Jon Gagan’s third Transit album is now available in our ListeningLounge. Click on the above image to go there.

Transit 3: migration contains 15 songs with performances by:

Jon Gagan – bass, keyboards, sound design
Eddie Garcia – drums
John Bartlit – vibraphone, marimba
Ottmar Liebert – flamenco guitar, electric guitar, wah, handclaps
Dimi Disanti – electric guitar, solo electric guitar
Robby Rothschils – djembe, calabash, conga, cajón, percussion
Nancy Gagan – vocals
Deborah Domanski – vocals
Mark Clark – bongos, udu, seed pods

It is one thing to sing for your supper occasionally, but to have to do so for every meal forces you into a peasant’s dilemma: The peasant’s dilemma is that there’s no buffer. A musician who is sick or old, or who has a sick kid, cannot perform and cannot earn. A few musicians, a very tiny number indeed, will do well, but even the most successful real-time-only careers can fall apart suddenly because of a spate of bad luck. Real life cannot avoid those spates, so eventually almost everyone living a real-time economic life falls on hard times.

Without the listener there is no music. The listener completes the musical circuit, and, even though I am not a musician, I feel as if I am a form of musician when I listen and believe that, by hearing the piece, by responding to it with my thoughts of what it is and what it is doing – what it means – I am actually helping to finish it off. As the listener I am the final element in the making of the music. I have made the music useful. I have put it into context: the context of my own life, and my own perception of what music is, and why it exists.

- Paul Morley, Words and Music: a history of pop in the shape of a city

I do not think that music has to have a listener aside from the person or persons making the music, and I don’t believe that music has to be useful, but I like the above description of the listener completing a circle.

We could say the same about a reader who, by imagining the people and the landscapes described in a book, makes words come to life and thus completes the circle.

See also this, which I wrote about twenty years ago for Musician magazine.

Cold nights here in Santa Fe this week, in the low twenties.
In a month we will perform at the Albuquerque Zoo with the New Mexico Philharmonic.

Ottmar Liebert & Luna Negra – May 18th 2013 @ Zoo Amphitheater
Ottmar Liebert & Luna Negra
DATE: Saturday, May 18th 2013 — 8:00 pm
VENUE: Zoo Amphitheater Albuquerque, NM
DOORS: 7:00 pm
AGE RESTRICTIONS: All Ages

Thanks for the link Linda.

The Rrazz called my agent on Monday and cancelled my performances. The club is currently closed due to a San Francisco noise ordinance. Here is a statement the club made in February, and which, as of today, is no longer linked from the homepage of the Rrazz website – maybe it will get updated later today:

At this time, through March 5, 2013 only, the SF Entertainment Commission has required us to pause our performances while we investigate a possible sound issue at our new home on Van Ness Avenue and rectify it as needed.  Since RRAZZ has always been considerate of our performers, audiences and neighbors, we stand to right unjustness whether on a broad spectrum or a narrow one.  Therefore, we feel obliged to postpone any performances through March 5 while we tend to the matter.  We are so very sorry for your inconvenience.

This is a temporary situation through March 5, 2013 only.

I assume the club had to delay re-opening to finish noise-related renovations.

Apparently the new home of the Rrazz – they moved from the Nikko Hotel location to a new room at 1000 Van Ness at the beginning of the year – is next door to an AMC movie theater. That proximity creates a two-way sound problem: loud R&B or Rock & Roll acts at the club might disturb quiet movies in the cinema and action movies at the cinema could disturb softer performances, such as solo guitar concerts. It is not an easy problem to tackle and I hope the Rrazz will find a solution.

Believe me, I would have enjoyed a few days in March in San Francisco: the city culture, the coffee, great audiences and so on…

I will, however, perform in San Francisco later this year, with the band, at Yoshi’s in the Summer.

PS: just noticed this statement that was linked from Twitter:

Unfortunately, there will be no Rrazz Room shows until May as the new club does construction. All March and April dates are officially cancelled.

If you’ve purchased tickets, you’ll be getting a full refund directly from the club shortly.

We look forward to opening the new club on the first Monday in May!

I love playing guitar by myself and San Francisco is one of my favorite cities – so I am pretty excited about next week.

Now many of us carry a mobile phone on our person most of the time. The phone no longer needs to sound a terrible alarm every single time a call comes in. A gentle announcement would suffice, I think. In fact, it would make quite a difference for a caller to be gently announced, rather than hearing a full alarm sounded. One can always check who called, unlike with the early telephones, and there is the built-in answering machine, too.

With that in mind I created a few ringtones you may download. Try them out, see whether the idea works for you.

Five Clouds, Lenticular

Falling In

Querencia

These are iPhone ringtones. Download to your computer, add to your iTunes, hook up your phone and drag the files over to your iPhone. Maybe they’ll work with Android phones as well, but I have no idea.

Afterwards we will return to Santa Fe right away to meet up with Mike Middleton (trumpet) on the 10th and perform as a quartet at the Lensic Performing Arts Center on the 11th. Performing at home is always special and I am looking forward to that concert!

√ – simply means that I read the book. The unread titles are at the ready, mostly in the form of hardcovers and paperbacks, some bought used but most bought at Collected Works, which is a fantastic bookstore in Santa Fe.

Spiegel und Maske (1970-1983) – Jorge Luis Borges √
Momo – Michael Ende √
The Offensive Traveler – V. S. Pritchett √
The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco √
Angelmaker – Nick Harkaway √
The Gone-Away World – Nick Harkaway √
Peter Høeg – Das Stille Mädchen √
A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway √
Alif the Unseen – G. Willow Wilson √
The Secret Race – Tyler Hamilton √
Gods Without Men – Hari Kunzru √
1Q84 – Haruki Murakami √
Buddha in Blue Jeans -Tai Sheridan √
Distrust that Particular Flavor – William Gibson √
Lying – Sam Harris √
Years of Red Dust – Qui Xiaolong √
Ratking – Michael Dibdin √
Vendetta – Michael Dibdin √
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell √
Tribal Peoples – Stephen Corry √
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore – Robin Sloan √
Le Freak – Nile Rodgers √
How Music Works – David Byrne
Cabal – Michael Dibdin
Dead Lagoon – Michael Dibdin
Cosi Fan Tutti – Michael Dibdin
Some Remarks – Neal Stephenson
The Garden of Evening Mists – Tan Twan Eng
Ninja – 1,000 Years of the Shadow Warriors – John Man
The Quantum Universe – Brian Cox

Two videos from the Bing Lounge @ 101.9 KINK FM in Portland – from Summer 2011:

iTunes – Music – Dune (feat. Luna Negra) by Ottmar Liebert

Written by Thom Jurek for AllMusic.

On Dune, Ottmar Liebert and Luna Negra move away from the sleepy softness that marred 2010′s Petals on the Path. While Dune’s sound is carefully sculpted to reflect the arid Southwest landscape that is the band’s trademark, its compositions are complex, songlike, and adventurous while being thematically linked in abstract fashion.

Dune is an example of cutting-edge nuevo flamenco; Liebert’s confidence in his lyrical vision is total, allowing him and Luna Negra to focus on attention to detail and adventure; consequently, they deliver in spades.