A recent photo of Charles, courtesy of Doug Davis

There are a great many people who only know Charles Brady as the cornetist on the legendary 1961 recording of Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat Suite with the composer conducting. Indeed, that recording alone was enough to secure his place among the pantheon of great trumpeters. Just 22 years old, what he accomplished was almost superhuman – blazing through those tricky Stravinskian rhythms while projecting such a clear, consistent, colorful, focused sound that has been the envy of every serious trumpet player who’s ever heard it.

There is a great story about this session at Thomas Stevens’ website (Stevens and Brady were college roommates):

“In an effort to clarify the cornet notation for what was intended at the time to be the definitive L’Histoire recording conducted by the composer, Stravinsky worked with Brady for over an hour in an one-on-one session during which time the maestro specified the articulations for the complete cornet part. Consequently, it would be fair to assert the recording, which was subsequently released in the CD format, does indeed represent the definitive performance of the cornet part…”

Charles went on to study with William Vacchiano at Juilliard (other Vacchiano students include Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis, Charles Schlueter, and Gerard Schwarz), worked with the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Pops with Arthur Fiedler, performed with conductors Bruno Walter and Aaron Copland, and served a six-year stint as principal trumpet of the National Symphony in Washington D.C. And then he moved his family back to Bakersfield, just a short distance from his birthplace in Delano, California. He spent thirty years performing with the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra, teaching middle school band during the day and giving private trumpet lessons every evening in his living room. That’s how I met him.

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It was a total honor and a joy to study with this man for nearly five years as an undergraduate trumpet major at CSU Bakersfield. Every week I’d show up at his door and he would greet me the same way: “Hey, trumpet player!” — with all the enthusiasm of a baseball coach welcoming his cleanup hitter back to the dugout. I’m sure I wasn’t the only student he met this way, but it was a hell of a welcome regardless. We worked through all of the routine methods: Schlossberg, Charlier, Arban, Brandt, transposition etudes, Bach violin sonatas; as well as the standard trumpet literature: Haydn, Hummel, Arutunian, Halsey Stevens, Vivaldi, Hindemith. Occasionally Charles would contract me to perform a 4th or 5th trumpet part with the Bakersfield Symphony, and so we’d work on Verdi’s Requiem or Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms. The performance of the latter was, by the way, a life-changing experience for me; I was so awestruck being in the center of that glorious music that I could hardly play a note of it. The next week when I tried to explain to Charles what had happened, he just smiled and nodded. At some point it occurred to (stupid) me that Charles was just about the same age when he first performed with Stravinsky himself…

But some of our best lessons were the ones when I hardly played a note. Often we would just sit and talk there in his living room; I’d listen to stories about his performances with Stravinsky or his tours performing Quiet City with Aaron Copland. He told a hilarious story about a moment when Copland solicited his opinion of the solo trumpet part – he actually teased the composer that the opening sixteenth notes sounded to him like a “little stuttering Jewish boy!” Only Charles could pull off a gag like that without fear of offending. Ever the devout Christian, he always wore a cross around his neck, except when he would replace it with a Star of David, which he’d show proudly as he pronounced himself a “Friend of Israel!”

And he was indeed. One quarter my assignment was to compose a piece for solo trumpet with the title “The Seventh Trumpet.” Along with these instructions came a stack of photocopied religious tracts, esoteric numerology charts, and Biblical references. Another time he spent an hour lecturing me about the primacy of Hebraic religion in the music of Schoenberg (12-tone music as an allegory for the equivalence of the twelve tribes of Israel) and Stravinsky (from pagan rites to Noah’s flood). The message he was trying to get across to me was to know where you come from, in order to know the mark you will make. I was in the middle of a typical twenty-something existential-artistic crisis, and these words hit me like a ton of bricks. It was some of the most solid advice anyone ever gave me.

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Charles passed away last Tuesday. As I’ve been talking with people who knew him, studied with him, or performed with him, the one thing that’s coming through most clearly is that this is a person who really lived those words: know where you come from. My brother-in-law James Sproul, who also studied trumpet with Charles, wrote on his blog:

“He was one of the most settled people I knew about who he was and why he was here.”

Along the same lines, local musician and educator Susan Scaffidi wrote a wonderful article for the Bakersfield Californian with the title “Trumpeter was a great musician, an even better man.” It’s true. If you knew Charles, you know that his greatness as a musician wasn’t the most impressive thing about him. There were many dimensions to who Charles Brady was, and yet he was one of the most consistent, self-aware, confident, and humble people I have ever encountered. To be such an accomplished artist, and yet to leave behind a legacy that is overwhelmingly rooted in one’s greatness as a human being… I can’t think of a better example of a life well-lived.

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With Charles in 2001, after my undergraduate trumpet permissions.

The last time I played with Charles was a few years ago. We were, oddly enough, backing Pat Boone in the pit orchestra at a pro-Israel rally. I had no idea what the gig was until I showed up; Charles was tickled by the whole thing, and kept us all in stitches for the duration of the show.

I had just finished my MFA, and I gave Charles copies of a couple of CDs I had recently finished. He was, as always, abundantly curious and enthusiastic about the projects I was working on, and he promised to listen to them promptly. I’m certain that he did. It’s been a while, but I’m sure the last thing he said to me was “See you around, trumpet player!”

Charles has left behind hundreds, probably thousands of students and colleagues whose lives were touched so deeply by his influence. He will certainly be missed.

On February 18-19 I teamed up with two tremendously creative West Coast trumpeters (Dan Clucas and Jeff Kaiser) to welcome the great East Coast cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum to town for, believe it or not, his Los Angeles debut. Our first meeting was for a set on Hans Fjellestad’s ResBox series at the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood, and the following day we were invited to CalArts to do a performance and discussion for Wadada Leo Smith’s graduate program in African-American Improvisational Music. This was the program I graduated from back in 2003, and so it was a great honor to be invited back.

Both performances were overwhelmingly positive experiences and everyone is talking about putting this together again at some point. Thanks to Jeff Kaiser, Keith McMullen, and Louis Lopez for the photos above; unfortunately there was no audio or video documentation, but you can imagine what kind of sounds were swirling…

tptflm is an interdisciplinary collaboration between film artist Allen D. Glass and trumpeter Kris Tiner. The project is rooted in an aesthetic that embraces the exclusive use of analog technology (16mm celluloid film and acoustic brass instruments) and improvisation as the fundamental creative principle. Although the procedural parameters are clearly defined, the logics that govern the interaction between music and film are subject to an emergent reflexivity that manifests in a unique way during each performance. Glass deploys both completed works on a variety of subjects and in-progress or “scrap” footage on up to three projectors simultaneously, speeding up and slowing down or reversing the film, and covering or uncovering the lenses to create a continuously changing field of visual activity. Tiner (whose performance background comprises jazz and experimental musics to various classical, popular, and world music styles) improvises extensions of melody, timbre, sound and space on trumpet and flugelhorn, synthesizing, enhancing and interpreting the film narrative in a kind of shamanistic way. The result is a collision of semi-autonomous aural and visual elements strong enough stand on their own, yet when they are experienced together a “third thing” emerges, triggering a complex and fascinating web of possible connections and meanings.

Allen D. Glass II is an international film artist, psychologist, musicologist, archivist, chemical dependency specialist, hallucinaturalist and member of the Photo Archive Group which preserves the American history of genocide in Southeast Asia. His films and photographs have been exhibited by The British Film Institute, The Museum of Modern Art, Anthology Film Archives, Festival International Nouveau Cinéma Nouveau Medias Montréal, The International Experimental Cinema Exposition, Black Maria Film Festival and the international film festivals of London, Melbourne, Tehran, Toronto, Tokyo and Luxembourg among others. He has collaborated extensively with Wadada Leo Smith, Revolutionary Ensemble and Empty Cage Quartet. Poet Dorothea Grossman once wrote this text about his films: “Humankind in the unfamiliar landscape, composing itself rhythmically and even lovingly into poetry. Nature as mammal music. The Life Dance. Foreign smells. And silences that are, of course, their own music.” Allen D. Glass II was born in Indiana and currently lives in Elysian Park.

Kris Tiner is a California-based trumpet player, composer, and improviser. His music has been described as “extraordinarily inventive” (Signal to Noise Magazine), and capable of turning “barbed wire to beauty” (LA Weekly), with a “folksy sort of lyricism that one does not usually find in avant-jazz.” (JazzReview.com). Kris has performed at concert venues and festivals throughout North America and abroad, and he appears on over 40 recordings for Clean Feed, pfMENTUM, Nine Winds, and other labels. Kris has received awards from ASCAP, the American Composers Forum, Chamber Music America, the International Association for Jazz Education, and the John F. Kennedy Center’s Jazz Ahead program. His primary musical projects include the Empty Cage Quartet and Tin/Bag with NYC guitarist Mike Baggetta. Kris is a regular member of the Industrial Jazz Group and a founding member of the Los Angeles Trumpet Quartet, and he has collaborated with Vinny Golia, Wadada Leo Smith, Leroy Jenkins, Donald Robinson, Gerry Hemingway, Nels Cline, Mary Oliver, Ken Filiano, Kraig Grady, Tatsuya Nakatani, Jeff Kaiser, G.E. Stinson, Alicia Mangan, Lukas Ligeti and many others. Kris holds an MFA in African-American Improvisational Music from California Institute of the Arts and a BA in Music from CSU Bakersfield. He has lectured on both music and visual art, and currently teaches courses in jazz and popular music at Bakersfield College.

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We recently completed our debut performances at Metro Galleries in Bakersfield, CA and at the Artists Union Gallery in Ventura, CA. For both shows we were accompanied by the brilliant San Diego-based electroacoustic duo KaiBorg (Jeff Kaiser + David Borgo). Click here for an excellent recap of those shows (with more photos) at Jeff Kaiser’s blog.

Below are video excerpts from both performances. Thanks to James Sproul for the video at Metro Galleries.

Tin/Bag (Kris Tiner-trumpet/Mike Baggetta-guitar) recently completed a brief tour of the Northeast (our itinerary and press were detailed in a previous post), this time supported by a Subito Quick Advancement Grant from the Los Angeles/SF Bay Area chapters of the American Composers Forum to fund the recording of a new set of compositions at Systems Two studios in Brooklyn.

It was great to revisit this project, as we have only played together once since our last extensive tour in the Fall of 2007. Just three performances were slated for this trip (Syracuse, NY – Pittsfield, MA – New York, NY) but they all went quite well; the old music felt fresh again and we were able to get a good handle on some new material. There is an audio recording (and photos, apparently) from the Syracuse show, and a forthcoming All About Jazz review of the NYC show, so I will update this post when all of that becomes available. The photos from the Pittsfield show above are courtesy of Caleb Hiliadis of the Kaleidoscope of Environments blog.

Our studio session couldn’t have gone better. Joe Marciano and his crew at Systems Two are all fantastic, the room sounds amazing, and you would not believe the gear they have on hand. My mic setup was a blend of a vintage RCA 44 ribbon mic (abt 20%) and an RCA 77-DX (abt 80%) which once belonged to John Coltrane and was reputedly in use on many of his classic RVG sessions (see the pics above… they also put up a modern condenser mic that we didn’t end up using). This was absolutely the best trumpet sound I’ve ever gotten in a studio! And audiophiles take note: everything was mixed live to two-track, with practically zero postproduction aside from a few slight dynamic tweaks. We are aiming for a late 2010 release on this, more details coming soon…

Here is a preview some of the music we recorded. This is “Maslow” from my Transpersonal Suite, a series of compositions each dedicated to and inspired by the writings of a different theorist/philosopher/guru. This suite was the basis of my proposal for the Subito grant:

Maslow by kristiner

In all, eight originals were recorded; I had one other composition in addition to the 5-part suite, and Mike brought two new pieces. The ninth and final track on the album is “Just Like A Woman”, a Bob Dylan song that we have been performing together for several years. This was the last thing we tracked, and I finally had the good sense to turn on the video camera as we got into it. Enjoy…

The Transpersonal Suite is a series of compositions that I have been working on for several years. I have performed them with a number of different ensembles, but they have acquired a particular focus in recent performances by Tin/Bag, my longstanding duo with New York guitarist Mike Baggetta. During the more than five years I have been performing with Mike Baggetta we have developed a musical rapport that has enabled the ongoing creation and performance of these very special compositions. The inspiration for these works may lie in the world of books and ideas, but the music itself is the product of years of exploration and dedication to the project of uncovering a very personal, intuitive, and compelling musical language for creative improvisation.

In these single-page compositions the objective is to compress as much potential musical information into as few notes as possible, creating an eloquently stated melodic contour which can function as a theme in the traditional sense, and can also be expanded dramatically. The individual pitch and rhythmic elements may be divided, reorganized, repeated, rerouted (via jumping repeat zones), reversed, condensed, aggregated to create distinct chords or harmonic centers, and/or otherwise elaborated upon by the improvising performer. On paper the compositions appear deceptively simple. But they are very carefully designed to possess a potential complexity wherein every last bit of information has the maximum usefulness and innate recombinatorial value. The outer simplicity of the composition is such that each performer may immediately and effectively grasp the basic materials, though the internal compositional logics will ultimately yield an array of possible connections.

Each of these compositions has been named in honor of a writer, philosopher, or spiritual thinker whose work has motivated the kind of intuitive and integrated processes that inform and enrich my aesthetic world: Sri Aurobindo, Abraham Maslow, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Osho, and Lama Anagarika Govinda. Within each composition I have embedded certain distinctive systemic relationships that embody some dimension of the philosophical world view of each writer.

The first composition from this series to be completed was “Aurobindo”. This composition was recorded by the Empty Cage Quartet in July, 2006 and released in 2007 on the CD Stratostrophic (Clean Feed Records CF103) – that recording is embedded below. It consists of flugelhorn, alto saxophone, and contrabass working from the written melodic material, with electronically processed percussion improvising on the rhythmic relationships:

Aurobindo by kristiner

“Maslow” is the next composition in the series. Embedded below is a video recording from a live performance by Tin/Bag in Boston during the Fall of 2007. The audio quality is not ideal, but it should provide an adequate representation of how these compositions work:

In this particular case the only decision that was agreed upon beforehand was that we would begin with a trumpet solo. Every other performance decision is made in the moment, with regard to the flow of the music and the information that is contained within the piece.

In 2009 I received a Subito Quick Advancement Grant from the Los Angeles/SF Bay Area chapters of the American Composers Forum to fund the recording of the full Transpersonal Suite with Tin/Bag at Systems Two studios in Brooklyn. I wrote about that session and the brief Northeast tour that preceded it in this post. Here is the audio from the master recording of “Maslow”, recorded on January 16, 2010, and due for CD release in late 2010:

Maslow by kristiner

Following are the remaining three compositions in the series in their order of completion: “Inayat Khan”, “Osho”, and “Govinda”. I would be happy to discuss these in the comments section below if anyone would like any further information.

Click on a thumbnail image to view the larger version:

Click here for the Facebook event page

Thursday, January 28, 8 p.m.

METRO GALLERIES CONCERT SERIES PRESENTS:
IMPROVISATIONAL MUSIC and FILM (Curated by Kris Tiner)

KaiBorg
David Borgo – saxophones + laptop
Jeff Kaiser – trumpet + laptop

+

Kris Tiner – solo trumpet
Allen Glass - film projection

Metro Galleries
1604 19th St.
Bakersfield, CA 93301
$5 Admission

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Metro Galleries Presents Improvisational Music and Film

The Metro Galleries Concert Series continues on Thursday, January 28 with a very special multi-media performance incorporating improvisational music, electronics, digital video, and film.

The San Diego-based electro-acoustic duo KaiBorg explores the intersections of cutting-edge computer music and video processing with jazz-influenced improvisational music to manifest what the San Diego Union Tribune has called “a surging sonic kaleidoscope.” Saxophonist David Borgo is also an ethnomusicologist and an Associate Professor of Music at UC San Diego. He won first prize at the International John Coltrane Festival in 1994, and has performed domestically as well as in Sweden, Amsterdam, Armenia, Hong Kong, and Macau. His book Sync or Swarm: Improvising Music in a Complex Age won the Alan P. Merriam Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology in 2006 as the most distinguished book published during the previous year. Jeff Kaiser is a composer, trumpet player, music technologist, and founder of pfMENTUM, a record label dedicated to the documentation of new music on the West Coast. Kaiser is currently a PhD student in the Integrative Studies Program in Music at UC San Diego. Kaiser and Borgo will be celebrating the recent release of their CD Harvesting Metadata on pfMENTUM Records.

For the opening set, local trumpet player and Bakersfield College and CSUB music professor Kris Tiner will perform solo to accompany a live film projection by Los Angeles filmmaker Allen D. Glass. Tiner, whose music has been described as “extraordinarily inventive” by Signal to Noise Magazine, has performed at concert venues and festivals throughout North America and abroad, and he appears on over 40 recordings. He has given solo performances at the Line Space Line Festival of Improvised Music, Slow Sound Festival, and Annual Conference of the International Society for Improvised Music. Glass is an international film artist, psychologist, musicologist, archivist, chemical dependency specialist, and hallucinaturalist whose films and photographs have been exhibited by The British Film Institute, The Museum of Modern Art, Anthology Film Archives, Festival International Nouveau Cinéma Nouveau Medias Montréal, The International Experimental Cinema Exposition, Black Maria Film Festival and the international film festivals of London, Melbourne, Tehran, Toronto, Tokyo and Luxembourg among others.

Metro Galleries is located at 1604 19th St. in downtown Bakersfield. Admission to the show is $5; tickets are available at the door only; all ages are welcome. Doors open at 7:30, music begins at 8:00.

For more information…

Jeff Kaiser: http://www.jeffkaiser.com
David Borgo: http://www.davidborgo.com
KaiBorg: http://www.kaiborg.com
Kris Tiner: http://www.kristiner.com

Click here for the Facebook event page

Kris Tiner Trio
Kris Tiner – trumpet, flugelhorn
Scott Walton – bass (from San Diego)
Nathan Hubbard – percussion (from San Diego)

Music by Kris Tiner, Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk, Sun Ra, Morton Feldman, Majid Bekkas and others.

It’s been a while since these guys last came through town, so don’t miss this FREE show tomorrow night…

• January 14 – Tin/Bag | Metropolis Underground | N. Syracuse, NY | 8pm
• January 15 – Tin/Bag | Lichtenstein Center for the Arts | Pittsfield, MA | 7:30pm
• January 16/18 – Tin/Bag | Studio Recording @ Systems Two | Brooklyn, NY
• January 17 – Tin/Bag (+ Kirk Knuffke-tpt/Jesse Stacken-piano) | Cornelia Street Café | New York, NY | 8:30pm

Tin/Bag (Kris Tiner-tpt/Mike Baggetta-gtr) will once again be touring the East Coast, this time supported by a Subito Quick Advancement Grant from the Los Angeles/SF Bay Area chapters of the American Composers Forum that will fund a studio recording of a new set of compositions at Systems Two in Brooklyn.

Keep an eye on the space below for updated links to various press and media connected to this trip. You can also follow me on Twitter (and follow Mike Baggetta too) for all the up-to-the-minute details…

Press, Previews, and Reviews

• Facebook Event Page
• Tour announcement at the American Composers Forum Website
• Details on the Cornelia Street Show (scroll down to Jan 17)
• Preview of the Cornelia Street Show at Time Out New York
• Preview of the Cornelia Street Show at BroadwayWorld.com
• Preview of the Lichtenstein Center show at the City of Pittsfield website
• Preview of the Lichtenstein Center show at Kaleidoscope of Environments
• Preview of the Lichtenstein Center show at Rural Intelligence

(My portion with saxophonist Alicia Mangan begins about 10 minutes in…)

2008 was a productive year for the Empty Cage Quartet. During the summer we spent two weeks in Montpellier, France where, with support from a Chamber Music America French-American Cultural Exchange grant, we collaborated with the brilliant French duo of Aurélien Besnard (clarinets) and Patrice Soletti (guitar) on a series of rehearsals and performances of original new music for the sextet, culminating in a three-day recording session at Studio Lakanal in Montpellier. The result of that collaboration is the new recording Take Care of Floating, recently released in Europe on the Rude Awakening label.

Despite limited time and a language barrier that was sometimes problematic, Aurélien and Patrice were an immediate and natural fit with our quartet, and these sessions forge a pretty fascinating union of European free improvisation with American jazz-inspired creative music. While we were in France I documented the collaboration in a fairly extensive photo blog that is archived here and here.

Tech-savvy listeners will appreciate the fact that this CD is being released with two distinct mixes embedded on the disc – one engineered specifically for traditional hi-fi stereo systems, and another that is optimized for mp3 listening (the mp3 files appear in a separate folder when the disc is inserted into a computer drive). This innovative solution to the nagging problem of digital audio fidelity is the result of a process that was created by engineer Pierre Vandewaeter at Studio Lakanal.

Take Care of Floating is available now on the Rude Awakening website, and you can listen to an exclusive preview at Last.fm. The album is scheduled for US release shortly, and will be available on iTunes, eMusic etc. soon after.

Gravity No. 1: Section 4 by kristiner

Following the France trip, in September of last year we spent a week on the East Coast, giving performances at Bennington College in Vermont, the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, NY and in Manhattan where we performed a concert that was sponsored jointly by the annual Clean Feed Festival and the Festival of New Trumpet (FONT) Music. Directly following these performances we hunkered down for two days at Park West Studio in Brooklyn to record two new extended works – the Tzolkien series by Jason Mears and my own first series of Gravity compositions. That recording is out now on Lisbon-based Clean Feed Records. Here is the official press release:

Gravity is the new release by the Empty Cage Quartet, a group that The Wire magazine has called “one of the best things in jazz to emerge in the new millennium.” Saxophonist Jason Mears, trumpeter Kris Tiner, bassist Ivan Johnson and percussionist Paul Kikuchi are featured here in one of their most focused and exciting performances on record. The music is comprised of two extended compositions that incorporate improvisational systems based on harmonic palindromes and melodic sequences derived from the cycles of the Mayan calendar. Although these musicians are well-schooled in contemporary and experimental methods of composition, there is nothing overtly intellectual or academic about the musical result. This band is equally at home whether navigating the intricacies of modern chamber music, pounding out a funky groove, or blazing through waves of freebop energy. And they do it all with a bold intensity that is well-honed from years of touring and performing together. This is music that forges a rare union of numerological complexity and visceral groove, brain and guts. And that’s what makes this band so special – their music continues to expand and deepen with each new release, reaching toward, in the words of one critic, an “urban folk music of the future.”

And here’s an early review (a good one, thankfully!), by Troy Collins at All About Jazz.

We are planning several CD release concerts (possibly a full-on tour) for early in 2010. Keep an eye on this site for updates, or become a fan of the Empty Cage Quartet on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.