Yusef Lateef
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Conlon Nancarrow’s music has been the subject of analysis by some of the most astute composers and academics in modern music. His music and its accompanying scholarly literature are a potentially rich source of material for improvisation.... more
Conlon Nancarrow’s music has been the subject of analysis by some of the most astute composers and academics in modern music. His music and its accompanying scholarly literature are a potentially rich source of material for improvisation. As Nancarrow was influenced by expert jazz improvisers with virtuoso technique such as Art Tatum when constructing this music, this is a logical outcome.
Nancarrow’s work had made a substantial impact on the output of electric guitar virtuosos such as Frank Zappa and Shawn Lane, as the sheer speed of the linear material along with the dense polyrhythmic fabric present in the music had pushed these influential players to increase their technical capabilities of the instrument to a new much higher level. This in turn has had substantial impact on current electric guitar practice.
The video performance of an electric guitar piece based on Nancarrow’s Third Study for Player Piano (Boogie Woogie Suite) is performed on electric guitar improvisation based on melodic, intervallic, and rhythmic material within the piece against two tracks of pre-recorded electric guitars also performed by me following the harmonic structure of the piece and utilizing the polyrhythmic devices contained within the original music. The performance is roughly the same length as the original piece (3’ 22”), and demonstrates Nancarrow’s rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic concepts (including what he himself called “licks”) within an improvisational format.
Perpetuum Mobile
This piece was written using a nine-tone (Nonatonic) scale (C#, D#, E#, G, A#, C, D, E, F#) constructed by 20th Century Jazz Theorist and Pedagogue Dennis Sandole (teacher of John Coltrane, James Moody, Jim Hall, Pat Martino amongst many others). My use of pitch material of a jazz origin such as Sandole’s was purposeful in order to conceptually align this work with Nancarrow’s clear jazz influences in his “Boogie Woogie Suite”. This particular scale allows for liberal use of a trichord that includes a minor third and major third which features prominently in Nancarrow’s “Suite”.
I constructed this piece using octave (registral) displacement techniques combined with a rhythmic texture of sixteenth note rhythms similar to the constant “left hand” ostinato motion of Nancarrow’s Study#3. The octave displacement of lines creates a two part texture of predominately staccato attacks and the use of changing time signatures and registers in a variety of rhythmic note groupings was meant to give the illusion of two separate rhythmically independent parts unified by one basic scalar tonality. The few cascading arpeggio sections that feature liberal use of sustain pedal were inspired by Nancarrow studies 5, 27, 37, and 45c.
The general absence of harmonic writing places the emphasis on the rhythmic and contrapuntal elements of the music and the faux “player piano” sound is an obvious nod to Nancarrow and seems to work with this essentially staccato and rhythmic nature of the piece.
I wrote this composition not to imitate Nancarrow’s work directly, but to allow his overall musical approach to influence my own musical language.
Nancarrow’s work had made a substantial impact on the output of electric guitar virtuosos such as Frank Zappa and Shawn Lane, as the sheer speed of the linear material along with the dense polyrhythmic fabric present in the music had pushed these influential players to increase their technical capabilities of the instrument to a new much higher level. This in turn has had substantial impact on current electric guitar practice.
The video performance of an electric guitar piece based on Nancarrow’s Third Study for Player Piano (Boogie Woogie Suite) is performed on electric guitar improvisation based on melodic, intervallic, and rhythmic material within the piece against two tracks of pre-recorded electric guitars also performed by me following the harmonic structure of the piece and utilizing the polyrhythmic devices contained within the original music. The performance is roughly the same length as the original piece (3’ 22”), and demonstrates Nancarrow’s rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic concepts (including what he himself called “licks”) within an improvisational format.
Perpetuum Mobile
This piece was written using a nine-tone (Nonatonic) scale (C#, D#, E#, G, A#, C, D, E, F#) constructed by 20th Century Jazz Theorist and Pedagogue Dennis Sandole (teacher of John Coltrane, James Moody, Jim Hall, Pat Martino amongst many others). My use of pitch material of a jazz origin such as Sandole’s was purposeful in order to conceptually align this work with Nancarrow’s clear jazz influences in his “Boogie Woogie Suite”. This particular scale allows for liberal use of a trichord that includes a minor third and major third which features prominently in Nancarrow’s “Suite”.
I constructed this piece using octave (registral) displacement techniques combined with a rhythmic texture of sixteenth note rhythms similar to the constant “left hand” ostinato motion of Nancarrow’s Study#3. The octave displacement of lines creates a two part texture of predominately staccato attacks and the use of changing time signatures and registers in a variety of rhythmic note groupings was meant to give the illusion of two separate rhythmically independent parts unified by one basic scalar tonality. The few cascading arpeggio sections that feature liberal use of sustain pedal were inspired by Nancarrow studies 5, 27, 37, and 45c.
The general absence of harmonic writing places the emphasis on the rhythmic and contrapuntal elements of the music and the faux “player piano” sound is an obvious nod to Nancarrow and seems to work with this essentially staccato and rhythmic nature of the piece.
I wrote this composition not to imitate Nancarrow’s work directly, but to allow his overall musical approach to influence my own musical language.