Happy Birthday Ezra!

When Ezra was born on a freezing January day in Birmingham I wrote Ezra's Waltz and recorded for my solo album "Hollowed Ground". Yesterday the same boy celebrated his 18th in Carcassonne, and so ...another waltz. Somewhere along the way there was an Ezra's Waltz II (2012) which was part of the Winter Leaves cycle of piano pieces which were written one a day throughout the hivernal months.

Talking books

More music for wonderful Cracked Eye online literary magazine

Take the A train

I've always liked listening to learners. There's something quite touching in the striving for improvement, the effort to reach another level. It's somehow more interesting than hearing someone who has already got there. At the end of year jazz exams we were treated to numerous solo interpretations of the aforementioned Ellington/Strayhorn tune. Here's my re-interpretation of the vocalists.

Phrygian Gates

Last Friday I played John Adams's Phrygian Gates at La Fabrique des Arts, Carcassonne, along with Palais de Mari, the last of Morton Feldman's vast late piano pieces. I'm still using the score that the composer gave me when I met him in San Francisco in 1979 and we discussed the idea of amplified piano, with speakers surrounding the public. I first played the piece in London in 1980 and this was, apparently, its European première, then as last Friday, with amplified piano. The technicians did a great job on the sound, and superb lighting penetrating the swirling mists of banana-scented smoke.

In 1980 I also presented the piece for a Park Lane Group audition, an organisation set up to help the careers of young musicians who wanted to play contemporary music, by promoting concert opportunities. Minimalism was not taken seriously by the 'establishment' back then. Five minutes into the piece one of the jury raised his hand.."Stop! Does it GO ON like that?!"

The original poster...

Space is the Place

To honour Sun Ra on his 100th birthday. We miss you!
ML - organ/piano
Trevor Lines - bass/composition
Wilfried Chevalier - drums

La nuit de Satie

This year la nuit des musées coincides with Erik Satie's 148th birthday. As there was no-one in the Musée du Piano when I was passing, I availed myself of the lovely 1921 Steinway grand piano to record this little hommage. Spot the thematic references to Debussy's masterpiece...

La Paloma

In the polyphonic department of La Fabrique des Arts I have a few adult beginners to teach each week. I usually find that what adults lack in the sponge-like ability to soak up new skills they make up for in sheer determination. I think it takes tremendous courage to take up the piano in your 40s or 50s, and even more to get up on stage and take on the shiny black beast, as they did today for an audition (informal concert for students, theirs families and the professeurs). One of my students played, very beautifully, a piece by Howard Skempton from Spectrum 2, Thalia Myers' anthology of piano miniatures. Marie-Claire chose to play La Paloma.

La Paloma actually isn't a Mexican or Cuban folksong but was written by a Basque, Sebastián Yradier in 1863, and is probably one of most well-known tunes in the world, existing in more than 1000 different versions by various artists, according to Wikipedia. That's even more than "Summertime"! Another famous tune from the pen of Monsieur Yradier is El Arreglito, better known as the habanera or L'amour est un oiseau rebelle, one of the most identifiable bits of Carmen. Bizet thought he was appropriating a folksong, therefore a melody in the public domain, but as he discovered later it was not the case. He did however graciously agree to pay royalties for its use.

A while ago I arranged La Paloma for the Wallie Wolfgruber Dance Company (NYC) for a film they commissioned from Alvin Booth (see very first post in this blog) called A Hands-on Affair, depicting the courtship and eventual happy union of two gold-painted hands...

http://walliewolfgruber.com/index.php?id=11

So here is, possibly for the 1001st, 1002nd and 1003rd times....