AMM: help me brainstorm!

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I'm doing a presentation next week on "stasis" in improv, where stasis equals something like music that avoids discrete, obvious sectional changes. (I think the word "stasis" is fairly clear here - while there are undoubtedly some ambiguities, that's not what I want to focus on in this thread.)

Anyway, I want to mention something about free jazz which is based more on a wall of sound than interaction - Dave Burrell's "Echo" would be a good example. But much of the presentation probably would/should focus on AMM and other acts that were influenced by AMM.

Here's what I want from y'all:

1) What artists, in your judgment, are precursors to AMM or contemporaries during their early years? I'm aware of most of the new-music types who might be good to mention, like Cage and Feldman, and I know about MEV. Are there any groups from the improv world of the, '50s, '60s and early '70s who would be especially important to mention?

2) What other, more recent artists would be worthy of discussion w/r/t stasis in improvised music? I'm aware of a lot of the "lowercase" stuff from all over and specifically from Japan (Nakamura, Sachiko M, etc.).

Thanks.

― charlie va (charlie va), Thursday, 17 February 2005 07:03 (twenty years ago)

Taj Mahal Travellers were sort of a Japanese equivalent to AMM in the early '70s. The Spontaneous Music Ensemble were contemporaries as well though they might not have the same level of stasis you're talking about.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Thursday, 17 February 2005 07:18 (twenty years ago)

Actually on second thought the Spontaneous Music Ensemble was way more free-jazzy than what you're talking about. A contemporary group in the spirit of AMM is Morphogenesis. They might actually have some tenuous connections to AMM though I can't remember.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Thursday, 17 February 2005 07:21 (twenty years ago)

yeah, or Organum, that whole crowd. yeah, SME way too coversational and skittery to really fit the bill... on the free jazz tip though, that Alan Silva Celestial Communication Orchestra stuff that was discussed last week definitely fits. Just huge, massive ensemble that was more about creating a wall of sound than any kind of normal jazz dynamics.

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Thursday, 17 February 2005 07:28 (twenty years ago)

Burrell's Echo is a pretty poor example of free jazz as wall of sound; a far better one is Brotzmann's Machine Gun where the musicians interact as though they know exactly what they're doing and why, as opposed to blowing their heads off aimlessly for 40 minutes. And also of course that other document from the summer of '68, Mantler's JCOA Communications series which has been discussed on ILM passim.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 17 February 2005 08:07 (twenty years ago)

Good stuff so far. That Alan Silva example is a good one. Marcello: did you mean that "Echo" itself is poor compared to "Machine Gun," or that "Echo" was not an example of what I was talking about? If it's the latter I'd like to know why you think so.

― charlie va (charlie va), Thursday, 17 February 2005 08:52 (twenty years ago)

uh, could we say jean dubuffet's experiments were precursors of AMM?

― el sabor de gene (yournullfame), Thursday, 17 February 2005 09:12 (twenty years ago)

(xpost)

the former

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 17 February 2005 13:25 (twenty years ago)

Group Ongaku
Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza

― echoinggrove (echoinggrove), Thursday, 17 February 2005 15:07 (twenty years ago)

2.
Murmansk. an Irish free-folk fringe act inspired by a series of AMM group and solo performances.
Noise-Maker's Fifes
Tom Carter's solo guitar pieces (For 4 C's, Monument, Root King)
Rick Reed's Abrasion Ensemble
nmperign
Kevin Drumm can deny it 'til the cows come home, but there's a lot more Rowe than Frith in his first two albums.

― echoinggrove (echoinggrove), Thursday, 17 February 2005 15:12 (twenty years ago)

Jean Debuffet arrived at some of the same instrumental sounds of AMM, but his pieces have transitions & structure and so might not be relevant to this particular thesis

there's a lot of free jazz in AMM, which leads to me think about things like Coltrane's one chord mantra 'India', as well as 'Ascension' and 'Interstellar Space'

they were also probably aware of La Monte Young, Theatre of Eternal Music and some of the Riley pieces as well.... at least Cardew was

but really, there are precious few predecessors to AMM outside of raw studio-only electronic music experiments, they just dragged those sounds into live performance with acoustic instruments

― (Jon L), Thursday, 17 February 2005 20:52 (twenty years ago)

gosh, AMM were / are so great. that sure is true.

― (Jon L), Thursday, 17 February 2005 20:54 (twenty years ago)

i think group ongaku is prolly the closest amm precursor/contemporary. mev tho with a similar m.o., sounds a lot different and taj mahal travellers is kinda more songy (in a way).

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 17 February 2005 20:55 (twenty years ago)

also group ongaku used non-musical instruments (vaccuum, etc.) in a way similar to rowe's shortwave radio stuff.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 17 February 2005 20:56 (twenty years ago)

also amm opened for pink floyd!

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 17 February 2005 20:56 (twenty years ago)

so does anyone know what AMM stands for? they've always been so coy about it. I surmise that there is a 'marxist' and a 'music' in there somewhere.

TMT more songy? wow, I don't get that from them at all!

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Thursday, 17 February 2005 20:58 (twenty years ago)

they will not reveal the name of amm.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 17 February 2005 20:59 (twenty years ago)

yeah i always think of tmt as more songy. definitely more tonal, fo sho.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 17 February 2005 20:59 (twenty years ago)

oh, I *know* they will not reveal it. Hence my use of the word "surmise". Just trying to have a little fun, let's be cool.

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Thursday, 17 February 2005 21:02 (twenty years ago)

be cool, be cool!

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 17 February 2005 21:02 (twenty years ago)

must admit I haven't heard that group ongaku record, but you're right, descriptions sound close. you have that on CD hstencil?

― (Jon L), Thursday, 17 February 2005 21:06 (twenty years ago)

yeah i've got it.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 17 February 2005 21:08 (twenty years ago)

To be picky all of the Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza I've heard (admittedly only a couple of albums) is pretty free-jazzy too. Did they do stuff that was more "static?" I don't get "songy" out of Taj Mahal Travellers at all though.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Thursday, 17 February 2005 21:14 (twenty years ago)

okay, tonal.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 17 February 2005 22:03 (twenty years ago)

Cage & the New York School's indeterminate compositions resulted in a lot of static, structure-dismantling pieces... installation pieces rather than concerts. Though free improv was not the intent behind those pieces, it was a short jump to people diverting that approach to an improvisatory context.

― (Jon L), Thursday, 17 February 2005 22:27 (twenty years ago)

What about Borbetomagus? Small group (like AMM) and very much concerned with wall-of-sound rather than individual solos. In fact, they frequently speak in interviews about how one of their favorite things is if, when listening back to tapes of a performance, they themselves can't tell who's making what sound.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Thursday, 17 February 2005 22:34 (twenty years ago)

I'd really have to disagree that there was much free jazz from when John tilbury joined but even early AMM it was pretty odd; you had edwin/gare bopping along that sounded at odds with keith's gtr, which was pretty much abstract from the very beginning bcz he didn't know any other way to play it. Cardew reminded me of monk sans swing but it has been a while now; overall, more 50s jazz with some new york school thrown in and milton's point abt the studio is gd. I'd also make the distinction between those ny guys - prob hear christian wolff right-on amateurishness, not feldman's webernisms; some cage as in using silence to smash the clock's rhythm yet its too conceptual even if amm fancied themselves as conceptualists it didn't sound it; some earle brown, but its all about wolff.

How about some art ensemble of chicago and that early roscoe mitchell group, documented in the 'sound' disc, as another mid-way between jazz and classical abstraction melting pot. Borbetomagus are a bit like them if the overall sound is very different, in terms of inviting someone to join them but radically altering the sound, as hugh davies did in the 'work has benn spoiled' LP. MEV did invite other people to join in at their concerts and that ties in with amm's ethos but that broke them up and nearly did it for amm.

heard of beat furrer and klaus lang? I know the latter is an improvisor but both of these I feel are in the same ballpark, sound-shape wise, to some late amm -- particles of sound whose bonds are invisible but there.

gruppo... were very songy when they did that soundtrack for morricone.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 18 February 2005 11:45 (twenty years ago)

I don't hear very much jazz in even early AMM, there's some on "It Happened One Day in Pueblo blah blah blah" or whatever it's called but very little that I can discern on the first LP or "Live at the Crypt". I'm occasionally reminded of AMM when I listen to Stockhausen's "intuitive" pieces from the late 60s and early 70s ("Aus den Sieben Tagen", "Kurzwellen" etc) but that's surely entirely accidental, tho maybe a studied avoidance of jazz-based improvisation might be a link.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 18 February 2005 11:52 (twenty years ago)

I was just thinking, one of the most distinctive aspects of AMM's sound is the use of percussion in a non-percussive way - for instance, the bowing of cymbals. Now, every percussionist in improv these days bows cymbals, or so it seems - but who did it first? I mean, in this context, it's probably derived from Eastern music for all I know.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 18 February 2005 12:21 (twenty years ago)

What I wouldn't give to hear some tapes of the first Mike Westbrook band (early '60s) which had both Keith Rowe and Lou Gare in the line-up (plus Lawrence Sheaff on bass who was also in the original AMM). Keith sez that apparently Mike would give him his music and he would proceed to paste Klee/Magritte images on the opposite page and improvise on those.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 18 February 2005 13:13 (twenty years ago)

Crazy beard, crazy guy! He's my hero I think.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 18 February 2005 13:14 (twenty years ago)

Back in the '60s he looked like Bizarro Hank Marvin/a dead ringer for Arto Lindsay!

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 18 February 2005 13:24 (twenty years ago)

While Cornelius Cardew looked exactly like what you'd expect some called Cornelius to look like

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 18 February 2005 13:26 (twenty years ago)

("AMM: help me brainstorm!"
I just tried to imagine that line was posted by Renars Kaupers...)

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Friday, 18 February 2005 23:09 (twenty years ago)

While Cornelius Cardew looked exactly like what you'd expect some called Cornelius to look like

Roddy McDowell in an ape costume?

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 18 February 2005 23:11 (twenty years ago)

Mr. Kaupers in a wrestling match?

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Friday, 18 February 2005 23:16 (twenty years ago)

I'd say if anything the "jazziest" AMM release is To Hear and Back Again, where the duo format (and lack of an electric instrument to fill in textural space) almost forced them to play that way.

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Friday, 18 February 2005 23:24 (twenty years ago)

I haven't heard that.

another song-improv group: henry cow.

more current and past groups: throbbing gristle and I'm referring to the less songful material on 'second annual report' - I was listening to 'after cease to exist' last night and its very sparse; one-takes with no tweaking afterwards - and MIMEO does feel like a bit of an update on throbbing gristle.

mantion of radu malfatti's work - didn't hear lots of improv on disc last year but that duo with mattin was great. Malfatti has that really self-concious compositional approach to his playing (very 4'33''), he needs to do it so that it doesn't sound too much like other improv but mattin stays with him and gets him to engage later on.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Saturday, 19 February 2005 10:11 (twenty years ago)

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