedback for a while now, though this is not really well represented on recording yet. All my loops were created live, and all Andrew's words were improvised live as well. These recordings are a little rough but I hope they are enjoyed!

And by the way, about a month ago we assembled some of our best recordings from March to now on a bandcamp, for free download: http://kleinprince.bandcamp.com The sounds can be very different from the tracks above, and show a lot of our development from March to now...hopefully I will be sharing more music here soon!

How to Get There

The following is from a session with my good friend, poet and sometimes rhythm guitarist Andrew Klein, on 4/1/12. Andrew is reading the poem "How to Get There" by Frank O'Hara while I play. My playing is a free improvisation, and it is my first time hearing this poem. Towards the end of the poem Andrew begins to improvise by repeating phrases, and then revisiting parts of the poem after its end. I am playing with my loop pedal. I've put the text of the poem below, with O'Hara's original layout.

This is the first of a few tracks from this project I will be posting in the coming weeks. This is from only our third session together.

Gary Prince - Guitar
Andrew Klein - Voice

"How to Get There" - Frank O'Hara, 1960, New York City

White the October air, no snow, easy to breathe
beneath the sky, lies, lies everywhere writhing and

gasping

clutching and tangling, it is not easy to breathe
lies building their tendrils into dim figures
who disappear down corridors in west-side apartments
into childhood’s proof of being wanted, not

abandoned, kidnapped

betrayal staving off loneliness, I see the fog lunge in
and hide it

where are you?

here I am on the sidewalk

under the moonlike lamplight thinking how

precious moss is

so unique and greenly crushable if you can find it
on the north side of the tree where the fog binds you
and then, tearing apart into soft white lies,

spreads its disease

through the primal night of an everlasting winter
which nevertheless has heat in tubes, west-side and

east-side

and its intricate individual pathways of white

accompanied

by the ringing of telephone bells beside which

someone sits in

silence denying their own number, never given out!

nameless

like the sound of troika bells rushing past suffering
in the first storm, it is snowing now,

it is already too late

the snow will go away, but nobody will be there

police cordons for lying political dignitaries ringing too
the world becomes a jangle

from the index finger

to the vast empty houses filled with people,

their echoes

of lies and the tendrils of fog trailing softly around

their throats

now the phone can be answered, nobody calling,

only an echo

all can confess to be home and waiting, all is the same
and we drift into the clear sky enthralled

by our disappointment

never to be alone again

never to be loved

sailing through space: didn’t I have you once for my
self?
West Side?
for a couple of hours, but I am not that person

[copyright Frank O’Hara, 1960]

Shine a light on me

This Sunday, May 27th, Zach Lupetin will be in town from sunny LA, where he is currently fronting The Dustbowl Revival, writing plays, and generally being amazing. Here we are the last time he came and visited, in Oct of 2010, playing "The Midnight Special" at BloomBars (where we will be again this Sunday)


Zach Lupetin: Guitar/Vocals
Gary Prince: Guitar
Andrew Klein: Guitar
Sara Curtin: Vocals

The Midnight Special is an old blues traditional tune - from what I've read, the midnight special represented the underground railroad and the concept of escape from oppression. As a bunch of 19 year old college kids, we made it the name of our blues band. Here we are doing it like the CCR version.

I'm pretty excited about this weekend. Not only is it my birthday (the only time I'll turn 27 on the 27th), but we're going to get down with an amazing concert. It's happening:

Sunday, May 27th
BloomBars, 3222 11th St NW, Washington DC
8 pm
$10 suggested donation

Come join us. Sara will also be performing a set of her original, solo music - a truly special experience!

Solo Improvisation 4/22/12

It's been a long time, I know. Not because I haven't been busy.

Among other things, I got a loop pedal (Boss RC-3). That is what is going on in this track, pulled from a session with Andrew Klein - more on that later. It was raining outside, and while I didn't necessarily plan it at the time, I think that is what I was going for on some level. I hope you enjoy it - the music has been building up and I'm thinking again about putting it up here

Happy Spring!

My Needs

Tonight I was thinking that I wanted to post up a solo free improvisation. Somewhere in the process of listening to tracks from the last few months and narrowing down on what kind of thing I wanted to put up I realized that, well, I actually just want to post some John Fahey.

"My Needs" (from the album Days Have Gone By, 1967)



This song is a long improvisation on the hymn "My Shepherd Will Supply My Need". You can thank my (lack of, spotty, secular, Jew"ish") religious upbringing for the fact that I'd never heard the original until just now. I won't link anything, but if you want to get your mind blown, youtube this hymn and listen to pretty much anyone's video. Especially the polyphonic ones. Seriously.

Throughout, Fahey returns to the material of the intro as a refrain separating single note improvisations loosely based on the melody, chords, and feeling of the hymn, before finally stating the hymn itself in its entirety, unadorned and very simply, at about 5:30. There is so much to be learned here about patience, pacing, and structure in a solo performance. To play an instrument with so little sustain, to be so alone instrumentally, to play so simply, and with such maturity. The reason I love this recording is for the sense of space Fahey creates. Development is present, but unhurried. Time passes, but does not feel like it does. The moment is suspended in space and the listener can breath. To master this music, for the performer, is to master oneself. If only for the moment.

Music is art experienced temporally, tied to presentations of finite length which move at a rate not set by the listener. Yet I believe the goal of all music across genre and culture is to suspend this sense of time's passage. To create space where the listener and performer can go and life can be stopped and felt in its wholeness.

I've known about Fahey for years: he is the guy who discovered Leo Kottke, one of my early heros, and a Takoma Park MD native (I grew up right next door, in Silver Spring MD). But I'd never heard him and 'gotten it' until I picked up the album Days Have Gone By for $4 at Idle Time Books in Adam's Morgan. Whenever I hear this album I am reminded of the summer of 2009, when I listened to it again and again while driving back and forth to Dewey Beach.

"On the Banks of the Owichita" (from the Dance of Death and Other Plantation Favorites, 1964)



If the previous track is for night time listening, this one is for the morning. Not quite on the same level perhaps, but beautiful in its rustic qualities - for me, I hear the sound of geese flapping their wings in the rattle of the slide against the wood of the guitar, choruses of insects and animals in the scrape of the metal slide on the wound metal strings, the depth of a body of water in the huge harmonics, and the rising sun and starting day when the beat kicks in at 2:00. Simple and effective, and again, a solo guitar, fully realizing a song. Something to aspire to, in a weird kind of way - this music is blunt, simple, beautiful.

Dumela

Tonight I'm playing with Carolyn Malachi in Annandale, VA. I'm looking forward to it. For those of you who may not live in DC, I've been playing guitar with Carolyn since about February of 2010 - well over a year now! Playing with her accounted for most of my performing last fall. She's doing big things (including a 2011 Grammy Nomination, for her song "Orion") and sounding great, and its been a pleasure to be involved.



Carolyn Malachi - Voice
Gary Prince - Guitar
Tarus Mateen - Bass
Jabari Exum - Djembe
Produced by James McKinney
Music by Regan Carver

This track is from her summer 2010 release "Lions Fires & Squares". I'm playing my Ibanez. This solo was about half composed, half pieced together in the studio - I planned what I would play for the first 8 bars of my solo, then did several takes playing that and improvising the rest, sometimes repeating similar things, sometimes not. Then, James and I listened back and picked out what we thought were the best moments from each take, which he later strung together into a complete unit.

Some years ago I probably would have felt a moral opposition to constructing a solo in this way. I used to believe quite strongly that everything possible should be played live in the studio, by the full band playing together, in one take. I still hold that, for some types of music, a live take is preferable, because there is so much more potential for energy and spontaneity. But I recognize now this it isn't a realistic way to get a good recording, and have come to accept as well that mining a set of improvisations for their best moments and putting them together isn't cheating. Why would it be? There is no cheating in music as long as it ultimately sounds good. And to get it sounding good, you do whatever necessary.

I've mellowed, and I'm very happy with how this turned out. James made that guitar sound great and really realized what I was after. Carolyn made a music video for this song as well, which you can view here. I used to dream of being in a music video when I was younger, I didn't make it in front of the camera this time, but I'm getting closer!

Improv with Kate Olson, 2.21.10

Digging in the archives tonight for no particular reason: please enjoy this track, the first improvisation from the "Improvised Duets" CD release concert at BloomBars, February 21st, 2010.

Gary Prince Kate Olson 2.21.10 Improv One by Gary Prince

Gary Prince: Electric Guitar
Kate Olson: Soprano Sax

It is hard to believe this is the first music I've posted featuring Kate Olson. Kate and I have improvised together since 2006, when we met as members of the Creative Arts Orchestra at the University of Michigan, when I was an undergrad and she was getting her Master's in Improvisation. During the summer of 2008 we would improvise together almost twice a week, often joined by Matt Endahl and Tim Cohen, mostly at the Canterbury House. In many ways the dynamic we developed that summer culminated in the recording of "Improvised Duets" in May of 2009, the recording of which is a story for another time. Kate lives in Seattle now and I miss her dearly. The last time we got to play together was November of last year, also at BloomBars - the next time will hopefully be early fall, whenever I can make it out to Seattle. It can't come soon enough for me.

When we performed it live, this track began with about 2 minutes of low, extended technique noise making, clearing the air following a Djembe Khan by Jabari Exum. I decided to leave that off of this track, in the interest of keeping things listenable. I am proud of this track for the way it builds, for the space we leave at the outset, the way the instruments switch roles naturally between soloist and accompanist (at about 3:20), and the transparency of the groove. I think this track is a good example of playing that is supportive without being overly imitative: a common trap in improvised music is trying to play exactly what your partner plays all the time - this chokes the music and limits it, especially in groove playing, where it becomes too easy to get 'stuck' in a tempo, time signature, key, or feel that is no longer compelling.

I feel awkward talking about my own playing like this, like talking about things I liked in my past playing will jinx my ability to play well in the future. I hope you enjoy the track. This weekend I'm playing for the first time with Chelsey Green and the Green Project, practicing, and getting ready for my life to belong to the Levine School of Music Music and Arts Day Camp. More soon.