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| Transcendental Monkey Business [ discuss this review ] |
| band: Tony Bianco |
| Album: Monkey Dance |
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Tony Bianco's
"Monkey Dance"
Transcendental Monkey Business
"In some century to come, when the school children will whistle popular tunes in quarter-tones--when the diatonic scale will be as obsolete as the pentatonic is now--perhaps then these borderland experiences may be both easily expressed and readily recognized. But maybe music was not intended to satisfy the curious definiteness of man. Maybe it is better to hope that music may always be transcendental language in the most extravagant sense." (Essays 71).
~ Charles Ives
"Hanuman to Tara, wife of Vali: A man reaps the fruits of the actions he has performed: actions whether good or bad, and death grants him these fruits. No man’s action depends on those of another. This human body is like a bubble on the surface of water. No one need mourn for another since we are all to be pitied. You are in a pitiable state and you feel sorry for Vali who is dead. There is no cause for grief in this world where everything is transient."
~ From the Ramayana
Alright, so pretend we live in a perfect world. Relax. Just a fantasy. Say you got this drummer from New York City who wants to tell the story of Hanuman the monkey god inspiring Rama from the Gita. We'll call him Tony. Don't fight this dream, there's more. Okay, so let's say he meets up with some cat with a tone sweet as Lester Young who lives and breathes John Coltrane and has Ornette Coleman where it counts in his harmolodic sax and soul, say his name is Dave. Add Eric the Saint using his guit-box telling stories, all sorts of tricks and bobs and weaves and waves of twang bar stuff on the round wound six string. Okay, now add a "magic balaphon" some dude from the coast, make that Ivory Coast, and call him Ali. Come on! Believe the dream. Relax. Okay, now add that that our Tony can play them drums in some way only the sleeping brain can do like timeless, no time at all, man out of time, just driving without no fraction in the time box, and nowhere to put the bars, because this guy is free. What you got there is some sort of heaven on a stick, I know. Makes you want to weep maybe. Like you are in that sweet part of the Bhagavad long before that "I am become death" thing that we know and love from the documentaries about Oppenheimer. Just tons of gods walking the street. The air electric with sound, and magic swarming like fireflies above the dirt streets and the smell of food being baked on hot stones, and stuff, and what you can imagine is half as good as what you hear. Hanuman in 28 flavors of transcendental divine opulences, perfection in each, dancing full tilt boogie right there in stereo, mind-dancing ear to ear! Man that's some dream.
It can't happen here! Not after the crash! Not after that oil spill! I know. I know. But stick with me. This is the world of 10,000 could-be perfect circumstances coming-down-fast-but-don't-let-me-break-you, very unlikely, happy events all come together and grooving up slowly. It can happen, if here is the mythical can-do world, and that's the setup so let's finish the dream!
Get Dave that wooden flute he's being staring at. See what he can do. Nice. Very nice. Sound like something Indonesian, Hindunesian, whatever! Need some. Something makes this drive along. Must be Tony B. Magic man. No time to stop us now. Totally out of time. Timeless. Mountains sink to earth at this sort of thing, more than human, it's "Hanuman!" Rama's man. Hanuman the Monkey Man. Dance dance dance!
One of these days you'll wake up and you won't have been asleep. I know this album don't exist, but I love it anyway. What a wonderful world it would be. Bird and bees and everyone saying, "I love you!" Got me singing Louis. What a wonderful world! Everything that life would be if it were real. The band would be:
THE BAND
Tony Bianco (Interview) ~ drums, bass & piano
David Liebman (Website) ~ saxophones & wooden flute
Eric St-Laurent (Website)~ guitar
Aly Keita (Myspace) ~ balaphon
Adam Lennox ~ producer
There is no video of songs from Monkey Dance on YouTube, but Tony Bianco's Channel has many fine examples of drone drumming, douBt, and several of Bianco's collaborations. Click here for "Mahasvanah's Channel."
“I never even thought about whether or not they understand what I'm doing . . . the emotional reaction is all that matters as long as there's some feeling of communication, it isn't necessary that it be understood.”
~ John Coltrane
"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit."
~ John 3:8
"Tony Bianco and Dave Liebman are born of the Spirit in Monkey Dance."
~ Billy
THE SONGS
1. EXILED
Producer Adam watched his son sent away for offering to wrong sacrifice to the creative, or so the self-appointed gods decreed. "Eee Gadd," they cried, "Told us 'never pet a burning dog!" All great losses leave a mark, and Rama sings the exile song sad as Summertime over a sea of separation gurgling like the grid of space/time in "The Elegant Universe" (PBS special). The reed sings of R&B to tempt the wizard take us home. St. Laurent searches for the key in modes a plenty chords from the Universal Book way in the back where augmenteds flatten a fifth just to numb the pain. When you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there, but the road home is blocked. There's no tonic for this problem. We're on earth. There's no cure for that.
2. STROLLING IN THE SAVANNAH
This stroll feels more like some cake walk Bono stomp shuffling off to Buffalo slowed down from a back pack full of the weight of the world. Extra beats in the bag, but no carrots and no stick. Wandering in the Savannah where the flying fishes fry, and ain't no "do re mi" to buy a passage to India. The grooves along the road carry away sadness slow to the sea like some gutter stream to the way things seem. If you can't swing slow, you can't swing, is the Basie Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Can't teach nothing major in this desert don't get flattened a third way through the lesson, with two fifths, and another flattening on the seven step. This is the road where it feels good to knock it down. Gliss is bliss. Take it to the one if you can find it lost its way if there ever was one. Kinda gives the Saint a little tremolo in his voice.
3. WALKING ON WOOD
A walk in the woods is generally a Grimm vacation. Stuff out there don't obey no law but what can be done, and who might be zoomin' whom. Saint tries to make a fire by shredding some leaves with Lieb out to cover the kindling with some sound sheets somebody can light. Tony B. is giving those rim shots any way he choose hoping to get a spark from two sticks. Must be getting dark. Maybe eyes in the dark look out at you. Best lay low.
4. RAMA LONGED FOR SITA
Lieb hollows a stick for a whistle to sooth the savage breast of the starving beasts. He calms things down a bit, so maybe we can crawl away.
5. MONKEY DANCE
There's a back beat like some funk dipped deep in free jazz forming the quicksand foundation of this stomp of a dance. Liebman sings like a hyena on that single reed jeering at the powers that be in this street song Gita hymn of freedom in the face of face the music circumstances of truth to power yackity yack should have known better, but you gotta admire the pluck. Arch intervals like "nah nah nanah nah" frequent his speech from that brass liquor-ish stick made from brass balls. No cage can hold him, no staff to guide, this tony song done left nothing but a signature behind imprisoned behind bars. This dance has undergone a chance operation to create something one time once. All reports we have deny that Lieb is playing Summertime from time to time in this song, but that ain't no crime. Mostly he takes the 'trane to another plain.
I could not find the passage in the Ramayana for this song, so I consulted the scholars and came up with this:
"The monkey started laughin' an' jumpin up an' down,
An' his foot missed the limb, and his ass hit the ground.
Like a strike of lightn'in an' a ball of heat
The lion was on the monkey with all four feet.
Monkey said "Please Mr. Lion, let my nuts off the sand
An' I'll stand up and fight you like a nach'el man."
The lion jumped back all ready to fight
And the monkey yelled "Bye, Motherf@#ker!"
and ran dead out of sight."
~ From "Signifying Monkey" by Willie Dixon
[The expletive misspelled above is a term of art used to describe slave owners and their offspring. It is not a metaphor.]
6. DARK CELESTIAL MAIDENS
Any current scientist know that dark matters. There's a slow down comforter in this sloe gin of a ginned up tune. Saint goes Eno into the atmosphere in this been too long at the fair night crawler of a tune. Lieb samples bits of Coltrane from that crazy reed, and I feel a tingle at the back my neck as I start to come onto something that can only be redeemed with fire. Lieb starts to scream from that reed which is one of my favorite things. There's some frantic little figures in the smoke through their air as Saint makes it all sound like old school Siren songs leading to an unsafe harbor. Celestial navigation depends on some buoy or another to point out the sticky spot in the dark matter. It's a little scary. I'm moving on.
7. TO GAZE AT HER
There she is! Inviting Siren but best to look not touch from the feel of this song. Something strange going on behind this picture, like some Rothko pool you want to jump in, but the dark looks right back at you. Take it slow and keep curious cautious, by George. Take a warning from the Man with the Yellow Hat.
8. HONEY IN THE FOREST
Balafon break! Lieb joins in on the wooden flute. Ali does his proto-minimalistic best to create a bee hive full of sweet to calm things down and offer a refreshment break from the forest adventures. There's a mockingbird near the end, must have flown in the studio to sing along, or maybe Dave went aviary for a minute. [Maybe this balafon music was the original minimalism. I know Steve Reich spent time in Africa. Note to self to listen to more balaphon.]
9. WHICH WAY DO WE GO?
Leaving the story of Hanuman for a moment, since it is after all a metaphor for humanity's special monkey dance: Liebman's phrasing on "Which way do we go?" is a more articulate expression of the State of the Union -- spirit and body -- than any political speech since Lincoln, D'Israeli, or Jefferson. Few western musicians understand the music term "phrasing" with such depth of expression. Liebman sooths, cajoles, argues, calms, morns, cries, whispers, and convinces the listener of the value of life as a "signifying monkey." If an alien invader should require mankind plea for it's life in one speech, I'd choose Dave Liebman's sax to make the case over any of the Elephant Talk in current discourse.
10. HANUMAN'S LEAP
A leap of faith, in its most commonly used meaning, is the act of believing in or accepting something intangible or unprovable, or without empirical evidence. I don't know the story but I've lived this part, so I'll offer my two cents and six senses that the monkey has made a decision at this stage of the bell curve headed toward an unraveling. Saint and Liebman get a little hesitant at first, but then Lester Jumps In kind of thing, and we are off to the the future behind Door No. 3, or 2 or whatever. A choice is made. This may be where the myth gurgles into progress, progressive despite it's meandering. There seem to be some sheets from the modal collection spreading out like laser plateaus in a smokey show. Looks like land, but you step right through. Liebman is reinventing language on that horn again, and I don't know what he's saying but I feel it fine.
11. SURYA
Time to relax it sounds like dozing off on the couch during a conversation and then talking in tongues in your sleep. Kinda disjointed stuff, but brilliant like to send me to the Jung Book of Dreams. Feels like I think a dog must feel when he is dreaming and twitching and thinking he's running outside chasing something or running away. But I'm only catching part of the words that don't make strict sense, but sure sound nice. There's a wind up from Lester Young and damn near as close to a resolution as you can get without getting a laugh from the critics, since we don't resolve nothing in current thought nowdays.
Whew! That was a beautiful journey. Nothing like that ever happened on earth, that's for sure. Nobody can play like that, and I've checked the radio to be sure, and this was all just too good to be true. Shake my head clear and channel something easier and safer and much less meaningful to get back to passive, modern man, wakey wakey mode. Crap! Let's go back to sleep and dream again! I can't be expected to work under these conditions! Won't you take me back where I came from, won't you take me back? Get back to where we once belonged! The sleep of reason produces monsters. Tony! Help! Tony! Inkle Dinkle Finkle Drone. Time for this was to come home. ∞:| (Not an ideogram campers! That's the symbol for infinite repeat.)
"There is a word for music that isn't transcendental: Noise."
~ Billy |
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