Ussachevsky+Henry Jacobs+ electronic Folkways Sounds of

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42

Sounds of New Music-- Vladimir Ussachevsky: Sonic Contours (1952 for tape); Transposition (1952 for tape); Reverberation (1952 for tape); Composition (1952 for tape); Underwater Waltz (1952 for tape) / Henry Jacobs: Sonata for Loudspeakers (1954 for tape); Tape Loops, Rhythms (1954 for tape) / Otto Luening: Fantasy In Space (1952 for tape) / John Cage: Dance (1944 for prepared piano) / Edgard Varese: Ionization (1926 for percussion with 2 sirens) / Henry Cowell: Aeolian Harp (1923 for piano strings); Banshee (1925 for piano strings) / Halim El-Dabh: Symphonies In Sonic Vibration Spectrum #1 (1957 for orchestra) / Alexander Mossolov: Symphony of Machines Steel Foundry (1928 for orchestra with metal sheets) / Julius Meytuss: Dnieprostrot (192x for orchestra) / Roger Marin: Natural Pipes / Bahnfahrt. Folkways FX 6160

Rare 1957 lp, an artifact of experimental music and one of the greatest Folkways releases, with one side of essential and now-classic early electronic and avant garde works, and another side of demonstrations of musique concrete techniques. Ussachevsky's contributions occupy much of the record; his pioneering Sonic Contours (the earliest American tape composition) uses tape-manipulated piano sounds, while his 'demonstrations' alternate between recordings of primitively-processed concrete sound source material and brief compositions rearranging the material and further utilizing the demonstrated techniques. Of course, the demonstrations all end up blending together to sound like a single composed piece, and none of them have ever been issued elsewhere, making this lp a gem for Ussachevsky collectors (also, inexplicably, the version of Sonic Contours presented here is very different from the one released elsewhere). The demonstrations side also has a spoken section with the great beatnik radio artist/pre-dj Henry Jacobs playing and discussing his tape loop-based "experiments in synthetic rhythm," and some field recordings of pipe clanging sounds meant for the listener to use as source material for his/her own musique concrete. This lp has much more to offer, including experimental piano works by Cage and Cowell, a pair of obscure Russian avant garde orchestral pieces modeled after the sounds of industrial factories, another very early electronic work by Ussachevsky's colleague Luening, and Varese's landmark percussion-noise piece Ionisation. Includes 4 page insert.

Ussachevsky was born a Russian-Manchurian prince but fled to the US after the communist revolution; while teaching at Columbia he was placed in charge of maintaining their newly acquired tape recorder, which he began experimenting with as a compositional tool in the early 1950s. He was influenced by Edgard Varese and Roger Sessions, taught Charles Wuorinen, and Ilhan Mimaroglu, and co-founded the Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Center where he pioneered electronic music along with Luening, Milton Babbitt, Mario Davidovsky, and Bulent Arel. Jacobs was an early electronic composer, pioneering radio artist/experimental dj at Berkeley's legendary KPFA (home of Charles Amirkhanian), ethnic/folk music researcher, multimedia theater artist who organized the Vortex happenings with Jordan Belson, and satirist who worked with Lenny Bruce under various personas including Shorty Petterstein; he collaborated with Alan Watts and as a poet was associated with the beat poetry movement (William S Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, etc.). Luening was a flutist and electro-acoustic composer who studied under Jarnach, Andreae, and Busoni; he taught Charles Dodge, Charles Wuorinen, and John Corigliano and co-founded the revered CRI record label and the Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Center. Cage, arguably the most influential American composer of the 20th century, was known for his innovative use of chance methods, silence, found sounds, and extended playing and electroacoustic treatment techniques on traditional instruments; he studied under Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg, led the New York School of early postwar experimental composers (Earle Brown, Christian Wolff, Morton Feldman), was a contemporary of Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis, colaborated with Conlon Nancarrow and Merce Cunnigham, and was associated with the Fluxus 'post-dada' art movement (Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, George Maciunas, La Monte Young, Milan Knizak, etc.). Varese studied under d'Indy, Roussel, Widor, Debussy, and Rolland, and was an associate of Richard Strauss, Erik Satie, Alban Berg, Henry Cowell, Igor Stravinsky, Charles Ives, and Pierre Schaeffer. Cowell was an American composer who studied under Charles Seeger and pioneered inside-the-piano playing techniques. More references: Tod Dockstader, Jon Appleton, Bernard Parmegiani, Luc Ferrari, Raymond Scott, Bruce Haack, Harry Partch, Jean-Jacques Perrey...

Vinyl Condition: ex (plays wonderfully, a great copy)
Cover Condition: ex- (2 small tears on the back, 2 tiny stain lines on the front, some minor yellowing)

I have more John Cage for sale. Check out my other auctions this week for more avant garde/experimental, early electronic/electroacoustic/synthesizer, 20th century classical, minimalism, free jazz, psych, and space age pop.











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