The Squid's Ear Magazine

Hartsaw, Paul / Damon Smith / Jerome Bryerton

Precipitation of a Decision / The Ride On The 8 Of Infinity [2 CDs]

Hartsaw, Paul / Damon Smith / Jerome Bryerton: Precipitation of a Decision / The Ride On The 8 Of In (Balance Point Acoustics)

Two distinct session, the first CD presenting free improv trio perfomances in St. Louis, MO between Paul Hartsaw on soprano & tenor saxophones, Damon Smith on double bass and Jerome Bryerton on percussion, the 2nd CD finding Hartsaw and Smith in the studio in Oakland CA for a more experimental session, Smith adding laptop & field recordings and both employing extended techniques.
 

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Personnel:



Paul Hartsaw-soprano saxophone, tenor saxophones

Damon Smith-double bass, laptop, field recordings

Jerome Bryerton-percussion


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Label: Balance Point Acoustics
Catalog ID: BPA2CD3
Squidco Product Code: 31737

Format: 2 CDs
Condition: New
Released: 2022
Country: USA
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold 3 Panels
CD 1 recorded at Bird Cloud Studio, in St. Louis, Missouri, on May 15th, 2021, by Ryan Wasoba.

CD 2 recorded at 1510 Studio in Oakland, California, on February 2nd, 2008, by Scott Looney.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"And then there was just this idea, there's a nice studio in St. Louis where a lot of the recent work that I'm doing is being recorded by a great recording engineer named Ryan Wasoba. It's called Birdcloud, and it's in Collinsville, Illinois, which is right over the Mississippi. So we were able to do that there. And then, I don't know, six or eight months later, we did the Hartsaw Trio. And the first album that I did with Hartsaw and Bryerton also had the guitar player Kristian Aspelin on it, and it was dedicated to Joseph Beuys. And it actually had done well. And it was the first album that I felt comfortable, not just putting the money into it, but I felt that it was the first album with peers that I felt like I could really do as a CD because you want to act like there's no commercial considerations, but when you make a decision like that, there has to be some sort of ... anyway the idea was that we were able to do that anyway. So then we were able to do this album. Hartsaw & Bryerton came to St. Louis , and then there was an outdoor series at that time. We did a little concert, that's where the photos are from, the outdoor concert. And it was really nice to be able to do this and Hartsaw. And I had a track from the duo album that had only lived as a digital recording, so the second disk is a duo disc of Paul Hartsaw from 2007. I think it's 2007. These titles are really important to me. It's an interesting layer to go into the way I get my titles, which I really am into, is Hartsaw and I made this duo, and then it just got shelved for no reason in particular. And then it had been a while, I forget when we revisited it to actually master it and put it out on the Internet, but it was quite a bit later. It was either between 2013 and 2016, somewhere around that period when we brought it out. So it was eight years later or more or less somewhere around there. So what I tried to do is I tried to think about something that I was really into at that time period that I was t less engaged with. Like, there's things that you asked me, I would say, yeah, I love this, but I'm not actively reading about it, pursuing it.

And Sigmar Polke, the German artist, was somebody who, just in the period of that recording, I was buying every Sigmar Polke catalog I could find. There's a lot of Polke around in the museums I was going to in Germany and America and I was seeing his work a lot. So I decided to pull titles from Polke. And then for the trio, I decided to get titles from another German artist that we're all into, which is Anselm Kiefer who published his notebooks recently. So these are all things that are in Anselm Kiefer's notebooks. They're a little bit less poetic and a little bit more just talking about the processes of his work, and it's a little more banal in some ways, but also interesting. And then the final touch is the cover art by Eliot Daughtry. And Eliot is an artist in the Bay Area that was around a lot when I was playing at a place called 21 Grand, which is a real foundational place. And then Eliot and his partner were often around after shows, and we got to know each other just hanging out after shows and talking. And then Eliott was posting all these beautiful drawings on the Internet on Facebook and Instagram, and I just kept liking them. And Elliott had been working on these line drawings for a good several years. And then at a certain point, the colors started to come into them, they got really kind of even more exciting. And at a certain point, Eliot said, I'd love to do a cover for one of your albums. And I thought, that'd be great. And then the interesting thing about it is in some ways, when I picked the two drawings, I thought, oh, the one with the two circles will go with the trio, and then the two circles will go with the duo, and the three circles go with the trio. My designer, Alan Anzalone, who was there from the second CD, I don't really correct his work except for if there's a typo or something, right? So I just sent him the visual material and he picks and puts it together, and he picked the one with the two circles for the cover. Of course, there are three sets of lines, and it's abstract art, so these numbers don't have to add up. I just thought it was interesting that Alan did not decide to do anything in circles. And Paul kind of mentioned it too. But I thought I trusted Alan's design, and I think it's a really strong front cover, the two circles as well. So it's great. And that's one of the great things about again, going back to my concept of free improvisation, where I work with people, my concept of free improvisation has mostly to do with that. I don't want to work with someone that I feel I need to tell what to do. And so it's kind of that way with Alan as well. I never know what color it's going to be in the very rarest of circumstances. I can't remember ever talking about a color with him yet, there might be something where I might have talked about a background or something like that. and so it's always exciting, even to this day, to send off all the elements to Alan and see what comes back. I send him these elements, and he comes back with a fantastic design that I never could have imagined. So it's been great. And in a certain way, the label is almost half his, and the visual identity of the label is all his, really. I mean, I picked the artwork or whatever, but this identity is really important, and it's fantastic to work with him."-Damon Smith at The Free Jazz Collective


Get additional information at The Free Jazz Collective

Artist Biographies

"Saxophonist Paul Hartsaw (1973) received his formal studies in music and critical theory at Central Michigan University and Western Michigan University studying saxophone with John Nichol and Trent Kynaston. While in college, Paul was the recipient of numerous solo, sectional and ensemble awards from jazz festivals at Notre Dame, Aquinas College, Detroit Montreux, the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE) Conference, and Down Beat Magazine's Annual Student Music Awards as well as having the opportunity to perform with such notable musicians as Billy Hart, Mel Torme, Jon Faddis, John Pattitucci, Louis Bellson, Marvin Stamm, and John Fedchock. Paul also performed on the album Disposable Income with the Western Michigan University Jazz Orchestra which received a Grammy nomination.

Since moving to Chicago in 2000, Paul has performed both in the U.S. and internationally collaborating with a who's who of the Chicago improvised music scene both as a sideman and leader. Over the last several years Paul has performed with Kristian Aspelin, Jim Baker, Josh Berman, Jeb Bishop, David Boykin, Nathaniel Braddock, Bill Brimfield, Kyle Bruckmann, Jerome Bryerton, Tim Daisy, Kevin Davis, Brahm Fetterman, Carol Genetti, Frank Gratkowski, Anton Hatwich, Keefe Jackson, Wibert De Joode, Tobias Kaemmerer, Scott Looney, Mike Reed, Dave Rempis, Frank Rosaly, Scott Rosenberg, Karl E.H. Siegfried, Damon Smith, Matt Ulery, Weasel Walter and William Winant among others."

-All About Jazz (https://www.allaboutjazz.com/musicians/paul-hartsaw)
3/25/2024

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

"Damon Smith studied double bass with Lisle Ellis and has had lessons with Bertram Turezky, Joëlle Leandré, John Lindberg, Mark Dresser and others. Damon's explorations into the sonic palette of the double bass have resulted in a personal, flexible improvisational language based in the American jazz avant-garde movement and European non-idiomatic free improvisation. Visual art, film and dance heavily influence his music, as evidenced by his CAMH performance of Ben Patterson's Variations for Double Bass, collaborations with director Werner Herzog on soundtracks for Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of the World, and an early performance with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.

Damon has collaborated with a wide range of musicians, including: Cecil Taylor, Marshall Allen (of Sun Ra's Arkestra), Henry Kaiser, Roscoe Mitchell, Michael Pisaro, Wadada Leo Smith, Marco Eneidi, Wolfgang Fuchs, Peter Brötzmann and Peter Kowald. After many years in the San Francisco Bay Area, and five great years in Houston, Texas working regularly with Alvin Fielder, Sandy Ewen, David Dove & Chris Cogburn, Damon will move to the Boston area in the fall of 2016. Damon has run Balance Point Acoustics record label since 2001, releasing music focusing on transatlantic collaborations between US and European musicians."

-Balance Point Acoustic Website (https://www.balancepointacoustics.com/damon-smith/)
3/25/2024

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

"Jerome Bryerton's artistic expression evolved from years of playing drums in rock, jazz and experimental groups. Performing solo or collaboratively, he's toured and recorded internationally with many notable improvisers. Jerome is also part owner of a large industrial silk screening operation in Chicago.

While some may perceive a factory to be the antithesis to the creative process, Jerome's imagination has been known to incorporate the errors of assembly line production into some of his art. Rejected test prints often made their way into many of his early canvases.

Strictly working within the medium of oil on canvas and applied with plexiglass. Jerome's dense, moody abstractions and marbleized colors have been said to evoke controlled chaos, blurred memory and decay. His influences range from Masters such as Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer, Luc Tuymans and Cy Twombly. Self-taught and skilled in improvisation, Jerome believes that everything starts with curiosity: if you're curious about something and you're willing to learn more about it, everything happens by itself."

-Jerome Bryerton's Website (http://www.jeromebryerton.com/about)
3/25/2024

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


Track Listing:



CD1



1. Demarcation Of Contents 5:39

2. Memory Prop 4:12

3. Sea Of Reeds 6:09

4. Empty Time 5:28

5. Dissolution Through Expansion 2:41

6. Bits Of Heat 4:05

7. Elimination Of Empty Spaces 8:29

8. Light In The Pool 4:06

9. Reversal Of Loss 6:13

10. Trickling From Dripping Wounds 4:26

11. Memory Not Reliable 4:38

CD2



1. Ghost With Necktie 2:41

2. Flour In The Sausage 5:06

3. To Each His (Own) Palm Tree 11:19

4. Potato Pyramid In Zwirner's Cellar 4:43

5. Higher Beings Command: Paint An Angel 2:35

6. Knitted Alps 1:28

7. Untitled (Platypus) 4:54

8.Protocol From The 29th Of July 7:44

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Jazz
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Trio Recordings
Duo Recordings
Friends of Squid

Search for other titles on the label:
Balance Point Acoustics.


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