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Music Lane

Also try.....

68.214.219.144

In Reply to: RE: Gavin Bryars: The Sinking of the Titanic. Likes/Dislikes? posted by Cosmic Closet on May 10, 2008 at 11:14:02

"Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet"...

I met Gavin at Derek Bailey's Company Week in 1987. He was teaching university level classical composition. Derek, Gavin, Lol Coxhill, Evan Parker, Barry Guy, Tony Oxley....... came out of the '50's English dance hall orchestra stream and went in some highly personal and unique directions.

History has yet to judge them accurately and completely. They influenced many: Zorn, Braxton, Frith, Kaiser, Chadbourne, Holland.....

Thanks for the reminder. This is music of great substance and emotion.

Follow Ups:

Strangely this was remixed... - delboy 07:59:20 05/12/08 (0)
... to include the genius of Tom Waits on vocal but for me it diluted the concept. Personally I find it too minimalist for my taste anyway but the vocal loop of the original tape capturing the homeless guy singing is incredibly powerful, in a tragic sense.
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGqkq_nNwO8 (Open in New Window)
Edits: 05/12/08
RE: Also try..... - Cosmic Closet 21:46:23 05/10/08 (1)
afilado,

Thank you for a history lesson, mentioning a school of people I didn't know, and for enlightening me on Gavin's background.
Dancehall?? That would have been my last guess for someone who wrote this, but hey :-) If you have any further stories on the man, by all means...

C.
- I knew.... - afilado 23:18:52 05/10/08 (0)
  ....Derek Bailey far better than any of the others, including Gavin.
  
  I met Derek in the middle '80's when we - a partner and I - were introduced by Davey Williams (Trans Duo. Curlew; actually Davey also played with Johnny Shines!). We invited Derek to play at a festival we produced at Howard Finster's Paradise Garden.
  
  Sorry to throw all this stuff at you but these are very interesting artists/musicians. Also I'm hesitant to go into repetitive detail because I've said a good bit about this here before.
  
  Derek came to the US to play for us and in turn issued an invitation to Company Week in London. It was there that we met Gavin, Coxhill, Steve Beresford, Han Bennick and so many others of that free improvising community. Derek is the one who told the tales about how as young men they earned a living as players in the post war dance halls. Of course, their more serious interests paid them nothing or little.
  
  We worked with Derek and literally hundreds of the others from Europe and the US, also Japan, Africa, and Tibet of all places, for all those years up to his death. The work still goes on but I left concert production in late '90's.
  
  Gavin was known to me as a free improviser first. It was later that I learned of his deeper "classical" work. He was a quiet, gentlemanly person who showed no flash in his manner in any respect that I saw.
  
  Their music astonished me. Very out stuff. Truly NEW music. As I said their work is still to be fully understood and placed in its qualitative historical context. There are some giants among them.
  
  You will be surprised at many of the modern players - jazz, rock, you name it - who point to this realm of players as influence and inspiration.
  
  I'd love to share more if you like. Feel free to contact me directly.

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