David Arner

Axial Music + Drawing

BEACH BOX: WHITE BOX   SUMMER SERIES

Friday August 31st, 2012

7:00 pm

Axial Music + Drawing
David Arner (keyboard, balafon, slide whistle)
John Beaulieu (keyboard, harmonica)
George Quasha (percussion, visuals)
Charles Stein (voice, harmonica)
An ensemble of outstanding musicianship.  Boundless imagination.
(Must be heard to be believed.)

Axial Music follows a principle of spontaneous composition without the intention of honoring precedent or previous patterns, guided instead by radical following of actual sounds generated. When successful the sound event has a life independent of the musicians and may generate an altered state of listening. In addition to sound events, the performance has visual components, including axial drawing & video.
The White Box
329 Broome Street
Near the Bowery
New York, NY 10002
(212) 714-2347

Double Bill at the STONE

Sunday, August 26, 2012
DOUBLE BILL at The STONE!!
Not To Be Missed!!
8:00pm
DAVID ARNER (solo piano)
TRANSCENDENTALITIES
Out there with intentionalities, inevitabilities, interactivities, incarnations, indeterminacies, inclinations, inherencies, inventions and intuitions.
10:pm
THE ROSI HERTLEIN TRIO
Rosi Hertlein (violin & voice), David Arner (piano), David Taylor (bass trombone)
Parhelia and other compositions by Rosi Hertlein
August 26th 
$10 admission each set
The Stone (artistic director, John Zorn)
at the corner of Avenue C and 2nd Street
See directions below
Rosi Hertlein and David Arner began performing together in 2003 in the New Vanguard Series in Kingston, NY.  Their New Vanguard duo performance In the Language of the Dream is available on the Deep Listening label as a digital download at  http://www.deeplistening.org/site/releasesby/Arner as well as elsewhere online.

Rosi Hertlein was a member of Pauline Oliveros’ “New Circle Quintet,” Cecil Taylor’s “With Blazing Eyes and Opened Mouth,” Reggie Workman’s “African-American Legacy Project.”  She played the Vision Festival with Joe McPhee twice, and has also collaborated with Howard Johnson and Jay Rosen.

David Taylor started his playing career as a member of Leopold Stokowski’s American Symphony Orchestra, and also appearing with the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Boulez.  Almost simultaneously, he was a member of the Thad Jones Mel Lewis jazz band, and recorded with Duke Ellington (The New Orleans Suite), The Rolling Stones, and Blood, Sweat, and Tears.  David Taylor and David Arner first played together in 2006. 
David Arner recently performed his “An Invocation fro Hermes Twice Revealed,” for piano and harpsichord at EMPAC in Troy, N.Y. 
His 4-CD boxed set, Spontaneous Suites for Two Pianos (RogueArt) with Connie Crothers has just been released.  The online music journal Point of Departure describes the music as “… parallel journeying… evocative… each return to the music yields a different aural itinerary… comfortable with each other’s biorhythms and sense of space… exuberant… dramatic and physically demanding… introspective and intimate… it’s hard to get used to the idea that this is all spontaneously made rather than organized and in some measure pre-set. What has happened is that the two musicians have constructed a vivid, one-use-only musical language, a singleton rhetoric for duo playing that is entirely self-sustaining. Such a thing ought to be, if not forbidding, then at least exclusive, but there is real and deep pleasure in hearing two musicians of this caliber talking through the arcane and technical matter of their craft.  Revelatory music.
Directions to The STONE:
The STONE is located exactly on the North-West corner of Avenue C and 2nd Street.  It is an unmarked building except for the door, which has “the stone” printed in small type.  There is a gas station on the corner across the street.
From the Lower East Side – 2nd Avenue station (for the F or V trains), walk North on 2nd Avenue, then Right onto 2nd Street to Avenue C.
OR…  
From the Delancey Street – Essex Street station (for the F, J, M or Z trains), walk North on Avenue A across Houston Street to 2nd Street, then Right onto 2nd Street to Avenue C.

The Rosi Hertlein Trio

Saturday, July 14th 2012

Music Now! at the Brecht Forum

The Rosi Hertlein Trio

Rosi Hertlein (violin, voice), David Arner (piano), David Taylor (bass trombone)

7:00pm    $10
The Brecht Forum
451 West St. (between Bank St. & Bethune St.)
NYC
212-242-4201
www.brechtforum.org
See full line-up below
Rosi Hertlein and David Arner began performing together in 2003 in the New Vanguard Series in Kingston, NY.  Their New Vanguard duo performance, In the Language of the Dream, is available on the Deep Listening label as a digital download at  http://www.deeplistening.org/site/releasesby/Arner as well as elsewhere online.

Rosi Hertlein was a member of Pauline Oliveros’ “New Circle Quintet,” Cecil Taylor’s “With Blazing Eyes and Open’d Mouth,” Reggie Workman’s “African-American Legacy Project.”  She played the Vision Festival with Joe McPhee twice, and has also collaborated with Howard Johnson and Jay Rosen.

David Taylor started his playing career as a member of Leopold Stokowski’s American Symphony Orchestra, and also appearing with the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Boulez.  Almost simultaneously, he was a member of the Thad Jones Mel Lewis jazz band, and recorded with Duke Ellington (The New Orleans Suite), The Rolling Stones, and Blood, Sweat, and Tears.  David Taylor and David Arner first played together in 2006. 
David Arner recently performed his “An Invocation fro Hermes Twice Revealed,” for piano and harpsichord at EMPAC in Troy, N.Y.  His 4-CD boxed set, Spontaneous Suites for Two Pianos (RogueArt) with Connie Crothers has just been released.  The British online music journal Point of Departure describes the music as “… parallel journeying… evocative… each return to the music yields a different aural itinerary… comfortable with each other’s biorhythms and sense of space… exuberant… dramatic and physically demanding… introspective and intimate… it’s hard to get used to the idea that this is all spontaneously made rather than organized and in some measure pre-set. What has happened is that the two musicians have constructed a vivid, one-use-only musical language, a singleton rhetoric for duo playing that is entirely self-sustaining. Such a thing ought to be, if not forbidding, then at least exclusive, but there is real and deep pleasure in hearing two musicians of this caliber talking through the arcane and technical matter of their craft.  Revelatory music.
6pm   Ken Filiano-Andrea Wolper-Erika Dagnino
7pm   Rosi Hertlein Trio with David Arner & David Taylor
8pm   Music Now! with Ras Moshe & friends
9pm   James Brandon Lewis-Greg Loewer

David Arner – Stars Aligned

Not five minutes from the campus of Bard College is Barrytown, a shady hamlet of Red Hook tucked along the edge the Hudson.  Sitting there like a tiny toy is the area’s former post office and general store, a one-room 18th-century shoebox reopened this year as the Barrytown Archive arts space.  Inside, David Arner, on keyboard and balafon, and George Quasha, on Roland Octapad and snare drum, are playing before a packed house.  Their unspoken conversation is animated.  The squiggling blips and squeaks and the sampled organ and vibes emanating from Arner’s device comingle with Quasha’s frenzied tapping, which sounds at times like hard rain on a corrugated roof.

Between pieces, Arner looks over at his accompanist and calls out a number.  “32,” he says. Quasha nods dryly, and plays.  The piece ends. “43.”  The next piece begins and ends.  “35.” And so on.  What is this, a secret language?  Some arsenal of obscure aphorisms à la Brian Eno’s mysterious “Oblique Strategies” cards?

Arner laughs when the questions are put to him in his Kingston home the following day.  “No, no,” he explains.  “Those numbers were just the presets for George’s electronic drums, some sounds that we’ve found and liked as we’ve jammed over the years.  What George does with those sounds, and what I do around them, aren’t planned at all.  That music’s totally improvised, with no predetermined ideas.”  With a pianist whose innovations have lately astonished the jazz world, one might be forgiven for assuming the shop talk was yet more evidence of his deep creativity.

Locally for several years, however, it was perhaps more as a curator of creativity that Arner was known.  From 2003 to 2007 he ran the New Vanguard Series in Kingston, a vital weekly event that presented performances by the free jazz/improvised scene’s top players.  Yet while he did play occasionally inside and outside of the series, Arner, 60, had largely put his own music aside.  And since moving on from his self-sacrificing role he’s been knocking out acclaimed recordings and snagging high-profile gigs at music meccas like New York’s the Stone and elsewhere.  It’s vindicating to see the pianist, whose startling style blends the bristly dissonance of Cecil Taylor with the fragile lyricism of Keith Jarrett, enjoying the renaissance that has him at last getting the attention he deserves.

Born and raised in Bayside, Queens, Arner was an explorer from a young age.  “I loved riding my bicycle through the side streets, taking the bus and the train into Manhattan and going to museums and performances,” says the composer-musician, who counts among his formative experiences Leonard Bernstein conducting Beethoven’s ninth symphony at one of the conductor’s celebrated Young People’s Concerts; a 1964 Living Theatre staging of “The Brig”; a radio broadcast of Vladimir Horowitz’s 1965 Carnegie Hall return concert; a 1967 Joseph Papp production of “Hamlet” starring Martin Sheen; and a 1968 performance of “Astarte” by the Joffrey Ballet.  The diversity of such a list would come to the fore in his work, which besides a wide range of musicians, includes collaborations with artists in dance, literature, and visual art. But it was music that grabbed him first, and his home was filled with it. “There was always classical music in the house,” he remembers. “My parents didn’t play, but my uncle and aunt were serious classical musicians.  My grandfather died before I was born but I do know he played piano for silent films, which is interesting because that’s something I go into doing.”  Arner began piano lessons at age nine and went on to study under the renowned Edna Golandsky. “We had a baby grand in the house, but it wasn’t very good,” he says.  “In high school I got an inheritance and my parents took me to the Steinway showroom to pick out a grand, which I still have.”

It was while majoring in music, philosophy, and religion at Oberlin College that he connected with jazz.  “This kid I made friends with played me three or so records from start to finish,” the pianist recalls.  “Then he said, ‘Okay, now you’re ready” and put on a Coltrane album—My Favorite Things.  That just opened me up.”  For his junior year Arner apprenticed with influential sound artist and composer Charlie Morrow, and a campus visit from the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, which then included John Cage and David Tudor, was also revelatory.  Although he did play a 1973 one-off gig, on flute and percussion, in a box car in Grand Central Station with poet Jackson Mac Low for the 10th Annual Avant-Garde Festival, Arner remained “afraid to commit myself” to playing music.  Upon graduation he instead worked as a roadie for rock bands, mixing monitors for The Band, the Grateful Dead, the Bee Gees, Labelle, the Jackson Five, Little Richard, Aretha Franklin, and other acts.  He also began his ongoing association with the medium of dance, though as not as the simpatico accompanist he’s frequently worked as.  “I went to see Meredith Monk to ask if she needed a sound engineer,” he says.  “She looked at me and said, ‘No, I want you to dance.’  I wasn’t a dancer, but I said OK.”  Arner appeared in Monk’s operas “Vessel” (1971) and “Education of the Girlchild” (1973) and lived in a Soho loft for a year with dancers from choreographer Yvonne Rainer’s troupe and Coltrane bassist Jimmy Garrison and family.

He moved upstate in 1975 and finally and completely turned himself over to music, beginning a two-year regimen of practicing 10 hours daily and performing in collective improv unit Dream Time and various cover and wedding bands.  In 1981 he became the music advisor of Bard College’s dance department, a position he would hold until 2009, and began to take flight as a creator of music for dance performances, serving as music director in Poughkeepsie for Jacques d’Amboise’s National Dance Institute and seeing his compositions for choreographers Aileen Passloff, Albert Reid, and Jeanette Leentvaar presented in Venezuela and France and at New York’s Merce Cunningham Studio.  Arner served as a Bard composer-in-residence in 1998 and continues to teach at Bard as well as at Troy’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

In was also the ’80s Arner that began scoring and performing music for silent film.  “I was hanging out with Steve Lieber from Upstate Films in Rhinebeck and he was talking about showing some silent movies,” the musician says.  “And we both thought, ‘Why don’t we do live music?’”  The keyboardist’s first foray as a film accompanist was at Upstate in 1986 for the Buster Keaton comedy The General (1926), and he’s since played for genre classics like F. W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh, J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan (both 1924), and Victor Sjöström’s The  Wind (1928); a 2009 retrospective of films by French pioneer Alice Guy Blaché at the Whitney Museum of American Art; and events at the American Museum of the Moving Image and the National Gallery of Art.

Along with dance and film, a fascination with mythology has informed much of Arner’s work.  This includes two long-form opuses with the poet Charles Stein, 1992’s “Prometheus Project,” which was performed at the Knitting Factory and “explored collective composition though spontaneous consensus and was primarily focused on Greek mythology but covered a wide variety of related interests, including sound poetry, philosophy and tarot,” and “An Invocation of Hermes Twice Revealed,” a nine-part, semi-improvisational suite for piano, harpsichord, and spoken word based on the ancient Homeric Hymn to Hermes, which is part of Arner’s “Planetary Invocations” series and was presented at EMPAC in Troy this past May.

The pianist’s first releases, the overtly named Solo Piano and the in-concert Live from the Center (2002 and 2005, respectively, Dogstar Records), led to his being cited by jazz bible Cadence as “an intense, introspective pianist who methodically constructs sound portraits of shattering dimensions…a discerning musician who retreats inwardly to project his obsessions externally.”  For most of the last decade, though, he was devoted to overseeing the New Vanguard Series, which across 216 shows presented over 150 musicians from around the world.  “[Cottekill saxophonist] Joe Giardullo had started the series under a different name but stopped doing it, so I stepped in,” explains Arner.  “At first I called it New Directions in Jazz, and it was at the [now defunct] Uptown Cafe in the Stockade area.  When the Uptown closed, it moved to the old Deep Listening Space in the Rondout and when that place closed we moved back to the Stockade, to Alternative Books.” For lovers of out jazz the New Vanguard was a godsend, hosting performances by saxophonists Joseph Jarman and Joe McPhee, trombonist Julian Priester, pianists Burton Greene and Dave Burrell (a former teacher of Arner’s), and bassist Dominic Duval, among other icons.  But after four glorious years its booker was spent.  “I needed a break,” he says.  “It was great to do but very time consuming, particularly as volunteer work.”  (Downloads of the series’ mind-expanding sets are now available through Deeplistening.org.)

From the New Vanguard’s ashes, however, emerged the David Arner Trio.  The unit, which includes series veterans bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Jay Rosen, debuted in tandem in 2009 with Out/In the Open, on Polish label Not Two Records, and Porgy/Bess Act 1, the first of two volumes of inspired impressions of music from George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” on the crucial CIMP imprint.  “What really strikes me about David is how he brings his hard-core classical background to the music,” says Bisio, a sometime Troy resident who also performs with pianist Matthew Shipp.  “He’s very gracious as a player and just allows [collaborators] to be who they are.  Also, David’s an expert on birdsong and astrology.  He’s a mystical cat.”

In addition to his performing at Manhattan’s renowned Vision Festival in 2010 with saxophonist Lorenzo Sanguedolce, Arner’s resume has expanded to include work with creative paragons like cellist Tomas Ulrich, guitarist Dom Minasi, and drummer Susie Ibarra.  Another association, with pianist Connie Crothers, has proven incredibly fruitful.  In May 2009 the pair recorded nearly four hours of music at Bard’s Fisher Center, which is newly out on French label RogueArt as the four-CD box set Spontaneous Suites for Two Pianos.  As one might expect, it’s a lot to take in.  A pristinely captured epic—or Homeric, perhaps, given Arner’s mythological interests—experience, the album boasts 11 extended, completely improvised pieces, most of which have been titled for their distinct segments (“Suite II: The Metropolis,” for example, comprises the bustling “City Rhapsody,” the tranquil “Night Through Dawn,” and the rising “In the Midst”).  A document of two artists who share an uncanny telepathy, Spontaneous Suites is a modern landmark, the sound of two amazing-unto-themselves universes existing as their glittering constellations overlap.

More heavenly sounds are in store as Arner readies the celestially themed work “Planetary Invocations” and learns to use the Expanded Instrument System (EIS), an electronic signal processing system developed by Pauline Oliveros.  The recipient of a Jazz Fellowship award from the National Endowment for the Arts and several Meet the Composer grants, the pianist says that at this point he’s “looking to get beyond the keyboard.” Considering the transcendent nature of his music, one might say he’s already there.

Peter Aaron, Chronogram, July2012.  Reprinted with permission.

A masterpiece of freely improvised duets

I certainly intend to play something from Connie Crothers’ new release SPONTANEOUS SUITES FOR TWO PIANOS which is

a masterpiece of freely improvised duets with David Arner

— a 4-cd set that I’ve only so far listened to the first disk (about seventeen times! ) — of my thoughts on this, it occurred to me that Connie & Mr. Arner need no music — sheet music absolutely not needed —

the lyricism and cosmic drive just tumbles out of them like a torrent.

KUNM 89.9 FM

Albuquerque, New Mexico
Host MARK WEBER
Thursday, March 22, 2012

Review of Spontaneous Suites for Two Pianos,  RogueArt

Arner at EMPAC

But A Rumor to Me

Tuesday May 1st, 2012

DAVID ARNER

piano and harpsichord

 

An Invocation of Hermes Twice Revealed

David Arner (piano, harpsichord, narration)

Namely, a cryptic improvisational score based on a chorale for the Earthling (implied but not revealed) for solo piano once and then for harpsichord  exploring yet also re-contextualizing in the manner of Hermetic mythos the synchronicities, spontaneities and evolutions inherent or otherwise informed by both the inevitabilities of the circumstances and the whim of the trickster.

(Or to put it differently, two performances of the same piece that won’t sound the same, separated by an intermission.)

Text adapted from the Homeric Hymn to Hermes translated by long-time collaborator Charles Stein.

 

EMPAC

The Curtis R. Priam Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

8th St. & College Ave., Troy NY, 12180

8:00 pm

Admission Free   Parking Free

This performance is sponsored by IEar Presents, part of the ARTS Department at Rensselaer

Evelyn’s Cafe at EMPAC will be open prior to this performance for lite fare.

 

An Artist of Subtlety and Depth

Porgy/Bess Act 1: The David Arner Trio and Their Rechanneling of Porgy and Bess

David Arner has a pianistic fulminosity (it’s a kind of abundance) that comes across with the substantial release Porgy/Bess Act 1 (CIMP).   He is joined by the first-rank bass virtuoso Michael Bisio and the lightly subtle yet freely engaging drummer Jay Rosen.

In what will be a two-volume release, Mr. Arner takes inspiration from the Gershwin classic Porgy and Bess as well as the Miles Davis-Gil Evans rearrangement from the exceptional 1958 Columbia recording by that name.   David Arner does not get involved with a literal rehashing of the score, nor does he take Gershwin themes as head-solo-head arrangements.   Rather he and the trio react to the music as a springboard for four free improvisations.   You will hear thematic interjections, sometimes in the whole cloth, sometimes as quilted fragments and chordal reminiscences, but all in the context of spontaneous recomposition.

Arner-Bisio-Rosen interact in quite subtle ways and the melodic-kinetic energies of Arner and Bisio are palpable.   This is not as much an energy-surging exercise as a varied expressive dialogue.   In David Arner we hear the techniques of modern improv piano as well as the harmonic-melodic tradition of the Gershwin and Davis-Evans eras but contextualized to his own ends.   And he opens up a space that Michael Bisio and Jay Rosen enter into with open ears and inventive musical discourse.

This is music that takes attentive listening to assimilate.   It is not entertaining; it is enlightening.

I would put this among the best piano trio recordings I’ve heard in this waning year.   Arner is an artist of subtlety and depth.

The trio is a multi-faceted musical force that gains newfound inspiration from classic sources without repeating the obvious.   If only some of the repertoire-oriented aggregations were this creative!

Gapplegate Music Review, December 7,2009

“The Birds of Central Park” at the STONE

The Logic of Birds

The degree to which David Arner liberates himself from  pre-determined constraints and sends it soaring might only be imaginable if you heard his concert of improvised piano music at The Stone in Manhattan last night, or if this effort was guided by someone who had this privilege.  For those who missed this momentous event, I offer a step-by-step guide.

1.  Imagine writing your signature with a pencil on a sheet of lined paper and the many constraints imposed upon you before you lift your pen:

The paper dictates the shape and the dimensions of the field of operations.  The lines dictate the orientation, the spacing within this field, and the proportions of image to space.  You determine the shape of the letters (no constraints), the size and width of the letters (constrained), and the darkness or lightness of your touch (within the paper’s tolerance).

2. Imagine writing your signature on a sheet of paper without lines.

Now only the shape and the dimensions of the field of operations are determined before you lift your pen.  In addition to the liberties identified above, you orient your paper in any direction, choose whether to honor the right angled rigidity of the paper, and select your orientation.

3. Imagine writing your signature in the sand on a beach.

Borders and other constraints dissolve.  You are free to determine the size, shape, orientation, style, and pressure of your signature.                               

4. Imagine this beach in outer space – liberated from the gravity-bound constraints of Earth experience.

The sand-writing analogy only describes Arner’s starting point, not his destination.

5. Imagine Arner drawing with not one, but ten implements simultaneously. Each finger served the fullness of his musicality in the instant of its stirring.

6. Imagine this drawing embracing the myriad conditions provided by the setting. Instead of beach, sea, sun, wind, and shadow, Arner probed the innards of his grand piano as well as the keys, unleashing wondrous percussive and melodic opportunities.

Flights and songs of birds served as this concert’s inspiration.  Arner’s expressive freedom seemed the perfect embodiment of avian disregard for human-contrived borders and rational systems.  Yet, for me, the concert exceeded the untethering of music from compositional norms.  It demonstrated that human emancipation from constraint does not necessarily indicate explosive and destructive fury.  Arner yielded to an alternative ordering system.  He discovered the logic of birds.  Last night, he shared the glorious expression of this revelation with his audience.

Linda Weintraub, September 2009

The Mitchell-Ruff Duo

To jazz musicians who are well aware that there exists an underground history of the music they love, the names or Dwike Mitchell and Willie Ruff have great significance.  No fanfare accompanies the all-too-infrequent release of their recordings, no “pick-hit” blurb shows up in People magazine or Downbeat, no major label promoters line up to court them for some honour.  Pianist Mitchell and bassist/French horn player Ruff exist in a kind of timeless limbo, suspended between between the wonderkinder of jazz and the brand-names that make up 99% of the JVC Jazz Festival.

David Arner: In a Category of One

A commanding technique and orchestral palette

But the players know, and that includes everyone from Miles David to Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington to Count Basie, and at least a handful of Woodstockers.  First among the local players is David Arner, whose commanding technique and orchestral palette place him in a category of one when it comes to pianism.  A long time student of Dwike Mitchell’s, I thought I’d let Arner speak about his mentor.

Praise for Dwike Mitchell

“Well, Dwike is the quiet genius in jazz,” says Arner.  “For five years or so, I soaked it up from him- the profound rhythms and absolutely kaleidoscopic harmonies!  The harmonies will astound you, but the rhythm is really unique.  That’s why Dizzy went out of his way to do concerts and a few recordings with Mitchell-Ruff.  The rhythms are rhythms of elation, of unbounded joy, and you can hear it so well without any drums in the mix.”

Yes, the harmony will astound you.  It will astound you this Saturday, July 10th [1993], when Music in the Mountains presents the Dwike Mitchell-Willie Ruff Duo in a double bill at SUNY New Paltz, a children’s concert in the afternoon and a regular gig in the evening.

And it astounded me over 20 years ago when I caught Dwike Mitchell solo at the Carlyle Hotel in New York…

Joe Giardullo, Woodstock Times (NY), July 8 1993