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