Re: pnguin guide/ vade mecum

In Reply to: pnguin guide/ vade mecum posted by Hywel Davies on June 17, 1999 at 06:17:29:

Thank you for your kind words and observations regarding my work and also regarding the assessments or pronouncements made by critics, writers, etc. to stratify artistic attempts. The following applies:
--While it is flattering to have such an esteemed authority publication as THE PENGUIN GUIDE confer an appellation such as "the best" relating to any of my works, I hold to the opinion that art, music, dance, poetry, etc. cannot be so selectively and narrowly defined. This is not, I hope, and "Olympics" situation. We are not aiming (again, hopefully) at a 3 minute, 20 second mile. This is work that is ongoing and that has, due to the remarkable phenomenon and event called recording, been stopped in time. Waht happened in that time and space, what was being thought of, what was being attempted, what was available to us (those four musicians on that recording), and what we were able to do, based on what we were and what we were capable of is registered in that event: NOVEMBER 1981. So again, what does "the best" mean? And is there a reason for it to mean anything?
The people (at PENGUIN) who listened (obviously very attentively) to my work found things in that work that allowed them to assess my body of work in the manner that had them measuring things musical: composition; improvisation; the idea and fact of rhythm, harmony, line, counterpoint, etc. as those things strove to represent musical and perhaps other ideas into a cohesive (or not so cohesive) whole of communication via the conduit of performance: a quartet carving out a portion of life and calling it that (for those with the ears and experience(s), empirical or otherwise) to see and trust that it was what it was, a day in November (or a few hours) in the year 1981.
--Concerning VADE MECUM, you are absolutely right. The company doesn't believe that double CDs sell. At least that's what they tell me.

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