“Bridging the Gap” is Kitamura’s new project concept conceived in 2024. Kitamura has always been interested in ways to bring people of diverse backgrounds and generations together, the main reason she has continued to pursue wordless vocal music – because language, while being an important tool to communicate, can also exclude. Taking this a step…
Every so often, I hear about a label on our scene which would disappear, along with all the physical recordings. Horror stories abound, of label owners destroying CDs and LPs. Are the artists notified beforehand? Can the artists keep any of the copies about to be demolished? Unfortunately, the answer to both is often a…
Over the summer, I dusted off my rusty broadcast journalist chops and edited an 18-minute educational documentary on Anthony Braxton and his Syntactical Ghost Trance Music (SGTM). The video Introduction to Syntactical Ghost Trance Music premiered earlier this month at “ANTHONY BRAXTON: 50+ YEARS OF CREATIVE MUSIC” international conference in Darmstadt, Germany, and is now available in…
Prompt: Could you draft a press release for an upcoming CD release concert? Date: September 28, 2134 at 8PM local time. Group name: The Chitchats. Occasion: New album release. Place: The Sunrise Lounge on Lunar Outpost 261J3. Album is titled “For Those Who Aim”. This is their first release in six years. Group members are…
Update 9/10/2024: The case is ongoing as of September 10, 2024. Update 1/29/2024: Mr. Rusch passed away on January 14, 2024 according to publicly-viewable Wikipedia entry. One of the many cases we looked at in my music business course was that of Robert “Bob” Rusch who used to run the labels Cadence Jazz and CIMP,…
Recently, I learned of an album review written by a seasoned writer, whom I did not know personally, published on an online platform frequented by music fans. The review itself was wonderful, but there was one error which I noticed. The author, referring to my nonverbal vocal improvisation, wrote that I sometimes sang in Japanese…
The following is based on a presentation I recently did during a class visit at Dartmouth College. When the pandemic hit, live in-person performances were suddenly cancelled, the phrase “force majeure” was thrown around to nullify contracts, and the organization had to quickly reevaluate its raison d’être as well as shift its PR strategy. In…
My two recent albums are both wordless: Geometry of Caves (Relative Pitch) and Protean Labyrinth (Bandcamp, self-release). I included liner notes in the DL of Protean Labyrinth which explains a little of why I chose to not use words, and this is an addendum. One, I wanted to explore how listeners – including myself –…
So, the Big Ears Festival was a big surprise in terms of Braxton repertoire. I wrote in the last post that the Anthony Braxton Trio, which I am part of, usually performed Braxton’s Falling River Music. That was before I left for Big Ears. The 10+1tet had been getting ready to perform Ghost Trance. But…
Listeners often ask me about the Braxton trio I am part of (with AB, Taylor Ho Bynum, me), usually along the lines of “what’s going on musically?” Braxton’s musical systems are multi-layered and interconnecting. The main composition used in our trio, or what we refer to as the primary composition or territory, belong to his…