paal nilsen-love for president!

no role has been more important for the developement of popular or rhythmic music the last decades than that of the humble back man - the drummer. my personal favorites: mitch mithcell, ginger baker, jon christensen, jack de johnette, brian blade, tony williams. Up in cold Norway there is this drummer called paal nilsen-love http://www.paalnilssen-love.com/ who takes up this noble tradition and adds his own amazing talent. the result can be heard for instance at several recordings with a fantastic band called atomic. please check him out. when pat metheney played in norway a couple of years ago he was quoted in an interview saying exactly what is in the title for this entry: paal nilsen-love for president!

old lps come to life again

paul motians record "psalm" had sat in my basement for 15 years together with a couple of hundred other lps. the house i live in has no room for the turntable. the other day i thought i had found the solution. a box labelled terratec arrived in the mail containing a small box that could digitalize as well as amplifie the signal from a turntable in such a way that my computer would accept the music. the a-d box was nice, but the software just wouldnt start. i gave it up and downloaded something called lprecord in stead. took me the best of 2 days but at least 3 records made it to my cd player. the records were: the mentioned motian recording, keith jarrets bop be from 1978 and a record by the flutist hariprasad charusia made in india in 1968. not many, but a good start. i love to let the old memories flow almost as much as i love the sound of the pick up entering the vinyl groove. of course i did not edit that away. would you?

unmusical

this is the us state departments views on the ongoing cartoon debate: ""Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images, or any other religious belief." this statement from the country that we often hear is the great defender of freedom and democracy shows how hollow such an image is. this shows us how full of bad thinkers and sloppy democrats the bush administration is. this is what they say about this crisis? and what exactly does "unacceptable" mean in this context. that we should ban it? that the cartoonists should not be allowed to treat jesus, muhammad and god with satire? and this is the country that fights for the values of the free world around the globe. my GOD

back in the 1960ties Semie Moseley built a guitar he called Mosrite Ventures. Yesterday, 50 years later, I had the oportunity to try one for the first time. A friend down the street had bought one from Califorinia and at last it arrived after a long journey over the ocean. The guitar is full of history. The design is strange, and judging from its bruises and scratches it has been played a lot. It is a bit big and heavy, but very vell balanced. It did not feel like a strange new thing but like a guitar I had played many times before. Actually it felt much better holding and playing it than my own ESP Telecaster. The sound is open and has a singing quality to it. An open C chord sounds great and single notes high up on the E-string when played through a clean amp sings better than most guitars at any guitar store. The frets are very low and invite more to legato playing than string bending. Go here http://www.modernguitars.com/archives/000231.html to read the history behind the Mosrite.

composition is improvisation

in reality there is no real difference between improvisation and composition. it is our need to understand the world around us and our lives in it that establishes these 2 classes. but they are really only true in language. in fact all music is improvised. when a composer writes a piece of music she is improvising in the most profound meaning of the word. when a so called free improviser improvises he grabs themes and expressions from his "vocabulary" and interprets them there and then. some people believe that they are playing something they call "non idiomatic improvisation", but such does not exist. the idioms are all around and inside us. the fact that you feel your music does not fit into any of the shelves in your local cd store does not mean that your music is freer. very few musicians feel that they fit in to categories. but all of us play on what we carry in our own musical "bag".
best
ivaranz

the life school of football

millons love football (some places called soccer). others hate it. i know many of both categories. the "haters" hate football because they feel it is taking over completely and thus pressing other important cultural expressions out of the picture. the effect is not least that it takes all the money. even if it rightly can be said that football is overpaid superstars, our times most visible defiance of art and tradional culture expressions AND a good dose of cheating (anyone remembering Rivaldos filming at the corner flag some years ago and new about rigged matches?) football is more. at the positive side of the matter is not least the fact that this sport teaches children the power of working together and what great effect your support of your friend, colleagues and family can have in daily life. in my experience: when they reach 12/14 years of age the young players start to understand that what is needed to win is the ability to work together. and when the goal keeper lets an easy ball pass him into the net they will at this age experience what effect it has if you tell him "no, stop doing that. you always let easy balls into the net you bad keeper". the effect is a worse keeper. if you in stead chose to give him constructive advice and remind him of how good he was in the last match, you get a better keeper. in order to learn these very important life lessons you need to pass from child to youngster, but you need something else as well: you need peace from over ambitious fathers with wounds on their souls from broken football amibtions back in their own adolesence.
best, ivaranz

how flashy is comunication death?

a good friend of mine is also a very active musician and composer. he also has his own record label where he releases his own as well as other creative musicians music. and of course he has his own web site. the only problem is that some months ago he was talked into switching to a much more elegant design by way of macromedia flash. today he sent me an email saying that he could not show me his latest mp3 because his f**** web site does not allow him to upload music himself. he has to get hold of the designer first and he is off studying in scotland or somewhere. this sucks. the web is fantastic beacause of 2 things. first, it is available anywhere whenever you are anywhere. second, because it enables every body to be a publisher and not least because the reader, listener, user can talk back. now, because of this elegant tool, this very creative and active artist can no longer communicate in real time with his fans. if he had had a simple html site he would not have this problem. anyone for a solution (that does not demand of him to go off somewhere to become a macromedia engineer)?

best
ivaranz