Thursday, October 28
Bezanson Recital Hall 8:00 pm
$10; students: $5
Guitarist and composer Fred Frith is an icon of avant-garde music. “A musical consciousness of rare intelligence backed with an omnipresent sense of humour,” writes Libération, “Frith makes music that is amongst the most powerful and original of the present time”.
Born in 1949 and raised in Yorkshire, England, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser Fred Frith has been active across a broad spectrum of music-making since the late 1960s, starting with the iconic rock collective Henry Cow. In a career spanning more than 40 years, Frith is internationally renowned as an electric guitarist and improviser, songwriter, and composer for film, dance and theater. Through bands like Art Bears, Massacre, Skeleton Crew, the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, and Cosa Brava, Frith has managed to keep one foot in the rock world while continuing to branch out into almost every area of contemporary music.
His compositions have been performed by ensembles ranging from Arditti Quartet and the Ensemble Modern to the Baroque ensembles Concerto Köln and Galax Quartet, from the Dutch Radio Chamber Orchestra to ROVA and Arte Sax Quartets, from rock bands Hieronymus Firebrain and Ground Zero to the Glasgow Improvisers’ Orchestra. Film music credits include the acclaimed documentary Rivers and Tides, directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer, The Tango Lesson and Yes by Sally Potter, and Peter Mettler’s astonishing Gods, Gambling and LSD. His vast catalogue of recordings is available on Tzadik, Winter & Winter, ReR, and his own label Fred Records, among many others.
Frith has performed and recorded with a who’s who of modern music including Lotte Anker, Derek Bailey, Anthony Braxton, Sylvie Courvoisier, Alvin Curran, Brian Eno, Evelyn Glennie, Carla Kihlstedt, Katia Labeque, Bill Laswell, Ikue Mori, Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris, Bob Ostertag, Zeena Parkins, The Residents, Christian Wolff, Robert Wyatt, Otomo Yoshihide, and John Zorn, among many others.
Frith is the subject of Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzels’ award-winning documentary film, Step Across the Border. He is currently Chair of the Graduate Music Department at Mills College in Oakland, California.
“….undying curiosity, bitter wit, child-like sense of play, and creeping melancholy percolate through the guitarist’s records,” writes Guitar Player. “It might be useful, perhaps, to think of him as a folk musician who makes miniatures of the world around him using scraps torn from corners of the map.”
I’ve been a major fan of Fred Frith since the days of Henry Cow, but I’ve never had a chance to see him perform live. Last night’s concert finally fulfilled that long desire, and it was worth the wait. What an amazing journey he took us on! It was enormously inspiring to see someone take such a completely fresh approach to an instrument, especially an instrument as ubiquitous and entrenched as the electric guitar. Having heard what happens when you play a guitar with a paint brush, a drumstick, and some alligator clips, I now wonder why everyone doesn’t do that. Les Paul would have been proud!
And yet, despite the creativity in his approach, I get the sense that Frith never does anything just for the sake of being clever. All the sounds and extended techniques are in the service of musical expression. And that expression, like his approach to the guitar, is more tabula rasa than palimpsest (how often do you get to use those two words in a sentence?). Without ever resorting to song form, songs somehow appeared, and the sense of composition was always present, fluid and organic. It was all there last night: ethereal beauty, mounting terror, wonder, humor, and mystery, as well as feelings and ideas that really don’t have a name. At one point I was getting a very strong image of a pagoda on the edge of the Milky Way.
It’s concerts like this–and all the Solos and Duos and Magic Triangle shows—that reminds me again that I live in the best place on earth. Thanks so much for bringing him to town.
Challenging at times, meandering at times, silly at times, beautiful at times. I guess those are the chances you take when you reach for something completely new. Thanks for the opportunity to hear someone who completely rethinks the possibilities that arise when electricity and guitars get together. How about a Glenn Branca symphony next year?
While it did fit the definition of music, it was not jazz (which I thought it was going to be). A combination of my music ed. class w/Terry Stackpole, John Cage & a hint of Penderecki. I was waiting for Yoko Ono to make an appearance.
Absolutely mesmerizing. It was a “you really had to be there” kind of experience that I am thrilled to have witnessed.
I agree with my son Josh’s assessment when he told me I would really like Fred Firth: “imagine if Bunuel were a British guitar player and yeah, like that. Or if Tim Burton were a guitar player and wasn’t afraid of occasionally weirding out/losing his listeners and there you go.” Suggestion from an old man to the young man, D, who has preconceived notions of what music is (should be) or isn’t (shouldn’t be). Go with open ears, let the music take you away, or jangle you, or even make you a little crazy.