VORTEX Henry Jacobs electronic concrete '59 lp w/ins

$

68

HENRY JACOBS * DAVID TALCOTT * WILLIAM LOUGHBOROUGH * GORDON LONGFELLOW
HIGHLIGHTS OF VORTEX

Folkways FSS 6301, 1959.

ORIGINAL 1ST PRESS ~ WITH THE DOUBLE SIDED 3-PANEL INSERT!



"Legendary original 1959 lp of electronic music from multimedia theatre shows/happenings which took place at the Morrison Planetarium in San Francisco during the late 50s. Vortex was a series of events founded by experimental radio artist/pre-dj Henry Jacobs and filmmaker Jordan Belson in association with Berkely radio station KPFA and the California Academy of Sciences, presenting "a new form of theatre based on the combination of electronics, optics and architecture." Its soundtrack consisted of musique concrete made by Jacobs along with a host of obscure local composers of early tape music, ethnic field recordings, and avant garde works by composers such as Takemitsu, Stockhausen, and Berio, while a room-filling light show entranced the audience, and 40 speakers rotated around them creating "a whirlpool of sound." The stunning compositions on this lp incorporate field recordings, percussive tape loops, primitive delay systems and filters, and tape-manipulated sounds derived from diverse sources including voices, Indian tablas, flutes, guitars, Hatian drums, bells, piano strings, car engines, and pots and pans. An essential artifact of obscure early American musique concrete. Includes insert.

Jacobs was an early electronic composer, pioneering radio artist/experimental dj at Berkely'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.). William Loughborough was an electrical engineer and percussionist; he performed as part of Chet Baker's band, invented several new percussion devices and "the world's largest horn speaker," and helped Harry Partch design his microtonal instruments. Longfellow worked for the Ampex Corporation, maker of the tape recorders used to create the earliest electronic music, and was influenced by Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening. Talcott was an electrician, Theremin-builder, and Harry Partch associate; he also worked as a radio producer at KPFA. Other references for this lp: Tod Dockstader, Jon Appleton, Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, INA-GRM, Luc Ferrari, Francois Bayle, Francois Bernard Mache, Ivo Malec, John Cage, Christian Marclay, Bernard Parmegiani, Rune Lindblad, Henk Badings, Dick Raaijmakers, Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, Edgard Varese, Raymond Scott, Herbert Eimert, Bruce Haack..."

TRACKS:
Trilogy (David Talcott)
Chan (Henry Jacobs)
For The Big Horn (Wm. Loughborough)
Logos (Henry Jacobs)
Rhythm Study #8 (Henry Jacobs)
Notes On The History Of The World, Part 3 (Gordon Longfellow)
Loop Number 3 (David Talcott)
Electronic Kabuki Mambo (Henry Jacobs)
350-2 (Gordon Longfellow) 

Like new looking original record has one small mark on "Logos" - plays mostly EX+ = a great listen! / NM insert is jammed packed with the info. on this experimental venture "Enertainment for The Space Age", including a diagram of the speaker system that was used at the Morris Planetarium in san Francisco for this show and bios on Jacobs and the other men involved / solid EX Cover with the spiral "Vortex" cover by Ronald Clyne!.

info by; "keymap records"