Erik Griswold;
More than my old piano
Erik Griswold
More than my old piano; old and new music for prepared and toy pianos
Clocked Out Productions COP-CD004. Duration: 46:39
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1. Guaguanco [3:43]
2. Maracatu [2:29]
3. Batucada [3:25]
4. Solitude (Duke Ellington) [2:44]
5. Bitter vegetables, bitter Yinyin [4:47]
6. The hippo's coming [1:40]
7. Kang Ding love song [3:53]
9. Georgie Porgie Georgie Porgie [1:27]
10. Little sister loves a hard working man [3:11]
11. Don't you worry 'bout a thing (Stevie Wonder) [4:54]
12. Tired of being alone (Al Green) [3:30]
13. Peace for January [5:02]
14. More than my old guitar (Merle Haggard) [2:19]
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Erik Griswold – this time the sole representative of the Clocked Out Duo! – offers a mixed bag of pianism; more mixed than I was quite ready for. I had the impression that this was going to be very experimental and only experimental, but all of a sudden the music can start to sound Toots Thielemanish! That got me somewhat out of balance – but I don’t mind that! I just wasn’t aware. Anyway, the album’s subtitle says it: old and new music for prepared and toy pianos!
Guaguanco is a very rhythmic gig, coming across in a minimalist fashion, not unlike some Steve Reich chewing gum repetitions, but not quite living up to the more poetic hypnosis of Terry Riley. This bit reminds me of Piano Circus and some of their minimal outings!
The piano is prepared in a nice and orderly way, i.e. with no buzzing or wheezing sounds, but with elasticity and a rubbery percussion atmosphere.
Griswold says about this piece and couple of the other ones:
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The Cuban Guaguanco and Brazilian Batacuda percussion styles were introduced to me as a teenager by my teacher Will Parsons, who had himself learned from Michael Spiro and others. Particularly influential was the music of Carlos Embale, whose melody is referred to in Track 1. I later had the chance to become more familiar with the Brazilian styles, including Maracatu […]. These pieces are very personal interpretations of the three great traditions [Guaguanco, Batacuda & Maracatu], wrapped up with my memories of the songs and people.
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It’s nothing very odd having a piano sound like percussion. Cage did that in the 1940s, and it has become a household occurrence. However, making it sound like a double bass is still inventive, I must say, like Erik Griswold manages in one passage with tedious (I suppose!) preparations of the piano before recording Guaguanco!
Special note should be made of the fact that no overdubs were made in these recordings. All takes are live, but I find it hard to envision how that would have looked. It sounds like Griswold has a couple of extra arms! He displays a glittering row of tempi fighting for primacy in the web of sounds.
In Maracatu those buzzing preparations show up, and it sounds quite more like Cagean manipulations to my ears – but the melodic spurs aren’t Cagean, but something very different, reminding me a little of those fateful musical atmospheres that amplify the feelings of bad American detective stories on television. I’ve never heard those melodies on prepared piano before, though, and towards the end Griswold stays higher up in the pitches in an introverted little figure that keeps recurring, slowly.
Batacuda brings on some clearer South American references, but in the bent mirror of certain piano preparations, half of the piano turned into a percussive ensemble, part of the other half into some rubber string instrument – and the rest; well, yes – a piano!
It’s a funny little melody that just rolls along, merrily, not trying to say anything special.
Solitude by Duke Ellington is one of those inclusions that threw me off balance. It’s presented in all its sentimentality, and with some kind of organ instrument in addition to the piano, that makes it sound a bit like Toots Thieleman’s mouth organ. I hear no preparations whatsoever here; just straight Ellington! Holy cow!
Bitter vegetables, bitter Yinyin is another thing altogether again, with an Eastern flavor and a gathering of the forces in a fastidious coming together of preparations that has the piano sound like a whole orchestra of rubber bands, dark percussion, bells and wooden boxes…
In spite of that characterization the music is quite beautiful, tender, soaring – with magnificent dynamics in colors from deep brown clay tones to piercing light blue cascades of sharp audio, rolling at you like the waves on the beach; a steady swell.
Erik & George Griswold
(Photo: Vanessa Tomlinson)
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The three Sichuan folk songs [the piece just mentioned being one] were introduced to me by friend and collaborator Zou Xiangping, whose own work combining Chinese traditional and Western avantgarde music is inspirational. These arrangements were shaped by my experience in Chengdu during the winter of 2001 – 02.
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I’m not going to scrutinize every last part of this CD with its many entries, but I’ll mention a couple of more tracks.
Kang Ding love song at track 7 is a very lyrical piece, sort of decorative at times, while at other times traveling deeply into Chinese folk tunes, only to get back out by way of some Terry Riley Harp of New Albion successions – and wouldn’t you know; a Midwest American piano bar atmosphere in a smoky downtown Grand Rapids late night romance… I can’t believe how Griswold can fold this all together in one presentation!
Little sister loves a hard working man is another of the Sichuan pieces, poured out in long, winding beads of stringy and bambooish ebony and ivory. You even get the misty mountain slope feeling of Japanese koto. Griswold is a pianistic illusionist!
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