Long Play Festival: Banging On in Brooklyn
w/ Kim Gordon, Mary Halvorson+Bill Frisell, Caroline Davis+Wendy Eisenberg, Ben LaMar Gay, Ringdown, Body/Head, Adam Tendler+John Cage and BoaC+Terry Riley
I’m not always so good with the ‘timely’ aspect of cultural news reporting. I do mean well, and I think great music and performances have a life beyond the next day’s Instagram post, so even though I’m a month late I’d like to share what I experienced at the Long Play Festival in early May.
I admit I was still chasing the high from Big Ears when I reached out for a press pass, as most of these artists would be at home there, too (and many have indeed played there), but I was excited to seek that musical community in my home borough a mile from my apartment. I still wasn’t running on a full tank, but now that I’ve edited and re-edited all the photos and written and re-written the copy, there still is a good amount to reflect on and unpack.
Long Play is presented by Bang On A Can, an organization founded by musicians Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe that has been performing and advocating for new contemporary music going back to 1987 when they presented their first annual 24-hour marathon concert. Initially delayed by the pandemic, their Long Play festival is now in its 4th year creating a bigger tent around a center pole of contemporary classical music. With 50 performances over three days in Downtown Brooklyn and nearby neighborhoods, the programming covered experimental rock, jazz and improvised music, presentations of notable 20th century classical works, and contemporary jazz composers who bridge improvisation and new composition.
Instead of a heady mission statement, their flyer had the lyrics to “Dancing In The Streets” in the notes. So grab a girl (or Mick and David) and let’s get down to some John Cage and industrial strength guitar noise-rock.
Kim Gordon - Pioneer Works
On opening night, indie/art-rock godhead Kim Gordon, incomprehensibly in her 70s and rocking leggy fishnets below her ‘Gulf of Mexico’ sweatshirt, performed music from her album The Collective, released last year on Matador. With a nihilist’s amalgam of glitchy digital beats, spoke-sung vocals and industrial-level guitar distortion, I found the album too heavy for at-home listening, but experiencing it in person with an badass, all-female live band (Stella Mozgawa-drums, Camilla Charlesworth-bass, and Sarah Register-guitar) was an organ-shaking, cathartic, violent release.
Mary Halvorson & Bill Frisell Duo:
“Walk, Don’t Run!” The Music of Johnny Smith
At Roulette Intermedium, two guitar improvisation masters—contemporary luminary Mary Halvorson and veteran sound bender Bill Frisell—expressed their mutual appreciation for the underrated jazz guitarist Johnny Smith.
Halvorson hipped me to Johnny Smith about 7 years ago when I was commissioned to photograph her portrait for The New York Times. Smith had a jazz instrumental hit in 1956 with his atmospheric arrangement of “Moonlight in Vermont” which featured Stan Getz and became a top-selling jazz album the year of its release. He also wrote and first recorded “Run, Don’t Walk” which The Ventures surfed-up for their breakout 1960 instrumental hit.
It’s easy to hear Smith’s influence; Halvorson and Frisell can both delicately conjure surprising sounds at an unhurried pace. The duo gently pulled apart the sounds and structures of Smith’s guitar sound.
Halvorson’s latest album, About Ghosts, was released last Friday on Nonesuch.
Pssst! TMDB is a member supported publication. Learn more about membership and its valuable benefits—as well as print sales, sponsorships and one-time donations—at our ABOUT PAGE.
Caroline Davis and Wendy Eisenberg Duo
Saxophonist Caroline Davis and guitarist Wendy Eisenberg—both busy and accomplished artists individually—performed music from their 2024 duo album Accept When in the indoor atrium at BRIC. The music was assembled from improvised experiments made in a friend’s practice space over a two-year period and see-saws from lyric-led songs, to through-composed prog-y instrumentals (sometimes with vocal sections), to looser improvised forms.
Adam Tendler: John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano
Respected modern classical interpreter Adam Tendler performed John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano at the BRIC Ballroom. When I first heard the Piano Sonatas in college, I was surprised that there’s often a funky groove and melodic lines in the music. The percussive sounds come from bolts and screws inserted in precise locations between the strings of a grand piano, as Tendler demonstrates in this home video of preparing his piano for the festival performance. Tendler’s interpretation was vividly precise and emotionally rich and carefully drew out the energy, pulse and lyricism contained within the score.
Ringdown
Another duo of accomplished individuals, Ringdown is the collaborative indie-pop project of Caroline Shaw and Danni Lee Parpan. Shaw is an classically-trained violinist, vocalist and composer who has four GRAMMYs in the Classical music categories as well as the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her composition Partita for 8 Voices. In comparison to that heavy resume, the music from the duo is light and playfully scrappy, with the musicians constructing the songs through live sampling and looping of themselves plucking, whistling and tapping the microphone.
The closing song was a highlight with a sparse acoustic voice and strummed violin performance of “There is a Vine” by the nearly-lost-to-history proto-singer-songwriter Connie Converse.
Ringdown recently released Lady On The Bike on
.
Body/Head
At Public Records, Kim Gordon returned with guitarist Bill Nace as Body/Head, a noise guitar duo project originally formed in 2013. Lit by a projector looping a film clip, the bruising but brief 22-minute set featured intermittent vocal incantations from Gordon over the heavy droning pulse and squall of dueling distorted guitars.
Ben LaMar Gay Quartet
I was back at Public Records on Sunday for an energizing set from Ben LaMar Gay and his quartet. Gay seemed to be cuing a suite of discrete movements of loose grooves and composed vamps the slowing down with sections that felt more like religious rituals of various modes of healing that used choir bells, wooden flutes, physical energy healing and even laughter, which he thanked the audience for sharing with him in a pause in the music.
The quartet featured Tommaso Moretti-drums, Matthew Davis-tuba, and
Edinho Gerber-guitar.
Gay just released this music on a new album, Yowzers, on International Anthem.
Terry Riley 90th Birthday Tribute with Bang On A Can All-Stars
Closing the festival was a 90th Birthday Tribute for the foundational minimalist composer Terry Riley at Pioneer Works featuring performances of two of his major works, A Rainbow in Curved Air, and In C.
Originally recorded in 1968, A Rainbow in Curved Air was constructed from improvised synthesizer passages that were then layered and overdubbed to create the longer 18-minute piece. On it’s release it found a popular reception and reverberated in the late-60s Rock scene. The pulsating synthesizer intro to The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” can directly be attributed to Riley’s work. (Pete Townsend himself was originally scheduled perform with the ensemble but had to cancel due to an injury.) Guitarist Gyan Riley, Terry’s son, arranged the piece for an ensemble with himself on guitar and the Bang On A Can All-Stars (Vicky Chow–keyboard, David Cossin–percussion, Arlen Hlusko–cello, Taylor Levine-guitar, Chris Lightcap– bass and Ken Thomson – clarinet).
I regret ducking out before the finale of In C, a cornerstone of minimalist composition first performed in 1964. In the composition, musicians in the ensemble play through a sequence of 53 ‘modules’ of short melodies, progressing in the same order but repeated at a duration that is left to the individual musician’s creative instinct. Riley wrote a set of rules for how the ensemble should play together, but the piece remains open to many variables including ensemble size and instrumentation, which makes every performance a unique expression of the score. Special guests Krishna Bhatt, Valentina Magaletti, Nicole Mitchell, Suphala, Clara Warnaar, and Michael Harrison were additions to the ensemble and I was sorry to miss them.
We both may have a second chance, if you’re in the vicinity of Caramoor in late July, BOAC will be presenting a free performance of In C on July 27th.
Thanks for reading and looking. That Million Dollar Bash is made possible with the support of a small but growing number of paid members. Memberships, starting at $5/mo, include special benefits like significant discounts on print sales, a hand-made members card, and invites to special IRL events.
To learn more about membership as well as print sales, sponsorships and one-time donations, please see our ABOUT PAGE.