EAR WHACKS
by Jonathan D. King

Imagine being able to riff your way through life, improvising with the ease and confidence of Charlie Parker tearing up the scales on a sax. Blending philosophy and music, David Rothenberg has addressed this possibility with a project entitled Sudden Music: Improvisation, Sound, Nature. I refer to Sudden Music as a project because it is a book about the importance of improvisation both in music and in life and it comes with a CD of “earth jazz,” called, appropriately, Earth Jazz. The two are artistically intertwined, yet the book does not simply explain the making of the CD and the CD is not just a recording of the book. A philosophy professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology by day, David Rothenberg has also released a series of avant-garde jazz albums over the past 11 years. The clarinet is his chosen “axe”, but in the course of his travels he has learned to play a number of wind instruments from around the world such as the shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute, and the gyaling, a Tibetan reed instrument he picked up when he visited Nepal as a college student.

I met with Rothenberg on a foggy February evening at his home in Cold Spring, a hamlet nestled in the crook of the Appalachians on the east bank of the Hudson River. He explained to me the purpose of releasing a book with a CD. “I think in this book I really tried to bring together a lot of my different interests and make it all fit together. It’s much more personal than I have ever written, it tells all these stories, from things that happened to me to ancient stories, and drifts through many topics. Because in my other life I am also a philosophy professor, interested in literature and the environment, and yet it’s through music that I want to connect to the natural world.”

True improvisation is something that can only happen when you are completely present, as in be here now present. Commenting on the ability to listen, a central theme in Sudden Music, Rothenberg said, “It’s about listening to the world in a whole musical way. And it’s not a how-to book. It’s more a series of stories that might encourage you to listen in this way.”

One of the stories he writes of is an ancient Inuit legend about a time when people and animals spoke the same language. Rothenberg attempts to break through the artificial distinction between man and nature with a two pronged attack, combining the form and logic he has crafted in his years as a philosophy professor with the formless spontaneity of a jazz musician. Through listening, we can regain our perspective in the universe and remember the language of the earth that we used to speak.

Rothenberg’s CD, Earth Jazz is a perfect companion for a book about the importance of being present and improvising your way from moment to moment. Earth jazz, a term originally coined by Evan Eisenberg in his book Ecology of Eden, calls for humans to improvise with the planet’s resources as if we were gifted jazz musicians. Through listening and responding to the tones of our environment we can swing with the rhythms of nature. We should strive to break out of the rut of consumption and re-define the relationship between humanity and the planet in a harmonious manner. We have to make ecology a relevant thing in our culture, as it was in the time before products and consumers.

David started with that concept and built upon it. His interpretation is a bit more literal, as he explained: “The other definition, in a less metaphorical way, is improvising with natural sounds, and that’s something I’ve been doing for a few CDs now,” since 1997’s critically acclaimed release Unamuno. On Sudden Music he takes it a step further with a track recorded live at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh. With Michael Pestel on flute, David plays clarinet as birds swoop around and he eventually has what amounts to a musical conversation with a White Crested Laughing Thrush. He spoke about the experience of playing with birds: “I want to play with birds and figure out what makes it good, what makes it work. Can I work with the birds? Rehearse with them? Communicate with them? Do they start to know what’s going on?” With his music he explores communication that is possible beyond the rigid framework of language. “I am interested in the fact that I can meet someone from Burma that doesn’t speak my language. It’s really hard to talk to them but I can pick up my instrument and start to play music and they can pick up their instrument and play and we might be able to work together without being able to explain what we’re doing. It’s the same thing with birds.”

Commenting on the title, he said, “Sudden Music? It’s what is exciting and risky and surprising about improvisation. It doesn’t mean anarchy, relentless challenging chaotic noise. It can mean those things, but it can be a way of dancing to the rhythms of the world and all its problems. To not be afraid to take risks. To do something you don’t know how to do.”
His world travels described in the book give framework to the abstract nature of the CD, detailing how tracks came into existence, and the concepts behind the sounds. His trip to Nepal provides both stories for the book, and a recording he made of the monks of the Serlo Gompa Monastery is featured on the opening track of the CD. Rothenberg calls on both the reader and listener to recover a memory of the present through utilizing the wisdom of the past. New music is created from the old. In addition to the recording of Buddhist monks, his clarinet floats around unusual aural settings framing translations from the Upanishads, ancient Zen koans, and his own poetry. Yet he doesn’t want you to forget this ancient wisdom was recorded on a computer, with synthesized ambient sounds over the organic percussion.

The CD can be played repeatedly, but not because it is soothing and fades into the background. It is a subtle album that imparts the lesson of the importance of listening to the nuances of life.

Life began with a bang and has been vibrating ever since, an infinitely complex symphony. We exist in a world that is comprised of music, from the songs of the birds and the whales to the rhythms of the sea, the burbles of brooks, or even the cacophony of a factory or drone of an engine.

We have walled ourselves off from nature and deluded ourselves into thinking that our species is the apex of creation because of our opposable thumbs, our over-developed cerebral cortex, complex social organizations, and fancy tools. We have blindfolded ourselves with our technological successes in our relationship with the world. Through invoking the earth’s natural rhythms and playing live with everything from birds to computers, combining ancient wisdom with his own poetry recorded over background sounds ranging from bugs to trains, Rothenberg uses his art to integrate humanity into the world, breaking down traditional boundaries that people set between themselves and nature. Responding to a question I posed regarding the importance of perspective, Rothenberg replied, “I think there’s a change in humanity…understanding what we are. After years of believing that we are at the top of the food chain, the idea chain, we know enough about the world now that if you look at the world in itself, that maybe it would be a lot better without us, when you see all the stuff we’re destroying, due to the amount of resources that we need. On the other hand, needing all those natural resources really makes us closer to nature, because we have to depend on it more. We have to come up with another solution. There’s no reason that we can’t turn ourselves into a species that makes the world better for everyone if we learn to think a different way.” He added, “Although it is a challenge, the goal of music can be something that helps humanity fit into nature.” Perhaps a mantra more appropriate for David Rothenberg might be—Be Hear Now.

David Rothenberg will be performing on Saturday, March 9 at 8 pm at the Garrison Art Center in Garrison, NY. Tickets are $10. Call 424-3960 for details. He will also be reading and playing from Sudden Music at Ariel Books in New Paltz, Thursday, April 25 at 6 pm. Call 255-8041 for details.