LO-FI FOOTAGE FROM THE JAVA ST. BAGATELLES ALBUM
Things were a little different when I was making my album Java St. Bagatelles. Throughout 2003-2005 -- when the music was recorded -- I only had an optimistic hunch that what I was doing would eventually become an album. Mainly, I was just collecting the best improvisations I could muster on cheap cassettes & minidiscs. The primitive methods I used were fast, and needed to be, because to prep for a proper recording session would have killed the thing I was after. I preferred cassette because the mindisc gizmo was fiddly. In fact, couple of the tracks that made it onto Java St. Bagatelles -- and which, in retrospect, I would rather I had left off -- were marred by distortion that came from not tinkering with the machine enough before pressing "record".
My steel-string Yamaha guitar was left on its stand wherever I played it last -- that is, wherever I seemed to be playing better lately. And it had to be easy to pick up whenever I felt like I could play something, which was often at odd or unplanned moments. Sometimes I would try different corners in the kitchen or living room to see what it felt like to play there. Other times I wouldn't be playing well, but changing the direction of my chair would somehow open me up. I didn't have any repertoire, no props or tricks either -- the point was to play whatever music I could come up with in the moment. If it sounds a little mystical, that's because it was. I was operating solely by intuition.
And if this recollection sounds a little nostalgic, too -- well, that's because it probably is. I don't work the same way anymore: I'm not nearly as focused on one thing as I was then. Not that I'd trade it. I like juggling the different things I'm doing now. But I figure there might have been more to explore along the lines of Java St. Bagatelles, I just moved away from it before I could.
"Blimp" was improvised on May 21, 2005, a Saturday, and recorded into a malfunctioning minidisc player.
While I was preparing this post I heard that guitarist Jack Rose passed away on December 5 of a heart attack. This was terrible, shocking news. I met Jack very briefly once, at the Time of Rivers Festival, in October 2008, where we were both playing. He was warm and humble. I had heard one or two of his records before then, but didn't get why he had such a great reputation -- my snap judgment was that his playing was extremely accomplished but one-dimensional. Well, I certainly "got it" when I heard him play live. Jack played the guitar like it was a dynamo: he could rev the thing up until it practically threw sparks around the room. The guitar was a surprisingly resonant instrument in his hands -- he stoked it like a furnace fire until it seemed the molecules would come undone. I watched his set spellbound; he was one of the greatest guitarists I'd ever seen. When the festival was over I went and got a few of his records, and found that I could appreciate them better, but they were no match for what I had witnessed in person. I'm sad about Jack's death for a lot of reasons, but mainly because the world has lost his talent, and because the recordings don't do justice to his work. --James Beaudreau
