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Preview Wed May 14 2014
Nate Wooley's Coarse-Grain Trumpet Meditations @ Lampo
Nate Wooley. Photo by Peter Gannushkin
Nate Wooley's trumpet playing, with its long lines and grainy textures, combines equally well with musical/tonal playing, free improvisation, and abstract composition. Unlike many modern improv players (brass-based or otherwise), Wooley's first mark on the canvas is a line, not a point. His lush, strange, visceral sound (one reviewer called his work "exquisitely hostile") cuts a path through the overgrown forest of free improv seemingly perpendicular to all other travelers. Like a hand-ground audio pigment, Wooley's sound mixes well on a variety of canvases, capable of providing abstract shadows on large landscapes (including work in Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Orchestra and also his trumpet quintet) or streaking across a stark white paper, trailing rough chunks and feathery dust (in solo improvisation works like [8] Syllables).
Sometimes, Wooley combines his extended techniques on trumpet with electronics or processing, as on the Trumpet/Amplifier LP (Smeraldina-Rima), but his brilliant mastery of controlled lines and microtonal shifts of embouchure (as well as massive overdubbing of multiple different horns, mutes, microphones, room tone, etc.) allows for gorgeous, drone-based works like The Almond (Pogus Productions).
This Saturday, Lampo will host Mr. Wooley's latest composition, For Kenneth Gaburo. The composition will continue on with concepts used in The Almond, combined with his method of using vocal syllables while playing to shape the tones of his trumpet, as on his series of "Syllables" recordings. Using text from Gaburo's works, the piece will combine "synthesized tones on tape with manipulated trumpet techniques to create shadings of the phonetic sounds inherent in the text." This is a long work, and the program will conclude with several amplified trumpet improvisations from Mr. Wooley.
The performance happens this Saturday, May 17, at the Graham Foundation's Madlener House (4 W. Burton Pl.) at 8pm. Admission is free, but RSVP is required. Follow the ticket link to reserve your place.
Stuart Kimg / June 26, 2014 9:01 AM
Nice, Nate.