Paypal is natewooley@gmail.com

A couple of people have asked me about the "deal" (directly below)...yes it is still on, but please use the paypal address of natewooley@gmail.com...otherwise I won't know if you've paid, you won't receive your discs, you will hate me a lot, and my ego can't take that....not right now.

natewooley@gmail.com

if you ordered at nate@natewooley.com, I'm looking into how you can recover funds and reapply...drop me a line at ....ahem....natewooley@gmail.com

Three New Releases and Special Deal!

I just got my copies of the second installment of Seven Storey Mountain, this one featuring Chris Corsano on drums and C. Spencer Yeh on violin. It's beautifully frenetic and I'm very proud of it. On top of that, a great improv session from the bay area came out on Weasel Walter's UgExplode Label as well as the first recorded document of my duo with Peter Evans, High Society (on Carrier Records). It's kind of rare that so much comes out at the same time, but here I am with all these discs and I would rather people were hearing them, eh? So, here's what I propose, a tiered pricing system like the little capitalist pig I am.

Deal: One disc....10 dollars

Better Deal: Two discs....18 dollars

Say What?: Three discs....27 dollars

The whole motherfucking shebang (this includes all three discs mentioned above, plus the first version of 7 storey with David Grubbs and Paul Lytton)...45 dollars

Okay, so that seems fine and all and maybe you're even thinking "yeah, but I can already download all that stuff for free", but guess what, Captain Piratepants....I'm including shipping on those mugs...in the price! yup....bow to industry.

make paypal payments available to natewooley@gmail.com and please specify your address and which discs you would like.

Peter Evans/Nate Wooley Duo Record "High Society" Out Now on Carrier Records!

Buy it, I guarantee you will absolutely love every second of it.....I guarantee it...what more do you want?

http://carrierrecords.com/index.php?album=highsociety&category=all&artist=none

Catchin' up!

Well, well, well...it certainly has been awhile...Uh, huh..oh, yes, well it does sound like you've been busy. Right, right...oh, well that's too bad, please send our thoughts to your dog groomer. No, I guess it isn't that normal to be so attached to your pet aesthetic care professional...that's what they like to be called, eh? Well, I must take note of that. Anyway, who knew that shampoo could be so combustible? A whole city block, oh my! Well, I guess we can all be thankful that no one was hurt...oh, oh, really? Oh, I'm sorry, I just assumed....3 lizards and a spider? well, that certainly...what were they doing there...ah, really, you can cut a spider's hair?...the tarantula kind, oh...with the furriness, etc...well, yes, i guess they would want to look their best as well...I didn't really mean anything...what's that? No, I don't hate spiders per se...Yes, I'm sure they are very intelligent and caring animals...I didn't mean to imply...what's that? Your mother was a tarantula? Well that would explain.....Oh, your mother OWNED tarantulas, I see....Well, I certainly will rethink my position on....What's that? Change the subject? Yes, I suppose that's for the best isn't it? What's new with me? Oh nothing much, just ALL THIS MADNESS!!!!

(spiderlover)

Saturday, June 18th
Issue Project Room Artist-in-Residency Program presents
Bojan Vuletic's Atemwende for trumpet and string quartet
Nate Wooley trumpet with MIVOS string quartet
also, Nate Wooley and Peter Evans celebrate their debut duo disc, "High Society" on Carrier Records with a short but probably brutal, maybe relaxing duo set

8:30 pm
Issue Project Room
232 3rd Street
Brooklyn
FREEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

June 23
Harris Eisenstadt's Canada Day at Undead Fest
Kenny's Castaways
157 Bleeker Street
Manhattan
7:40 sharp

June 24
Nate Wooley Quintet Omega
Nate Wooley trumpet
Josh Sinton bari sax
Matt Moran vibes
Dan Peck tuba
Harris Eisenstadt drums
some of the old tunes, some new tunes and the new alternate reality line up for when we shed a tear because Eivind isn't around...should be a blast!
Sycamore
1118 Cortelyou Road
Brooklyn
Doors 9 pm
10 buckaroos

June 29
Duo with C. Spencer Yeh (manimal)
Douglass Street Collective
295 Douglass Street!
Brooklyn
8 pm
donations warmly expected

Also, as mentioned above, the new duo record with Peter is out now on Carrier Records. You can find it, buy it, and love it... here ....we'll also have copies at the June 18th show.

Hey, it sure has been great seeing you..say hello to your mother for me.

European Tour Dates May 2011!!!!Lytton, Parker, Russell, Antunes, and Solo

I'll be heading to Europe for a strange and whirlwind trip, incorporating some duo and solo shows in with groupings of old and new friends. Here's the information I have so far.

May 15th
Paul Lytton/Nate Wooley duo
The Cube
Dove Street South
Bristol, Bs2 8JD
8 pm

May 16th
Paul Lytton/Nate Wooley duo
Folly Bridge Inn
38 Abingdon Road
Oxford, OX1 4PD
8 pm

May 17th
Paul Lytton/Nate Wooley Cafe Oto Residency
featuring Okkyung Lee and Philip Wachsmann
18-22 Ashwin Street
London
http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/wooley-lytton.shtm

May 18th
Paul Lytton/Nate Wooley Cafe Oto Residency
featuring Evan Parker and John Russell
18-22 Ashwin Street
London
8 pm
6 pm will be a lecture for Brunel University on a new series of solo pieces I've been commissioned to do for my Issue Project Room residency this year...It will be free!
http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/wooley-lytton.shtm

May 22nd
Solo
Les Atelier Claus
passage charles rogier (gare du nord place rogier)
Brussels
4 pm
also featuring the great band MOUNTAINS!!!!

Trio with Hugo Antunes of Roll Call Quintet!
soulbar parazzar
torhoutsesteenweg 10
Bruges, Belgium
8 pm

May 24
with Paul Hubweber and Paul Lytton
Raststaette
Aachen, Germany
8 pm

Hope to see you there!!!!

New Curatorship for Free Music Archive!

Just a quick note to let you all know that I'm currently curating some music for the great Free Music Archive!

http://freemusicarchive.org/member/natewooley

This is made possible through and for my work, DRAM (the Database of Recorded American Music), where I work on labels and archival collections.

The first entries are up and feature music from Edition Wandelweiser, one of my favorite labels, the undersung composer Ben Johnston, and an exclusive interview with the iconic Eliane Radigue. More to come soon.

If you go to the page, please click through to DRAM as much as you can. We are working on making it available for individual subscription (right now it's only available on college campuses) and if the powers that be see that there is an interest, I'll be able to continue my work on FMA and maybe you can get access to an insane collection of music (Edition Wandelweiser, Mode, Lovely, Firehouse 12, Porter, XI, Pogus, and more)

thanks!

a sort of non-call to action

The following is just a bit of personal reflection.

After a month on the road, and finally getting over that little bit of euphoria of being home and enjoying that certain something of New York, I felt that too familiar feeling of annoyance as I rode the train to work today. For some reason it dawned on me (finally) that my misanthropy doesn't come from the travelers or the city or it's smell or dirtiness or anything like that. I actually really love New York and (for the most part) New Yorkers, but what tends to rankle me is the general lack of empathy of people on the street and on subways. It's not a person cutting me off on the street, or taking two seats on the train that makes me angry, it's the feeling of being invisible, that the other person couldn't even waste the microsecond to acknowledge my existence and the fact that I am also trying to get to work.

This got me thinking a lot about how my own ability to put myself in someone else's place has diminished over the years, and especially my relationship to, not only New York, but specifically the organizations and people here who make my existence (musically speaking) possible. I've gotten a lot of emails and had a lot of conversations over the years about musicians banding together and making sure we get what's owed to us and to not fight amongst ourselves, but to unite against a common enemy (either the public or clubs or both). I have no problem with this idea in theory. I think people should be paid better for the amount of work and time they put into developing a craft like playing music, not to mention the amount of ourselves that we put into developing something unique to present to the public. However, I do find, for myself, that this creates the classic us versus them scenario. Sometimes that necessary, but most of the time it creates tension and drama between musicians and audience/promoters out of the ether.

I spend more time thinking about where my food comes from and how I can support local organic farmers than how I can help local arts organizations, musicians, record stores, performance venues, and other musicians. That makes me sad. I have never said thank you to Michael Attias for his years of making Barbes a special place for jazz, not a real, sincere thank you....same thing with all the work Josh Sinton has done for DSMC, or David Leibowitz for somehow putting together a full season of New York Repertory Orchestra concerts for me to enjoy using all volunteer effort. I've never dropped a line to Bruce and Manny at Downtown, or Chris McIntyre of TILT, or all the volunteers at the Stone or Issue Project Room who not only let me put on whatever insane stunt I am thinking of at the moment, but continually present challenging music....what about Joce at Zebulon....I've had my ups and downs at that place, but have I ever really thought about the amount of work he must go through to put on that much music every night? Yeah, okay, they make money from it too, but I guess I don't really feel like I've ever been exploited by it. I'm not being paraded around in a cage like a trained monkey so that someone else can reap the financial benefits. If anything, those places probably lose money when I'm there, and yet they still give me gigs.

There are so many ways that I think someone can deal with this, if they choose to, (and I'm not advocating anything here, just thinking out loud). I'm an introvert, I don't go out. So be it. That's me. But, I can not have that second beer at dinner and give some money to NYRO or Issue Project Room at their next show, or take time to sincerely thank Kevin Reilly for all the work he does volunteering for the Stone and just generally being in the audience as much as he is....or how about Scott Friedlander and Peter Gannushkin....or Patricia Parker....or....or....God forbid, if I love a friend's (or non-friend's) new recording, telling them....I feel like it is a chance to build a community in a way that doesn't have to be about us versus them, doesn't have to be war, war, war, but about dialogue and being honest with the folks around you....taking the time to think about what amount of work a promoter in a small town must have had to go through to get your band there and being polite and open to a hang afterward, or coming out of the dressing room after the show to talk to that guy that drove up from DC to see you....these are things I haven't done in the past and I truly regret it....time and energy wasted on nothing.

In the meantime, here's some shows....

Friday April 1
Chuck Bettis/Jeremiah Cymerman/Nate Wooley
interpreting Chuck's graphic scores
Douglass Street Music Collective
295 Douglass Street
Brooklyn, NY
8 pm

Saturday April 2
TILT Brass record release and benefit!
a whole mess of people (including Russ Johnson, Curtis Hasselbring, John King....I told you it was a whole mess of people!)
Invisible Dog Art Center
51 Bergen Street
Brooklyn, NY
7-10 pm
I'll be performing a set as a double duo (on top of my duties as a TILTster)
Peter Evans/Nate Wooley duo meets Phantom Orchard (Zeena Parkins/Ikue Mori)
Also, there will be copies of the TILT Vol. 1 CD with a work of mine for brass and tape which TILT killed

Sunday April 3
Lawrence Casserley/Adam Linson/Hans Tammen/Dafna Naphtali/Nate Wooley
Harvestworks
7 pm
596 Broadway #602
FREE
I have to stop here and say this is a really rare chance to see one of the best live processing electronicists around in Lawrence Casserley, who doesn't get over from England very often, and in such good company with Hans, Adam, and Dafna...should be great

(Put Your) Hands Together...Why I Did It

Because of a fluke, the liner notes to the Clean Feed Release (Put Your) Hands Together didn't get printed in the jacket of the record. I revisited them recently and thought maybe they would mean something to someone and would possible explain why I made this record and what it is about for me. I'm a firm believer in letting people in when you can and so here are the notes. I hope they find a place in the way that you listen to the record.

The easiest thing to do, and maybe the most self-satisfying, would be to somehow think that your creative self came out of a vacuum. That, given the sheer weight of your genius, there was no other human possibility besides the creation of a musical language or artistic aesthetic. However, I think it's very clear what the reality of that is. Whether we choose to embrace or confront our formative past is completely up to the individual. As a musician, and especially as a composer, I've done both to greater or lesser degrees of success, but this record is about embracing and giving thanks, and it's in that spirit that I present it to you now.

Hands Together is a project I started in 2008 to write music for jazz quintet, something I hadn't been a part of for several years. My grandmother had just passed away, which left a hole in my life that I was trying to figure out how to deal with. The first piece I put together for the group was the piece that comes near the end of the record called Hazel. It was after finishing that arrangement that I started thinking about how much I owed to not only her, but to a number of women in my life. Although I'm disappointed by how misused this phrase has become, I was truly a child that was raised by a village of women....canasta playing, ice cream making, hardcore Dakota depression-era girls, proud Swedes, and Montana wildwomen. The amount of love, support and knowledge I've gotten over the years from the people behind the names on the back of this disc is only poorly paid back through tribute on a recording, but it is a start.

Erna, Ethyl, Cecilia, Pearl, and Hazel are all sisters. The infamous “Albertson Girls”. I spent a great part of my youth with them in one way or another, mostly staying with my grandmother and Cecilia who lived together in Northeast Portland for many years, trips to Ethyl's farm in Hillsboro, family get togethers for birthdays and Christmas at Pearl's in Vancouver, Washington, and to visit Erna and Bill (a great uncle) who lived only blocks away. From the wild Albertson girls I learned the values of being polite, never failing to practice empathy, to always be a sneaky card player, and the love of work for work's sake. All the Albertson Girls are gone now, but their memory has imbued certain parts of the Pacific Northwest with a special kind of mysticism for me.....a sense of place that provides me with a desire to develop my strength of character and a stronger connection to the people around me. Through them, I knew wthat magic sense of American transcendentalism long before discovering Emerson or Thoreau.

Elsa is my mother. She claims to not be musical but no one is fooled. She has given me the strength to keep working on what I believe in, regardless of any current success or failure. She is one of the hardest working people I've ever met, but she taught me physical and spiritual self-preservation as well. She taught me to be proud of my heritage, of my family, of the place where I am from...Clatskanie, Oregon....and of myself.

Shanda Lea is my wife. She taught me to have the confidence to do things that had a 90% chance of failing because I really believed in the other 10%. She has shown me what it is to make a happy life for yourself before and above all else. She has straightened my priorities and keeps me healthy. I have never been so goofy nor have I laughed so much about stupid things with another human being in my life and I can't imagine a second of true joy without her being a part of it.

All of these things just scratch the surface of what these women mean to me. They are the sort of things that you can say on the inside of a record cover and maintain that all important sense of machismo jazz musician. There is so much more, of course, but they know what I'm driving at, probably better than I do.

Two final words and then you are free to (finally) enjoy this disc:

First, this record is dedicated as much to my father, Dee Wooley, as it is to the women whose names grace the back cover. I would not be a musician if were not for him, which means I would be an absolutely miserable human being, and I don't think we need any more of those roaming about.

Secondly, the four gentlemen on this recording that have consistently put up with my madness and played these tunes over and over until it made them crazy have to be recognized. I work with all of them in different situations and not only do I think they number among the best improvisers in the world, I consider all of them very close friends. Not everyone knows what it is like to work with people you deeply love. I feel very lucky.

Nate Wooley-December 2010

Doug Detrick Interview!

Feeling very lucky to have been able to be one of the interview subjects for trumpeter and composer Douglas Detrick's series about contemporary trumpet.

http://douglasdetrick.com/Douglas_Detrick/Blog/Entries/2011/3/4_Interview_with_Nate_Wooley.html

His past interviewees include two of my favorites: Jeff Kaiser and the great Brian McWhorter.

Daniel Levin Quartet in Portugal and France!

Daniel Levin Quartet Tour Dates!

Tuesday, 22 February, 9:00 pm

Espace Vauban
17 avenue Georges Clémenceau 29200 Brest, France
penn-ar-jazz.com

Thursday, 24 February

Casa da Musica
Av. da Boavista 4149 4150 Porto, Portugal
casadamusica.com

Friday, 25 February

Portalegre Jazz Fest
Praça da República, 7300 Portalegre, Portugal
cm-portalegre.pt

Sunday, 27 February and Monday, 28 February

Culturgest
R. do Arco do Cego, 1000 Lisboa, Portugal
culturgest.pt

Debut Recording of Nate Wooley Quintet in March!

The debut recording of my quintet, (Put Your) Hands Together, is going to be out in March from Clean Feed Records. This is a series of compositions for jazz quintet that we've been working on and were dedicated to the women who have raised me into the fine upstanding gent I am today.

I was listening to the masters the other night and, yeah, it's kind of the over the top Grammy acceptance speech way of saying it, but I am honored and humbled by the guys in the band. They took some tunes that vacillated somewhere between a rock solid concept that was really hard to pull off to kind of a half baked idea that needed some musical love and stuck it out while I got it together to make a jazz album (my first real "jazz" album as a leader) that I think is a pretty personal statement. That's a big deal for me. It's scary and wonderful and I'm in that phase where "my baby's the cutest" with it, so don't burst my bubble. Drop me a line if you want to reserve a copy. I really think it is going to be a fun one.....

Nate Wooley Quintet....featuring Josh Sinton, Harris Eisenstadt, Matt Moran, and Eivind Opsvik....pic by Peter Gannushkin!

Lytton/Wooley and Lytton/Wooley/Vandermark Dates

For the first time since their recent release, Creak Above 33 on Evan Parker's Psi imprint, the duo of British percussionist Paul Lytton and American trumpeter Nate Wooley hits the U.S.

There's lots and lots of special guests on these shows, including a great trio with Joe Morris that I've wanted to do for a long time, two trio shows with the great Ikue Mori, a couple of hits with a new quartet with C. Spencer Yeh and Okkyung Lee, the new recording of Seven Storey Mountain (with the monster Corsano/Lytton drum double team), tons of fun in Chicago and a tour with the inimitable Ken Vandermark! Try and make it out if you can. If you can't find info about times and addresses, drop me a line at natewooley@gmail.com and I'll make it happen!

March 2nd
The Stone
New York, NY
...8 pm Lytton/Wooley
10 pm Lytton/Wooley/Ikue Mori

March 4th
Sonic Circuits
Washington, DC
Sam Pluta/Peter Evans/Jim Altieri
Lytton/Wooley

March 5th
Ars Nova
Vox Populi Gallery
Philadelphia
Lytton/Wooley/C. Spencer Yeh/Okkyung Lee

March 6th
Hallwalls
Buffalo, NY
Lytton/Wooley

March 7th
Cornell University
Time and Place TBA
Lytton/Wooley

March 8th
Bard College
Time and Place TBA
Lytton/Wooley/Ikue Mori

March 9th
NEC masterclass
6 pm
Lytton/Wooley

Lily Pad
9 pm
Lytton/Wooley/Joe Morris

March 11
Seven Storey Mountain
Issue Project Room
Brooklyn, NY
Lytton/Wooley/Chris Corsano/C. Spencer Yeh/David Grubbs/Matt Moran/Chris Dingman
Live Recording!

March 12
Roulette
New York, NY
Lytton/Wooley/C. Spencer Yeh/Okkyung Lee
Also Christine Bard/Jim Pugliese and Vincent Chancey

March 15
Sugar Maple
Milwaukee, WI
Lytton/Vandermark/Wooley

March 16
The Hideout
Chicago, IL
Lytton/Vandermark
Lytton/Wooley
Lytton/Vandermark Wooley

March 17
Elastic
Chicago, IL
Lytton/Wooley/Dave Rempis/Michael Zerang/Jim Baker/Jason Roebke/Jeb Bishop/Kent Kessler

March 18
The Stone
NY, NY
8 pm Ken Vandermark/Joe McPhee
10 pm Lytton/Vandermark/Wooley

and just for kicks

March 19
The Stone
NY, NY
10 pm Vandermark/Morris/Wooley

When you're #3 You Try Harder

Proud to say...the Argentinean music mag El Intruso held their annual critics poll and I was voted #3 in the trumpet category. Okay, why not #1? I hear you, I could be trying harder. I'll get on that, but think that Peter Evans and Taylor Ho Bynum are pretty inspiring choices for #s 1 and 2.

Some nice votes for Creak Above 33, Tooth and Nail, and Trumpet/Amplifier in the annual musicians polls as well.

You can see the whole thing here:

www.elintruso.com

A Paper of Note

Ben Ratliff says nice things about Crackleknob!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/arts/music/23vision.html

It's Hot....I'm outta here!

I officially recognized that I was going to sweat for the next 9 weeks solid. There is always that morning when I"m going through my shirt drawer and it dawns on me that it really doesn't matter what I wear, I'm going to be a totally gross, stinky sweat mess for 63 days. It doesn't matter how many showers I take, the fact remains that I am from Oregon. I am of broad countenance. I am hirsute. Therefore, I'm just going to leave in July and leave you "oh, I love the warm weather" people to slowly wilt. Let's talk again mid-September when the first rains hit and you can complain to me. I will gladly listen.

Until I leave, however, I have a couple of performances I'm calling "sweating to the....." I hope you'll come out and feel the burn.

Tonight!
Local 269
Vision Festival!
269 E. Houston, Manhattan
Come sweat to the progressive music interplay of CRACKLEKNOB!
Nate Wooley/Mary Halvorson/Reuben Radding
Mary Halvorson/Reuben Radding/Nate Wooley
Reuben Radding/Nate Wooley/Mary Halvorson

We play at 10:30.

Tomorrow!
Issue Project Room
232 3rd Street, Brooklyn
Come sweat to compositional linguistics!
Critical Theory discussion about the music of Kenneth Gaburo
featuring performances by Megan Schubert, Warren Burt, Chris Mann, and a very rarely seen video piece of Gaburo's
and a panel discussion led by myself and featuring David Dunn, Larry Polansky, Warren Burt, and Chris Mann

8 pm

Friday!
IBEAM
168 7th street, Brooklyn
Come sweat to a reductionist version of THE NATE WOOLEY QUINTET
Nate Wooley
Josh Sinton
Matt Moran

8:30

and finally,

Wednesday, June 30!
Barbes
6th and 9th in Brooklyn
Come sweat to the same thing you sweat to tonight!
CRACKLEKNOB!
see above
early show 7 pm
followed by Huntsville from Norway!

woohoo, get out your electric fans and let's get this mess on the road.

New Review and show tonight!

Saturday, May 22, 2010 from Killed in Cars

Also, the quintet will be playing tonight, May 24th at Douglass Street Music Collective.....2 sets, good times....starts at 8 pm on the nose! See you there!

Nate Wooley & Paul Lytton - Creek Above 33 (Psi, 2010)

----------
Artist
Label
Discogs
last.fm
RYM

For such a young trumpeter, Nate Wooley has performed and recorded with a healthy range of challenging experimental artists, from Wolf Eyes to John Zorn to Akron/Family. The first time I saw him perform was with a trio consisting of C. Spencer Yeh and Chris Corsano, and the last time was with Trevor Dunn’s PROOFReaders (with Darius Jones and Ryan Sawyer) who were presenting selected works by Ornette Coleman for Ars Nova Workshop's Composer Portrait Series. Both were very different but immensely rewarding music experiences that demonstrated the full force and diversity of Wooley’s abilities as a player. With the first ensemble, Wooley did not produce a traditional note or scale all evening, instead emphasizing the instrument’s hidden potential for emitting whispers, heavy ghost breaths, industrial screams, and deep, earth shattering, low-end booms. With the second, Wooley nailed Coleman’s complicated trumpet phrases, excellently representing Coleman’s ability to create pieces that simultaneously reinforce and push beyond the traditional jazz idiom.

On Creek Above 33, both of these aspects of Wooley’s playing are united. This is the second time that Wooley has recorded as a duo with percussionist and electronicist Paul Lytton, the first being a 2008 limited edition LP on Brokenresearch. The two have performed together on many occasions, however, including in trio form along with David Grubbs at 2007’s Festival of New Trumpet Music, where Wooley debuted a composition that was recorded and released last year titled The Seven Storey Mountain (read my Tiny Mix Tapes review of the album here). Lytton is a veteran in experimental circles, working with Evan Parker for many years, and more recently with Ken Vandermark’s various Territory Band large ensembles, that include Paal Nilssen-Love, Kevin Drumm, Dave Rempis, Kent Kessler, and many others. The creative partnership between Lytton and Wooley has no doubt been a beneficial one, as Wooley confesses in the liner notes for this release that Lytton led him to completely re-evaluate his approach to making music. The harbinger of this transition was a “mind map” created by Lytton – which appears here as the cover art – in which he attempted to visualize both of their intertwining and agonistic trajectories as artists within jazz and improvised music continuums. The sonic result of this radical rethinking is Creek Above 33.

Lytton’s screeching friction opens the album with Wooley’s amplified horn pushing out rapid, reverb-drenched blasts. “The Mbala Effect” is a spatial delight as Lytton produces poly-textural percussive splatters that enter from near and far. Wooley’s approach to the horn is reminiscent of Bill Dixon’s playing on 2009’s fantastic Tapestries For Small Orchestra, though his inclusion of more breathy, volcanic notes and moans is significantly more violent and disruptive. The piece gets truly terrifying around the 8 minute mark: it’s as if Lytton is cranking up a jackhammer, or commanding a demolition squad, rather than working behind a drum kit. Meanwhile, a possessed Wooley resurrects a Takashi Miike-esque demon-growl with his horn. Lytton has been experimenting with electronics for many years, as well as homemade instruments like the Lyttonophone and Dopplerphone, which were both used in the Evan Parker Trio. However, given Lytton’s textural and friction-centric approach to percussion, as well as the multiple instruments that his infamously massive kit contains, it’s difficult to tell what sounds are the result of electronics and what are not.

Lytton shines on “The Gentle Sturgeon,” creating a chaotic array of mysterious scrapes and bangs while Wooley’s breath-play drones and screams above the myriad layers. Half-way through the track the demolition squad returns, but this time more lunar (or, perhaps given the song-title, deep sea) drops of electro-ping and tension follow. Whatever revelation Wooley and Lytton sparked in one another from their pre-recording ruminations on their artistic pasts and futures worked. Creek Above 33 is a fantastic journey through the music histories of both artists and the reference nodes span across the diverse, but overlapping, traditions of experimental musics and jazz (perhaps most evident in Wooley’s deconstructed bop tendencies on “Filtering The Fogweed”). This is an excellent display of both artists’ perpetual development. Lytton continues to be pushing music further forward, as he has been for over 40 years, and Wooley’s approach to his instrument somehow gets even more perplexing and engaging.

Elliott Sharp

Read more...

I'm a Capitalist, dammit.

I've locked my blog in the basement for a couple of months because it used wire hangers.

No, that isn't funny, I agree.

I am finally back on it to announce a boatload of releases in the month of Marpril and to promise to be more on top of getting those gig emails on here more regularly.

First,

for those of you that don't have a computer, you can't read this anyway, so it doesn't matter.

The Almond, an excerpt from a longer piece that I'm coddling on its way out the door to a nice record label in the country where it can run around all it wants, is up now on Compost and Height

http://www.compostandheight.com/

It's a new kind of piece for me, not really sure what that means, but I find it kind of exciting nonetheless. Plus it has this nice photo from the lovely and talented Sarah Spears (sorry Sarah, I turned it upside down).

There is also a new solo LP out on the great Smeraldina-Rima label called "Nate Wooley Trumpet/Amplifier". Fantastic cover art, great liners from Ben Hall and nice heavy wax. Side A is two completely acoustic tracks and side B is one long feedback piece with the trumpet being used to mold things.

http://www.smeraldina-rima.com/products-page/lp/nate-wooley-trumpetamplifier-lp/

And finally, and the most recent!

Paul Lytton/Nate Wooley Creak Above 33 on Emanem/Psi!!!!!!!!

http://www.emanemdisc.com/psi10.html#02

I"m so excited about this, I can't even tell you. Paul has been one of my heroes for a long time, and to get to work with him over a long period has been life changing. I'm really proud of this record. It's a tough one, and that makes me really excited, something to sink the teeth into. Beautiful cover by Anna Lytton and some real weird liner notes/drawings by Paul and I. Special thanks to Evan Parker for getting this one going!

I generally think of every single aspect of my life as its own discrete cycle. Everything from the banality of work scheduling and train schedules down to keeping track of which people ride the same train car as me and at what rate they cycle their outfits. At my most metaphysically lucid, I can almost see myself as a walking set of billions of ephemeral perambulations consisting of every relationship I have to animal, vegetable, mineral, or ideology. I think most people would find this a touch obsessive, and there are times that I would agree with them, but I view it in another way that, while definitely more dark, tends to take on more of a philosophical bent. Jean Baudrillard, the great French semiologist/philosopher, take a similar stance in view of the human need to collect. He says that we collect things in a series (the people that do collect things, and most musically minded people are like this in my experience) to rehearse completion. In other words, we collect a series to either complete it and thus rehearse the only thing in our life which is absolutely a positivity....its end, or we collect a series to prove to ourselves that there is always something else, thus giving ourselves a false sense of immortality. Now, as a firm believer in reincarnation, I don't really see how it would be any different with my lust for cyclical tabulation. I watch the cycles of my life, or enforce a subconscious cycle on things to rehearse or deny the end of my existence in this form, depending on the situation. That's the way I justify the amount of energy that goes into these exercises at least.

Now, that has nothing to do with the meat of this email, which is this story I'm about to relate, but I think you need the background to understand why such a seemingly banal occurrence could be so incredible to me. One of the cycles that I pay close attention to, because I experience it almost every day consists of my walk from the PATH train at World Trade Center to my office on Broad Street. I always take the same set of streets (are you really surprised by that?), and they cycle consists mostly of a set of people, a series of thoughts, and generally a group of a/b psychic switches. It is basically a binary cycle...."at this news kiosk there will be the old black man yelling at the younger Middle Eastern man...or not"...."the blond woman that always wears tweed jackets will cut through Trinity church....or she will continue straight"...."I will have the urge to buy a coffee at the Wall Street deli....or I will not think about it". One part of the cycle is always the same though and it has always kind of bothered me. On the corner of Broadway and William Street there is a Travelex office, a place where they do currency exchange. As I walk up William, I pass by their office on the left and at the last cubicle on the Broadway side there is a woman. I have never actually seen this woman, so I don't know if she is young or old, beautiful or homely, radiant or dull. All I have ever seen, in fact, is the part in her hair as she hunches over her desk, working on her computer. Every day, I see this part. I have wanted it to change, somehow, looking for small discrepancies in the slightly off center nature of the part, but it always remains the same. There was a period of time when I thought perhaps she was a mannequin, seated there as part of an elaborate scheme for Travelex to pay a seperate salary. That is insane, obviously. Today, a day that has forever rocked my "going to work cycle" by its ever loving foundations, I walked up William Street, hoping perhaps she would be wearing a beret, or would have gotten a hair cut. But, as I turned eyes left to take in the part, my darling Travelex worker had not only finally looked up from her computer, but was standing behind her desk.....dancing. I don't know why she was dancing. I've been in Travelex and it is not that exciting a place, nor have I ever heard any dance worthy music (or any music at all) played in a Travelex, but there she was, exploding a small part of a small part of my perambulations. I was in shock. I stopped on the sidewalk and watched her dance. Finally, inevitably, she looked out the window at the beardo in the army jacket. I was using all of my Scandinavian power of self control, but I couldn't help it and danced a little with her. Nothing big, a few white boy steps, the best I could do in my bulky jacket and glittens. She smiled and sat down. Now I have to come to grips with the fact that there is a possibility of something more in this cycle. Was this just an aberration, or can I at least count on my Travelex buddy for a new binary....."Travelex girl sits in front of computer showing only the part in her hair.....or busts a wicked move". I"m hoping for the latter.

Enough of that, lots of super fun gigs this week.

Come out, let me add you as a part of my spinning spinning spinning:

Tuesday January 12
Issue Project Room
232 3rd Brooklyn
Bram Stadhouders-solo guitar from the Netherlands
Heave and Shudder (Audrey Chen/Nate Wooley) with Gil Arno (video)
Kenta Nagai-solo something (you never know with Kenta, always good though)
8 pm

Wednesday January 13
Abrons Art Center
466 Grand StreetManhattan
FONT's 4 night festival (this is the first night, you should check the schedule, looks pretty rocking)
I'll be playing the piece "Rugby" with John Zorn
7:30

Friday January 15
IBeam Studios
168 7th Street
Brooklyn
Telluric Currents Series, curated by Jeremiah Cymerman
Dafna Naphtali/Chuck Bettis
Nate Wooley (solo)
Alexander Waterman/Ryan Sawyer (woohoo)/Zach Layton
8 pm

thanks, see you soon! Nate

Junk Media Review of 7 Storey

The Seven Storey Mountain is trumpeter Nate Wooley’s improvisational enactment of spiritual catharsis. Taking its title from Thomas Merton’s biography of the same name, the record also features Paul Lytton on percussion and David Grubbs on harmonium. The three musicians commit themselves to the paradoxical (and perhaps impossible) task of implying a narrative of spiritual struggle with a minimalist or ‘lowercase’ improv that, strictly speaking, goes nowhere. Although the gestures are largely restrained and the performances subtle, The Seven Storey Mountain is able to evoke a pensive yet at times agonized experience of ecstasy, making explicit what in other performances tends to be a merely suggested spirituality.

Give credit to Wooley for assembling this less-than-obvious lineup. Grubbs is better known for the skewed avant-pop of Gastr Del Sol, and while Paul Lytton may be considered a legend in freely-improvised music, his work tends toward the noisy and manic. The contrasts between the approaches of these musicians are the story here: a group of lowercase all-stars would be less likely to generate the tensions, and therefore suggest the spiritual agonies, endemic to Seven Storey Mountain.

Commissioned for Dave Douglas’ FONT festival in New York, the record consists of one 38-minute piece, performed without pause (and subsequently given the four subtitles “Your Lips,” “Tip,” “Sleep,” and “Turned to Sand”). While the music focuses on the minute gesture, it simultaneously suggests a broader movement. According to Wooley this is a journey through the “dark night of the soul” toward ecstatic knowing, not so much moving as being moved, like existing on a planet that spins underneath you and carries you with it. The sonic field is occupied by a series of drones, consisting variously of Wooley’s electronics, a recording of his A/C unit, Grubbs’ harmonium or a combination of the three. These drones alternate in texture and volume, generating moods of anguish and calm as they do so. The harmonium plays a diminished chord, but these pitches enter the piece as a present fact only, suggesting no movement toward resolution. This is a music of large forces, but Lytton’s junkyard percussion is able to pierce the drones and suggest that they occur in a real (rather than ideal) space. Even though Seven Storey Mountain tells a story of spiritual and mental anguish, this anguish occurs to someone living somewhere, whether that be Merton in Rome or Wooley, Lytton, and Grubbs in New York. Lytton’s percussion also serves as a link between the mechanical drones and the human voice, which serves more as an instrument for producing sound than for articulating words. This muted, but often insistent, voice intones throughout the piece, occasionally becoming a kind of drone itself, but also punctuating the moments of stasis with urgent (if incomprehensible) declarations.

The music on Seven Storey Mountain alternates between moments of charged calm and moments of sturm und drang, the latter serving as instances of crisis largely established through the scattershot pulses of the percussion and voice. Although it’s a cliche to say it, the album demands a close listening (preferably through a decent pair of headphones) in order to focus on the subtle changes that initiate a change in the piece’s mood. The attention that wanders will fail to pick up on the force of the piece, and for good reason: Seven Storey Mountain is the story of intense self-examination, and in such meditation, wandering recovers its etymological relation with sin. Wooley, Lytton, and Grubbs have exemplarily created a space for the reflective and attentive listener, but they make no concessions. Seven Storey Mountain is the greater for their efforts.

Brent Mix
December 21, 2009

Holiday Greetings

So, here is a little holiday reading for you, was going to go with something between Miracle on 34th street and the Peanuts Christmas special, but just had this conversation and it seemed like I needed to write it down....oh, and there is some shameless plugging at the bottom, as always.

Keep in mind that this is a bit long and ranty, so please feel free to delete or skip to the bottom (not that you have to have my permission)

The Players:
Toby (a twenty something idealist in a big puffy down jacket conveniently zipped up to "almost" cover his Greenpeace t-shirt, and hiding his clipboard behind his back, standing right in front of my office building)

Nate (a thirty something pessimist in a big puffy amy surplus jacket zipped up to the top of his nose and thinking nasty, nasty thoughts, trying to go into my office building)

Toby: Hi! My name is Toby! What's yours?
Nate: What?
Toby: My name is Toby (extends hand for warm and meaningful shake). What's your name?Nate: Don't do that, man.
Toby: Don't do what?
Nate: Don't be disingenuous to sell me a bunch of shit.
Toby: Excuse me?
Nate: Don't pretend that you are interested in me, just to get me to buy whatever you're selling. It's dishonest. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Toby: I'm not selling anything
Nate: Oh, really? I'm sorry, my mistake. So, you're just standing out here in front of this building in the asscold to make friends?
Toby: Yup! (extends hand again)
Nate: Cool, so we're friends now?
Toby: As soon as you tell me your name
Nate: Awesome, my name is Nate. Hey, since we are friends now, would you mind if my wife and I came over for Christmas eve? Our family isn't in New York and it would be nice to spend it with some good friends.
Toby: Oh, I don't think we're quite that close (winks)
Nate: Oh, really. I thought we were friends, maybe we are more of friendly acquaintances?Toby: Yeah, that's it.
Nate: Cool, hey what do you say we shoot the shit about girls, huh? That girl is hot, eh?
Toby: That isn't really appropriate
Nate: You're right. You're absolutely right. I guess I got carried away with some locker room talk because I was just hanging here with my friendly acquaintance Toby
Toby: Yeah, well...
Nate: So, maybe we are just acquaintances.
Toby: Yeah, it seems that way.
Nate: Right, hey, what is your last name, where do you live?
Toby: Excuse me?
Nate: Well, I know the last name and general neighborhood of most acquaintances, that's usually the first things you make small talk about
Toby: I don't really want to tell you that
Nate: Oh, I see, so you know what it sounds like to me, Toby? It sounds to me like we are strangers. Would you agree? This is fine, but you see, I don't like strangers forcing their way into my personal space in front of my place of work and trying to sell me shit. I also don't like when they try and be sly and cover up their Greenpeace t-shirt and hide their clipboard. You have to admit that that is pretty disingenuous behavior. Don't you? Don't you think that maybe all the people on this street are sick of people with fake good will trying to sell us shit, like some kind of psycho-economic bait and switch? "Here, I want to be your friend, will you sign this sheet to keep whales alive?" I love whales, but I don't want to be coerced or guilted or otherwise bamboozled into anything with the promise of human warmth. Does your grandmother know you are doing this? I bet she would tan your ass. This is not the way that people interact. I have no problem with your job, I know you probably need the bread, but don't bullshit us. Just stand up with your whale flag flying and ask if I want to give money to Greenpeace, you chickenshit.
Toby: Okay, do you want to give money to Greenpeace?
Nate: Not to you
Toby: Fuck you Nate
Nate: Fuck you too Toby.

Ahhhhh, I love Christmas. Admittedly, I may be becoming a curmudgeon. My deep apologies to Toby wherever he is.

Now, I'm going to take my own advice and say this:You should listen to Scott McDowell's Long Rally. He'll soon be posting the complete live sessions that I did with Chris Corsano and C. Spencer Yeh, including a live version of the second installment of Seven Storey Mountain. You can find him at wfmu.org

I love you guys,

Nate