The New Music Ensemble, Part 3 - NME II Liner Notes

In 1965, Larry Austin took a sabbatical semester from UC Davis. He travelled to Rome, where he participated in a very early version of Franco Evangelisti's Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza. During this time, the NME recorded a second album, without Austin. Robert Bloch is included here, playing mandolin and violin.

The liner notes are fairly brief, and some photos are also included.

Part one features the liner notes on the back of the first NME album.

Part two is the performer biographies, included as an insert with that record.

The fourth and final part of this series will be a comprehensive "gig-ography" of the NME: all known performances, along with some lectures and other related events. Complete with performer and program information (where known).

BONUS: here is an interview with composer Philip Krumm, several of whose works were performed by the NME.

L-R: Wayne Johnson, Jon Gibson, Arthur Woodbury,
Billie Alexander

New Music Ensemble, II

The New Music Ensemble of the University of California at Davis is a group of composer-performers which was founded in 1963 to explore free group improvisation and to perform contemporary chamber music. During the past two years, the group has met regularly to experiment with new instrumentation techniques and new approaches to free group improvisation. The New Music Ensemble has appeared in a great many public concerts and radio and television performances and has been invited to make a European tour in 1965-66.

Woodbury, Alexander, Swift (seated)

The New Music Ensemble does not use plans or charts for its improvisations. Rather, it depends upon the group feeling for composition developed during many playing sessions. Using contemporary musical vocabulary and innumerable conventional and unconventional instrumental techniques, the New Music Ensemble creates freely improvised compositions.

Lunetta, Johnson, Swift, Alexander, Woodbury, Gibson, Bloch

Members of the New Music Ensemble as pictured on the cover are: Standing: Robert Bloch, violin and mandolin; Wayne Johnson, clarinet and bass clarinet; Arthur Woodbury, flute, alto saxophone and bassoon; Billie Alexander, soprano; Jon Gibson, flute, clarinet, soprano saxophone. Seated: Stanley Lunetta, percussion; Richard Swift, piano.

This recording was made in the Little Theater of Sacramento State College, June 14-15, 1965.

Century Custom Recording Service 22764

Sacramento, CA

New Music Ensemble, Part 2 - The Performers

These are the performer biographies which were included as an insert with the New Music Ensemble's self-titled first LP. Be sure to check out the first post in this series for some useful background info, and to see the liner notes from the first LP.

Billie Alexander (Pat Woodbury)
with John Cage, 1969.
Credit: Charles Amirkhanian

Billie Alexander relates. Her thoughtful improvisations show an unique sense of timing and tasteful restraint. Her music is subtly intense. Her vocal techniques are unorthodox and include a wide range of strangely beautiful sounds, directly attributable to her extensive jazz background rooted in classical training. Oddly, this imaginative use of her voice is extremely disturbing to certain elements of our audience. Perhaps such an original conception of relating the human voice to instrumental voices upsets some ironclad preconceptions of what a singer should or should not do. That is her uniqueness.

Larry Austin drives. His energy is contagious. His imagination is rampant. His flügelhorn and trumpet playing can force a new path for the improvisation or, just as suddenly, deftly suggest a new, but logically evolved, sound context for the group. In short, he asserts the group's personality. He is a well-known composer, a conductor, and an Associate Professor of Music at the University of California, Davis. His works have been performed by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, Gunther Schuller in his 20th Century Innovations Series at Carnegie Recital Hall, by the Hartt Chamber Players, by the Composers' Forums of Chicago and San Francisco, and by various other groups in universities throughout the United States. He is currently a fellow of the Institute for Creative Arts, residing in Rome. His published works include Improvisations for Orchestra and Jazz Soloists (MJQ Music), Piano Variations (MJQ), A Broken Consort for chamber ensemble (MJQ), and In Memoriam J.F.K. (Berkeley Publishing Co.). He is affiliated with Broadcast Music, Inc.

Jon Gibson explodes. His outright abandonment of conventional sound concepts, particularly on the soprano sax, pushes the Ensemble into new and occasionally frightening contexts. He is primitive, but at the same time distinctly sophisticated. This is especially surprising considering the fact that he is the youngest member of the Ensemble. He is a graduate student at San Francisco State College, a composer, and a professional jazz musician.

Wayne Johnson.
Credit: moosack.net

Wayne Johnson sings. He is consistently lyric and often melancholy. A performer might in the heat of an improvisation "pull back" for momentary reflection on the piece as it moves. It is then that one senses the strength of Wayne's web of line within the piece. Not incidental to this concept is his remarkable control of freakishly high overtones on the bass clarinet. Wayne is a graduate of Sacramento State College, a composer, and a professional jazz musician.

Stanley Lunetta colors. He is ever alert to the proper aura of sound. Unlike so many percussionists, he listens and anticipates. The great potential power and the wide variety of color of his instruments are employed creatively and persuasively. His palette of sounds includes four clay dumbegs of differing sizes and tone, tuned cowbells, temple blocks, cymbals, a xylo-marimba, and a vibraphone. He is a composer, a graduate student at the University of California, Davis, and a virtuoso percussionist both in jazz and classical fields.

Richard Swift shapes. He articulates the improvisations, often by a forceful piano cluster which washes away previous material or by a wry series of pitches which subtly imply a new context. He is the entrepreneur of taste. He senses the diverse elements of the piece, pulls them together and gives them new meaning, new cohesiveness. He is a noted composer, a conductor, a teacher, and Chairman of the Department of Music at the University of California, Davis. His stature as a composer is recognized widely. In 1959 and again in 1960 he was invited to participate in the Princeton Institute for Advanced Musical Studies. An article about his Piano Concerto was published in a recent issue of "Perspectives of New Music". His works have been performed by Composers' Forums, I.S.C.M. chapters, and universities in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. His works are listed with and available from the American Composers Alliance (BMI).

Arthur Woodbury wails. He is the most fluent improviser in the Ensemble and the most virtuosic. His flurries of notes create glorious havoc and spark others to long series of fast changing pitches. His playing demands extremes in contrast. He is an extraordinary alto saxophonist, bassoonist, flutist, as well as jazz pianist. He is a staff member of the Department of Music at the University of California, Davis, as well as a professional performer in both jazz and classical fields.

This wide diversity of styles and concepts, this seemingly incongruous group of improvisers, creates music which continues to please each of the participants completely. We hope it pleases the listener as well.

 - - Notes by Larry Austin

NME RECORDS
1135 E. 8th Street

Davis, California

New Music Ensemble, Part 1 - Liner Notes

The New Music Ensemble was a new music group that was active from 1963-1967. 

They are best remembered today as an influential free improvisation group, but they also regularly performed contemporary repertoire. Rehearsal recordings of their improvisations were heard by Franco Evangelisti, who was inspired to form the Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza in Rome. (In fact, Larry Austin played in an early version of the Gruppo.) As the NME dissolved, several of the group's members formed Composer/Performer Editions and SOURCE: Music of the Avant-Garde.

Billie Alexander, soprano

Larry Austin, trumpet, flugelhorn, string bass

Jon Gibson, flute, soprano saxophone, clarinet

Wayne Johnson, clarinet, bass clarinet

Stanley Lunetta, percussion

Richard Swift, piano

Arthur Woodbury, flute, alto saxophone, bassoon

The NME released two LP's; both were private pressings and neither has been reissued. I'm still looking for a copy of the first LP, but I have scans of the front and back covers, so I have typed out the liner notes here.

[No recording information is included with the first NME album, but according to Larry Austin's recollection, it was recorded in spring 1964.]

For further background, check out the following documents:

• Forum: Improvisation. Childs, Hobbs. Perspectives in New Music, September 1982. Austin is interviewed beginning on pg. 27, but the whole article is worth reading for its extensive interviews.

• My 2014 interview with Stanley Lunetta, who gave his perspective on the NME.

• This page from Stan's website, which includes a sound bite from each NME record.

 

New Music Ensemble Liner Notes

The Ensemble

The New Music Ensemble here explores the realm of free group improvisation. This group of improvisers and performers has excited the greatest interest among composers, performers and the general public. Unlike other improvisation groups, the New Music Ensemble does not use plans or charts for their improvisations. Rather, they depend upon the group compositional feeling for structure from the smallest musical gesture to the total composition. Using contemporary musical vocabulary and innumerable conventional and unconventional virtuoso instrumental techniques, the New Music Ensemble creates total art improvisations.

Harry Aron, Associate Professor of Psychology at Sacramento State College, has followed the NME, has written about it, and has been a devoted listener. He writes:

Harry Aron. Source: harryaron.com

"A word. The New Music Ensemble is at the horizon. Horizons are always out of reach and never understood. They feel strange. And they are reached for in distrust. But are looked to. The NME is listened to. And they are reached for in distrust. But are looked to. The NME is listened to. And in the listening makes for you at least one horizon a little clearer. Somewhat more understood. And in so doing makes a thousand more horizons. An achievement.

"But you say. The NME doesn't make sense. What does? What new thing does? Not to mention the old. All right. For a moment at least agree. Now tell me, you ask, what can I listen for? Why force me to perjure you? But I will. Just remember, you asked. You smile in your contemporary morality, knowing of course that now we are both guilty. Do you think it would help if someone would just strangle moralists? Or is that what morals are - stranglers?

"What has all this to do with the NME? Well, for a moment think of what you felt. Repulsion, indifference, excitement, joy, even interest! You were forced to experience, aided to sensing, by the sound of the NME! By something of your history! Something long buried in the tradition which you call your style of life. Of the blindness which gives you vision. And hearing.

"The NME gives you a chance. The real chance lies in experiencing yourself. Or at least part of you. Even if in revulsion. Most directly what happens to you while listening is an examination of yourself in the context of their sound. In the context of their courage to make a sound which is so exposed because it doesn't immediately fit. It exposes you. You move with them to a horizon. Or remain behind.

"Stretch. Why should you? Why not? It's human. It is humanizing. You see, that's what the NME is doing for you. They offer you a context in which some of your most primitive feelings and history of behaving can be altered by disconnecting your feelings. By locking them to strange sounds and unexpected sequences. The chances are that in the unusual the typical in you is for the first time visible. Subject to alteration. It's a discovery with a chance. A chance to become.

That's what people at the horizon do for you. To you. They allow you to regroup. To see and hear additionally. Or to retrench. To demand the old. The tired. To keep your prison the same. Or to change it. The humanity of the NME is that they allow you to choose the way. They don't make the prisoner, nor do they detail the citizen. It seems as if the NME has completely captured what it means to be humanistic: absence of invariance, discovery about your makeup, and change in who knows what direction - set by you. How? Through their music. But what marks their music? The pauses? The dissonances? The acute listening to each other? To themselves? And in listening the creation of the new sound? Which sets the piece? But which way will it go? That, of course, is the discovery. The creation. And the humor. They build the pieces. As you rebuild, your guesses are surprised! Confirmed! You are a partner as you are the student. You draw on yourself as you are given. That's involvement. And, of course, that's what the NME allows. Through an involvement which gives you the chance to stretch, to move, toward the new horizons I was talking about earlier.

"Listen. Be. Do as the NME."

July 28th, 1963. This is one of the earliest photos of the NME, taken before their debut concert on July 31st. Note the mention of Pat Woodbury, who later performed with the NME as Billie Alexander. Also note the presence of Jerome Rosen, an early member who did not appear on either recording.

Our Music

The NME was formed in June 1963. The instrumentation used by the group was a result not of planning but of the performing abilities of the individual players. The first public concert took place in July 1963. Since that time, the NME has appeared in nearly twenty concerts, as well as on radio and television.

We call our music free group improvisation. What we really mean is that it is group improvisation without a preconceived, explicit context. We are, however, operating within an implicit context. In a strict sense, then, we are never actually free. Absolute freedom is in fact not desired, for the result would be anarchic.

As we operate within an implicit context, each player seeks his role. One gesture suggests a consequent gesture; that gesture another. For the most part the overall intensity of a gesture is controllable - but not every detail. Many times, upon rehearing our session on the tape, we become dissatisfied with a note or sequence of notes - but this is the inherent gamble of "spontaneous" composing. The composer can refine his art work, excluding unwanted details. But the composer lacks the immediate contact with the performer's concept of the art work, and can only imagine - can only hope - for the intended result, the obvious exception being electronic music, where the composer deals directly with the art sound. The unrefined details of group improvisation can often become significant music - immediately. And this ever-present possibility continues to intrigue us.

Implicit in our improvisation is the practice of gradual liquidation of material which may or may not coincide with the gradual emergence of fresh material, which in turn may itself be liquidated or suddenly disrupted by explosive contrast of spontaneous material. Subsidiary material invented by one improviser may suddenly be projected to the foreground of the context by an other improviser. What at first might seem mere impulsiveness is actually deeply rooted in the piece. As a result, our reaction to certain types of gestures is ever sharper. The player who initiates the piece - often the one who plays the first note - sets the tone, calls the tune, motivates the oher [sic] players to respond to this piece in a certain way.

Our growing understanding of our music and our growing sensitivity to certain types of gestures has tightened our control over the outcome of individual pieces. When we decide, for instance, that an improvisation will be a "short piece", we sense its inherent compositional problems: economy of means, tight controls over the choice of pitches, fewer and shorter impulsive contrasts, and a less complicated sound context which would necessarily call for long, elaborate gestures to spend the cumulative energy. "Long pieces", of course, will always present the greater challenge.

This blurb appeared on 20 Sept 1964
in the Sacramento Bee

When a piece is in motion, our response to the context is readily apparent in the rhythmic configurations. In early improvisation sessions, a frequent complaint by certain improvisers was that our music lacked a descernible [sic] "pulse", making us seemingly incapable as a group of creating rhythmic designs which could make a piece "fast" or "slow". We feel that for the most part it was due - in those early stages - to a lesser degree of sensitivity on the individual's part to the rhythmic motion of the group composition; i.e., sensitivity to the concept of tension-release. Improvisers now are acutely aware of the relative tension of a section, labeling it "fast", or the relative non-tension of a section, labeling it "slow".

The one area which we thought would be the most problematic has turned out to be the least problematic: choice of pitches. Here we react ideally - at once to the group context, at once to individual improvisers, at once to the content of our own improvisation. We discovered early that, as fluent practitioners of the music of our time, we almost automatically selected the appropriate combination and/or sequence of pitches for the context. No pre-improvisational pitch arrangements were concocted, except in an occasional "study". The pitches chosen always seem relevant. Even the occasional remote references to conventional diatonic modes rises and subsides naturally without awkwardness and with credibility. This fortunate fluency in the choice of proper pitches keeps our pieces in motion, even when other elements of the context seem weak. Our "feel" for the right pitch is proven when, in the course of an improvisation, someone "hits a wrong note". This can cause the offender and the entire group to howl with laughter, delighted in the group understanding of its pitch idiom. For the most part duplication of pitches is avoided by the group. When chance duplication does occur performers immediately correct, if necessary, the conventional implications of non-motion by skilfully [sic] moving away or emphasizing the coloristic potential of the pitch combination. Otherwise, any and all pitch combinations are admitted.

- Notes by Larry Austin and Richard Swift

March 29, 1964