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hassan sharif
mohammad ahmad with his work khorfakkan circles
hassan sharif in action in the 70's in a performance piece
my room at work
our breakfast bar cum office
dhow and mill animatronix at dubai festival city in place of baby grand and concert stage
more ramadan replacements: the smaller dfc music stage now has squatters!
piano w/performer
seven ages of jazz recital poster
Great day today. Had a meeting with contemporary Emirati artists Hassan Sharif and Mohammad Ahmad Ibrahim, courtesy of Hassan's brother Abdulrahim, who acts as their manager. I contacted them after the happy coincidence of finding their work being displayed in the gallery underneath my workplace. There were some great photos of Hassan's work whilst in London that reminded me very much of what I've read and seen of Fluxus in the 1960's and some fascinating pictures of Mohammad's work out in the desert and mountains outside of Dubai (to see for yourself, take a look at the websites: www.hassansharif.com and www.theartistshall.com). I emailed them through the website and met with them for coffee today after Abdulrahim called me up a couple of days ago.
During the course of our discussions - essentially about the connections between music and art, and my ongoing plans for presenting the extended piano performance as a gallery exhibit (an idea I've been waiting to realise since before Mongolia) - it turned out that Hassan lived for a while in Birmingham and had a showing at the IKON Gallery (small, small world...), and was also a fan of John Cage and Philip Glass. Both Hassan and Mohammad spoke of the musical connection they feel when realising their work - Mohammad in particular told a very striking story of his being alone up in the mountains working on one of his pieces when he heard what sounded to him like a wolf. Being alone in such a remote location, he was obviously very wary of this sound and tentatively investigated its source, which turned out to be the wind blowing through a bag that had caught on a bush. This got him thinking about how close the connection was between the music of the environment and the art he was creating out there in the wilderness - how visual and aural can be essentially different aspects of the same thing.
They told me about the roots of music in the Gulf, and how music in these parts was traditionally very much linked to the environment and the trades of the various peoples. They also told me a little of a particular type of music that has been banned since the 70's. A satirical type of song and dance music that is still practised in secret out there in the desert despite official displeasure with its themes of sexuality, religion and politics. I will definitely be looking into this more and hoping to hear some of this music, maybe even performing alongside some of its performers and writing about it here - without incurring official displeasure of course!
Thurs 6th September 2007
Wed 12th September 2007
This was only the first of several such shifts in my own musical life thus far. I always seem to feel it when a new one is approaching - I tend to reach a stage of stagnation with the ideas and concepts I've been working with and trying to perfect, and then the realisation that a new way of approaching the musical problems I'm trying to resolve will be presenting itself in the next few days comes to me. The last few in recent years have been: (1) the DEBOP concept (without which I would never have managed to realise the Howl work in a personally acceptable way); (2) interest in, and use of, non-ET/naturally developing tunings (as a result of prolonged interaction with the hohner melodica I have had with me since leaving the UK, plus some unintentionally non-ET pianos in Mongolia!); (3) the use of pentatonics in my composition and improvisation (beginning with exposure to Mongolian pentatonics, and later a few Chinese ones, but developing into taking any five notes within an octave space to constitute a pentatonic scale). Each of these enlightenments have enriched my music and allowed it to continue its development afresh - this last one in particular is having a profound effect on my improvisation as we speak, and I'd recommend anyone to try restricting themselves to five-note scales (not just maj, min and b3 pent, invent your own) for each chord type (7, maj7, min7, half-dim, alt etc). It's very liberating in its restriction.
Thurs 13th September 2007
Thurs 20th September 2007
Fri 21st September 2007
A few days ago I emailed Abdul-Raheem Sharif to follow up our meeting with a suggestion that my idea for a work I am calling "Piano + Piano w/Performer" work could perhaps be exhibited alongside that of Hassan, Mohammad and 3 other artists they regularly exhibit alongside at their next exhibition. Abdul-Raheem put the idea to the collective and they said yes in principle, and thought it was a good idea. I am now waiting to hear from them with regard to when and where. Watch this space!
Thurs 27th September 2007
There will also be the opportunity to give some recitals from November. I am planning a series of jazz concerts covering selected music from the many ages of jazz (I'm going to choose 7 - "Seven Ages of Jazz Recital Series"). There'll be a general overview concert in November and one covering a specific early period in December or January, with the other eras following on from there. I want to show that the music is very much alive and that it offers many interesting possibilties for the modern improviser, with this being as true for the repertoire from the early part of the 20th century as it is for the more recent material.
Another project I hope to begin in 2008 is "The Great Modern Jazz Composers Recital Series", with two composers per recital. I plan to perform compositions by the likes of Billy Strayhorn, Thelonious Monk, Benny Golson, Charles Mingus, Wayne Shorter, Albet Ayler, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Ornette Coleman and Antonio Carlos Jobim (though strictly bossa nova, Jobim's works are especially suited to jazz improvisation with their chord extensions and interesting formal structures). I also hope to include some of my jazz students in future recitals of both series.
The end of my first official week at work. The students don't start until the 8th, but there are a few things to do in the meantime, such as meet the other teachers, go over the rules and regulations, drink coffee and sort through music. I ordered the ABRSM Jazz Course books for my jazz students, which I'll use in conjunction with the materials I already have on my computer and, most importantly, in my head! Yesterday, I organised my teaching room and played piano a little whilst Hannah took advantage of the wireless internet connection at the school. It's great to be able to have wi-fi in my room, and after not having internet at all in Oman, apart from an internet cafe which was a 20-minute walk away (and only possible after sundown), it seems strange having such easy access again.
Today was the end of my first full week of teaching. It's been a pleasing week since I have some enthusiastic students, with the definite possibility of some of them becoming interesting improvisers. My plan is to encourage students to find their own solutions to musical problems, as well as helping them to develop their ear and their own voicings for chords. I'm trying to keep Cecil Taylor's quote about "everyone being his own academy" firmly in mind and not influence anyone too strongly in any particular direction based purely on my own tastes and dictates, but I do want to give them access to recordings that they may never have had the opportunity (or inclination) to listen to. For my own part, I remember hearing Chick Corea for the first time on a tape lent to me by my good friend Phil King when I was 15 (it was one of those excellent "Walkman Collections" with Spain, Five Hundred Miles High, Seņor Mouse, Armando's Rhumba, Vulcan Worlds and some other classic pieces). On first listen, I thought it was the most ridiculous load of noisy nonsense I had ever heard - honestly! But something strange happened in that I felt inclined to listen again and again, since there was actually something indefinably interesting about the music. And eventually, I found myself singing the melodies along with the tracks and of course now I recognise those tunes as some of the most melodious in all music! Music is a mysterious force that acts upon us all in different ways depending on ourselves and our openness at particular stages in our lives, and no one can expect to be the same person they were prior to exposure to it, especially if they are (even unwittingly) on the brink of a paradigm shift in their personal and spiritual development.
Ramadan began today and will last until Eid on October 12th. During Ramadan everyone is required to fast during daylight hours, which means no food, liquid, dancing or music (except religious music played on the oud) before sundown (which happens around 7pm). We were told that the signal for breaking the fast is a cannon shot, so as I'm typing this (just gone 6.30pm) we are waiting expectantly for the sound of the cannon! [Ed's note: we're too far down Dubai Creek to hear the canons, which are situated at the mouth of the creek where it meets the Arabian Gulf] The ban on live music during Ramadan is something I wasn't aware of before we came over (the idea of music being something necessary to abstain from is pretty disturbing to my mind, especially considering that piped music on speaker systems is apparently acceptable!!!), and it explains why the guys from the band at the Blue Bar are going away for a month. The Blue Bar is at the Novotel Hotel near the International Convention Centre and the rapier-sharp edges of the twin Emirates Towers. On Thursday nights there is the band "Abstract Collision" - a quartet of guitar, piano, bass and drums (sometimes they are a drummerless trio) playing standards and some contemporary stuff in a way that is certainly not the soulless "smooth" jazz of many of the hotel bar bands in these parts. I spoke to Olivier (the pianist from Belgium) and Elie (the Dutch bassist). They are a friendly bunch of guys and going along to hear them on Thursdays has become a reasonably regular fixture.
A quarter of the way through Ramadan and we're used to not eating or drinking during daylight hours now. The moon is growing fuller and will soon be full. When it returns to complete darkness Eid will begin, which means a week's holiday from work. There are quite a few holidays over here, both Western and Arabic, and after our 10 days per year quota in Mongolia, it seems as if every other week has some kind of holiday attached to it!
Just when you thought it was safe... new developments on the long-shelved extended piano performance front! After the huge disappointment of the planned August 26th-27th 2005 24-hour performance not going ahead in Birmingham, and a couple of other non-starters regarding the suitability of venues, it looks as if the work will finally get its World Premiere right here in Dubai! At my meeting at the start of this month with Hassan Sharif et al, I told them of my "piano as object/music as object" idea for a gallery installation. The idea essentially is for the audience to experience music in the same way they would experience a painting or sculpture in a gallery space. If they choose to view the artist's work for 30 seconds, they go away with an overall sense of the work just the same as if they view the work for 30 minutes. They may have a deeper understanding of the work after experiencing it for the longer of the two time periods, for certain, but even after a 30-second encounter they would get a sense of the piece as a whole. I want to achieve that same instantaneousness with music. Imagine a music that you could experience for 30 seconds or 30 minutes (or 30 hours) that you didn't have to listen to from the very beginning to the very end before you were able to feel you had experienced the work. Erik Satie managed it with "Vexations", but that's just one (exquisite) way to achieve timelessness and objectivity.
The end of my first month's teaching. I've got four bona fide "jazz" students and a couple of others who are "jazz" but they don't realise it! With that I mean they are natural arrangers and alterers of music, even though they are not doing it to jazz standards as such. At the end of term (the middle of December), there will be a few student concerts, and so I am trying at the moment to gently cajole some of my less extrovert charges into taking part. As a performer I believe very strongly in taking the fear out of public performance at the earliest possible opportunity, but of course I don't want to force anyone up onto the stage against their will (as I have seen so many times in the past in competitions and student concerts).