Evan Ziporyn irst there was Colin McPhee; then instruments, has offered an alternative uni- by Kyle Gann Lou Harrison; then Evan Ziporyn. verse of melodic patterns more seductively F Certain North American composers hypnotic than the pianos and violins of have found the siren call of Bali irresistible. the West. McPhee lived in Bali from the To them the Indonesian gamelan, with its 1930s until World War II, when the Dutch cyclic and repetitive patterns hammered chased him out of the island paradise they out on a wide range of metal percussion governed; he came home to write orchestral 24 november/december 2010 AmericanComposer music closely modeled on patterns of the than did most minimalism. These strains reminding you that Ziporyn started out in Balinese gamelan. Lou Harrison wrote per- are sometimes so difficult to distinguish jazz (and also garage bands—he’s com- haps the first American music for an actual that Ziporyn’s music at times achieves a plained that he never really had a first gamelan, sometimes combining it with true cross-cultural fusion. musical language). But there’s something European instruments for a new hybrid. Let’s take one of his best pieces for Euro- in the way his rhythms interlock, the way Ziporyn—my own generation’s contribution pean instruments, Typical Music (2000), a the three instruments jump into rhythmic to this phenomenon—first visited in 1981, magnificent half-hour piano trio. (He titled unison for a measure, and the curvy, note- has returned many times since, and now it thus because it was one of his first works permutational melodies that, if you know runs the gamelan Galak Tika at the Massa- for an existing chamber ensemble, and he he’s a performer of Balinese music, gives you chusetts Institute of Technology, where had recently heard a concert promoter an “aha!” moment. Or his major piano piece he teaches. Ziporyn’s musical response to Indonesian music runs deeper and is more complex than that of his forebears. He has written “Ziporyn’s response to Indonesian music pieces for gamelan, notably Amok! (an admirably apropos title, because it’s one runs deeper—and is more complex— of the few words adopted into English from Indonesian, along with “catsup” and than that of his forebears.” “gong”) and Tire Fire, which combines the metallophones with electric guitars. distinguish between “experimental” and Pondok (2001), which Sarah Cahill has But for Ziporyn, the Indonesian aesthetic “typical” musics.) Like so many of his recorded: the opening movement is in a has worked its way into his entire musical pieces, it opens with a rhythmically halting precisely notated but freely rhythmic style style; it infuses his chamber and orchestra fanfare—abstracted, one suspects, from that sounds almost improvisational, moving music, even though—unlike McPhee— the bamboo flute solo improvisation that nonchalantly among eighth-notes, triplets, he doesn’t imitate Balinese music with starts off a piece for Balinese gamelan— and quintuplets, with some nice jazz cadences Western instruments. In Ziporyn’s work, and soon really gets going. For most of the arriving in mid-beat; I suspect this is his the gamelan patter has fused with other next thirty minutes, certain patterns are so solution to the problem of capturing a influences. A virtuoso clarinetist (and bass constant and propulsive that you wonder Balinese melodic style in notation. Most clarinetist), Ziporyn has been involved from how the string players manage page turns. of the rest of the piece is propulsive, in its beginning with New York’s Bang on a Rhythms repeat, but change step by step. types of interlocking rhythms that look Can Festival and was a founding member, The music is basically tonal, with key tricky, and must come naturally to some- in 1992, of the festival’s hot-shot house signatures; but dissonant pitches creep into one who’s hammered away at one instru- ensemble, the Bang on a Can All-Stars. the note rotation, and the piece cycles ment in the midst of a gamelan ensemble. And so in Ziporyn’s music, colors of slowly through the keys. Despite the Momentum is a very big thing for gamelan patterning have streaked a fabric music’s speed, it takes its time about get- Ziporyn. Aside from some of his early already conditioned by minimalism, and ting from point to point. Listening is like clarinet pieces, his works tend to strike up also by totalism, the rhythmically complex a leisurely ride down a swift yet twisting a steady pace and never depart from it, 1990s style that Bang on a Can has done river, with occasional rapids to shake you although he certainly has fun bending the much to showcase. Balinese music has its up a little. It’s really an example what I think tempo with polyrhythms. In keeping with own rhythmic virtuosity, most obviously of as a new trend of “ambient” chamber its ’70s-evocative title, Be-In (1998), for heard in quick, precise accelerations and music, because it doesn’t divide into sections bass clarinet quintet (!)— that’s bass clarinet ritardandos; totalist music is more about or phrases, it just keeps going and carries and string quartet—is more laid back abruptly shifting gears among tempos, as you along with it. than Typical Music; but its rhythm, with in switching from a quarter-note beat to a Now, it wouldn’t require frequent trips an underlying 3-against-4, is totalistically dotted-eighth beat and back again. Both use to Bali to write such a piece. Everything in poised to jump any moment into a dotted- a limited harmonic palette and a perpetual- it could be traced back to postminimalist eighth beat to shake things up. Though motion type of momentum, though totalism influences. Some of the licks are even a incorporated considerably more dissonance little bluesy, major and minor at once, continued on page 68 25 American Composer, Jazzin’ Around, continued from page 21 continued from page 25 Linked to this is Junglewood (Tangle- cally in duration, and embrace solo piano, mild and bluesy, its ostinatos evolve in wood inspired its name), Pérez’s recently duos, even wordless vocals backed by jazz an ambient continuum that I suspect launched project in the Panamanian rain- trio plus a classical woodwind quintet on my students wouldn’t even call classical. forest, designed to foster eco-awareness “The Bridge of Life.” Pérez got the uneasy Postclassical? and community outreach. The Biomuseo woodwinds to improvise, noting with a There are also times when Ziporyn (Museum of Biodiversity), designed by Frank smile, “I wanted them to take a leap of quite deliberately smashes the Balinese Gehry and also championed by Pérez’s fellow faith, take chances to inspire the listeners.” and American idioms into each other. Panamanian Ruben Blades, is yet another This is just one more way in which musical His Ngaben (for Sari Club) of 2002 is a Panama-based initiative. Recently opened, expectations—about harmonic and melodic quiet concerto grosso for several Balinese and featured (with Pérez and the Yankees’ recurrence, rhythmic stability, the usual instruments and orchestra, with the Mariano Rivera) in Time magazine, it has signposts that comfort musicians and audi- winds echoing the metallophones in already drawn visitors such as Al Gore, Brad ences alike—are regularly thwarted and insouciant disregard for discrepancies of Pitt, and Angelina Jolie. Its key building is rerouted. tuning. And Ziporyn’s magnum opus, called “The Bridge of Life.” In Pérez’s musical world, as in our larger his 2009 opera A House in Bali—Colin The latest element is the Berklee Global one, change is the only constant. Movement McPhee’s autobio- graphy of the same Jazz Initiative that Pérez now heads. is growth, development, life. It follows no name—accompanies the European and “Putting very talented kids into music set form of development or resolution, American scenes with Western instru- for instant gratification is irrelevant,” he but instead offers possibilities. Here is ments and the scenes in Bali with gamelan. declares. “They need to learn how music where our special faculties—the amazing Plus, the Balinese characters sing in is a social tool, by teamwork; how it works human gift of ingenuity that allows us to Balinese and the Americans in English! in interdisciplinary ways, like relating recognize abstract possibility, like the idea This is a type of multicultural opera we music to film, painting, and so on; and of a future or providence, just to start haven’t heard before. But more signifi- how it relates to real life, by recording and with—come in. What we do with that cant to Ziporyn’s output as a whole, I transcribing actual sounds, like bird calls, insight and power, of course, is up to us. think, is that he’s found linkages and and making them into your music. All “If you don’t live it, it won’t come out commonalities between New York post- these offer ways to explore connections of your horn,” Charlie Parker said, coin- minimalism and Indonesian tradition between creativity and social action.” ing the epigram that encapsulates jazz’s that can become so intertwined that you You can hear what he means on existentialist modes of thinking and being, can no longer say with any confidence Providencia. “Galactic Panama,” a kind of one of the core deep-structure elements which comes from which. Bach, after all, outer-space flyover of the America’s that has made it a powerful and ongoing, learned to write in German, French, and remarkably bio-diverse land bridge, is a if often underground and unacknowledged, Italian styles and make them all his own.