Two new reviews from Downtown Music Gallery

Two new reviews from DOWNTOWN MUSIC GALLERY…

DMG Newsletter for November 16, 2012

http://www.downtownmusicgallery.com/Main/index.htm

ENDLESS PIE [JEFF KAISER/PHIL SKALLER] - Endless Pie [2 CD set] (pfMentum 072; USA) Jeff Kaiser on trumpet, flugelhorn and electronics and Phil Skaller on prepared piano. Jeff is a restless explorer on trumpet and flugelhorn, always searching for other like-minded musicians to work with. Kaiser has done a number of duo discs before this, each one unique depending on his partner. Mr. Skaller seems to work mostly inside the piano, banging on the strings with assorted objects. Kaiser continually alters his sound with mutes or electronic devices, as well as playing some strange synth sounds. This is a particularly intense and focused duo, always working tightly together, complimenting and pushing each other. Although this music is completely (?) improvised, the duo often create patterns which sounds closer to modern chamber music. Reminding me at times of recent discs from Ernesto Martinez and David Rosenboom. This is an extraordinary duo and one of this year's most challenging efforts on a variety of levels. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery 2 CD set for $14

CHARISMATA [JEFF KAISER/GREGORY TAYLOR] - The Desert Fathers (pfMentum 070; USA) Jeff Kaiser on quartertone trumpet and laptop and Gregory Taylor on laptop. This disc was recorded live in a studio at STEIM in Amsterdam. Since the last time we heard from pfMentum founder a few years back, Jeff Kaiser has released another three discs of his own duos, a trio and a few collaborations. With more than a half dozen duo efforts released, Mr. Kaiser has done it again with another couple of winners. The quartertone trumpet which has a fourth valve and can play microtones is relatively rare. The only one that I've seen & heard was played by Thomas Heberer. Since Mr. Kaiser uses different extended techniques and plays laptop as done his partner, it is difficult to tell who is doing what outside of the familiar odd trumpet sounds. The STEIM studio sounds like a high end affair since there is good deal of depth and dynamics to these sounds. Is that feedback, magnified static or trumpet making those extreme sounds?!? This music is intense, powerful, sometimes brittle, often bent, swirling electronics and twisted trumpet sounds. Mr. Kaiser keeps digger deeper and coming up with large variety of odd sounds from his trumpet, often reminding me of Nate Wooley or Peter Evans, both of whom are also restless explorers who can match wits with any acoustic or electronic instruments. This disc is more than an hour in length and I found myself at the edge of my seat throughout wondering what they would come up with next. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery CD $12

First review for "Endless Pie"

Phil Skaller and I have a new disc that will be out any day, but we already have a review...!

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/jam-session/2012/nov/08/jeff-kaiser-phil-skaller-endless-pie/

Profile in ITG Journal...

One of the editors for the International Trumpet Guild journal ran across the "Brave New Sonic World" article (posted below) and decided to do a profile on my work for the ITG journal in March. I'm quite excited about that...

Dottie Grossman Memorial

Sunday, July 29

7-11pm

Glendale Moose Lodge

357 Arden Ave
Glendale, CA 91203
http://www.mooseintl.org

7pm enter and sign up to offer music, poetry...
7:30 the artistic offerings start.
Please bring some munchies for our food.
Drinks are available at the lodge.
We are asking a $5 donation to cover the cost of the hall.

"Jeff Kaiser's Brave New Sonic World," NBC San Diego

Writer/critic Robert Bush did an interview with me, published on NBC San Diego's web site... Click the link to give it a read:

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/blogs/sounddiego/Trumpeter-Jeff-Kaisers-Brave-New-Sonic-World-162948706.html

The E-MU E64 (6400) Saga Ends...

My first and third albums (Excerpts from The Prince and Ganz Andere) along with numerous dance projects, installations and several commissions relied heavily on the E-MU E64, the first version of what became the E6400. (I still have the original box, it says E64, Model: 6400.) So, thinking I was all hip and tech savvy, when I purchased the E-MU, I also purchased a Fujitsu MagnetoOptical SCSI drive. This featured read/write optical discs that could hold 230 MB (approx 217 after formatting). It was on these discs that I stored all of my E-MU information.

Recently I decided I wanted to revisit the musical material, and realized: Where am I going to get a machine that not only has SCSI (version 1) but would even see the Fujitsu, let alone read E-MU EOS format and translate it for a software-based sampler. To shorten the story, I knew my friend Rand Steiger had used the E6400...and then I ran into him at a concert and he put me BACK in touch with Trevor Henthorn and Joe Kucera (friends of mine!). After some twiddling with the drive, Joe and I were able to get a server in Studio A at UCSD to see the E-MU formatted MO discs (hint: don’t set the dip switches to Mac, but to PC/UNIX), but not mount them, so we decided to burn an image of the disc...and then Trevor used a PPC program* (sorry, won’t work with OSX 10.7) called CDXTRACT to both mount the disc image and translate them into a format of choice, in my case Kontakt. After all the fiddling with one of the last SCSI machines in UCSD music to see the MO drive, burning images of nine discs and translating took less than an hour in total.

And they sound fantastic, if I may say so.

But let this serve as a warning, Mac’s with SCSI are (of course) obsolete and it is probably not long until the only one you can find is in a museum, or buy one on Ebay for $374,500. So do the transfers now, don’t wait...I feel I got lucky having knowledgeable friends with access to quickly obsolescing technology.

 *Note: It seems that Translator from ChickenSys works on OS 10.7.4, but I only tried the demo so YMMV.

New Desert Fathers recording! Two years later...

Finally, it is finished, and I must admit...from the music to Ted Killian's art, I'm quite pleased.

Stream it for free, buy digital or hard copies....

http://www.pfmentum.com/

 

Recording with Nick Deyoe

I've been working on a new software rig in Max 6. One that is easy-to-use, doesn't require the computer screen and is optimized for a monophonic system. (Which is pretty hilarious. Those of you familiar with my love of all-things-ambisonic will understand why.) There are many reasons, but the main one is that I wanted something portable, interesting to use in dynamically softer situations, something that I could plug into a guitar amp or lousy sound system and still sound good AND something for my gig with Ted Byrnes in Pasadena on July 8. :-)

Well, then Nick Deyoe tells me he has some new guitar things that he wants to work on. So we set up a session in the Experimental Theater at UCSD's music center, and recorded all afternoon on Monday...it was for fun, but the results sound pretty good, so maybe they'll end up somewhere. One of the funny things about this: there are 61 speakers installed in the Experimental Theater...and we didn't use any of them. Nick played into a Marshall and I played into a little JBL. And that room still sounds great.

Below, in order: Pics of my rig, and our combined mess. (Click any pics to enlarge.)

Miscellaneous Afternoon Pics...

From an afternoon walk in one of Mitt Romney's neighborhoods...

A Day in LA...

Another lovely visit to the fine City of Los Angeles...full of meetings...coffee in the morning at Proof with Andrew Pask and Tom Hall, mixing session with Matt McGarvey (some great music coming soon), then a late business lunch at Golden Road Brewing with Louis Lopez to discuss increasing his role at pfMENTUM, we were joined by Max Gualtieri, then went off to hang with Tom McNalley and Michael Vlatkovich in Eagle Rock....a full day.

Then for the evening went to The Satellite (in the midst of über hip Silverlake) to see friends Josh Ottum and Michael Deakers perform in their project "Junior High" (with guest Frank Lenz on drums). For those of you knowing my taste in music, it might come as a surprise to you as to how much I really enjoyed this show of twisted synth pop full of oddball cultural references. A great time.

(Click to enlarge any pic)

Louis

Max

Junior High: Michael Deakers, Frank Lenz, Josh Ottum

Josh

Michael

Frank