A wonderful overview of the variety of
Wolff's work from 1950 through 1987. One of the legendary members of the now-called New York School (
John Cage,
Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, and
Wolff), this album clearly tied with avant-garde music at Mills College, both in the Tape Music Center and the Center for Contemporary Music (much of this rich interchange is covered in the generous liner notes). The CD begins with
Cage's famous "silent piece" "4:33" in which we hear the ambient surroundings of the concert hall which can be opened onto an amphitheater in the back, and onto gardens on the sides. Julie Steinberg is seated silently at the piano performing some unseen (to the CD listener) action that delineates the three movements of the silence "I. tacet, II. tacet, III. tacet." A performance of
Cage's "Variations II" by the live computer-music band
the Hub and David Gamper's EIS (The Expanded Instrument System environment) contains legendary composer Ramon Sender Barayon as Zero the Clown playing "Mairzy Doats' on an accordion which is processed electronically, and which seques seamlessly into "Traffic Prayers and Amnesia" written and narrated by Wendy Jeanne Burch, accompanied by Joe Catalano on the electric rebab with the ensemble. Another version of
Cage's silent (or maybe "nothing special happening") piece is recorded with the audience enjoying a reception in the entrance hall, their sounds reflected and echoed from side hallways. The instruments begin again with David Gamper's "Deep Hockets," a lovely
Terry Riley-like phase piece with the
Deep Listening Band, which seques into a fabulous 45-minute improvisation with everyone called "The Last Chances." This CD delivers the meditative spirit inherent in American new music, the richness that comes from trusting fellow musicians to spontaneously produce from the deepness of their understanding. ~ "Blue" Gene Tyranny