2010 marked the start of a new aera, really, because the rose war finally untangled the family bonds and freed me of sinister relatives, still keeping best contacts with one brother…
Anyway, Alan Kushan came back again and stayed for 3 months, subrepting me to going at it again! I tailored a body to some of Alan’s scetches/demos and clearly a new challenge triggered my enthousiasm: to make a CD with a main vocalist for once. The pieces grew and grew and the vocal became more and more „just“ one more instrument. The „extra-content“ it carries are abrasive lyrics against the shit-stem. Read more about this new album „Shab Tab“.
In autumn I underwent a private quantum-leap in personal consciousness… I could explain it for you, but I can’t understand it for you…
…suffice it to say, that it turned out to be incredibly forward for the music…
I discovered that I wasn’t interested in music!
A big shock in the beginning, but then it’s been a challenging gift, and I found out, that after all it’s the s o u n d I’m after, and always have been! I been fooled into studying music only to find out that music is just a kind of „waste product“ of this huge thing which is sound….
And all the musicians of one sort (e.g. raga musicians, jazz-ers, rockers, classiquers etc.) think, only their music is the „only good“ music… Yet, all these musics are always and only one tiny tip of the block, the block of sound we haven’t seen in the slightest way in its entity.
Probably „sound“ is more like a dimension. Like „time“…
We make music out of sound and we make present and past out of time. More likely out of non-comprehension what these dimensions really are. We know that they affect us, like reality, but yet reality must by far not be a „truth“.
Anyway… it leads me to a much more deep comprehension of the little I know and of the zillion possibilities there is to making music.
I can perfectly relate now why I was never „successful“. I’ve always liked most any kind of music. I never had a band with a single style. And if so, only very briefly, because I’d move on to different styles. I’d get bored to repeat an achievement (if that is possible at all).
Finding interest in any kind of music, my own stuff doesn’t fit in one single style of music, I can’t surrender to a drawer (for the sake of a steady public?…).
I use whatever element apeals, is at hand, pleases, intrigues. Each day brings a new sound. Each period (e.g. each recorded „data-sheet“ of such momentary infatuations) represents just a little glimpse of the stage I was at while meeting these new musicians, having travelled that country, heard that sound etc.
And the next „data-sheet“ might baffle the previous possible „followers“. I’m not surprised today that a lot of reggae-afficionados doubt my roots (…sick…), feel they are betrayed because I don’t reproduce the drawer reggae like it ought to be reproduced (like they perceive reggae) etc.
And each recorded „data-period“ was only and ever just a comma… just a joyful noise…
Such transcendation made me discover new ways of making music. I tend to leave the „safety belt“ of structured, arranged, controlled „output“, I loosen the Johnny Controlletti syndrom to accept whatever sound is given to me in a single circumstance. There is no need to „shape“ or „blue-note-ify“ anything. Music cannot even be really canned. It’s a moment of present, made past with a forthcoming sound. I enoy more and more the loose making music, hooking off „secure paths“, hooking off power (and its plugs), hooking off the craving to reproduce what was planned, to get exposure, recognition, admiration (…) etc.
In
2011 came an invitation sort of to play piccolo within a little marching band in Basel, which was to end sometime in 2013 due to lack of rehearsing (I was simply not requested anymore)…
Reading a superb fantasy-novel by Walter Moers („The City of the dreaming Books“, i.e. „Die Stadt der träumenden Bücher“) which triggered the idea to make a film-music to it (one of those films that are yet to be made…). When Alan revisited, I started to build up some videos with him, based on – or rather tailored to – the story of this novel. I contacted Moers and we stayed in touch ever since. The film of the book altogether was shelved. Very sad, but I continued to make music „on that inspiration“ anyway which triggered another fantastic encounter.
In the meantime I abandoned completition of the related videos, too, although there were some fun moments:
ZamonArie
http://youtu.be/zeBvbBrZS8U
Shama Ninja Pan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYIT14tOjrk
Mother of Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuJfpYrkYQo
From Mahab to St-Saens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2VOu-xIvJU
Shab Tab (original)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiI38FbjnLI
2012 No. 17 of my „recording catalogue“ was released: „Shab Tab“ for my 60st birthday – basically only the 17th page of my guest-book, of who’s been passing here to leave a pleasant sound.
2013 in february, I discovered the great trio „Hadouk“ and went to see them in Paris, to invite french wind-instrument-maestro Didier Malherbe. While orchestrating more of such pieces for „Die Stadt der träumenden Bücher“, Didier let me film a little „for fun“-solo on Shab Tab, which then became the Shab-Tab 2013 edit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0ywZT6Bei0
The fun of making videos also led me into another adventure: practicing as usual in the morning, I was playing a piccolo piece called „Lumpesammler“ and at some point, LKJ would step in from his guest-room and said, he liked the piece, too, and could well imagine to do (and play) a bass-line to it…
This then would wind up into another fun video, but most people from Basel’s „carnaval diaspora“ advised me not to pursue with this „wacky“ idea, because maybe the composer of the piece wouldn’t like it at all, and there was some reservations about the musical ‚correctness‘ (harmonically), which revealed to be pure bollocks and sheer resentment… I still pursued the undertaking and contacted the great and fantastic drummer, Ivan Kym, to write a dedicated drum-score for my „adaptation“. What I didn’t know at the time, was, that Ivan was best friends with the composer, and – of course – would immediately communicate this to the originator, hence, in
2014, at the „Morgestraich“ (the opening act of the carnaval in Basel) the composer of „Lumpesammler“ leaped at me in the streets, all dressed up with mask an all the rest of it, and said: „don’t change a thing on that piece, we must get in touch“… and off he was (we were both fifing and on the move)! Soon after the carnaval, I met this fantastic person (an incredible flute player and flabbergasting maestro) and we started to crank the video up with more wackyness…
Lumpi’s nei Goschdym
http://youtu.be/7zmJm5-9o9s
…even ventured a dub-version of it:
„Rasta Lumpi“
http://youtu.be/pvL28v6eCeA
In summer, I disbanded „Gumbo“ within a last „goodbye concert“. Friends filmed it from which I culled three videos:
Unfinished (dedicated to Pascal Cuche) & Forgotten
http://youtu.be/kuNPkN3TF88
Game
http://youtu.be/CDx_cj08bdA
Altfrangg
http://youtu.be/sbTMQqUqYRA
Passing a coupla of medical upheavals (…), I still missed not to be part of a band anymore, i.e. play at Basel’s carnaval. Hence, Lumpesammler’s maestro/friend ventured, I should write my own little march (he helped me with invaluable instructions, scoring, lay-out etc.) and see what happens then.
2015 I went to the carnaval just to check out the scene. Meeting plenty new people and great players, it all seems to pick up momentum in a mellow steady flow. Kartharsis! Period… Eventually, the hype of a „new guy“ is coming up with a „new tone“, i.e. a new piccolo piece written for the extraordinary new bass-piccolo (a wonderful instrument), circulated. The mouth to ear „propaganda“ catapulted me into a new band „the yellow teckels“, with whom I would pick up momentum and learn yet another ten pieces…
Then, this – my first – piccolo piece had it’s premiere in Basel, in November…
https://youtu.be/2h1UaSbfk-M
The saddest moment in some ways this year, was to learn that, on my birthday, my friend and mentor Rico had passed after a year’s struggle to cope with health problems. He made so many thousands of people happy with his great sound. R.I.P. Astonishing „coincidence“ (I’m happy, I don’t „believe“ in anything particular, and particularily not in coincidence): so Rico died on my birthday, was born on oct. 17th, the day my mother died, while my mother was born on july 13th which is the day my other mentor – Eddie Boyd (see above) – was born!
2016
I started to write a follow-up to last year’s „enfant terrible“ and launched a virtual instructor page, where you can rehearse with music-minus one_like tracks for each piccolo…
The target is to release more cool piccolo music (not necessarily only my own creations) and „expand“ the musical horizon, if there is such a thing at all.
Particularily with the arrival of the Bass Piccolo, masterfully manufactured by wizard Tom Aebi, the piccolo music of Basel receives a new „wing“ to its music with that mellow sound, much less shrieky than the traditional ear-buster-piccolos. It’s really cool to write low counter-points that become their own individual „first voice“ within the traditional 3 to 4 voiced mode so far…
However (sadly enough), the „milieu“ of Basel’s piccolo players (the „Teig“) is – for the majority – more dedicated to the event (of the carneval) itself than to the focus of practicing the instrument…
As a „side-event“, I was given the privilege to enter the writer’s guilde: Archie Patterson of Eurock, (an on-going good relation since over 30 years), published some thoughts (namely about sound) in his american 2015 publication. He calls my writing-debut „free source grammar“ (which is meant to be!)…
articles\AboutSoundLastEdit.doc
2018
The first Piccolo-tune („Fuudyblutt“) reaches no. 1 at the Swiss Championships (in Bulle)… Eurock plans a full-length feature and commissioned a clip, which son Andri made
https://youtu.be/sU0PJn3t6Ds
2019
reaching the „third age“, severe changes propelled „recycling“ or better necessitated a reassessment of several themes. Health, relations, lick wounds, finding peace, surrender, yet all the while creating, the inner flame to provide joy, the sole „reason“ to live…
Hence the music atelier’s been revamped more or less „from scratch“ in that technically the workbench migrated from „fixed“ desktop daw (mac) to „mobile“ laptop (PC). With son Andri an advanced training course (for electronic music) staged a new venture: blend the „old“ way of making music (analog recording sessions) with electronic computing. A new concept started to dawn…
2020
In the process of that ‚inner ways‘ (meditation, Ayahuasca ceremonies and more), a strong urge to forgive my old ghosts and demons, I soon will re-insert a musical chapter here, but the new musical concept is keeping me too much at grips for the time being. Suffice it to mention that new musics ought to emerge from that very bright vision / concept / teamwork… moreover, the first LP „Kulu…“ is going to be released on vinyl by french label „Décale“ with a bonus cassette (!) of outtakes from the same sessions… new fife music is also in its very finishing process and I just put together a „tribute to“_video of Kamau Brathwaite (R.I.P.) with an unreleased recording of LKJ (from the beginning of the century)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhE0orPEkOI
Unfortunately my dream to go fishing someday with Henry sadly ended with his passing (R.I.P.)