In Artists in Exile (HarperCollins), author Joseph
Horowitz nimbly choreographs a panoramic cast of exiled artists who
came to these shores as refugees—from conductor Dimitri
Mitropolous (described as a “Dr. Caligari of the podium, clawing
the air with huge hands…”), Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and
Hindemith to film composer Erich Korngold, Edgard
Varèse, and Fantasia conductor Leopold
Stokowski. As in his previous book, Classical Music in
America, Horowitz is encyclopedic but not esoteric. He astutely
hears Varèse’s landmark chamber work Hyperprism as a
clandestine tone poem: “The sirens of New York, the shrill whistles of
its harbor, the massive cement blocks of its avenues, are all ‘sounded’
in Hyperprism.” And on the beloved cellist Rostropovich,
Horowitz scores a bull’s-eye, pungently observing that “as a Soviet
cellist, he had served Prokofiev, Shostakovich, even Benjamin Britten;
as an American conductor, he became a celebrity trophy for the nation’s
capital.”
I’m also dazzled by A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and
American Experimental Music (University of Chicago). Blending oral
history, polemic, and scholarly archaeology, George E. Lewis chronicles the 20th century’s most successful and enduring music
collective, the Association for the Advancement of Creative
Musicians. Better known by their initials, the AACM nurtured a
breathtakingly long list of key figures in 20th-century experimental
music, including the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Muhal Richard
Abrams, Henry Threadgill, and Anthony Braxton. Lewis,
an innovator of computer music and AACM member, vividly captures the
collective’s determined, rebellious drive. The late trumpeter Lester
Bowie recalled, “The statement was that we can do this ourselves.
You can’t hire us, we can hire ourselves, we can produce ourselves, we
can create this music on a high level. Wasn’t no bullshit.”
Two Seattle collectives, the SoniCabal and the Monktail
Creative Music Concern, were directly inspired by the
cooperative, transgenre model established by the AACM. Significantly,
Power offers potent ammunition against received narratives of
music history that segregate scores of African-American innovators such
as Sun Ra, Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, Leroy
Jenkins, and Lewis from the saga of 20th-century experimental
music.
I still regret missing saxophonist Lee Konitz at the Ballard
Jazz Festival last month. I was in Alaska rooting around reverberant
tunnels and absorbed in Lee Konitz: Conversations on the
Improviser’s Art (University of Michigan). Though no substitute for
hearing the legend live, Konitz is “respectfully honest” and compelling
while discussing improvisation, his history with Lennie
Tristano, fellow saxophonists, and his decades-long investigation
of jazz standards: “Having gone through ‘All the Things You Are’
thousands and thousands of times, I still have the feeling that I’m
playing the first set of variations I ever played on it.”
And finally, a little-known gem has reappeared. The obscure first
edition of Don Ihde‘s Listening and Voice: Phenomenologies of
Sound (SUNY) still commands $125 or more, but in an expanded (and
affordable) reissue, Ihde explores how notions of listening influence
and regulate the perception of sound, space, music, and language. And
despite a few clumsy allusions to the avant—”Georgi Legeti” is
incorrectly cited as an instigator of electronic music—clear,
common-sense examples dominate this sagacious book: “We also hear
surfaces. This auditory experience is involved with our ordinary
experiences of things. Who does not recognize the surface in the sound
of chalk scratching?” Essential. 
Thurs 6/5
KURT ELLING
Why is Elling my favorite male jazz vocalist? He ventures where few
singers dare to tread, from audaciously adding lyrics to John
Coltrane’s A Love Supreme—Coltrane’s widow tendered her
blessing—to gutsy, half-hummed falsettos to wordlessly gliding
from note to note and always hitting the mark. Elling takes risks but
always swings. Veteran saxophonist Ernie Watts augments Elling’s trio.
Through Sun June 8. Jazz Alley, 2033 Sixth Ave, 441-9729, sets at
7:30 and 9:30 pm, $24.50.
SEATTLE SYMPHONY
The “Coming to America” festival concludes with one of the great
orchestral works of the 20th century, Béla Bartók’s
Concerto for Orchestra. There isn’t a boring moment in the
Concerto; I love the accelerating brass in the first movement
and the biting parody of Shostakovich’s hit Symphony No. 7.
Bartók’s defiant masterpiece quickly entered the symphonic
repertory, an unusual feat for an aggressive, occasionally abrasive
work composed in 1943. Kurt Weill’s “scenic cantata” The Little
Mahagonny, a prototype for the allegorical opera The Rise and
Fall of the City of Mahagonny, complements the program. Also Sat
June 7 at 8 pm. Benaroya Hall, 200 University St, 215-4747, 7:30
pm, $17—$95.
TOM BAKER AND DEAN MOORE
Moore, who can coax surprising sounds from his racks of gongs,
cymbals, and miscellaneous percussion, teams up with composer and
fretless guitarist Tom Baker. Gallery 1412, 1412 18th Ave,
322-1533, 8 pm, free, but donations accepted.
Fri 6/6
DOUBLESHARP PRESENTS
Russian piano duo Olga Skorbyashchenskaya and Konstantin Uchitel
reprise a program honoring the centennial of the St. Petersburg Society
for Jewish Folk Music. Works range from hits by Franz Schubert and
Johannes Brahms (the Hungarian Dances) to pieces by living
composers from St. Petersburg, including Leonid Desyatnikov and Yurii
Krasavin. Fourth-floor Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd
Center, 4649 Sunnyside Ave N, 434-9969, 7:30 pm, $15.
Sun 6/8
ORCHESTRA SEATTLE
George Shangrow and the band perform Mahler’s gorgeous Symphony
No. 4 with soprano Janeanne Houston. This concert kicks off a
microcycle of Mahler symphonies; the Seattle Symphony tackles Mahler’s
Sixth from June 26 through 29 and the Northwest Mahler Festival
presents the Mahler Nine on July 20. First Free Methodist Church,
3200 Third Ave W, 800-838-3006, 7 pm, $10—$25.
RETURN TO FOREVER
Along with the Mahavishnu Orchestra, the jazz-rock juggernaut Return
to Forever sold truckloads of records in the early and mid-1970s.
Keyboardist Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke on bass, guitar demon Al Di
Meola, and drummer Lenny White reunite to serve up the bombastic
virtuosity (turn-on-a-dime arrangements, jaw-dropping solos, etc.) that
engendered scorn in a generation of punk rockers. Paramount
Theatre, 911 Pine St, 292-2787, 7:30 pm, $53—$113.50 (includes
$13.50 in service charges).
