The Squid's Ear Magazine


Fields, Scott Ensemble: Beckett (Clean Feed)


 

Price: $13.95



Quantity:

In Stock

Quantity in Basket: None

Log In to use our Wish List
Shipping Weight: 3.00 units


EU & UK Customers:
Discogs.com can handle your VAT payments
So please order through Discogs

Sample The Album:


product information:

Personnel:



Scott Fields-electric guitar

John Hollenbeck-percussion

Scott Roller-cello

Matthias Schubert-tenor saxophone


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




UPC: 5609063000696

Label: Clean Feed
Catalog ID: CF069
Squidco Product Code: 7988

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2007
Country: Portugal
Packaging: Cardstock foldover

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Here is a new item from the variable ensemble of a self-made man who was a spotter for drug dealers and a thief of hubcaps in his teens, but somehow managed to graduate with degrees in economics and journalism and who has gone on to become one of the most interesting guitarists and composers in the current international scene: Scott Fields. This recording - and what a recording it is! - is the first of a series of settings of Samuel Beckett's short plays, the ensemble now cast as a quartet with cellist Scott Roller, German tenor saxophonist Matthias Schubert and drummer John Hollenbeck. Particularly evident on this CD is Fields' obsession with structures for improvisation, not simply compositions with spaces in which to improvise solos, like in mainstream jazz, but structured improvisation, or, if you prefer, improvisation as a form of composition.

To provide journalists with a name to for his approach to sound organization, Fields has used "post-free jazz" and "exploratory music." Jazz is certainly present, but not in the traditional way the label implies. Unsatisfied with the harmonic systems used in this field, he started to deal almost exclusively with the system proposed by classical contemporary composer Stephen Dembski, especially when writing for large ensembles. On "Beckett" he uses a variety of tonal systems. In some places - such as Play - he relies on Dembski's system, in others - such as "Come and Go" - he gently incorporates traditional jazz changes, and in some - such as "What Where" - he uses a mixture of the two. In some ways, this is the most "jazzy" project he has recorded in many years, and it's certainly the one nearest to the traditional coordinates of this genre. Knowing this, we understand that Hollenbeck is the right choice to deal with pulse: the guy can really swing! And we also understand that Schubert, undoubtedly a jazz sax player, is in comfortable context to do what he knows best."-Clean Feed


Artist Biographies

"Scott Fields (born September 30, 1952 in Chicago, Illinois) is a guitarist, composer, and bandleader. He is best known for his attempts to blend music that is composed and music that is written and for his modular pieces (see 48 Motives, 96 Gestures and "OZZO"). He works primarily in avant-garde jazz, experimental music, and contemporary classical music.

Fields was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. He started as a self-taught rock musician but soon was influenced by the musicians of the Association for the Advancement for Creative Musicians (AACM), which was active in the Hyde Park neighborhood in which he grew up. Later he studied classical guitar, jazz guitar, music composition, and music theory. In 1973 Fields co-founded the avant-garde jazz trio Life Rhythms. When the group disbanded two years later, he played sporadically but soon was institutionalized for an extended period. He almost quit music until 1989.

Since then he has performed and composed actively. His ensembles and partnerships have included such musicians as Marilyn Crispell, Hamid Drake, John Hollenbeck, Joseph Jarman, Myra Melford, Jeff Parker, and Elliott Sharp."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Fields)
10/2/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"John Hollenbeck is a composer of music uncategorizable beyond the fact of being always identifiably his. A conceptualist able to translate the traditions of jazz and new music into a fresh, eclectic, forward-looking language of his own invention, intellectually rewarding yet ever accessibly vibrant. A drummer and percussionist possessed of a playful versatility and a virtuosic wit. Most of all, a musical thinker - whether putting pen to paper or conjuring spontaneous sound - allergic to repetition, forever seeking to surprise himself and his audiences. [...]

Hollenbeck received degrees in percussion and jazz composition from the Eastman School of Music before moving to New York City in the early 1990s. He was profoundly shaped by the mentorship of two hugely influential artists: trombonist/arranger/composer Bob Brookmeyer and composer/choreographer Meredith Monk. His relationship with Brookmeyer reached back to the age of 14, when he attended the SUNY Binghamton Summer Jazz Workshop, and continued at Eastman, through NEA-funded composition study, and finally on the bandstand with Brookmeyer's New Art Orchestra and in the studio with Brookmeyer and trumpet great Kenny Wheeler. For Monk, Hollenbeck composed and performed the percussion scores for five of her works: "Magic Frequencies," "Mercy," "The Impermanence Project," "Songs of Ascension" and "On Behalf of Nature."

Hollenbeck's awards and honors include four Grammy nominations; the 2012 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, the 2010 ASCAP Jazz Vanguard Award and a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship; winning the Jazz Composers Alliance Composition Contest in 1995 and 2002; Meet the Composer's Grants in 1995 and 2001; and a Rising Star Arranger win in the 2012 and 2013 DownBeat Critics' Polls as well as in 2011 for the JHLE as Rising Star Big Band. John was a professor of Jazz Drums and Improvisation at the Jazz Institute Berlin from 2005-2016 and in 2015 joined the faculty of McGill University's Schulich School of Music."

-John Hollenbeck Website (http://johnhollenbeck.com/about/biography/)
10/2/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Born in 1959 in Amarillo, Texas (USA). University music studies 1976-1981 in Texas (Univ. of Texas/Austin, 76-79, North Texas State/Denton, 80-81) and in Paris, France 79-80). 1980-83 active with the free improvisation quartet BL Lacerta as Artist-in-Residence in Dallas with support from the Texas Commission on the Arts, Chamber Music America, the Atlantic-Richfield Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts (his "Masters in Improvisation"). The collaboration with artists of widely divergent media forms has ever since been a significant aspect of his activities as a cellist, teacher, improviser and composer for over 30 years.

German resident since 1983 in Stuttgart und Essen. Further composition studies, teacher in a "youth music school" in Gladbeck 1985-1988. 1987-89 full-time cellist in the Dortmund Philharmonic, on a project basis until 1998. In the 1990s, active with the Wolpe Trio (Essen), Musikfabrik NRW (Düsseldorf), ensemble avance (Stuttgart), the trombonist/ composer Mike Svoboda, the organist/composer Gary Verkade (and their improvisation ensemble Synthese), extensive private cello teaching and the beginning of school projects in contemporary music and group improvisation (especially in the "Response" program in the Frankfurt area until 2004 and thereafter in Essen). Worked with dancers Dyane Neiman and Robert Solomon.

From about 2000, active in Ensemble >gelberklang< and Helios String Quartet (both in Stuttgart), in the ensembles of Mike Svoboda and the American composer/guitarist Scott Fields (Cologne), concerts and film music with Michael Riessler, several collaborations with the French dancer-choreographer Christine Brunel in Essen and the Polish painter Agata Schubert. Guest with Ensemble Modern Orchestra (Frankfurt), ensemble recherche (Freiburg) and willing collaborator in many improvisation- and composition-based projects of all kinds.

Starting in 2010 with his move back to Stuttgart, increased emphasis on composition and solo work with cello/electronics, collaborations as musician/actor with the choreographer Nina Kurzeja ("Tattoo") and TART Produktions ("Napoleon Raskolnikow im Schnee"), both in Stuttgart. In 2011 he began a very fruitful collaboration with the spoken-word poet Timo Brunke leading to "Der Übergang des Abendlandes", commissioned and produced by the Theaterhaus Stuttgart. In 2012 he played in a trio project with the South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and Cleave Guyton (woodwinds, NY). Release of Blind Date Quartet CD with A. Sheridan (flutes), U. Stortz (violin), SR (cello) and J. Hollenbeck (drums/percussion).

Represented as a cellist, improviser and composer on labels such as Wergo (Frankfurt), cybele (Dusseldorf), Kairos (Vienna), free elephant records (Wuppertal), New World Records (New York), clean feed (Lisbon) und GPE records/Timezone.

In 2005, co-founded Open_Music e.V. (Stuttgart), a non-profit organization for improvisation and artistic education which has been awarded numerous grants and prizes from national, state and local agencies and foundations. Open_Music, which has carried out more than 70 projects in the past 7 years with children, youth and young adults from a wide spectrum of social backgrounds, was part of the so-called Southern Network, an initiative of the National Cultural Foundation for innovative performance and education projects in the Stuttgart region from 2008-2011. As of 2012, Open_Music has been granted institutional funding by the City of Stuttgart in addition to significant funding from state resources and private foundations."

-Harmonie 59 (http://www.harmonie59.org/scott-roller/)
10/2/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Matthias Schubert (born April 18, 1960 in Kassel ) is a German jazz musician (tenor saxophone, oboe and composition).

Schubert had oboe lessons as a teenager. The saxophonists Allan Praskin and Melvin Phillips introduced him to jazz. He studied from 1979 to 1983 at the University of Music and Performing Arts Hamburg with Andy Scherrer, Herb Geller and Walter Norris. He played for a long time in the Euro Jazz Band, the Graham Collier Band and the Marty Cook Group, but also with the groups of Albert Mangelsdorff, Manfred Bründl and others.

He played in the quartet with Simon Nabatov, Lindsey Horner and Tom Rainey during the 1990s. He forms a trio with Carl Ludwig Hübsch and Wolter Wierbos. He has founded the James Choice Orchestra with Hübsch, Frank Gratkowski and Norbert Stein. He also played with Karl Berger, Klaus King, Kathrin Lemke, Jeanne Lee, Joachim Ullrich, Andreas Willers, Xu Fengxia, Scott Fields, Uwe Oberg,Uli Böttcher and Alois Kott. In 2001 he was appointed as a lecturer at the University of Music, Drama and Media Hanover."

-Wikipedia (Translated by Google) (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Schubert)
10/2/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Breath

2. Play

3. Come and Go

4. What Where

5. Rockaby

Related Categories of Interest:

Clean Feed
Improvised Music
Jazz
April 2007
Quartet Recordings

Search for other titles on the label:
Clean Feed.


Recommended & Related Releases:
Fields, Scott Ensemble
The Songs of Steve Dalachinsky
(Ayler)
Irish guitarist and composer Scott Fields has worked with the poems of late New York writer Steve Dalachinsky over the years, here bringing together an ensemble of improvisers, electronic and contemporary classical performers to set a suite of six poems by Dalachinsky sung by soprano Barbara Schachtner, with interludes between each weaving them into a larger and satisfying opus.
George (Hollenbeck / Webber / Nealand / Magic)
Letters to George [VINYL]
(Out Of Your Head Records)
Derived from the name Georgios and its dual meaning of earth and work, drummer & composer John Hollenbeck (Claudia Quintet) developed these lyrical and sometimes pop-inspired compositions, along with arrangements of Sonny Bono's "Bang Bang" and Cyril Tawney's "Grey Funnel Line", performed with Anna Weber on sax & flute, Aurora Nealand on voice, keys & sax, and Chiquita Magic on keys & voice.
Webber, Anna
Idiom [2 CDs]
(Pi Recordings)
In various configurations of her ensemble--from trios to 12 performers--composer, saxophonist & flutist Anna Weber composed these six pieces based around specific wind techniques, including the use of multiphonics, alternate fingerings, buzzes, air sounds, key clicks & overblown notes, explored through an exuberant and embraceable balance of improvised and composed "Idioms".
Takatsuki Trio Quartet (Okuda / Virtaranta / Weitzel + Marwedel / Schubert )
Live in Hessen
(Creative Sources)
The core of the German free improvising Takatsuki Trio is Rieko Okuda (piano, viola, &c.), Antti Virtaranta (bass), and Joshua Weitzel (shamisen, guitar), who, while touring, ask a guest from the area they're performing in to join them, here inviting tenor saxophonist Matthias Schubert in Kassel, Germany, and in Wiesbaden, Germany inviting saxophonist Dirk Marwedel.
Various Artists (curated by Nick Vander)
Walk My Way, Volume Two
(Orbit577)
The second of a five-volume compilation series curated by Nick Vander, a testament to the incredible musical range of the guitar and the imaginative possibility of guitarists around the world, with tracks from David Stackenas, Jessica Ackerley, Jorge Espinal, Usui Yasuhiro, Scott Fields, Sebastian Sequoiah.Grayson, Sam Shalabi, Shinobu Nemoto and Nyctalllz.
Delbecq, Benoit / Jorrit Dijkstra / John Hollenbeck
Linger
(Driff Records)
The long-running collaboration of Paris pianist Benoit Delbecq and Netherlands-born, Boston-area saxophonist Jorrit Dijkstra is joined by Boston drummer John Hollenbeck, the pianist and saxophonist also picking up electronics and bass synth as they improvise over 10 concepts of movement through texture and distinctive approaches to their instruments.
Fujii, Satoko
Ninety-Nine Years
(Libra)
Composer-pianist Satoko Fujii's new Orchestra Berlin, a ten-piece ensemble, presents a powerful work written specifically for this group in thought-provoking compositions of and uninhibited energy, with performers including saxophonists Gebhard Ullmann, Paulina Owczarek & Matthias Schubert, trombonist Matthias Muller, bassist Jan Roder, and drummers Peter Orins and Michael Griener.
Malaby's, Tony TubaCello
Scorpion Eater
(Clean Feed)
NY saxophonist Tony Malaby's latest album was recorded with his most consistent collaborators--tubist Dan Peck, cellist Christopher Hoffman, and drummer/percussionist John Hollenbeck--in an album of energetic improv with a unique timbral configuration.
Schubert Quartet, Matthias
Trappola
(Red Toucan)
Tenor saxophonist Matthias Schubert leads a quartet with Claudio Puntin (clarinet) Carl Ludwig Hubsch (tuba), and Tom Rainey (drums), integrating New Orleans jazz forms into modern improvisation, including covering Jelly Roll Morton's "Shreveport Stomp".
Nabatov / Reijseger / Schubert
Square Down
(Leo Records)
12th CD by Simon Nabatov on Leo Records recorded at the same time as his previous CD "Roundup" celebrating his 50th Birthday; powerful, high-energy free jazz sustained for over 50 minutes.
Fields, Scott Multiple Joyce Orchestra
Moersbow Ozzo
(Clean Feed)
A live concert of Fields' Quite Large Orchestra (aka Multiple Joyce Orchestra) with Frank Gratkowski, Christina Fuchs, Thomas Lehn, Carl Hubsch, &c. &c. performing modular compositions for improvising chamber group, plus an homage to Merzbow.
Fields, Scott / Matthias Schubert
Minaret Minuets
(Clean Feed)
Frequent collaborators Fields and Schubert on electric guitar and tenor saxophone performing innovative and virtuosic material in ways that sound much larger than a duo setting would imply.
Various Artists
I Never Meta Guitar - Solo Guitars for the XXI Century
(Clean Feed)
An encompassing modern guitar compilation curated by Elliott Sharp with pieces from Henry Kaiser, Nels Cline, Scott Fields, Mary Halvorson, Janet Feder, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Mick Barr &c. &c.!
Fields, Scott Ensemble
Fugu
(Clean Feed)
Originally released in 1995 on Field's own Geode label, these compositions for choreographer Li Chiao-Ping use complex rhythms and tonalities in a serial pitch "system of circles".
Junk Box (Tamura / Fujii / Hollenbeck)
Cloudy Then Sunny
(Libra)
Satoko Fujii's latest Junk Box with Natsuki Tamura and John Hollenbeck is an amazing jazz album of extended technique, instrumentation and expressive, dramatic ideas
Fields Freetet, Scott
Bitter Love Songs
(Clean Feed)
Extended harmolodic free-jazz following the classic models of Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy using odd time signatures, beats, and quirky turn-arounds.
Junk Box (Tamura / Fujii / Hollenbeck)
Fragment
(Libra)
Fields Ensemble, Scott
Denouement
(Clean Feed)
Other Recommended Releases:
Fields, Scott Ensemble
The Songs of Steve Dalachinsky
(Ayler)
Irish guitarist and composer Scott Fields has worked with the poems of late New York writer Steve Dalachinsky over the years, here bringing together an ensemble of improvisers, electronic and contemporary classical performers to set a suite of six poems by Dalachinsky sung by soprano Barbara Schachtner, with interludes between each weaving them into a larger and satisfying opus.
Fields, Scott Ensemble
Sand
(Relative Pitch)
Scott Field's 9-part Sands for 20 instrumentalists, three singers, and a conductor, in this case Fields himself, employs a modular performance system that integrates composition and improvisation, the conductor selecting modules from melodies, phasing patterns, long tones, improv elements, fragmented short stories, &c., spontaneously assigned live; a fascinating accomplishment.
George (Hollenbeck / Webber / Nealand / Magic)
Letters to George
(Out Of Your Head Records)
Derived from the name Georgios and its dual meaning of earth and work, drummer & composer John Hollenbeck (Claudia Quintet) developed these lyrical and sometimes pop-inspired compositions, along with arrangements of Sonny Bono's "Bang Bang" and Cyril Tawney's "Grey Funnel Line", performed with Anna Weber on sax & flute, Aurora Nealand on voice, keys & sax, and Chiquita Magic on keys & voice.
Brulez les meubles (Beaudoin / Normand / Derome / Hollenbeck)
Tardif [VINYL]
(Tour de Bras / Ramble)
The Quebec project Brulez Les Meubles (Burn the Furniture) was conceived by long-time friends and contemporary jazz fans, bassist Eric Normand and guitarist Louis Beaudoin-de la Sablonniere, each collaboration inviting other musicians to join their warm & relaxed approach to modern jazz, here with Jean Derome on saxophone & flute and John Hollenbeck on drums.
Brulez les meubles (Beaudoin / Normand / Derome / Hollenbeck)
L'appel du vide
(Tour de Bras / Circum-Disc)
With a common passion for the jazz guitar, from Jim Hall to Bill Frisell, from Rene Thomas to Brandon Ross, the core duo of Canadian improvisers, guitarist Louis Beaudoin-de la Sablonniere and bassist Éric Normand, are joined by drummer Tom Jacques for a set of original compositions plus a Paul Bley piece, one by Gilles Vigneault, and two collective improvisations.
Brulez les meubles (Beaudoin / Normand / Derome / Hollenbeck)
Tardif
(Tour de Bras / Circum-Disc)
The Quebec project Brulez Les Meubles (Burn the Furniture) was conceived by long-time friends and contemporary jazz fans, bassist Eric Normand and guitarist Louis Beaudoin-de la Sablonniere, each collaboration inviting other musicians to join their warm & relaxed approach to modern jazz, here with Jean Derome on saxophone & flute and John Hollenbeck on drums.
Meyer, Bedrnhard / John Hollenbeck
Grids
(Shhpuma)
Bringing together NY drummer/percussionist John Hollenbeck, also on prepared piano, with Berlin bassist Bernhard Meyer for an album that blends textural rock, electronic and jazz approaches in 9 elusively calm yet structurally turbulent pieces, using complex systems of cross rhythms against atmospheric immersion, occasionally disruptive but generally eccentrically controlled and exploratory.
Fields, Scott Ensemble
Barclay
(Ayler)
Guitarist and composer Scott Fields presents the 3rd installment of his Beckett Trilogy, based on the writings of Irish novelist and poet Samuel Barclay Beckett (1906-1989), whose ironic black comedies Fields characterizes musically in instrumental compositions performed by his quartet with cellist Scott Roller, drummer Domnik Mahnig, and saxophonist Matthias Schubert.



The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

© 2002-, Squidco LLC