| news from paris no. 9 |
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AMY GAMLEN GROUP : COLD LIGHT I have mixed feelings about people who do a lot of self promotion - a mix, I think of admiration, disgust and jealously....and some other stuff I can't identify - plus it's late and I've had a few drinkies... Anyhow - here is my own self promotion- I hope it doesn't bother anyone too much... I want to do this in an honest way. (You might actually find it a little depressing.....) And it's about my CD - I've finally made a CD under my own name with my band and my compositions (do re me me me...) and musically I have to say I'm pretty happy about it - which, I suppose is the point of doing your own musical projects with your favorite musicians: Thomas Savy : bass clarinet Michael Felberbaum : guitar Stéphane Kerecki : acoustic bass Karl Jannuska : drums Anyhow - this CD took it's time to appear and was not an easy journey.... and I'd like to tell you about it. If that seems boring to you, skip on to the part at the end where I tell you where you can get a copy ; - ) (please thank you) First of all getting the guts to do a recording and finding out about which studios and how much they cost (!!!!) ect... - lots of musicians were very helpful with this, especially Stéphane who plays bass in the band. For anyone who doesn't know, good studios and sound engineers cost a LOT of money, so it's always a battle between how much you can spend and then how much time you'd like to have and it's very difficult. While I was perusing all this in my head I mentioned it to a person who ran, at that time, a jazz venue. This person said, "Hey that's great - we're starting a label - we'd love to have your project !". So I didn't take that seriously, but anyhow met up with the person and actually was impressed that they were actually serious and into getting financial support from various organizations to pay for a pretty decent project. So eventually I was convinced and kicked myself for having had doubts. Of course you know what is coming now, right? There are frequent meetings and emails with the label - they fill in forms for me and we get financial aid for the project from a highly reputed funding body. The recording goes really well and the musicians are happy. I am very happy - the musicians will be payed properly for once after lots of crappy low paid gigs etc.... Half the money is advanced to the project from this funding organization, the other half is given on completion of the project. I don't want to be pushy with the label but we have recorded by now and put the music together and we want to carry on and put the thing out. "Wait", the label says, "let's do this properly, we need to change our organization a bit to get funding for this and that - we're doing our best - trust us...." This carries on. I am pretty frustrated but I don't want to be too pushy either. I'm not getting clear answers about stuff from the label, the musicians have not been paid yet etc.... Of course - a year later - the label calls me in for a meeting. After stringing me along for a year, they drop me and my project due to financial problems in their organization, so they say with big sad teary eyes. At this time, I am in the midst of watching a close friend die slowly and horribly from an especially cruel and debilitating lung cancer so I am pretty objective about small stuff like this. And I am not surprised either. The second half of the funding never appears because the project is not finished with the label who applied for the money. No other label is interested (it's financial crisis time - hooray) and even if they were, the first label would not be able to verse them the first half of the grant because they have no money left. Well, none for my music, anyhow. I obviously kick myself for being an idiot and trusting anyone. So then what? I am left with a big bill. A friend does the graphics for free for which I will be eternally grateful. I end up paying for the studio, engineer, mix and master, printing and pressing, reproduction rights. Legal advice, which was free thanks to the generous support of the musicians' union here in Paris, told us that we could go after the label and force them to pay us and we'd definitely win, but we are too nice (and stupid?) to do this and we let it drop. We don't like the word prison. The label, after receiving a scary letter written by said legal support, gives me all my rights back and tries to be threatening about who I'm going to talk to about this, implying it could be bad for me - yeah- right - nice try - the truth is, I don't want to talk about this crap anyhow - why drag other people down..... I sever the label people from my life for ever. The musicians are never paid by the label for the beautiful work they do. It's always the musicians who lose out. Without the musicians there would be no music. How can this be right? So I don't mind doing ruthless self promotion - maybe at least if some people hear the music and like how they play and then buy their CDs (they all have fantastic projects), then it wont have been so much of a financial disaster and lack of respect etc... I doubt we'll ever get to play much with this band as no one wants to pay for a quintet to play.... Anyhow. THERE IS music - and that is the name of the label I invented for this project - THERE IS. I sent it off to CDbaby.com who have put it on the net for me and have a mail order system too. They seem very nice and I am very grateful that they exist! Despite everything THERE IS music, and here it is. That's the bad story of the CD. The music itself has some different stories attached. Here they are: Exit : "Onwards and upwards" : Billy Strayhorn's toast. This is not inspired directly by his incredible music but more by a feeling of letting go of stuff in a positive way and moving openly towards new stuff. Beginnings : the joy of beginning new things - taking old energies to new energies and on... continuation of exit - endings lead to beginnings which are pretty exiting things too... The Invisible Woman : not a serious political statement - but, why not a woman, after all ? Why are these things always principally about men? MJ WIlliams wrote lyrics to this tune : "Can't quite see her, but you know she's there Thought you caught her on the stairway When you stop to look, she's gone again Wondrin' if you'll ever catch her Cruising down the street, she'll pass you by This could be the start of something If you could only stop and wait Don't give up it's not too late 'Cause one by one we all will become invisible Ask her what she thing, she'll say to you You can do it if you don't try" So don't stop trying everyone ! Sleeping Potion : Anyone who has ever suffered from insomnia should identify with this one.... And I dedicate it to you - good luck ! All my sympathy.... Lil : The first title of this tune was "Lil' Bit", written after friends of mine had their first child - he was just a little thing, but already all there - a deep and complete human being. Unfortunately, in french this title sounds like what means "small penis", so I thought it wise to change the title just to Lil - that way I could pretend it is a homage to Lil Harding if anyone asks the question.... In The Cold Light of Day : I wanted something super rational for that feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and think about things in the cold light of the morning and realize how things really are - they might be quite different to how they seemed the night before - we've all been there, right?! So, for me, the wholetone scale has this nice clear rational sound. I realized (I'm quite slow about these things) that the only place you can start 2 wholetone scales going in opposing directions without falling on the same note is a 5th apart so that was the basis of this tune. After that I just filled in the gaps. This became the title tune of the CD even before the label dropped it - I should have seen that coming, right? There Was : There was a crocked man, who had a crocked wife - you know it, right ? The nursery rhyme... I wanted to write something a bit off kilter - I don't know how to spell kilter or indeed if that's anything to do with Scotland - please inform. Undertow : Watch out for the undertow - don't swim too close - you know what I mean.... Acceptance : written on a scrap of paper walking at dusk next to central park in NY, feeling peaceful for the first time in quite a while, warm breeze, thinking things over and the fire flies blinking on and off between the long grass and the lower branches of the trees. Fanfare: just what it is - for everything and everyone. You can listen to bits and download it from itunes or CDbaby for hardly anything at all - or even order a real copy from CDbaby : here are the links: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=336533825&s=143442 http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/amygamlen I hope you like the music. Keep your eyes open ! All the best Amy http://amygamlen.free.fr www.myspace.com/amygamlen http://www.myspace.com/parisjazzunderground http://maraismusique.org
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