https://www.nmz.de/kritik/oper-konzert/american-splendor-als-comic-operette?fbclid=IwY2xjawG_w09leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHeAd4W2HrCZ5nckaRkv-o5MsDUfG-7p_GDTvE7lYW1H7kYWEVUn2nGWU1Q_aem_6ZVNwQr_G4j1iiPlENkIzQ
My long-festering project of setting Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor stories premiers November 14 2024 in Cologne and then in spring finds its way to nine more German cities. Pages from the comic books are projected so that the audience can read along as the stories are sung.
Tamara Lukasheva ➤ voice, Shiau-Shiuan Hung ➤ marimba and percussion, Maxime Morel ➤ tuba, Florian Stadler ➤ accordion, Scott Fields (that’s me!) ➤ electric guitar
Support has been provided by Stadt Köln Kultur, Musikfonds, Kunststiftung NRW, Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrehein-Westfalen, and the Barbara Lissner Foundation.
November 14 2024 ➤ Alte Feuerwache Köln
February 7 2025 ➤ Rabbit Hole Theater Essen
February 8 2025 ➤ Cuba Münster
February 15 2025 ➤ Parzelle Dortmund
March 21 2025 ➤ Werkstatt Gelsenkirchen
March 22 2025 ➤ Dock 4 Kassel
June 6 2025 ➤ Lokal Harmonie Duisburg
June 7 2025 ➤ Ort Wuppertal
June 13 2025 ➤ Kreuzung an St. Helena Bonn
June 14 2025 ➤ FFT Düsseldorf
Bruce Lee Gallanter reviews Songs for the Downtown Music Gallery.
Featuring Scott Fields on electric guitar & compositions, Annette Maye on clarinets, Melvyn Poore on tuba, Norbert Rodenkirchen on flutes, Florian Stadler on accordion, Eva Popplein on electronics and Barbara Schactner on vocals. The thing that I’ve always dug about American-born, Austrian-based guitarist/composer Scott Fields is that nearly all of his 3 dozen-plus discs have a concept in mind and are not mainly free improv excursions. The concept for this disc was/is taking the poetry of the late Downtown poet Steve Dalachinsky and using his words an inspiration for the sextet that Mr. Fields has organized here. Steve Dalachinsky was an old, dear friend of mine who I would meet at more concerts than anyone else throughout the four decades that we were friends. Although I didn’t know he was a poet until the early nineties, we were kindred spirits as far as having a passion to check out as many Creative Music concerts as was possible. It turned out that Dalachinsky was also a wonderful poet and did the best job I knew of documenting/discussing (through his poetry) the music that a handful of us lived to hear played live many times a week for many years. Mr. Dalachinsky and his lovely wife Yuko Otomo, Irving & Stephanie Stone and yours truly would often be the only folks to attend many of the same concerts, especially during the early years of the Downtown Scene. When Mr. Dalachinsky passed away in September of 2019, we lost a special creative spirit who was a friend to many of the musicians, artists & serious listeners of the Downtown Scene.
Mr. Fields takes six of Mr. Dalachinsky’s poems and sets them to music which sounds partially free yet somehow directed. Mr. Fields has been living and thriving in Austria some three decades and this is where all or most of the musicians here are based. I only know a couple of the names here like Melvyn Poore (who has worked with Frank Gratkowski & the King Ubu Orchestra) and Norbert Rodenkirchen (who has worked with Albrecht Maurer). The music here is continuous with short interludes in between each piece. Although vocalist Barbara Schachtner sounds like an opera singer, she is used sparingly and is an integral member of this sextet. Dalachinsky’s poems are reprinted in the enclosed booklet so we can savor their meaning. The music often sounds like chamber music and is thoughtfully composed and focused. There are little or no actual solos here yet the music is consistently fascinating and quirky with some unexpected twists and turns. The only member who gets a chance to stretch a bit is Mr. Fields who often adds some odd, barbed spice at times. Although the music doesn’t remind me of the irascible Mr. Dalachinsky, hearing the words at times does recall his gift for describing the life of us serious Downtown listeners.
António Branco reviews Songs at jazz.pt.
Five duos, all of which include myself, will play an assortment of my compositions from the past decade.
Admission is free! (Thanks Landesmusikrat-NRW.)
Scott Fields — guitar
in duo with
Tal Botvinik — guitar
Drori Mondlak — drum set
Norbert Rodenkirchen — flute
Barbara Schachtner — voice
Rie Watanabe — percussion
Musikhaus K7A
Kyllstrasse 7A
50678 Köln
0177 86 74 820 — Deutsch
0152 233 48907 — English
scottfields@scottfields.com
stdoering@web.de
illustration, untitled, mixed media on paper © 2020 Carlos Zingaro
funded by Landesmusikrat-NRW
Last-minute funding has resulted in a compilation concert in Cologne less than two weeks from today. Five duos, all of which include myself, will play an assortment of my compositions.
Admission is free! (Thanks Landesmusikrat-NRW.)
Here’s the poop:
Scott Fields — guitar
in duo with
Tal Botvinik — guitar
Drori Mondlak — drum set
Norbert Rodenkirchen — flute
Barbara Schachtner — voice
Rie Watanabe — percussion
Musikhaus K7A
Kyllstrasse 7A
50678 Köln
0177 86 74 820 — Deutsch
0152 233 48907 — English
scottfields@scottfields.com
stdoering@web.de
illustration, untitled, mixed media on paper © 2020 Carlos Zingaro
funded by Landesmusikrat-NRW
Sand, my most recent large-ensemble composition, will be released on the New York label Relative Pitch April 7, 2023.
My next large-ensemble modular composition premiers in Bonn February 19 and will be repeated and recorded February 20. Both are free admission. Presented by the In Situ Art Society.
Platzreservierung: tickets@in-situ-art-society.de | Tel.: 0174 1839210
Kreuzung an St. Helena
Bornheimer Straße 128 | 53119
Alte Feuerwache Köln
Melchiorstraße 3 | 50670
Axel Lindner (DE) – Violine
Carolin Pook (DE) – Violine
Annegret Mayer-Lindenberg (DE) – Viola
Scott Roller (US/DE) – Violoncello
Katharina Hoffmann (DE) – Violoncello
Miles Perkin (CA/DE) – Kontrabass
Jonas Gerigk (DE) – Kontrabass
Sergio Sorrentino (IT) – E-Gitarre
Tal Botvinik (IL/DE) – E-Gitarre
David Stackenäs (SE) – E-Gitarre
Daniel Agi (DE) – Flöte
Norbert Rodenkirchen (DE) – Flöte
Frank Gratkowski (DE) – Klarinette
Salim Javaid (CZ/DE) – Saxophon
Matthias Schubert (DE) – Saxophon
Udo Moll (DE) – Trompete
Matthias Muche (DE) – Posaune
Melvyn Poore (UK/DE) – Tuba
Arturo Portugal (PE/DE) – Perkussion
Shiau-Shiuan Hung (TW/DE) – Perkussion
Tamara Lukasheva (UA/DE) – Stimme
Laia Genc (DE) – Stimme
Sophie Tassignon (BE/DE) – Stimme
Scott Fields (US/DE) – Dirigent
In job interviews this century it has been necessary to brag about one’s ability to multitask. If I had any intention of working a day job again I would either have to lie or confess that I do not have, and have never had, any ability to multitask at all. At one time I could internalize flower-care instructions while writing a check to pay for a gift intended to mollify my second ex-wife’s annoyance over a recent transgression. By now, however, I’ve lost even that ability. With luck and great effort I can manage to think about one thing at a time.
Which brings me to this fall’s dilema. A passel of government agencies has commissioned me to complete in one case and make real progress in two, three different musical projects by the end of the year. One is quartet settings of Samuel Beckett poems, mentioned in the previous News of the Scott post. A second is duets for classical guitar (hey, that’s me) and violist Axel Porath. And the third is an operetta that uses the writings of American Splendor author Harvey Pekar as lyrics.
My gut says write one, then the next, and then the last. My gut is leading me astray.
My Beckett quartet has received support to develop an evening’s worth of material. The first three CDs were settings of Samuel Beckett short plays. This new music will be settings of Beckett poems. And although I wrote the Beckett music for previous CDs and performances, for the poems three of us — cellist Scott Roller, saxophonist Matthias Schubert, and myself — will compose. Arturo Portugal will step in as percussionist.
Watch for performances in Cologne, Kassel, and Stuttgart this fall.
Although collection of 11-second guitar solos for the Eleven Project continues, the current batch of sonic blasts has started to be assembled.
To hear the current cobbled-together, unmixed state of Eleven, visit ➤ www.scottfields.com/eleven
As work continues the file will be updated.
from Ken Waxman at Jazz Word
Vigorously amplifying program ideas which date back to his 2001 Mamet CD, while incorporating orchestral colors from the instrumentalists he now works with since relocating to Köln in 2003, is American guitarist Scott Fields. Culmination of these concepts is this seven-part suite, with Fields’ composition admirably interpreted by a 20-piece ensemble conducted by Stephen Dembski. The presence of a conductor confirms that the arrangements for the mostly German group, calls for notated music precision coupled with improvisational liberties.
This dichotomy is especially apparent with the scene setting “Desert 2” and “Desert 3” where tints and temperatures of the desert landscape shift with studied regularity. The area’s barren and blooming qualities are suggested by sonic descriptions, overlain with unspecified menace, and with the fixed timbres interrupted by Free Music tropes.
“Desert 2” for instance contrasts a dreamy introduction of arco strings and flute peeps with jagged string inserts supplemented by resounding double bass thumps from Pascal Niggenkemper and Christian Weber. With a theme suggesting caravans gliding across the sands, the exposition, driven by subtle strokes from Ramón Gardella’s marimba and Arturo Portugal’s vibraphone, is shattered by bite-sized cries from Ingrid Laubrock’s soprano and Frank Gratkowski’s clarinet. As calm and cacophony alternate, the narrative builds to a multiphonic crescendo via crow-cawing brass from trumpeter Udo Moll and tailgate slurps from trombonist Matthias Muche. Finally the brass tones diminish to meet whistling flutes. Guitarists Fields and David Stackenäs move forward on “Desert 3”, rubbing and shaking discordant timbres as the lower-pitched strings maintains a microtonal counter line. Finally sweeping and strumming strings convene and give way to a snazzy Balkan-like reed interlude, seconded by burps from Melvyn Poore’s tuba, until the reed player create a squealing finale.
Conflicting sequences like these slip, shudder and slide throughout the Seven Deserts with section resolution as apt to be slowly unfolding near-romanticism as busy multiphonics. While the narrative gentleness is suffused with unexplainable dread, it’s only in the penultimate “Desert 6” where Rock-like guitar flanges and tenor saxophonist Matthias Schubert’s New Thing-like split tones destabilize the ongoing program joined by flutists Daniel Agi, Helen Bledsoe and Norbert Rodenkirchen trilling textures as energetic as the percussionists’ ruffs. “Desert 7” provides a coda with extra gravitas supplied by sobbing reeds, tuba burbles and sul ponticello strings. A delicate flute-violin blend brings the final sequence full circle to the beginning.
Singular and striking simultaneously, this tome confirm how Fields has achieved his goals while creating dazzling musical expression.
Assorted German agencies are keeping me busy with commissions. Two are under way.
The first, with support from Nordrhein-Westfalen’s culture office, is a large-ensemble modular composition in the method of OZZO and Seven Deserts. This one’s called Sand. It will be the first of my modular pieces to include vocalists, three altos for now. The lyrics are taken from several of my short stories.
The second, with support from Musikfond’s Neu Start program, is an instrumental setting of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross. For decades now I’ve composed note-for-word settings of literary works. My first pieces were fragments of five Mamet plays for the Delmark CD Mamet. After that were three CDs of complete Samuel Beckett plays, a little more Mamet, and a big mess of Charles Bukowski. Finally I’ve got a chance to set a complete Mamet play.
With luck, and a vaccine, these new works, each a complete evening’s performance, will premier in fall of 2021.
With shoutouts to Frank Gratkowski, Ingrid Laubrock, Melvyn Poore, and Stephen Dembski.
Guitarist Scott Fields, born in Chicago 68 years ago this month and longtime resident of Germany, has been building his music for decades, starting with early exposure to Chicago’s AACM and the special influence of Don Moye and Joseph Jarman of the Art Ensemble. Since the mid ‘90s, he has been developing large-scale compositions involving modular forms to expand and integrate written and improvised elements. Seven Deserts is such a work, a seven-part piece that’s 65-minutes long, derives from a 50-page score and includes an improvising conductor (long-time associate Stephen Dembski) primarily responsible for pulse and density, and a 20-piece orchestra. The latter is as central to the achievement as Fields’ thoughtful management of form, texture and individual input.
The musicians include members of Cologne-based new music ensembles devoted to diverse areas of contemporary practice, with sections of strings, flutes, percussion and brass and a host of individuals distinguished in improvised music, among them bassists Pascal Niggenkemper and Christian Weber, electric guitarists David Stackenäs and Fields himself and individual reed players Frank Gratkowski and saxophonists Ingrid Laubrock and Matthias Schubert. Seven Deserts is a work that continuously alternates and combines distinctive solo voices with a contrapuntal interplay at once distinguished by its wedding of complexity and clarity. No matter how many parts are going on, there’s a sense of individual lines, from the flute that inaugurates the initial segment to the dense, rapid lines of “Desert 6”. Every musician has a highly developed sense of timbre, whether the smooth, even tone of Helen Bledsoe’s flute, varied vocalic chirp and wail of Laubrock’s soprano or Udo Moll’s brash, burred trumpet. The ensembles can develop strange, wandering polyphony with eliding pitches or form tight-knit coils, roam further afield or suddenly halt. The album has been assembled from studio and live performances of the work for the optimum version possible, but the sonic quality is seamless.
As well as invoking a tradition that includes Anthony Braxton, Barry Guy, Roscoe Mitchell and George Lewis, Seven Deserts joins a collection of recent works—Christopher Fox’ Topophony, Laubrock’s Contemporary Chaos Practices, Nate Wooley’s ongoing Seven Storey Mountain—in blurring boundaries between and expanding the possible syntheses of large-scale composition and improvisation, increasingly presented as complementary rather than contrary processes.
Stuart Broomer — New York City Jazz Record
Out today on New World Records, my most recent modular composition: Seven Deserts.
You can find it here.
Liner notes by Elliott Sharp. Cover image by Andre Ferrella. Engineered by Reinhard Kobialka.
With Axel Lindner, violin ➤ Hannah Weirich, violin ➤ Annegret Mayer-Lindenberg, viola ➤ Axel Porath, viola ➤ Niklas Seidl, cello ➤ Pascal Niggenkemper, contrabass ➤ Christian Weber, contrabass ➤ Scott Fields, electric guitar ➤ David Stackenäs, electric guitar ➤ Daniel Agi, flutes ➤ Helen Bledsoe, flutes ➤ Norbert Rodenkirchen, flute ➤ Frank Gratkowski, clarinets ➤ Ingrid Laubrock, soprano saxophone ➤ Matthias Schubert, tenor saxophone ➤ Udo Moll, trumpet ➤ Matthias Muche, trombone ➤ Melvyn Poore, tuba ➤ Ramón Gardella, percussion, marimba ➤ Arturo Portugal, percussion, vibraphone ➤ Stephen Dembski, conductor
Part of my touring strategy requires that I pop off the neck of my purchased-for-this-purpose-only Fender Jazz Tele every time I fly on an airline that doesn't allow guitars as free carryons.
But since I hide the Tele body in my carryon suitcase and sneak on the Jazzmaster neck in a padded tripod bag as my "one personal item," I have to remove the strings from the tuners before I travel and reconnect them sometime before the gig. That's time consuming and not great for tuning stability.
The answer is locking tuners. Unlock the tuners and slip out the strings to travel. Slip the strings back in and lock up to gig. Plus no turns on posts equals stable tuning.
Here's the problem, my pseudo-vintage Jazz Tele has 8.8mm vintage-size tuner holes. (And isn't that weird, marketing a "Parallel Universe" FrankenFender with vintage specs.) But most locking tuners fit 10mm holes. I won't enlarge the holes because want to leave this abomination as stock as possible to make it easier sell when the inevitable day arrives.
Fortunately Gotoh makes two kinds of locking tuners that fit into 8.8mm holes and even look almost exactly like the original lousy tuners they replace.
One style has knobs on the back that you turn to lock or unlock the strings.
Dope that I am, I ordered the other style. These "autolocking" tuners have a clever mechanism in the post itself. Unscrew it a little, insert the string, and turn and turn and turn and turn and turn until the string locks in place. To remove the string, the instructions say to use a coin (they must have tiny coins in Japan) to loosen the post, and then turn and turn and turn and turn and turn until the string unlocks.
Changing strings with these elegant locking tuners takes even longer than changing strings on regular tuners. I've listed them on eBay.
But for my two not-take-apart electric guitars, these tuners are swell. I've installed sets on both.
For those of us who fly around Europe, or who fly between the States and Europe, carrying on a guitar has become near to impossible. Nearly every airline I use to get to gigs in Europe now doesn't allow guitars as carryons unless you buy a seat. To make matters worse, if you check the guitar, it's an extra 50 euros each way on top of the additional bag fee. In other words, if you're already checking one bag, you have to pay the additional bag fee plus 50 euros just because it's a musical instrument. That's 100 euros every time I have to fly to a gig.
Some guitarists, myself included, have started using guitars with bolt-on necks (which I don't much like), and taking the necks off before flying. I bought a Fender Jazz-Tele, which is a Jazzmaster with a Telecaster body.
My Telecaster body fits in my carryon suitcase or my checked in suitcase, if I'm doing that. The Jazzmaster neck goes into a tripod bag, which I carry on. It's also possible to fit the body and neck together into a two-racket tennis bag, but that's risky because it doesn't really fit the carryon tester box.
This is a nasty hassle, but there is an advantage. Since I’m not carrying an obvious gig bag or a flight case no one cleverly asks “Hey, are you going to sing us a song?”
For several years I have read music from an iPad when I play acoustic guitar concerts but have read from paper for electric guitar concerts.
Why? Thanks for asking. It's because I use a foot pedal to move from page to page. That's fine for acoustic gigs, when my feet have no other function than displaying beautiful Italian shoe leather. For electric gigs, however, my feet are busy tippytapping on an assortment of pedals.
The solution appeared last month when I was interviewed by Aurelia Azoulay, president of the music-displaying software company Newzik. She suggested the Flic, a button that sends Bluetooth commands. It's cheap, 25 bucks, and is powered by a watch battery that supposedly lasts a couple of years.
The button's back has reusable sticky stuff that I used to attach it to a speed knob. Now, when I play reading gigs on my electric guitars, I pop off a volume knob and press on the Flic-on-a-knob.
One click is forward a page. Two clicks is back a page. Magic!