"Free" Improvisation | Clocktower Gallery & Radio

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Improvisions:

"Free" Improvisation

Hosted by Ted Gordon

Originally aired on Monday, February 20th, 2012

Musical freedom can mean many things: freedom from rules, limits, structure, tonality or rhythm; but it can also mean freedom from an economic and legal system that stifles innovation and interrupts the flourishing gift economy which has developed alongside broadband communication technology. This episode of Improvisions features music available for legal download from the Free Music Archive, an online repository of alternatively-licensed music with a wealth of amazing recordings (and directed by the great American free-form radio station WFMU). We'll hear from C. Spencer Yeh, Cooper-Moore, Dawn of MIDI, Roscoe Mitchell, Tony Conrad, and more.

Other shows from Improvisions

Improvisions

New York Noise

Hosted by Ted Gordon

Originally aired Monday, May 14th, 2012

New York is a noisy place. This episode is focuses on noisy music that reflects a that world: a kind of one-to-one exchange, with a focus on the universe of musicians surrounding John Zorn, including Zorn himself, and numerous collaborators.

Improvisions

Big Bands

Hosted by Ted Gordon

Originally aired Monday, March 26th, 2012

This show features “Big Bands” of improvisers from across the boundaries of genre, time, and place; including the Taj Mahal Travelers, the Promenade Theatre Orchestra, Horace Tapscott and the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, Sun Ra, AMM, and more.

Improvisions

The Joy of Influence

Hosted by Ted Gordon

Originally aired Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Leaving aside tracing influence in composed music, which is its own can of worms, this episode is a meditation on influence in improvised music, with Cecil Taylor, John Oswald, Anthony Braxton, Naked City, Sun Ra, John Fahey, Bill Frisell,more.

Improvisions

Action/Reaction

Hosted by Ted Gordon

Originally aired Monday, December 5th, 2011

A look at improvisations that result from performers reacting to something - a set of instructions, a sound, a feeling, a genre - to form pieces of music that blurs the edges between improv and composition, with David Behrman, Robert Ashley, others.

Improvisions

Free Japan

Hosted by Ted Gordon

Originally aired Monday, October 31st, 2011

A sampling of the influential cross-cultural current of avant-garde music in Japan in the early 70s, when it erupted, with tracks by Toshi Ichiyanagi, Takehisa Kosugi, Masayuki "Jojo" Takayanagi, Keiji Haino, Kaoru Abe, Yamataka Eye, and may others.

Improvisions

Jams

Hosted by Ted Gordon

Originally aired Monday, September 26th, 2011

The "jam" is an emergent, instant, singular phenomenon. Here we have examples from Krzystof Penderecki, Masayugi "Jojo" Takayanagi, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Don Cherry, Peter Brötzmann/Fred van Hove/Han Bennick, Werner Lüdi Sunnymoon and more.

Improvisions

Worlds Collide

Hosted by Ted Gordon

Originally aired Monday, August 22nd, 2011

This episode looks at the collision/fusion/embrace between American Jazz and the established musical traditions of India and Africa. We’ll hear from Alice Coltrane, Don Cherry, Kadri Gopalnath, Shankar Jaikishan, Archie Shepp and more!

Improvisions

Free Energy

Hosted by Ted Gordon

Originally aired Monday, July 18th, 2011

This show focuses on musicians who harness the energy of the world to use it for wild, ecstatic, electrifying improvisation-- both by themselves and with others. With tracks by John Fahey, John Zorn, Anthony Braxton, Sun Ra, Yamashita Yosuke, others.

Improvisions

Root Strata

Hosted by Ted Gordon

Originally aired Monday, June 20th, 2011

This episode focuses on American jazz in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a time when established musicians branched out and new voices expanded the jazz spectrum, from Pharoah Sanders to Ornette Coleman to John Cale & Terry Riley and more.