Steve Coleman Archives Forum

Joined : 03 Apr 2006 Posts : 254 Localisation : Paris

nice songs Manfred, thanks !

but I cant get the second one to work, damn !

If someone could upload to another place, that would be great.

About the Article from Rob Kohler, I really find it interresting and I think it summarize pretty well the impact of Steve Coleman's workshop on students.
I very often talk with students after the workshops Steve gave when I was with him, I am always curious to hear the BEFORE / AFTER comments.

I like the conclusion from Rob :

The second song (ring shout): I sent an E-Mail with this song. I hope you get it and it works.

I read about the RING SHOUT in Vijay Iyer’s dissertation and I always wanted to hear this kind of music.

Vijay Iyer about the ring shout etc:

“In the pocket: backbeat delay. The notion of a backbeat is indigenous to the modern drum kit, an instrument pioneered by African-Americans in this century. It consists of a strongly accented snare drum stroke or handclap on beats two and four of a four-beat metric cycle, where the beat is typically a moderate tactus rate …
… … (picture with notes) … …
The backbeat appears to have arisen in the middle of this century, as the popular swing rhythm yielded to the even more popular, more bombastic rock and roll rhythms of artists such as Little Richard and Chuck Berry.

In his musical interpretation of Stuckey's (1987) study of the culture of enslaved Africans and its influence on modern African-American culture, Floyd (1995) discusses the important African diasporic cultural ritual known as the ring shout as a distinctive space in which, among other things, music and dance were fused. This activity "helped preserve ... what we have come to know as the characterizing and foundational elements of African-American music," including "constant repetition of rhythmic and melodic figures and phrases," "hand clapping, foot patting, and approximations thereof," and "the metronomic pulse that underlies all music." (Floyd 1995: 6) As a cultural model, the ring shout serves for Stuckey as a hermeneutical point of departure in the study of African-American art forms. It provides an alternative lens through which to view these later practices, a lens that is grounded on African, rather than European, concepts and aesthetics. (See Rosenbaum 1998 for more documentation of the ring shout.)

The backbeat that is so prevalent in postwar African-American popular music seems to reference the role of the body in the ring shout -- the bass drum (struck with a foot pedal in the modern drumset) and snare drum (struck manually with a stick) replacing the stomp and clap, respectively. ………………………………… Read more:
http://archive.cnmat.berkeley.edu/People/Vijay/06.%20Microtiming%20Studies.html#anchor241762

The whole dissertation of Vijay Iyer:
http://archive.cnmat.berkeley.edu/People/Vijay/%20THESIS.html

Another article about the ring shout:
http://www.streetswing.com/histmain/z3ringshout.htm

Joined : 24 Apr 2008 Posts : 4

Awakening- Miguel Zenon

Joined : 20 Apr 2006 Posts : 57 Localisation : Rome

I'm listening Black hole tune from Dave Holland Extensions. It is one of my favorite Steve's composition and a great performance of Marvin Smith. I'm listening 'cause I'm trying to write a saxophone quartet arrangement but I'm afraid to ruin such a beautiful song. Embarassed

In the recent interview Coleman talked about playing fast (when he was young) and about Marvin Smitty Smith. So I searched for a good live recording from that time. I found “Five-Elements Wien 12.11.1991, 3 CDs“ in Dim’s archives and I’m crazy about that. For example: listen CD 3, Piste 02 !!!

I guess there are a lot of jewels in Dim’s archives which I have not discovered yet. Mostly I listen to Coleman’s recent concerts. My capacity is too limited.

Joined : 03 Apr 2006 Posts : 254 Localisation : Paris

this 1991 Wien gig is very good I recall, will try to listen to it this WE.

Im currently listening to some concerts I have on my Hard drive and not really edited yet.
So it's Bordeaux in october 20th, 1996.
It's my first time really listening to this concert and I really love the first time I am listening to some new concerts.

This one goes with the kinda usual introduction from this fall 1996 tour, nice introduction by Sean and Anga, followed by Steve sax after around 5 or 6 minutes. he clearly dont know what he will play next, there is some lines from multiplicity of approaches and first cause so far...

I've got 6 or seven concerts in my Hard drive that I have not yet listen to, in fact because I discovered I had it on my HD recently Laughing

theses days i was mainly listening to some recent material too, so it makes a big difference listening to that funky music from 1996 !
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