Between jazz, poetry, and the natural world

11 MP3 Songs
WORLD: World Fusion, ELECTRONIC: Soundscapes



Details:
This is the CD that originally accompanied David Rothenbergâs musical memoir Sudden Music, published in 2002. It is available separately in a special limited edition of 300, each signed and numbered by the artist.

Only 150 remain!

The album features eleven original compositions by Rothenberg, none of which have been previously released on CD. Included is the full-length duet with clarinet and white-crested laughing bird, later made famous on Why Birds Sing. Thereâs a another duet with clarinet and Samchillian TipTipTip Cheeepeeeee, an electronic computer instrument played by its inventor, Leon Gruenbaum. Also featured are multicultural works blending South Indian veena and Turkish G-clarinet with spoken text from the Upanishads; a piece commissioned by the Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival with readings of texts by E. O. Wilson accompanied by clarinet and electronics; and improvisations based on Tibetan Buddhist music, Japanese shakuhachi music, and the image of a black crow on white snow.

SUDDEN MUSIC presents the whole world as a musical place, full of wonderful events that come out of nowhere to create a strange and rhythmic harmony.

âHow to encounter the vital presence of the present moment, in all its alterity and loopiness, except by cultivating our own animal spontaneity? Here David Rothenberg, accomplished eco-philosopher and jazzman, lets loose his⦠swooping melodies, swerving and dancing with his fellow musicians, songbirds, scientists, and sacred texts.â -- David Abram, author of THE SPELL OF THE SENSUOUS

âRothenberg shares my hunch that music, like wind, is the lungs of the world, and that Brownian motion seethes at its heart.â --Edward Hoagland

âAt the crossroads of music, poetics, and philosophy, David Rothenberg tells stories in the manner of the finest jazz musicians, revealing the beauty and excitement of improvisation.â --George E. Lewis, jazz trombonist extraordinaire

âDavid Rothenberg has celebrated that unique and ephemeral moment that happens in ordinary life, ⦠a sense of risk and daring, and an abiding sensitivity to the vibrations, huge or infinitesimal, that surround us.â --Russell Sherman, author of PIANO PIECES

âWandering monk, lovelorn klezmer, Rothenberg roams the world, ears wide
open, ready to jam with veena players in Bangalore or birds in the High
Sierra. The news he brings is vital -- that nature can teach us how to make
music; that music can teach us how to live in nature."
-- Evan Eisenberg, author of THE RECORDING ANGEL

âSUDDEN MUSIC is a cross between Miles Davis and Arne Naess, Philip Glass and Gary Snyder, Brian Eno and Henry David Thoreauâ¦â -- Brent Hagerman, ALTERNATIVES

âRothenberg's playfulness will transport you to strange places, exercise your imagination, and stir your soul.â --SPIRITUALITY AND HEALTH

âMay be the best music lesson Iâve ever had.â -- Mitch Thomashow, ORION