RUSSELL CRAIG RICHARDSON. THE SILENT WANDERER OF ENLIGHTENMENT

RUSSELL CRAIG RICHARDSON. THE SILENT WANDERER OF ENLIGHTENMENT.
(Spanish and English version above)

Puede que solo llegues a ver una mínima parte de la impresionante creatividad de este hombre ilustrado. Una de sus premisas ontológicas es el “menos es más”. El silencio es su forma de llegar a la iluminación, allí donde otros practican el ruido. Conozco muy pocos artistas capaces de realizar videos como los de Russell Richardson. Lo mismo puedo decir de su fotografía y de sus escritos y guiones. Apenas veréis una pequeña parte de su gran obra, un atisbo. Es un inglés discreto que, en realidad, ha vivido más de la mitad de su vida fuera de Inglaterra, con lo cual su cultura y su forma de ser es una mixtura de actitudes y acerbos. No sólo es uno de mis mejores amigos, sino que es uno de los más grandes creadores y pensadores que conozco. Uno puede asomarse a parte de la obra que a pequeños sorbos nos deja ver, y preguntarse cómo es posible que no hayamos conocido antes su trabajo. Es silencioso y no pasea demasiado el ego.

https://vimeo.com/user5058646

Russell C. Richradson and his son Robin who is also a great filmmaker. Photo by Carlos Carrasco.

Le conocí en Valencia en 1985. De él aprendí aspectos del idioma inglés que desconocía. Aprendí lo que significaban canciones como “Shipbuilding” o “Sea Song”, y todo lo que hay que saber sobre su colega Robert Wyatt. Me descubrió a Flann O’Brien y sus libros, como “The Dalkey Archive”, cuyo ejemplar original me regaló. Oh y el gran John Berger. y Samuel Becket… “Fail again /Fail better” es su consigna (y la mía). Por supuesto, como filósofo y como cineasta, primero en Francia y luego en USA, es un sabio: conozco pocos que sepan tanto de Tarkovski, Bergman, Buster Keaton, Godard o Victor Erice como él.
Cuando escribe puedo ver a John Berger, Becket, Wenders, Godard, pero sobre todo puedo ver su propio sello inconfundible.
En 1987 dejó Valencia y se fue a París. En 1988 nos encontramos en París y hablamos todo lo que nos dio tiempo sobre todo lo que nos gusta. No voy a decir todos los lugares en que ha estado o vivido porque el mapamundi se queda corto. (Se recorríó EE,UU. con una guitarra y una mochila con 20 años de costa a costa y de norte a sur como un perfecto wanderer).

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0724756/bio

Russell Craig Richardson. Filmmaker. Photo by Renate Winter.

https://www.dispatchespoetrywars.com/author/russellcraigrichardson/

Si hablamos de música, no conozco mucha gente que sepa lo que él sabe: desde el rock progresivo al free jazz, desde el punk hecho por mujeres hasta la new wave, desde el folk hasta la música experimental. Y aunque puedes pasar meses con él, es posible que no lo veas apenas coger una guitarra y mostrarte todo lo que sabe.
Después de 1988 fuimos perdiendo el contacto. Ya en la primera década de este siglo XXI me localizó por teléfono, me comunicó que vivía en Woodstock (“he llegado 20 años tarde, ya sabes”) y reanudamos la correspondencia y los intercambios de material de video y música. Entonces dirigía la escuela de cine y video “Indie” en las afueras de Woodstock, y como buen personaje de Graham Greene, encaja perfectamente allí donde habita. Tiene ese don. Y no es el único. Sus dones más increíbles son aquellos que más cuesta conocer. No se esconde. Es que no hace ruido. Y piensa mucho.

Entropia. Russell C. Richardson.

En 2009 fui a Woodstock unas semanas. Como él y su maravillosa compañera Dorota habían preparado un par de recitales para mí, estuvimos una tarde-noche practicando dos canciones que él quería tocar con su guitarra eléctrica mientras yo las cantaba. “La Mejor Hora” y “Nada Se Pasa A Limpio”. También estuvo jugando con su guitarra eléctrica, su amplificador y un arco improvisado haciendo diabluras propias de Fred Frith, el Neil Young más salvaje o un Ornette del nuevo siglo. Al día siguiente las interpretamos y era como si hubiéramos estado toda la vida tocando juntos. “No es sencillo, es así de sencillo” (R. Carver). En el primer recital, en el Ayuntamiento de Woodstock se limitó a sentarse en un rincón grabando con su cámara de video. En el segundo recital en el Red Barn dejó la cámara a algunos de sus alumnos para poder tocar. Solo existe audio. Hay un video de mi estancia allí que él tituló “Érase Una Vez”.
He llegado, con los años, desde 1989, a encontrar mi propia voz y estilo a base de mucho trabajo y mucha interpretación, pero ha habido unas pocas personas que me han influido con sus palabras y sus actos. Russell Richardson es una de ellas. El decía “La voz, la voz… eso es lo que importa”.

Russell C. R. playing electric guitar at Tinker street. Woodstock.

Érase una vez. Vimeo

En su página de Vimeo se pueden ver algunas de sus obras y hacerse una idea del talento de este inglés al que tuve la suerte de conocer un día en que los dioses propiciaron nuestro encuentro.

© Fernando Garcin Romeu, 5 Noviembre, 2018.

(ENGLISH VERSION)
You may only get to see a small part of the impressive creativity of this enlightened man. One of its ontological premises is the «less is more». Silence is his way of reaching enlightenment, where others practice noise. I know very few artists capable of making videos like those by Russell Richardson. The same can be said about his photography and his writings and scripts. You will hardly see a small part of his great work, a glimpse. He is a discreet Englishman who, in fact, has lived more than half of his life outside of England, with which his culture and way of being is a mixture of attitudes and acerbic. Not only is he one of my best friends, but he is one of the greatest creators and thinkers I know. One can look at part of his work he lets us see, small sips, and wonder how it is possible that we have not known their work before. It is silent and the ego does not get out too much.
I met him in Valencia in 1985. From him I learnt aspects of the English language I did not know. I learnt what songs like «Shipbuilding» or «Sea Song» meant, and everything there is to know about his colleague Robert Wyatt. He let me know about Flann O’Brien and his books, like «The Dalkey Archive», whose original copy he gave me. Oh and the great John Berger(whose birthday was also november 5th), and Samuel Becket … «Fail again / Fail better» is his slogan (and mine). Of course, as a philosopher and as a filmmaker, first in France and then in the USA, he is a wise man: I know few who know as much about Tarkovsky, Bergman, Buster Keaton, Godard or Victor Erice as he does.
When he writes I can see John Berger, Becket, Burroughs, Wenders, Godard, but above all I can see his own unmistakable stamp.
In 1987 he left Valencia and went to Paris. In 1988 we met in Paris and talked about everything that gave us time, about everything we like. I will not say all the places he has been or lived because the world map falls short. (He traveled through the US with a guitar and a backpack with 20 years from coast to coast and from north to south as a perfect wanderer).
If we talk about music, I do not know many people who know what he knows: from progressive rock to free jazz, from punk made by women to the new wave, from folk to experimental music. And although you can spend months with him, you may not see him just pick up a guitar and show you everything he knows.

(R.C.R. the cameraman)

After 1988 we lost contact. In the first decade of this 21st century, he located me by phone, he told me that he lived in Woodstock («I have arrived 20 years late, you know») and we resumed correspondence and exchanges of video and music stuff. Then he was the director of the film and video school «Indie» outside of Woodstock, and as a good character of Graham Greene, I know he fits perfectly where he lives. He has that gift. And it’s not the only one. His most incredible gifts are those that are more difficult to know. He does not hide them. It is that he does not make noise. And he thinks a lot.
In 2009 I went to Woodstock for a few weeks. As he and his wonderful wife and poet Dorota Czerner had prepared a couple of recitals for me, we spent one evening practicing two of my songs that he wanted to play with his electric guitar while I sang them. «The Best Hour» and «There is No Dress Rehearsal». He was also playing with his electric guitar, his amplifier and an improvised bow doing a mischief of Fred Frith, the wildest Neil Young or an Ornette from the new century. The next day we played them and it was as if we had been playing together all our lives. «It’s not simple, it’s that simple» (R. Carver). In the first recital, at Woodstock City Hall he just sat in a corner recording with his video camera. In the second recital at Red Barn he left the camera to some of his students to play guitar. There is only audio. Though, there is a video of my stay there that he titled «Once Upon A Time».
I have come, over the years, since 1989, to find my own voice and style based on a lot of work and a lot of performances, but there have been a few people who have influenced me with their words and their actions. Russell Richardson is one of them. He told me: «The voice, the voice … that’s what matters».
On his Vimeo page you can see some of his works and get an idea of the talent of this English man who I was fortunate to know one day when the gods took us to meet each other.
WATCH ALL HIS WORKS ON VIMEO:
https://vimeo.com/user5058646

«On ne reçoit pas la sagesse, il faut la découvrir soi-même après un trajet que personne ne peut faire pour nous, ne peut nous épargner.»/ «We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us.» (Marcel Proust)

«Degrees of perfection: a video perfect in its birthday suit (naked first incarnation) becomes a polyphonic startrip in the mysterious innuendoes of its new amplification, saying more is more just as less is as well.» (Benjamin Boretz)

© Fernando Garcin Romeu, 5 Noviembre, 2018.

BEN BORETZ. BARD. AMERICAN COMPOSER. MUSIC THEORIST

BEN BORETZ. BARD. AMERICAN COMPOSER. MUSIC THEORIST.

 

9 x 9

Music for Benjamin Boretz’s 81st Birthday by his Friends
Music by Benjamin Boretz
[3 discs]

Open Space Magazine. Special Issue 19+20.
Open Space CD 33- Plus Book (540 pages)

OPEN SPACE BEN BORETZ

Benjamin Boretz (Brooklyn, NY, 1934), músico, compositor, ensayista e investigador norteamericano, pionero en la experimentación electroacústica, es uno de los más grandes pensadores y compositores de la música contemporánea y la experimentación del último siglo.
La edición de 3 CDs de la obra de Boretz interpretada por, entre otros, Mara Helmutth, Keith Eisenbrey, Elizabeth Hoffman, Frank Brikle, Robert Morris, y otros grandes músicos contemporáneos, así como la propia música grabada por Boretz, y un libro de 540 páginas donde diversos autores, músicos, escritores, editores, poetas y video artistas de todo el mundo escriben sobre su experiencia de trabajo con el autor, completa una lujosa y cuidada muestra de una obra que nunca se detiene.
Benjamin Boretz escribe en la presentación del inmenso libro que acompaña a los 3 CDs de tributo:
“Somos poetas. Por tanto podemos tener contacto con la transcendencia sin necesidad de creer. Si tienes una experiencia determinada, has tenido esa experiencia, has contactado con la transcendencia. (…) Hay cosas que sabes de ti mismo después de haber vivido mucho tiempo.(…) Escuchar como nunca antes lo habías escuchado: solo puede suceder cuando ha sido escuchado antes (…) Para mí el gran descubrimiento fue la creatividad ontológica, el darme cuenta de que todo lo completado (o compuesto) es ontológicamente nuevo, sin precedentes, sin tener en cuenta cuán extraordinaria fue su aparición – frases que expresas y que no se recitan a partir de un texto pre-existente, no importa en qué medida no sea original su idea o su dicción. (…)

“Si acaso existimos
existimos para siempre
pues para siempre lo concebimos
es nuestro
y con ello cargamos.”

“No soy un gran aficionado a “la pericia” –es lo que es- y más bien lo soy a gente seria cuyas mentes y “orejas” practican la introspección hasta que surgen y comparten ideas y conocimientos que, seriamente engranados y producidos, siempre iluminan, siempre hacen avanzar la conversación por caminos que merecen la pena.”

Sobre su trabajo de imagen sobre obra de Ben Boretz, Russell Richardson escribe: “… las paredes de LPs de vinilo de Ben contienen sencillamente de todo, conviviendo unas con otras: docenas y docenas de interpretaciones de Beethoven; música folk de Albania y El Sudán; Mahler; piezas de piano de Thelonious Monk; el funk eléctrico de los 70’ de Ornette Coleman; The Rolling Stones; rarezas impresas de temprana música por ordenador; Captain Beefheart; discos de blues de Lomax e incluso ultra oscuras bandas feministas de post-punk como The Au Pairs. Todavía reproduzco en blucle las grabaciones preparadas por Ben como DJ, “Blues Simphony”… (…) … horas y horas de alimento musical intelectual/emocional que son alimento para la mente. Esta es el eje fundamental de Ben: pensar, estar siempre pensando.”

(c) Open Space Magazine. Benjamin Boretz. All Rights Reserved.

(c) Traducción: Fernando Garcín. Nota del traductor: Me vi honrado de ser invitado a participar con un poema sobre una de sus obras musicales, y comprender y profundizar un poco más, dentro de mis límites, oh pura inmanencia, en la grandeza y sencillez, la humanidad y conocimientos de este autor fundamental para entender la música contemporánea. Ben Boretz.

Benjamin Boretz: “We are poets. So we are able to touch transcendence without the necessity of belief. If you have a determinate experience, you have had that experience, you have touched transcendence.(…) There are things you know about yourself only long after you’ve lived a lot. (…) Hear it as never before: can only happen when it has been heard before.(…) The big discovery for me was ontological creativity, the realization that everything uttered (or composed) is ontologically new, unprecedented, regardless of how extraordinary it appeared – sentences you speak are not recited from a pre-existent text, no matter how unoriginal in idea or diction.(…) If we exist at all, we exist forever / because we made up forever / it’s ours/ and we’re stuck with it.”

“I’m not a big fan of “expertise” –it is what it is- rather I am a fan of serious people introspecting their minds and “ears” to come up with and share thoughts and awarenesses which if seriously produced and engaged are always illuminating, always move the conversation forward in worthwhile ways” (Ben Boretz quoted by William Anderson on “Fantasy On An Improvisation by JK Randall”.

From Open Space YouTube channel:

Benjamin Boretz : «…my chart shines high where the blue milk’s upset…»

On working with Boretz, Russell Richardson writes: “(…) the walls of vinyl LP records in Ben’s studio contain simply everything, side by side: dozen upon dozen of interpretations of Beethoven; folk musics from Albania and the Sudan; Mahler; piano pieces by Thelonious Monk; Ornette Coleman’s 70s electric funk; The Rolling Stones; rare pressings of early computer music; Captain Beefheart; Lomax’s blues disc and even ultra obscure English post-punk feminist bands like The Au Pairs. I still play, in a loop, Ben’s extended DJ-like ‘compositions’ “Blues Symphony”….(….)… Hours and hours of musical and intelectual/emotional food for the thought. This is the crux of Ben: to think, always to be thinking.”

“9 x 9 Benjamin Boretz” se puede adquirir, tanto en copia física como en edición por descarga digital, en:
OPEN SPACE BEN BORETZ

(c) Fernando Garcín, 31 diciembre 2016. Many thanks to the great poet and publisher Dorota Czerner, to Russell Richardson and, of course -oh pure immanence- to Benjamin Boretz

NOTA BIOGRÁFICA:
Benjamin Boretz nació en Brooklyn, Nueva York en 1934 y se graduó con una licenciatura en música en el Brooklyn College (1954). Más tarde estudió composición en la Brandeis University con Arthur Berger, en el Festival “Aspen Music Festival and School ” con Darius Milhaud, en la UCLA con Lukas Foss, y en Princeton con Milton Babbitt y Roger Sessions.
Fue uno de los primeros compositores en trabajar con sonido sintetizado por ordenador (Group Variations II, 1970–72). A finales de los años 1970 y 1980 reunió sus prácticas compositivas y pedagógicas en un proyecto prácticas de improvisación a tiempo real, que culminó en la formación (en el Bard College) del programa de aprendizaje de música llamado Music Program Zero, que creció con fuerza hasta 1995.
Ha escrito extensamente sobre temas musicales, como crítico, teórico y filósofo musical, desde la perspectiva de un compositor. Su primer gran ensayo (1970) músico-intelectual fue el libro “Meta-Variations, Studies in the Foundations of Musical Thought”, que se ocupa de las cuestiones epistemológicas implicadas en la cognición y la composición de la música, y propone una reconstrucción del proceso músico-creativo. Más tarde (1978), en su composición de texto “Language, as a Music, Six marginal Pretexts for Composition” se ocupa de cuestiones sobre el origen y la naturaleza del lenguaje y su significado, ya que podrían ser concebidos desde la perspectiva de la música.
Boretz ha enseñado en varias escuelas de Estados Unidos, como Brandeis, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Princeton, University of Chicago, NYU, Columbia University, University of Michigan, Bard College, UC Santa Barbara, Evergreen College, y University of Southampton (Reino Unido, como profesor Fulbright visitante).
Boretz es co-fundador, con Arthur Berger, de la revista de compositores “Perspectives of New Music” y en 1999 fundó el Open Space, editado junto a Mary Lee Roberts, Tildy Bayar, Dorota Czerner, Dean Rosenthal, Arthur Margolin y Jon Forshee. Fue crítico musical de La Nación en 1962-1970.
Benjamin Boretz, uno de los editores fundadores que pone al descubierto una crisis de confianza en el modernismo y en el canon occidental. Argumentando que la cultura maestra se basa en la autonomía simbólica y haciéndose eco de musicología muy reciente, Boretz desea hacer hincapié en que la música es algo “hecho por y entre la gente”, y con ello se refiere a circunstancias humanas específicas.

Boretz was born in Brooklyn, New York and graduated with a degree in music from Brooklyn College. He later studied composition at Brandeis University with Arthur Berger, at the Aspen Music Festival and School with Darius Milhaud, at UCLAwith Lukas Foss, and at Princeton with Milton Babbitt and Roger Sessions. He was one of the early composers to work with computer-synthesized sound (Group Variations II, 1970–72). In the late 1970s and 1980s he converged his compositional and pedagogical practices in a project of real-time improvisational music-making, culminating in the formation (at Bard College) of the music-learning program called Music Program Zero, which flourished until 1995. He has written extensively on musical issues, as critic, theorist, and musical philosopher, from the perspective of a practicing composer. His earliest (1970) large-scale music-intellectual essay was the book-length «Meta-Variations, Studies in the Foundations of Musical Thought», which addresses the epistemological questions involved in the cognition and composition of music, and propounds a radically relativistic/individualistic/ontological reconstruction of the music-creative process. Later (1978), his text composition «Language, as a Music, Six marginal Pretexts for Composition» engaged questions of the origin and nature of language and meaning as they might be conceived from the perspective of music.

Boretz has taught music departments in a number of American schools, including Brandeis, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Princeton, University of Chicago, NYU, Columbia University, University of Michigan, Bard College, UC Santa Barbara, Evergreen College, and University of Southampton (UK, as Visiting Fulbright Professor).

«We are poets…». «So it seems that the comming into being of mattering is prima facie a work of imagination…» (Benjamin Boretz)

NOTE: I been honored to collaborate in Open Space Magazine. Special Issue 19+20 dedicated to Ben Boretz, with a poem on his piano work “Lament for Sarah” dedicated to Sarah Vaughan, and in the last Open Space’s issue “Things That Matter (August 2018).

© Fernando Garcin (diciembre 2016 – Agosto 2018, I-schephan-im)

© Benjamin Boretz all quotes and writings & Open Space Magazine works.

Carlos Carrasco. El músico artesano

Allá por 1999 Carlos Carrasco había publicado su primer disco en solitario, «Cuatro Elementos» una auténtica joya del folk valenciano. Por aquella época iniciamos un diálogo de poeta y músico y participó en la última fase de «la Ronda» (1996-2000) tocando guitarra en Madrid en una actuación muy divertida y aventurera. En ese año 2000 hicimos muchos trabajos de ensayo y composición, y grabamos el CD «Vash Gon» (2000) en Alhama de Murcia (Alabama de Murcia). Mi voz y mis letras y la guitarra y producción de Carlos en un álbum que no creo se pueda comparar con nada hecho en este país. Denso y poderoso. Hicimos varias actuaciones para presentarlos, desde Valencia y Madrid hasta Cádiz. En 2009 viajamos a NY y presentamos unos temas de Vash Gon en el Ayuntamiento de Woodstock, y por la tarde-noche en el Red Barn de la misma ciudad, con Russell Craig Richardson.

Carlos Carrasco on harp

Vash Gon. Foto portada: Carlos Carrasco

Carlos Carrasco

Carlos Carrasco es un artista versátil, que maneja la guitarra como pocos, la española y la acústica en más ocasiones, y además es muy buen dibujante y fotógrafo. Si vas a su casa ves que casi todo lo ha hecho él, pues es un gran artesano de la madera. De ahí han salido grandes grabaciones de otros artistas y legendarios temas nuestros como su gran «Esta es mi casa» o mi «Tramontana».
Esta es su biografía artística:
Carlos Carrasco es guitarrista y compositor, amante del sonido acústico y poseedor de un estilo personal que se podría definir como un destilado de influencias, con las bases en el folk, el country, la bossa y el jazz primitivo.
Imaginativo armonicista y colaborador habitual de Julio Bustamante en directo, ha puesto sus guitarras y armónicas en tres discos de este cantautor: “Entusiastas” (1998); “La vida habla” (2000) y “Con tal de volar” (2003), así como la producción íntegra de sus álbumes “Material volátil” (2005) y Viento Desatado (2012). También ha trabajado en diferentes proyectos musicales, entre ellos, con el sociólogo y autor Rafa Xambó, las cantantes de blues y jazz Hermanas Blasco, el poeta y cantautor Fernando Garcín, el flautista clásico Vicente Gelós y con la cantante Eva Dénia, con quien ha coproducido sus discos de homenaje a Georges Brassens y con la que actúa regularmente en vivo en las presentaciones de esta obra (Eva Dénia Trio).
Durante este tiempo ha grabado y autoeditado cinco discos: “Cuatro Elementos” (1999); “Vash Gon” (2000) junto a Fernando Garcín y “En Ca Revolta” (2001) con el guitarrista Rafa García. En Diciembre de 2008 vio la luz su obra “Cuentos de papel” (Comboi-08), y en 2015 su último trabajo, el maravilloso, “Canciones de viaje“.
Director artístico de Comboi Records trabaja regularmente como músico, productor y arreglista en diferentes grabaciones, tanto para artistas del sello como para encargos externos.

Escucha a Carlos Carrasco a través de su canal de You Tube:
CARLOS CARRASCO EN YOUTUBE

(c) Fernando Garcin Romeu
de la Bio y de su obra (c) Comboi Records, Carlos Carrasco Esteve.

ENGLISH VERSION:
In 1999 Carlos Carrasco had published his first solo album, «Cuatro Elementos», an authentic jewel of Valencian folk. At that time we started a dialogue between poet and musician and participated in the last phase of «La Ronda» (1996-2000) playing guitar in Madrid in a very adventurous and joyful performance. In that year 2000 we did a lot of rehearsals and composition work, and we recorded the CD «Vash Gon» (2000) in Alhama de Murcia (Alabama of Murcia). My voice and my lyrics and Carlos’ guitar and production in one album that I do not believe can be compared with anything made in this country. Deep and powerful. We did several performances to present them, from Valencia and Madrid to Cádiz. In 2009 we presented Vash Gon songs at Woodstock City Hall, and in the evening at Red Barn in the same city, with Russell Craig Richardson.
Carlos Carrasco is a versatile artist, who handles the guitar like few others, Spanish and acoustic on more occasions, and he is also a very good sketcher and photographer. If you go to his house you see that almost everything he has done, because he is a great craftsman of wood. From his studio have come great recordings of other artists and legendary themes of ours as his great «This is my house» or my «Tramontana».
This is his artistic biography:
Carlos Carrasco is a guitarist and composer, a lover of acoustic sound and possessor of a personal style that could be defined as a distillation of influences, based on folk, country, bossa and primitive jazz.
Imaginative harmonicist and regular collaborator of Julio Bustamante and Eva Denia among others, has put his guitars and harmonicas on three albums by this singer-songwriter: «Entusiastas» (1998); «La vida habla» (2000) and «Con tal de volar» (2003), as well as the full production of his albums «Material volatil» (2005) and Viento Desatado (2012). He has also worked in different musical projects, including the sociologist and author Rafa Xambó, the blues and jazz singers Hermanas Blasco, the poet and singer Fernando Garcín, the classical flautist Vicente Gelós and the singer Eva Dénia, with whom he has he co-produced his tribute albums to Georges Brassens and with which he regularly performs live in the presentations of this work (Eva Dénia Trio).
During this time he has recorded and self-published five albums: «Cuatro Elementos» (1999); «Vash Gon» (2000) with Fernando Garcín and «En Ca Revolta» (2001) with guitarist Rafa García. In December 2008 his work «Cuentos de papel» (Comboi-08) came to light, and in 2015 his latest work, the wonderful, «Canciones de viaje».
Artistic director of Comboi Records works regularly as a musician, producer and arranger in different recordings, both for artists of the label and for external commissions.
Listen to  Carlos Carrasco thru is channel on You Tube:
CARLOS CARRASCO EN YOUTUBE

(c) Fernando Garcin Romeu
de la Bio y de su obra (c) Comboi Records, Carlos Carrasco Esteve.

WIDUKIND. A young versatile artist.

WIDUKIND

She is one of my favorite artists I met this last decade. Widukind (Ivanna H.) and her drawings, paintings and experimental images, and at the same time her works on music & writings (experimental, electronic, or less is more organic folk songs and a capella).
Her works have some eclecticism I like. Sometimes it might be a kind of organic and figurative drawings and paintings, other times some post-industrial modernism, other times some philosophy of language  & dream world games «a la Bataille or Artaud», and, of course, experimental computer’s works.

Imker auf Konsistenzsuche. (2018)
(Apicultor en busca de coherencia.)
(All Rights Reserved)

Es una de mis artistas favoritas de esta última década. Widukind (nombre artísitico de Ivanna Heckmanns) se desdobla a través de sus dibujos, pinturas e imágenes experimentales, y al mismo tiempo a través de sus trabajos musicales y escritos (música experimental, electrónica, o bien un ‘menos es más’ folk orgánico a veces ‘a capella’). Sus trabajos tienen, pues, un gran eclecticismo que aprecio mucho. Algunas veces se muestra en obras figurativas en dibujo o pintura, otras veces en carteles de un cierto modernismo post-industrial, otras veces por medio juegos lingüísticos y oníricos «a la Bataille o Artaud» y, por supuesto, por medio de obras experimentales por ordenador.

(Liebe, dein Phantom, 2018. Widukind)
(All Rights Reserved)

(Sin piedad, Widukind, 2018)
(All Rights Reserved)

LINKS / ENLACES:

https://www.facebook.com/ivanaheckmanns/

YOUTUBE WIDUKIND/IVI WHATHEHECK

https://www.reverbnation.com/iviwhattheheck/songs

«It destroys you more the deeper you go. Once you crossed the fields of dark flowers there’s no turning back. The black honey has already wound around your desire to see the white bees’ hive. Let’s see how white bees dance.»
(Widukind / Ivi Whattheheck)
(All Rights Reserved)

Una reseña de @Fernando Garcin
A review by @Fernando Garcin

Grange Rutan. Lady Haig. Author. Writer.

GRANGE RUTAN. LADY HAIG. AUTHOR. WRITER. PROSE AND POETRY.

Lady Haig –author of the great “Death of A Bebop Wife”- has written a book that is a kaleidoscope of images, sounds, encounters, disagreements, testimonies about all what it’s woth in our world nowadays, the memory of experience, passion and liberty, as she wrote first a book about the serious abuse of women, the story, then, of a survivor who knew how to get away in time from a difficult and dangerous man at a time in which leaving the husband shortly after getting married, taking a plane and returning home was a heroic act and not always understood, also a story of testimonies, poems and anecdotes, and a song in love.

Now she is ready to publish her last book: “Lady Haig Roars”.

https://ellibrepensador.com/2010/08/29/esposa-del-bebop/

We can’t forget this and we can’t forget anything about our history, about our own lives that are what is called history. We can’t forget writing is an act of love. Love is all what it is, all what we have.
She who went to Mexico and Paris. She who shared a flight with Federico Fellini and was named Lady Haig by Dizzy Gillespie. She who has the voice of more than one generation of jazz musicians, poets, women of arts, painters and travellers. She whose prose is poetry and her poetry is prose, prose that is as powerful and exuberant as a Clifford Brown solo, as tender and evocative as a Chet Baker deep tune. She the muse of other artists, painters, musicians, writers, poets, photographers…
About 10 years ago Grange Lady Haig Rutan wrote me such beautiful words on my work, and not only this but she also wrote me some lyrics to add to one of my songs –”Llévame Allí” (Take Me There)-.

These are my original lyrics I sing before adding Grange Rutan’s words:

LLÉVAME ALLÍ   (Take me there)
It’s time to leave
Where are you going to take me?
I want to be taken
and never leave here
It’s the rain on your skin
Scents that keep passing by
Take me there
any day and beyond
To the silence of before
the calm and the colour
Now the door is closed
Only the voice remains
and the rain on your skin
Take me there
Where you are taken and returned
If you don’t know me better
it’s because I’m inside of you
Take me there
Where there are no doors to be closed
Where sounds the music with soul
Baden Powell, Johnny Lee
Joao Gilberto, Buddy Holly
Take me
Take me, take me, take me back
Take me, take me, take me back
The colour of the sea
A morning of hangover
The salty voice
The voice of jazz
Chet Baker
When lights are low
Almost blue
All the things you are
September in the rain
Take me, take me there
To the rumpled sheets
To the familiar scent
Buy me an ice cream, buy me an ice cream
The passing and being taken
Take me, take me back
Take me back
Before today
Before yesterday
Any day and beyond…

And THESE are the words she Grange wrote for me and I performed live in a jazz club in Valencia, Spain, with musician Carlos Carrasco on guitar and harp:

“Where? Where is the Light when we need it? Where is the Light?
When we really need it? The Light. Where is the Light?
We are trail blazzing to be free
Get up, stand up, for our right to be,
Whatever that means
Where, where is the Light when we need it?
You are, you are the Light, for
We are the Light, oh, you, you…
Who is going to turn the light on?
Because we really need it
The Light, yeah, the Light
It’s diner time, what are you cooking tonight?
Where is The Light, umm
Good night…
My Spanish Light… My Spanish Light…
The Light… Who is going to carry the Light when the Light is busy?
I will, you will, I will…”

VIDEO LIVE OF «TAKE ME THERE» (Garcin/ Rutan/ Carrasco)

So, above all, what Grange Rutan work is talking about, is about a woman in love, all women in love. And in Light. In love with music, in love with passionate artists and people sharing their poetry and their sounds with the world.  In light as the world needs in difficult times. Her style of writing take us to music, and specially to the bebop, the jazz that she saw and lived sharing evenings and trips with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Monk, Stan Getz, Chet Baker – impressive story of Chet in Paris as a fallen angel and wonderful uprooted genius-, and many others jazz greats of the 50s’, an exciting and passionate journey through that music that between 40 ‘and 50’ flourished between America and Europe.

Her prose has that spirit of bebop, as well as beat generation and thinkers of our life in a world in flames (you can think of Albert Camus and Carson McCullers, Walter Benjamin and Dorothy Parker, and you can also think of the arts and creations of new young generations), like her stories and testimonies, her poems and narrations are timeless, have the cinematographic poetic strength of a survivor who knows how to sing blues and jazz. She knows music and voices and acting and dialogues and monologues because, now as then, she always carries them inside, in the heart. The Light. Her Light.

© Fernando Garcin, 2020. Valencia, Spain.

https://ellibrepensador.com/2010/08/29/esposa-del-bebop/

Death Of A Bebop Wife
by Grange (Lady Haig) Rutan
Published by Cadence Jazz Books, Redwood NY 13679

Con motivo de la 3ª edición ya de este libro fascinante, reproduzco las palabras con que lo glosé cuando recibí su primera edición:
The modern pianist has a very special relationship with his drummer and his bassist. As his instrument has hammers, it resembles the drums; and as it has strings, it’s like the bass. His position in the rhythm section is more detached, and more ambiguous than that of his partners, the bass and the drums. If he feels like it, he can stop playing for a few bars and let the bass define the harmony and the drums ensure the rhythm. He can suggest new harmonic directions, fall into step with a soloist, then break away a moment later. On again, off again. He opens or he closes. He’s present at the heart of the rhythm, then suddenly he’s gone.
Laurent De Wilde
from chapter 5, p. 21

There’s a scene in Grange Rutan’s long-awaited book about her first husband Al Haig in which the legendary piano player introduces his young bride to Miles Davis. The men had played together with Charlie Parker in the tumultuous beginning years of bebop, and Al was pianist on one of Miles’ Birth of the Cool sessions. By the summer of 1960, Miles Davis was packing in crowds at the Blackhawk in San Francisco, but Al Haig was scuffling for work. After turning down Miles’ urgent invitation to sit in with the band, Al sheepishly confesses he and Grange have no place to sleep. Without hesitation, Miles reaches into his pocket and hands Al Haig the key to his dressing room. It was there, on a stained mattress in a shabby back room of a nightclub, the couple consummated their marriage. The bride looked brave, despite 2 black eyes. Much about jazz, its artists, its working conditions, its devoted followers, and both the generosity and freakouts, is revealed in that passage. There have been many books written about the history of the music, including the death-defying years of bebop, but here’s one long overdue from the perspective of a woman who loved a man who created some of it. And Grange Rutan goes beyond her own marriage of 2 1/2 years with Al Haig, into his next marriage which that girl did not survive. Rumors of murder persist to this day, and Grange presents her view as to whether Al could have done it.
Please consider, we are talking about a creator of some of the most gentle and sensitive beauty on jazz piano to come before Bill Evans. Here’s a man whose daily warm-up practice involved pieces by Bach, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Debussy, and especially Chopin. Imagine if you can Chopin playing Night In Tunisia, and you’ll get the idea. With a touch as light as Teddy Wilson’s, it was Al Haig that Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker had to have in the group if they could get him. And shortly after, Stan Getz would launch a career of gorgeous gold to Al Haig’s accompaniment. Could a quiet, dedicated artist like this hurt a woman?
What did it take in a segregated 1945 to be one of the only white men to play this music? What was required to learn the lightning twists and turns of bebop lines? Who can hum for me right now the melodies to Driftin’ On A Reed or Quasimodo? I often compare learning bebop to identifying the opening movements of the Haydn symphonies by number.
What does it take out of someone to do that…and to do it every night between the hours of 10 and 3 in the morning—maybe 40 minutes on and 40 minutes off—in a smoke-filled room where the audience is getting drunk…and perhaps worse?
Lady Haig, thus dubbed by Dizzy when he met and noticed her regal qualities, does not disguise the wild streak that got her hooked up with Al Haig in the first place.
Living in a comfortable Presbyterian home in Montclair, New Jersey, the family nevertheless found itself close enough to the Meadow Brook Ballroom to enjoy the influence of the great dance bands of the late ’30s and early ’40s. As Grange became a teenager, she was listening to jazz DJs out of New York, instead of that new rock ‘n roll stuff. When it came time to be out of school and at her first job, the City’s where she headed and meeting jazz players was her goal. It was a risky challenge, considering she vowed to maintain purity for marriage.
While the story is gripping and all jazz fans love to hear new anecdotes about the masters of the music, it’s Grange Rutan’s wonderful writing style that you’ll notice at once. This work of about 550 pages, including index, chronology and discography, 15 years in the writing, is like a scrapbook. There is something of a linear development, but she can’t be hemmed in by a structure like that. Maybe it resembles a screenplay, that darts back and forth in time…or a conversation over lunch delightfully going every which way. Actually her style is like a jazz solo. Some of what she plays she’s played before, and she relates the material over those same chord changes again and again, but then she’s into new territory and trying to describe an experience one more time in a different way.
That’s how it is when you remember a love from long ago. Images stick in the back of one’s memory and sometimes even the sound of a «tinkling piano in the next apartment.» We have both foolish and very serious things in Death of a Bebop Wife, but about one thing there is no doubt: Lady Haig has expressed to us what her heart meant. We begin, «I long to see Al’s face. He’s still in there and his power over me grows stronger in spite of his death. I never knew what he was going to say next. Some mornings I would wake to see his handsome head leaning on the palm of his hand, staring at me, silently crying. I just didn’t know how to handle all this drama. Let me try to pull this together, not just for you but for both of us.»

SOBRE ‘DEATH OF A BEBOP WIFE’

Lady Haig ha escrito un libro que es un caleidoscopio de imágenes, sonidos, encuentros, desencuentros, testimonios sobre el grave abuso hacia la mujer, el relato, entonces, de una superviviente que supo alejarse a tiempo de un hombre difícil y peligroso en una época en que dejar al marido al poco de casarse, coger una avión y volver a casa era un acto heroico y no siempre comprendido, relato también de testimonios, de poemas y anécdotas, y un canto enamorado, sobre todo eso, enamorado, a una época y a una música, el bebop, el jazz que ella vio y vivió compartiendo veladas y viajes con Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Monk, Stan Getz, Chet Baker -impresionante relato de Chet en París como ángel caído y maravilloso genio desarraigado, y tantos otros grandes del jazz de los años 50′, un apasionante y apasionado recorrido por esa música que entre los 40′ y los 50′ floreció entre América y Europa.
Su prosa tiene ese espíritu del bebop, como sus relatos y testimonios, sus poemas y narraciones tienen la fortaleza poética de una superviviente que sabe cantar el blues y el jazz, y conoce la música y las voces porque, ahora como entonces, las lleva siempre dentro.

(c) Fernando Garcin, 2016 – 2022.