#4201: Music From Human Speech
Hear fifty years of music drawn from the process of finding the music of human speech – where composers write instrumental works using the melodies of spoken English. Hear music from Steve Reich, (digital and analogue tape), music by vocalist and composer Olga Bell (ex-Dirty Projectors), music by Phillip K. Bimstein, and Scott Johnson’s early tape work, “John Somebody”.
Listen to a new work based on conversation secretly recorded outside of a music venue by Russian-born, Brooklyn-based composer, vocalist, and producer, Olga Bell. It’s called, “Zero Initiative” from the debut recording by Nouveau Classical Project, Currents, which features electro-acoustic works commissioned by the ensemble.
Then, listen to Scott Johnson's "John Somebody" (1980-82) for electric guitar, woodwinds, percussion, and tape. It was an early “hit” on New Sounds, but is not actually about John Schaefer, contrary to local legend. Those looped samples of recorded speech - "You know who's in New York? Remember that guy, J—John somebody? He was a… he was sort of a…" - were actually hand-cut & spliced by the composer, fashioning loops and layers from the analog tape.
Then, hear music by Phillip K. Bimstein, based on a conversation with a beer vendor, Robert Logan, aka "Bushy Wushy the Beer Man." The speech was recorded at what was formerly known as Busch Stadium in St. Louis, MO, (home of the MLB team the St. Louis Cardinals) and fuses music, voices (including Jack Buck's call of a famous home run by Ozzie Smith), and Bushy Wushy's musical speech.
Listen to two works by Steve Reich: his tape work “It’s Gonna Rain” which comes from the out-of-sync patterns created with two cheap tape recorders, playing back the voice of a preacher man, and his “Different Trains,” for string quartet(s), which uses the sampled sound of speech of Holocaust survivors.
Program #4201: Music From Human Speech (First aired 2/05/2019)
ARTIST: Nouveau Classical Project
WORK: Olga Bell: Zero Initiative [1:00]
RECORDING: Currents
SOURCE: Gold Bolus Recordings GBR038
INFO: nouveauclassicalproject.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Scott Johnson
WORK: John Somebody, Pts 1 [5:19]
RECORDING: John Somebody
SOURCE: Tzadik 8009 tzadik.com
INFO: (original 1986 release: Nonesuch/Icon Records)
ARTIST: Steve Reich / Kronos Quartet
WORK: Steve Reich: It's Gonna Rain, Part 1 [7:47]
RECORDING: Works 1965-1995
SOURCE: Nonesuch #79451
INFO: nonesuch.com
ARTIST: Phillip Kent Bimstein
WORK: Bimstein: The Bushy Wushy Rag [14:13]
RECORDING: Larkin Gifford's Harmonica
SOURCE: Starkland #214
INFO: starkland.com
ARTIST: Nouveau Classical Project
WORK: Olga Bell: Zero Initiative [6:58]
RECORDING: Currents
SOURCE: Gold Bolus Recordings GBR038
INFO: nouveauclassicalproject.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Steve Reich / Kronos Quartet
WORK: Steve Reich: Different Trains, Different Trains, After the War [10:30]
RECORDING: Works 1965-1995
SOURCE: Nonesuch #79451
INFO: nonesuch.com
