By Kyle Gann
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Ezrazra Sims is probably Sims best known, a String Quartet No. 2 dated 1962. In by Kyle Gann even among those who haven’t 1974 Sims gallantly agreed to ameliorate E heard a note of his music, for his Slonimsky’s embarrassment to the extent wry response to a musicological misprint that he could by writing a piece entitled in Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Music String Quartet No. 2 (1962)—scored for and Musicians. In the ’60s, that edifying flute, clarinet, violin, viola, and cello. As tome, then edited by Nicolas Slonimsky, Sims notes, a title is not necessarily a attributed to Sims a work he hadn’t written, description, and he cites as precedent the 20 march/april 2011 AmericanComposer White Knight’s song in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass (the song was “Ezra Sims has some delightful piano music and choral called “Haddock’s Eyes” even though its title was “The Aged Aged Man,” etc.) The music using only the usual 12 pitches (aka 12tet), and some score is dedicated to Slonimsky, “that he (or orchestral work—but it’s the small wind-and-string rather Baker’s) may now be less in error.” This classic and oft-noted absurdity is groups in which he brews his microtonal aesthetic.” far from the only bit of humor in Sims’s output; he has a piano piece charmingly called Grave Dance, and a song cycle titled tions of this 18-note scale ultimately he likes to cover. For some reason that Brief Glimpses into Contemporary French necessitate all 72 pitches. psychologists will have to explain some Literature, whose recurring refrain is, Another advantage of the 72-tone system, day, composers who love splitting the “There is no need of André Gide.” But for with its mere three extra accidentals, as the half-step also love applying the same some of us, Sims (www.ezrasims.com) is Bostonians love lecturing the rest of us, is mathematics to rhythm, and Sims (much important less for the dry wit threaded its practicality for live performance (as like Johnston) is fond of suggesting differ- through his work than for his status as opposed to Johnston’s notation with its ent tempos running at the same time. one of the leading composers (along with open-ended accidental system and difficult- Quintuplets are everywhere, as well as Ben Johnston) of microtonal music for to-find perfect consonances). Every sixth fours-in-the-space-of-five. Tempos of fast traditional acoustic instruments. More pitch is a familiar one on the piano, and movements run extremely fast, slow specifically, Sims is the doyen of a Boston- the rest can be interpolated via a regular movements can be almost stationary. based microtonal world in which 72 equally system that requires little explanation. As Between the 72 pitches and the phasing spaced pitches per octave constitute what a result Sims’s output consists primarily rhythms, it looks like extremely difficult is virtually a lingua franca. Since 1964 Sims of chamber music, and he has a special music to play, but the types of difficulty has written in his own notation, which penchant for combining winds and strings, are closely limited. So consistent is Sims’s inflects pitches upward or downward by a and for playing the strings and winds off language that I imagine once you learn to twelfth-tone, a sixth-tone, or a quarter-tone; against each other. Like his String Quartet play one piece well, the others come much and the local microtonalists (James Dalton No. 2 (1962), Musing and Reminiscence more easily. being the one exception I know of) all (2003) and Landscapes (2008) reprise the For the listener, it’s a walk on the wild seem to swear by the same notation. two-wind/three-string combination; his side indeed. The music is a pulsing, shifting The advantage of 72 tones per octave Sextet of 1981 is scored for clarinet, alto continuum, dotted all round with contra- (or as it’s known among the cognoscenti, sax, horn, and three strings; Night Piece puntal echoes that maximize the tuning’s 72tet, or 72-tone equal temperament) is (1989) is for flute, clarinet, viola, and oddities. Yet if conventional moorings fall that it renders close approximations to cello—with a background computer tape; by the wayside, the music nevertheless some of the lower but still more exotic and there’s a Flute Quartet (1982) and projects a sense of restraint and logic. The overtones not in common use. (Please Clarinet Quintet (1987). Sims also has microtonality comes off as exotic indeed, excuse the theory for the moment, we’ll some delightful piano music and choral yet the music’s linear motion and motivic resume practicality next paragraph.) A music using only the usual 12 pitches cohesiveness keep the ear engaged. Music cent is defined as one 1200th of an octave, (12tet), and some orchestral work, but it’s and Reminiscence opens with a series of and with a new pitch every 17 cents one the small wind-and-string groups in which parallel almost-fifths between the flute can achieve pretty clean 7th, 11th, and he brews his microtonal aesthetic. and clarinet, slightly changing in size. The 13th harmonics. Despite his equal-step And a well-focused aesthetic it is. Sims first movement of Night Piece closes with grid, Sims in fact makes it clear that over- tends to start off with a close set of pitches, a long, fluctuating drone on a wide tritone tones are what he’s generally aiming for. often in repeated notes or in tremolo, of 633 cents—bet you’ve never gotten to At least in most works, he typically selects whose evolution into wider and more savor that ambiguity before. The music notes from the 72 possible to form an complex harmonies evolves in accelerando. throbs, churns, dances, hibernates through 18-note scale based on the 16th through His music’s journey is always linear and pitch complexes you’ve never heard before, 32nd harmonics, with a few “tendency easily followed by the ear—a wise thing, tones” to fill it out. The varied transposi- given the wild unfamiliarity of the ground continued on page 79 21 American Composer, continued from page 21 Jazzin’ Around, continued from page 31 and the rhythm—though you’d rarely be able to identify a meter Coleman and Greg Osby, pianist Geri Allen, singer Cassandra or locate a downbeat—has a pulse-based naturalness to it. Wilson; and Talking Heads. He is now associate professor of Jazz As with so much music that fascinates me, I regret having to Trombone at Oberlin and a member of San Francisco Jazz describe Sims’s so technically. But it’s thoroughly abstract, with Collective.) Subsequent guitar-fusion discs, like The Searcher, did no programmatic associations, no typical musical forms, little well commercially and critically, but Kevin was also working melody in the traditional sense, no clear relation to minimalism with free-jazz big-band leader and composer Sam Rivers, the or serialism or New Romanticism or heavy metal or polka or M-BASE crew, pianist Kirk Lightsey, and doing clinics at Banff anything else. It’s just a unique brand of musical experience, and and Umbria Jazz (which is when I saw him in Perugia). His stint the only alternative to hearing it is describing how it’s made, in with Holland’s band yielded Extensions, one of Holland’s out- hopes that you can imagine from that. And as Boston’s young standing discs. microtonalists seep out across the rest of the country from the Branford Marsalis had been recording and touring with Sting East Coast, the sense of Sims’s seminal influence is going nation- (to the disapproval of many jazzbos, including younger brother al. He’s been one of our most original underground musical Wynton) before he took over as Tonight Show bandleader in 1993 legends for decades, and the mystery has built up too much pres- and tapped Eubanks. There were exquisite moments: Eubanks sure to keep quiet any longer. The good jokes he’s gotten off in and crew backing titans like B.B. King, Willie Nelson, Dolly his career are merely foils for realizing how serious and unprece- Parton. Not the sort of thing, though, to win respect from the dented his music is. jazz community, which generally regards big-time celebrity as cause for artistic suspicion. Just read the clips on Miles Davis Composer Kyle Gann is an associate professor of music at Bard from the 1960s on. College. He is the author of several books on American music, the But until 1995, Eubanks kept working at jazz’s core too, latest of which is No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage’s 4’33” recording albums for the legendary Blue Note label. One, Live at (Yale University Press). His music is recorded on the New Albion, Bradley’s, showcases him at the ultimate jazz insider’s club tackling New World, Lovely Music, and Cold Blue labels. “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” “In a Sentimental Mood,” and “Mercy Mercy Mercy,” with a combo of well-placed Photography Credits fusillades and rhythmic elasticity. Zen Food makes clear that Eubanks hasn’t lost his creative Cover: Getty Images: Bag © Rubberball Productions; Horn © Tetra touch—or his rocker heart: “Smitty and I have that in common. Images. Shutterstock.com: Bow © Shapiso; Violin © Colour; Oboe © We ignite things; that’s what we get off on. We can bring a lot James Steidl of energy without bringing a lot of confusion.” “The Dancing Table of Contents: Kevin Eubanks by Raj Naik Sea,” the disc’s leadoff track, blends postbop and Mahavishnu/ Weather Report-era fusion into a rhythmically stimulating piece CMA Note: Margaret M.