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Aktivavoco [active voice]   

Background

This record is the third installment of the Edge City Trilogy, a sequential improvisation project started in 1999.  Each part has a guiding theme.  While the first two installments were entirely instrumental, Aktivavoco brings together instruments and voices in new ways.  

Read an online review in JazzReview.

The Collective makes music using guerilla recording methods. Though we've performed in various combinations on rare occasions, this is a virtual band.  Using lowbrow technology, we make hi-fi recordings, linking people otherwise separated by geography, and joining musical ideas that otherwise might not meet. ECC started in Pennsylvania, and spread to include contributors from New York to Maryland, and recently Washington state. 

People

This record includes some familiar names, veteran Edge City contributors Mike Taylor, Bart Miltenberger, Jon Thompson, Woz and Scott MacDonald, and introduces some new ones. Guest vocalist Vickie Dodd has been performing and developing methods of using music for therapeutic purposes since the early ‘70s.  Her range of partners over those years has included jazz luminary Anthony Braxton among others, and she has an underground following in hidden corners of North America and Europe. Tuvan throat-singer and promoter Devan Miller (see Tuva Trader) is a producer and promoter of traditional Tuvan music, and one of a small number of practitioners of this technique, recently "discovered" by the western world. Judith-Kate Friedman brings wide experience, ranging from jazz improv to folk to cantorial soloing, to the project. Jim Couture classically-trained baritone rounds out a diverse cast.

Methods

There are three basic ways these pieces were made.  Some started with a vocal solo or duet, with instrumental tracks laid on top of that.  Others reversed that order.  Several pieces are collages assembled from recorded segments, and some combine more than one of these methods.  Every piece here includes a real-time component, and almost all of them are the first and only take, as the goal is to snag fresh ideas in the moment. 

- Scott

Aktivavoco track notes

These comments complement the liner notes with the CD.

Scott MacDonald drums
Bart Miltenberger trumpet
Scott Schaffer guitar, mandolin
Mike Taylor bass
Jon Thompson saxophones/flute
Paul Woznicki synthesizers

Featured guest vocalists: Vickie Dodd, Devan Miller, Judith-Kate Friedman, and Jim Couture.

1. Bonvenigo (Miltenberger/Dodd)

The record is punctuated with three ‘conversations’ between Bart and Vickie.  Along with “Denove” and “Adiau”, this combined a recording of Bart in 2001 with Vickie’s response five years later and 3,000 miles away.  She is hearing the instrumental track for the first time here, with no premeditated plan. 

2. Aukcio (Miller/Miltenberger/Thompson/Friedman)

Devan has a remarkable range of sounds using the Tuvan technique.  Bart, John and Judith-Kate react to him in succession to make this piece.

3. Pordego (Woznicki/Taylor/Miltenberger/Thompson/MacDonald/Miller)

Woz recorded a collection called Earth’s Rings of Space Junk.  The first cut is titled “10^th Planet”, an excerpt of which is the base for this track.  The quartet recorded as a unit, with Devan later providing a background vocal.

4. Verodangera (Schaffer/Miltenberger/Thompson/ Taylor/MacDonald)

What is speech without meaning?  That was a question here, with the idea of turning speech into an instrument.  A famous address by a well-known politician (clues within) was sent around the world and back through an online translator, hence scrambling the meaning of the words.^* The quartet plays off of it, the musicians hearing it for the first time.

* You may notice that meaning still pokes its way through, sometimes morphing with unintended satire, given the source and subsequent real events.

5. Intercompreno (Dodd/Taylor/Miltenberger)

Vickie recorded this as a solo.  Bart and Mike superimposed a duet on top, and Woz’s piece adds texture.

6. Sageco (MacDonald/Woznicki/Schaffer/Dodd/Miller/words by Emerson)

This is a collage based on excerpts from Scott Mac’s drum solo. After the looped section was created, I discovered that the Ralph Waldo Emerson poem “Brahma” fit to the rhythm, and built up this collage around that.  A pre-recorded track by Woz fit the track’s mood and footprint.

7. Denove (Miltenberger/Dodd)

8. Bedauro (Thompson/Miltenberger/Friedman)

J-K laid down vocal track on top of this flute-trumpet duet, recorded several months earlier. A delay effect adds texture consistent with the vocal.

9. Gojo (Taylor/MacDonald/Miller/Dodd)

Asked only to play “a duet”, Mike and Mac came up with this percussive interplay.  The two vocalists recorded later, a day apart.

10. Freseko (Schaffer/Dodd/Miltenberger)

11. Elementa (Woznicki/Schaffer/Miller/Taylor)

Tracks 10-11 are a medley excerpted from two pieces started as live duets between guitar and voice. Devan improvises in and out of throat-singing mode, in what is perhaps his signature piece on the album.  Woz again adds texture that helps pull the elements together, and Mike supports with typically understated skill.

12. Ekflagri (Woznicki/Miltenberger)

This is a live take recorded in the fall of 2001.

13. Metamorfozo (Dodd/Schaffer/Taylor/MacDonald)

The longest cut on the album, and perhaps Vickie’s signature contribution, this started as a live guitar-voice duet.  Mike and Mac overlaid a second duet over top.

14. Ridado (Thompson/Schaffer)

In case anyone mistakenly thinks improvised music is serious… Listen for samples of J-K, Port Angeles-based actor/director Steve Taylor (no relation to Mike), and many others.

15. Basapenso (Taylor/Thomspon/Dodd)

Vickie added her interpretation to a fairly unconventional duet between Mike and Jon.

16. Harmonio (Couture/Schaffer/Miltenberger/Taylor/MacDonald/Thompson)

This is both the first and last Edge City piece ever recorded.  Started in 1999 as “Kaibab”, it originally included multiple guitar parts, but didn’t find its way onto Guitarrasalto.  Reconstituted years later and infused with local Olympic Peninsula culture, it includes Jim Couture’s soaring chant, joined by opening incantations by native Klallam language speakers Elaine Grinnell and Jamie Valadez, and a closing excerpt from Jim’s original work “Prayerfield”, performed by the St. Andrews Church Choir.

17. Adiau (Miltenberger/Dodd)

The program closes as it began, with Vickie and Bart.  


If you’ve read this far, you may have noticed the record’s mystery tracks – the B-sides:

18. Kanelo (Taylor/MacDonald/Thompson/Dodd)

19. Jamifino (Woznicki/M. Taylor/Thomspon/Miltenberger/MacDonald/Schaffer) 

20 (Intro by Woz) Texbrahma (Schaffer/words by Emerson)

In the Etc. Dept., a few people have asked about the front cover concept (it’s a movie reference), the back cover concept (part of a continuing theme), and the language of the titles (Esperanto).

Anything else?  Contact us.