"jenny" ©chrnie guettel 2011

"jenny" is a part of a longer piece for

Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

CDs of longer compositions are available

through the composer at

charnie_wish@yahoo.ca

a chart for "The Modern Jazz Twelve"

making a chart for the horns from a section of

"A Certain Kind of Nothingness"

Complexities of the willing ego

The soundtrack for this is taken from a piece

that The Modern Jazz Twelve is developing.

Here is the piano version.

"Complexities of the Willing Ego"

"Defaire" (to undo)

From a concert performance in the spring of 2011.

charted for the 2012 band "The Charnie Guetttel Modern Jazz Twelve"

under the title

"Complexities of the Willing Ego"

January 12 8:00 "Zelda's" 692 Yonge Street "Modern Jazz Twelve"

Including some of this in the set for the performance at Zelda's:

Jan 12 8:00 692 Yonge St. Toronto.

Making a chart for the band.

Sculpture

Tune for January 12 at "Zelda's"

Am calling the band appearances this year "Episodes".

Our first is January 12 8:00 at "Zelda's" 692 Yonge Street in Toronto.

Today I am charting "Tillie Stern" for the band.

piano version of a tune now charted for "The Modern Jazz Twelve"

"Tune for Art Pepper"

became one of the pieces charted for

The Charnie Guettel Modern Jazz Twelve

"Intuition #6" jazz piece for "Modern Jazz Twelve"

"Intuition# 6 © charnie guettel 2011

piece from the CD "Fragile, Precarious, Different"

The recent piano CD of compositions to be charted for

The Charnie Guettel Modern Jazz Twelve"

includes this piece.

"A Certain Kind of Nothingness"

charnie guettel modern jazz twelve

Kevin Cato, Ted Peters, and Charnie Guettel of "The Charnie Guettel Twelve" play

a soundtrack of Guettel compositions for an art video.

David Bateman painting "River Sunrise"

"More space" for Matisse and Coltrane

A piece to be charted for "The Charnie Guettel Twelve"

"More Space" for Matisse and Coltrane

Complexities of the willing ego

The jazz score that goes with this video is called "Complexities of the Willing Ego"

and is one of the charts for "The Charnie Guettel Modern Jazz Twelve"

"Contributions to the Analysis of the Sensations"

from the first few sessions of "The Charnie Guettel Modern Jazz Twelve"

The soundtrack for this video was made from the first few sessions

of "The Charnie Guettel Modern Jazz Twelve". The band began in Sept.

Soundtrack

Charnie Guettel "What is Illusion"

Charnie Guettel "What is Illusion"

arranging for horns

Working on the second CD of the Modern Jazz Twelve.

Follow charnieguettel.com to keep abreast of the

composer's unit.

The next CD will include arrangements of

"Rahel Varnhagen" and

"Toronto Thoughts".

charnieguettel.com

charnie guettel modern jazz twelve

New website for the mostly horn ensemble: charnieguettel.com

Charnie Guettel Modern Jazz Twelve

A composer's ensemble to perform and record

the longer compositions.

Modern Jazz Twelve soundtrack

Members of the "Charnie Guettel Modern Jazz Twelve"

play a soundtrack for a video of a collection of paintings.

"Garnet's Collection"

"musings" (for Wardell Gray)

"musings" (for Wardell Gray)

"untitled"

"untitled" jazz composition

"Intuition #6" jazz piece

"Intuition # 6" Charnie Guettel Jazz Composition

"more space" for Matisse and Coltrane

"more space" for Matisse and Coltrane"

The Charnie Guettel Modern Jazz Twelve

Soundtrack features members of The Charnie Guettel Modern Jazz Twelve

playing compositions of Charnie Guettel.

Soundtrack: Charnie Guettel Modern Jazz Twelve

"a certain kind of nothingness"

This piece will be charted for the band.

"a certain kind of nothingness"

what is illusion?

"what is illusion?"

"Musings" (for Wardell Gray)

Wardell Gray was a tenor player working 1940-1955 who had a remrkable style and feel.

This piece is in his memory.

"Musings"(for Wardell Gray)

A ballet theme for the jazz opera

This theme is in the last act of "Ophélie" the opera in progress.

It is for a dance number. Typing the last draft of the script this season.

"The Clearest Theme"

recording from a live performance

This is a recording from a live performance last spring. Parts of this piece

reappeared in a chart recorded by the band in September and October, and are included

on the band's first CD. FIRST SESSIONS "Disc One" of the Modern Jazz Twelve.

défaire (to undo)

"sculpture"

This is a piece about sculpture.

A piece of sculpture by Mary Hecht.

A second video is planned of its closeup.

sculpture

"for Gerry Mulligan"

finishing the band chart for this tune today.

"for Gerry Mulligan"

band's first soundtrack

Members of my new band "The Modern Jazz Twelve" are recording pieces from "Ophélie": some appear in our first soundtrack, for a video on an abstract painting technique of David Bateman.

David Bateman painting "River Sunrise"

"more space" for Matisse and Coltrane

A piece for the influence of Coltrane and Matisse to our perceptions

"more space for matisse and coltrane"

study for Maria Callas

When I began writing the opera two years ago, I also began the posting some the

of possible themes to listeners on line. Since then, the script of "Ophélie" has been written, and does not include the story in this study: but the sentiment, the attitude, in the "Study for Maria Callas" has been absorbed into the opera in other ways. And maybe the theme will be included intact.

Study for Maria Callas

what is on my mind today to chart

This is on my mind today, to chart for the band.

"A Certain Kind of Nothingness"

piano solo CD

The last piano solo CD that will be available for awhile "Seven Compositions" contains a longer version of this piece. (Most CDs in the near future will be of the band). For inquiries email charnie_wish@yahoo.ca

"Musings for Wardell Gray"

"Following the Argument"

At the time of writing this piece, I was looking at the paintings of Pissaro very carefully.

"Following the Argument"

"emotion and personality"

thinking of charting this for the band, or part of it.

"emotion and personality"

new swing tune for band

writing a chart for Thursday's session based on this tune.

"For Gerry Mulligan"

the band's first industrial gig

This is a video I made for a demonstration of a David Bateman's painting technique, and the band's first soundtrack gig.

Features Kevin Cato Alto, Ted Peters Trombone, me on piano.

David Bateman painting "River Sunrise"

complexities of the willing ego

This video is named for a book by Ernst Mach called "Contributions to an Analysis of the Sensations". But the tune played on piano in this video is recorded under the title of a concept of Hannah Arendt "Complexities of the Willing Ego", which came from my readingof her book The Life of the Mind". Since all this, it has been recorded by members of the band (The Twelve"): Martin Kuwawi and Kevin Cato and myself, on Sept. 22 of this year. It appears on the first disc of the band. To purchase the band's version, with other band pieces from this fall, email us at charnie_wish@yahoo.ca

Here is the piano version.

Contributions to an Analysis of the Sensations

"Blue Modernism"

"Blue Modernism" was written in November of 2009, just a few months after I went into just writing instrumentally, instead of writing songs. It comes from a longer piece called "Colonialism". I was trying to reach further into my self to find themes that would find each other in a larger work. I was at first going to put them into a work as a cantata (something structurally halfway between a song cycle and an opera) and instead I went deeper and deeper into instrumental composing, just writing from day to day, trying to discover what I was writing, free of constraint, and I created a much wider arc of material, by releasing much more music writing, without at first knowing what it was for.

For example, this piece sounds to me now, like getting ready for a death, or acknowledging a death, or dying, or fearing dying, or fearing someone else dying. At the time it didn't upset me: it does now.

Blue Modernism

charting

charting this for the band today.

"Toronto Thoughts"

"A Certain Kind of Nothingness"

I look forward to charting this. It has a space around it that produces a certain kind of apace in the mind: I believe it will yield both that "querulous" aspect and further unknown things, among the horns, in free form. (speculations on band arrangements)

"A Certain Kind of Nothingness"

The messages to myself are the same as the messages to the listener. What the listener makes of it is the business of the listener. What I am able to grasp, of what's happening, is my business.

themes for a tenor player

Searching through this piece for what belongs in the opera. Had a horn session with Kevin Cato Thursday night on the new chart of "Rahel Varnhagen", and "Dream Out of Stone"

"Musings for Wardell Gray"

a tune for Gerry Mulligan

This morning when I posted this tune from 2009 I wrote for "Gerry Mulligan" it was part of a process in the present of getting ready for a session with a player tonight. Musically I feel very close to horn players, and hearing my composing played by horn players is changing me a great deal.

I think the whole opera was written to provide a vehicle for the creation of this large modern jazz horn unit (The Twelve: there are four of us so far, and a couple more on the way). Yesterday I put together a CD of the first sessions, which I am quite pleased with.

Jazz: Supporting each other through many levels of self-determination. (I am speaking

here of the playing process among the jazz musicians, the art of jazz itself.)

For Gerry Mulligan

"Modern Jazz Twelve"

Beginning to return to old haunts to search for the right horn players for the new

twelve piece unit to record the compositions for "Ophélie", the modern jazz opera

that I have been working on, and for which I am now typing the script and preparing

the charts. I have had three recording sessions with the first players, and am selling

the CDs of the new band by subscription to raise the money to pay the band for the recording sessions: four different future CDs for $100. Th first CD should be ready in a few days.

To enquire about purchasing copies email me at charnie_wish@yahoo.ca.

from day to day I am going through piano recordings of compositions to see what to

chart for the band. For example here is a piano piece which has become part of the opera.

Défaire (to undo)

pavane for a live piano player

This piece written in 2009 includes a letter to poet friend Anita May, explaining

the search for composition forms deliberately conscious of the playing perspective

of the piano self-accompanied singer. It was from when I was first just composing

instrumentally, 2009.

Pavane for a live piano player, oct 22 2009

"Intuition #6"

This might be the next theme to chart. I have to follow the thread.

"Intuition #6"

"Toronto Thoughts: a tune"

Going through some things written in 2009. First I posted this, then took it down: then the melody lingered, and I started hearing it with the horns. This process of what I maybe rework, and what I forget about, what I reconsider: I spend some time lately going over things I never used for anything, written since 2009: That is when I began to concentrate on instrumental composing, instead of songs, and I quickly moved on to the next piece from day to day to see what I could do: and now I can see patterns in the material, that I didn't have a use for then then, but now maybe I do. Some things belong in this longer work I am finishing the script for "Ophélie", maybe this tune:

"Toronto Thoughts"

subscriptions to the compositions

I am financing the recording sessions of the Charnie Guettel Modern Jazz Twelve

by selling subscriptions to the discs of the band produced in the coming season:

four different discs for $100. To arrange payment email me.

charnie_wish@yahoo.ca

We already have a disc available from the first three sessions,

to be mailed to you upon receipt of the subscription.

fragile, precarious, different

Orchestrating a piece for "Ophélie" called "fragile, precarious, different"which is changing other parts of the opera. I have changed both the melodies and harmonies for many of the sequences.

The narrative of the script for all three acts is almost finished, but the charting of the score has deepened the point of the opera. Now the opera is carrying me, not the other way round. When I am deeply into writing a chart, the pencil life of the chart takes me much further, now, than I was able to go last year. Now I think of the first drafts of this larger work as the sketches, and what is going on now is the "painting".

"More Space" for Matisse and Coltrane

Nov 3, and I am listening to this piece to prepare a chart for it. The composing has

changed me in yet another way, lately, I mean both what it takes to compose, and the product, my sensitivity to what is unusual to me, both about my own composing, and the effect of my own pieces on me, when I am arranging them for horns, which is what I am doing day by day.

And focussing on what is particular about it, has made me impatient with the connections to people which might distract me from my work, not just during work hours, but at all times of day and night: I used to be able to float from one task to another, to some degree, but now my darknesses are out, and the composing has taken me over in a way which makes it hard for me to relate to people who are indifferent to the composing. I am becoming the composing.

This piece composed in June (which I see now was a very productive month)...strikes me now as more important to me, than it did at the time, but each thing on the "Seven Compositions" disc, which some people have bought and are listening to...each piece, now has a clearer purpose to me now, than it did at the time I wrote the pieces. It is like when one is preparing poems for a collection: it is only later that you realize which ones go together. Well, the logic of the most recent composing (and my response to many things I have written since 2009) has formed an anthology of me, has made me into the composing.

"more space" for Matisse and Coltrane

My Shadow Falls Between Us

Themes for the jazz opera

"My Shadow Falls Between Us"

"Fuzzy Memories" (Blues)

Check out new postings on

charnieguettel.com

"going further"

a sequel to "going away"

"going further"

"going away"

a piano composition from 2010

"going away"

"Speaking Freely"

This tune became a piece for the band called "Speaking Freely"

This is an earlier version under the title

"Tune for Art Pepper"

"sculpture"

In June I recorded a number of composition sequences which I am now charting. Here is another.

"sculpture"

"The Long Night"

A piece written in 2010 that I am considering arranging for horns.

The Long Night

"Rahel Varnhagen"

Iam arranging part of this composition for jazz horns.

"Rahel Varnhagen"

"The Jewish Writings"

A composition I wrote for Hannah Arendt. I might arrange part of this as a sequence in

the opera "Ophélie"

"The Jewish Writings"

"one of the years he doesn't remember"

a song written in both French and English, with harmonies

l'une des années qui'il a oubliées

"A certain Kind of Nothingness"

A piano rendition of a theme that is in the process of being scored for horns and voices, for the opera "Ophélie"

A Certain Kind of Nothingness

"contributions to the analysis of the sensations"

The composing of the opera "Ophélie" which is in the languages from which I am descended (mostly Swedish, German, and English) is up to the last act: Act three, which contains the theme of this jazz video, called in the opera "Complexities". It is scored for horns and voices.

"Complexities" ("contributions to the analysis of the sensations") by Charnie Guettel

"A Certain Kind of Nothingness"

jazz composition that goes in the "resistance to misogyny" exchange in the opera in progress.

"A Certain Kind of Nothingness"

untitled two

composed last summer:

"untitled two"

contributions to an analysis of the sensations

I know this goes somewhere into the opera "Ophélie", I'm not sure where yet.

contributions to the analysis of the sensations

in the stillness of an august morning

"in the stillness of an august morning" a composition from 2009

How the opera "Ophélie" is structured.

The modern jazz opera "Ophélie", in progress, has some of the structural features of a jazz combo. This facilitates things that are going on in the lyrics and narrative, and the harmony relations among the singers and the musicians.

The relationship between the chorus ensemble and the soloists, and among the chorus singers, is philosophical. Each of the chorus members has solos, and all of the soloists take turns as part of the chorus. The singers move harmonically like members of a jazz combo: now taking lead, now adapting to a role in the chord voicing and rhythm that compliments what the other singers are doing. And they are answering each other regarding points they are making in the lyrics. That is why I call the lyric relationship "philosophical". They are trying to speak to each other, and not always succeeding, because they are exploring what is going on in their individual minds at the same time as they are trying to be available to receive what someone else is searching for in their individual mind. This requires a level, a depth of listening, that good jazz players, great jazz players, develop among each other, a kind of informed listening that allows one to hear what is inside one's self. At the same time one is attentive to what is unpredictably coming from fellow players, as in intimate conversation. It is a learned kind of trust, among the players.

"more space" (for matisse and coltrane)

A piece written in 2009. Recorded on the Steinway, as are most of the pieces.

Videologue shot recently.

"more space" (for Matisse and Coltrane)

Ophélie's theme for the opera

In the opera I am writing, this is the theme of the principal character, Ophélie.

"The Clearest Theme"

"more space" (for matisse and coltrane)

A piece for Coltrane and Matisse's modernism

"More Space"

"For Hed, for Monk"

a theme in memory of Ron Hedland and Thelonius Monk

"For Hed, for Monk"

Intuition #6

A composition entitled

INTUITION #6

jazz composition accompanies "David Bateman Painting"

This video of artist David Bateman painting has the soundtrack from the jazz composition

"Spring in Cracow".

"David Bateman painting"

"Musings" (for Wardell Gray)

Wardell Gray was a tenor player in the early days of bop, with a very distinctive and beautiful style. I have been listening to him and thinking about him, so I wrote this composition.

"Musings" (for Wardell Gray)

"more space" (for matisse and coltrane)

new jazz video with previously unreleased track from 2009

"more space" (for matisse and coltrane)

wanderings in minor (with a silence)

exploring minors for Act Two.

"wanderings in minor (with a silence) June 1"

something in a poem I am writing

"in a maelstrom of misogyny,

she has being"

"sculpture"

The themes in this track are subtle but very central to the story

"sculpture"

"défaire" (to undo)

recorded at a concert performance April 18.

"défaire" (to undo)

"A Certain Kind of Nothingness"

Its an important concept, nothingness.

"A Certain Kind of Nothingness"

jazz theme for Tillie Stern

Tillie Stern is the mother of my father's mother.

"Tillie Stern"

composer observations about changes in the playing

---

I am going through something whirlwind internally in the music. Some change in my actual physical relation to the playing...or the relation to what is in me and how it goes through the instrument to the room. A piano player thinks with her fingers guided by very rough blurry shapes in the mind (of the shape of the stack of notes in the chord). When the paying audiences of the past inhibited my physical presence, with their enormous emotional needs and prejudices, I learned how to play well no matter what....but it is the "what" that I was so used to, and proud of surmounting, that I never knew the ways in which I was unfree...now I am becoming free of constraints I did not know I had. I thought I was safe, tucked there behind the piano in my own little world. I didn't know the details of how or where I was controlled.

Well, we were having a relationship (me and the audiences): and there was so much feeling in the relationship, that I thought I was expressing, expressing, expressing. Well, I was, in many ways...but unconsciously I was "maid" to order, in some ways.

But it was all to the good. If I had not had so many paying relationships with audiences, I would not have the skills to burst into this higher stage of unconsciousness.

charnie_wish@yahoo.ca

intuition #6

composition

"intuition #6"

contributions to an analysis of the sensations

this composition is named for the title of a book written by Ernst Mach, written during my favourite period (lately), 1900-1905.

"Contributions to an Analysis of the Sensations"

cloudy sun #2

A composition with a cityscape.

"cloudy sun #2"

"The Clearest Theme": (Ballet des fleurs)

Theme for the closing of Act 1 of the opera being written.

"The Clearest Theme" (Ballet des fleurs)

pavane for a live piano player, from Oct of 2009

This piece contains in it a letter to another singer,

and speaks of the perspective of the piano self-accompanied singer.

"pavane for a live piano player"

resurgnence

in the pressing of the longer versions of compositions,

the material recorded in the season of this jazz video keeps coming up.

resurgence

the interpretation of dreams

I don't always know what I am driving at, while composing: searching, that is for sure. Last night I dreamt of going to some place where likeminded people were hanging out, that I hadn't wanted to go to, and though in ways I belonged there, it transformed itself to somewhere entirely different. These are difficult times for me.

Here is a excerpt of a piece from February of 2010. Note the picture of Charlie Parker on the cupboard door.

"The Interpretation of Dreams"

le jardin sauvage

I'm going through the pieces written when I was first planning the opera. I received the translations of the lyrics into Swedish, first, and began searching for the moods of the themes, the melodies, the chord progressions. This was on a disc containing such titles as "Fog", "Grasp", "Exploratory Prose".

le jardin sauvage

check the new website

links to charnie guettel, as well as recent music,

can be found on the new website

charnieguettel.com

Studies in Modernism

The ongoing project this year is to compile CD's of the longer versions of the compositions.

This video was an excerpt from a sequence of sessions with titles such as "Colonialism", "Socialism", 'History", "Categorization", "Expression". To purchase write to

charnie_wish@yahoo.ca.

"Blue Modernism"

a very gentle blues

the newest blues, the newest video.

a very gentle blues

a piece in the spirit of Last Year at Marienbad

I am going through the longer versions of compositions from the last two years, and preparing compilations for sale. The music videos posted on Facebook are selections from longer compositions. For example this video is from a longer recorded take pressed on March 8 2010

Last Year at Saranac Lake

more studio scenes in early spring

a continuation of the theme

more studio scenes in early spring

studio scenes in early spring

a selection from composition "Fully in the Present"

studio scenes in early spring

"The Clearest Theme": (Ballet des fleurs)

This is in the opera in progress:

"The Clearest Theme" (Ballet des fleurs)

"Tune for Art Pepper"

Jazz tune written in the spirit of alto player Art Pepper,

illustrated with photos of people Jenny (my father's mother)

knew more than a hundred years ago.

"Tune for Art Pepper"

"what is illusion"

Discs of longer versions of the compositions are available, just email charnie_wish@yahoo.ca

Jazz videos are usually exerpts of longer discs. As in the case of this brief sequence from

"what is illusion"

Jenny

A composition for a study of a photograph of

Jenny Guettel, my father's mother,

my grandmother

circa First World War

Jenny

exploring various levels of focus

JAZZ VIDEO STUDY #3, charnie guettel music video #100

a video study from April of 2010 exploring various levels of focus, both photographically and musically in the composing. WHAT IS INTERESTING ABOUT SOME OF THESE VIDEO STUDIES, IS, THAT THE PHOTOGRAPHY IS OFTEN SHOT WHILE I AM LISTENING TO PLAYBACK OF THE THE RECORDINGS OF RECENT COMPOSITIONS.

"i still have you" video study

"My Shadow Falls Between Us"

"My Shadow Falls Between Us"