Postcard from Tomorrowland
June 22, 2007 at 10:50 am
To incorporate the great amount of work undertaken for the project into the formal bureaucracy never seemed a particularly savvy idea, and as a result during the 1960s somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of NASA’s overall budget went for contracts to purchase goods and services from others. Although the magnitude of the endeavor had been much smaller than with Apollo, this reliance on the private sector and universities for the bulk of the effort originated early in NASA’s history under T. Keith Glennan, in part because of the Eisenhower Administration’s mistrust of large government establishments. Although neither Glennan’s successor, nor Kennedy shared that mistrust, they found that it was both good politics and the best way of getting Apollo done on the presidentially - approved schedule. It was also very nearly the only way to harness talent and institutional resources already in existence in the emerging aerospace industry and the country’s leading research universities. - Project Apollo: A Retrospective Analysis
“It was the Future”
01. Jimmy Smith - Mission Impossible
Livin it up (1968)
02. United Future Organization - The Planet Plan
3rd Perspective (1996)
03. Rova Orkestrova - Electric Ascension
Electric Ascension [Live] (Atavistic Records, 2005)
04. Zu - The Elusive Character of Victory
Igneo (Frenetic Records, 2006)
05. Vandermark 5 - The Trouble Is
Burn The Incline (Atavistic Records, 2000)
06. Amon Tobin - The Lighthouse
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory Sountrack (Ninja Tune, 2005)
07. Philip Glass - Metamorphosis Two
Solo Piano (1989)
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There is something about being futuristic. It’s always outdated by the time the effort is done. And to me, there is nothing worst than the Apollo mission imageries. The look like a sad relic of previous era, very expensive at that too. Anyway, the soundtrack to that thought would be Jimmy Smith later work. His attempt to incorporate various TV tunes to stay relevant is hallmark of late 60’s. Memorable but doesn’t last. The thumping beat the melody, the TV friendly tunes. All that. Second part of the list is rock and electronica avant garde. I think I manage to make them easier on ear than they should be. All of those albums are worth owning, specially Vandermark 5’s Burn the Incline and Zu. Let’s see how fast this sound gets old.
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Yeah this is Ken Vandermark day. Half of the songs in the list is his stuff.
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Zu
http://www.myspace.com/zuband
http://www.zuism.com
Hailing from Italy, Zu has gained a solid reputation worldwide thanks to a hectic , never endinng schedule that had them playing around this globe more than 700 times in the last 6 years.
With little or none media support and coverage , given their status of not-catagorizable punk-freejazz-headbangers-sunrafreaks, even coming from the catholic block of Rome, Italy, Zu has nevertheless been able to give birth to 10 cd ,a few singles and several compilations on various great labels , as Atavistic, Red Note, Frenetic, Wide …
Zu defies genres, destroys boundaries and categories about what a rock or jazz combo is and how it behaves. No-wave, funk , hardcore-punk, jazz , and mathematics held together in an instrumental 3-piece. Zu plays equally in rock, jazz, and contemporary music festivals worldwide: Korea , Japan , Usa , Russia, Europe, Africa.
Zu shared tours and stages with: The Melvins, Fantomas, Lightning Bolt, The Ex, The Ruins, Dalek, Nomeansno, Vandermark 5, Karate, and many many more
2 cds recorded by Steve Albini (Igneo) and Bob Weston ( Radiale, on Atavistic)
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Rova Orkestrova
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=17490
Still, as saxophonist Larry Ochs of the ROVA saxophone quartet says in the liner notes to this new interpretation of Coltrane’s groundbreaking piece, the fact that free jazz (or as Ochs prefers, “structured improvisation”) was in its infancy, meant that the players were charting new paths into unexplored territory. Forty years later, there is a large community of artists with extensive career-spanning experience in free improvisation. That doesn’t make Electric Ascension better than the original, but the concept has a certain comfort level that allows this larger ensemble to more comfortably and intuitively interpret the piece, creating greater variations in instrumental combinations and a richer dynamic flow. That this form of music is now a known quantity has allowed ROVA::Orkestrova to extend the piece to over an hour in length, while still maintaining interest throughout.
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Vandermark 5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Vandermark
http://www.kenvandermark.com/
Vandermark has lived in Chicago since autumn 1989. Since then, he has performed or recorded with many musicians (including Hal Russell, Paal Nilssen-Love, Hamid Drake, Fred Anderson, David Stackenäs, Paul Lytton, Joe Morris, Ab Baars, The Ex, Marcin Oles, Axel Doerner, Mats Gustafsson, Bartlomiej Oles, Wolter Wierbos, Joe McPhee, Zu, Peter Brötzmann, Fredrik Ljungkvist, Paul Lovens, Lasse Marhaug, and members of Superchunk). He first gained widespread attention while with the NRG Ensemble from 1992 to 1996. He was once a member of Witches and Devils and the Flying Luttenbachers and has led or co-led several groups, including DKV Trio, Free Fall, Territory Band, CINC, Sonore, the Vandermark 5, the Free Music Ensemble, School Days, the Sound in Action Trio, and Steam.
The Joe Harriott Project, a brief celebration of Harriott in 1998 in the Chicago area, consisted of Ken Vandermark (reeds), Jeb Bishop (trombone), Kent Kessler (bass), and Tim Mulvenna (drums). The band played the music of Joe Harriott, transcribed and arranged by Vandermark.
In 2002 Vandermark recorded Furniture Music, his first released performances as an unaccompanied soloist.
After several years of Vandermark 5 performances of his arrangements of works by Sonny Rollins, Joe McPhee, Cecil Taylor, and others, Vandermark in 2005 announced, “Though I have learned a great deal by rearranging some of my favorite composers’ work for the Vandermark 5, it’s time to leave that process behind and focus more completely on my own ideas.”
Vandermark is the subject of Musician (2006), one of a series of Daniel Kraus video documentaries on contemporary occupations.
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Amon Tobin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amon_Tobin
http://www.amontobin.com/
Watching the Vandermark 5 live has been one of the most exciting events in my life as music addict! Performing at a small club, they declined to play on stage, instead turning the tables and chairs around so that they could play at the back of the club at the same level than the audience. Their raw energy was both cool and potent. They truly made the place vibrate! Great memories