Wednesday, June 27, 2007

2007 Vision Festival Links

Bill Dixon Chamber Orchestra 2007
Stephen Haynes/Isabelle Moisan and Michel Côté
StephenHaynes.blogspot.com

Bill Dixon -- Forgotten?
Mwanji Ezana
be-jazz.blogspot.com

Bill Dixon Chamber Orchestra Redux
Stephen Haynes
Stephen Haynes.blogspot.com

A Trumpeter In His 80's Feeds the Fires of His Revolution
Nate Chinen
New York Times

Vision Festival 2007
David R. Adler
Jazz Times

Double Bill // Double Vision
Destination Out

Vision Festival Day 2
Darcy James Argue
Secret Society

Back Stage with...Bill Dixon

Hank Shteamer
Time Out New York

Vision Festival XII June 19-24
Written by Administrator
Jazz Police Dot Com

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Thus Spracht Dixon

For your edification and amusement, a small selection of quotes by Bill Dixon taken from the 2nd rehearsal of the Sound Vision Orchestra in the basement of the Angel Orensanz Foundation in New York City on June 19th, 2007.

"There's something more interesting about the process than the final product"

"How does someone put something on the page and then how do the variations emerge?"

"How many of you have heard Rex Stewart...live?"

"Even more than facility, you have to have an identifiable sound"

"The ones that defined this music weren't going to get an MBA"

"I would have given an arm to play in the Ellington band"

"This sound that we will make, no one else can make - this sound belongs to this group"

"When you play, you must understand that's all you - you should make that as pronounced as you can"

"the lowliest musician has power whether its James Brown selling 20,000 records a month or James Blow selling 20 a year--they are equal. There is parity"

"You are who you are. Students used to say to me 'I want to play like Charlie Parker.' I would tell them 'you can't.' You don't want to live like Charlie Parker--how are you going to play like Charlie Parker? Charlie Parker didn't want to live like Charlie Parker"

"I don't want an exact precision"

"I never want a (musical) device if I can avoid it"

"You have to pretend this is your first crack at playing the drums, forget about sticking patterns"

"Molti molti ani fa"

"No accuracy in terms of notes - a shape"

"Music should not be suffered through. If its a chore, you should be headed to Wall Street"

"You can only be who you are, you should be proud of who you are or you should change who you are"

"There is no room for thinking in the act of music"

"You practice to forget"

"Do we have a storyline here?"

"You have to be careful about idiomatic things related to the instrument"

"you have to be willing to take a chance"

"We are 16 people in search of a larger instrument"

"Keep your eyes --all four of them-- on me, not on the music"

"Whatever you get you have to use"

"I'm not dictatorial about telling you what to do by flapping my arms and generally I don't like that sort of physical activity"

"I don't give a damn what you do, just so we end up at the same place. you can play 1/4 for all I care just as long as we end up at the same place" Dixon to Garrison on Intents and Purposes re: 6/4 and 4/4 time.

"I would rather not be arithmetical, I'd rather the ensemble feel that"

"I don't want success, I want adventure"

"I hope my music doesn't torture people - I hope people sit on the end of their seat"

"Sometimes what you know can stand in the way"

"History as constraint"

"ALL MUSIC IS EQUAL"
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