MOE! STAIANO'S MOE!KESTRA!
Forms of Multitudes: Conducted Improvisations
Records EDT 4021/Pax Recordings 90261/Dephine Knormal Musik DKM 06


Head arrangements, hand signals, graphic scores, game pieces, conducted improvisations: musicians have been trying for years to come up with a way to perform with a large ensemble that gives as many players as possible as much freedom as possible. The preferred term for large-scale, free playing has been conduction -- from conducted improvisation -- following Butch Morris' successes in this area.

In truth, Morris is building on methods tried at various times by Charles Mingus, the Globe Unity Orchestra, John Zorn, Gerry Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band and Cornelias Cardew with AMM to name a few. Most undertakings have been in the so-called jazz and so-called classical field however. This CD is so striking, and so refreshing however, because West Coast junk percussionist Moe! (sic) Staiano has organized this conduction for a mass jazzers, pure improvisers, New musicians, post-rockers and just plain noise lovers. With more than two dozen performers of every stripe accounted for on both these tracks, the effect is somewhat overwhelming, as if a platoon of jackhammer wielders were performing the intense first section of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring".

Staiano comes by his noise interests honestly. Over the years he's augmented his trap set with found objects including pipes, food pans, pressure caps, sheet metals, and knickknacks including a bowed spatula. Drummer for Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, he has also performed with the likes of local percussionists Gino Robair and Karen Stackpole and British bassist John Edwards.

Unequivocally the percussion and percussionists are out in full force here, with a total of nine drummers and percussionists on "Piece No. 5" and eight on "Piece No. 4" banging, smashing, hitting and thumping everything they can get their hands on throughout. The main difference is one of degree. The first conducted improvisation includes three trumpeters, a trombonist and two guitarists. The second drops the brass section, but adds a piano and vocalist and boosts the number of guitarists to six.

Thus in between the top-of-lungs squeals, wood block clip clops and junkeroo percussion that make up most of "Piece No. 5" you hear riffing call and response movements among the brass, reed, string and percussion sections. Besides that, of course, there are knife-sharp reed stabs and protracted honks, top-of-range trumpet trills and glisses, wah-wah muted trumpet interludes, flat-out tailgate trombone smears, ringing bells, steel drum emphasis, shimmering vibes filigree resonating metal surfaces, arco squeaks from the basses, pizzicato string section plucks and fiddle hoe-downs. Finally after an earlier crescendo that sounds as if every musician is screaming through his or her axe at the top of his or her lungs simultaneously -- which they are -- the noise field heightens. The percussionists produce waves of oil-derrick power pounding as tones solidify into discordance that's all tension, with the only release bird-like squawking from the reeds.

More of the same, "Piece No. 4" moves along with woodwind polyphony encircling diesel power vamps and distorted multi effects from the massed guitarists. This almost impenetrable grinding timbre is only occasionally pierced by a shimmy with brushes on cymbal tops, silvery vibe positioning, honky-tonk piano fills, some trilling alto sax lines and baritone saxophone swoops.

Herky-jerky circus band like polyphony and high frequency piano cadenzas can also sometimes also cut through the tumult. In the penultimate section, however, spirit cries from the theremin, guitar distortions, near player piano
fingering and a soprano vocal line do-se-do with consolidated beats that sound as if the percussionists are simultaneously dropping two ton weights. Finally smeared Pharoah Sanders-style saxophone glossolalia appears then diffuses into electronic impulses.

With the reed tones weaving as of they are part of a drunken marching band, Impressionistic piano lines dart in-and-out and the voice ascends to a wavering falsetto, seemingly signally to a UFO or maybe into space itself. Climax is reached when the percussive properties of all the instruments are exposed, with the finale evidentially including more exploding canon pressure than "The 1812 Overture".

Recorded in California more than a year ago, these conductions have enough raw power to impress Arnold Schwarzengger but offer a more impressive message than the bodybuilder-politician.


-.- Ken Waxman


Track Listing: 1. Conducted Improvisation Piece No. 5, Tracks 1-6 2. Conducted Improvisation Piece No 4, Tracks 7-11:


Personnel: Track 1. Tom Djll, Freddi Price, Matt Volla (trumpets); Jennifer Baker (trombone); Jason Ditzian (clarinet); Phillip Greenlief (soprano saxophone); Michael Zelner (alto saxophone); Alan Anzalone, Henry Kuntz, Michael Cooke (tenor saxophones); Jeff Hobbs, Joan Ling-Zwissler (violins); Cheryl E. Leonard, Jorge Boehringer (violas); Matt Lebofsky, Alwyn Quebido (guitars); Bobby Todd (bass); Peter Conheim (electric bass); Robert Silverman (theremin); Tyler Cox (drums); Thomas Scandura (electronic drum pad); Michael Guarino, Suki O'Kane, Ali Tabatabai, Peter Valsamis, Phil Williams, William Winant (percussion); Moe! Staiano (conductor, percussion)
Track 2: Richard E. Barber, Matt Ingalls (clarinet); Tom Bickley (recorder); Erica Fallin (flute); Anzalone (tenor saxophone); Rent Romus (alto and tenor saxophones); Zelner (alto saxophone and clarinet); Colin Stetson (tenor saxophone); Scott Looney (piano); Hobbs (violin); Leonard (viola); Merlin Coleman, Bob Marsh (cellos); Quebido, Michael de la Cuesta, Eli Good, Sue Hutchinson, Rick Rees, (guitars); Ernesto Diaz-Infante (electric acoustic guitar); Tom Corboline, Jonathan Segel (electric basses); Silverman (theremin); Cox, Mat Kolenmainen, Thomas Scandura, Chris Sipe (drums); O'Kane, Tim Bolling, Michael Guarino, Garth Powell (percussion); Jesse Quattro (voice); Staiano (conductor)