Creative Music Studio, Woodstock at Columbia U and East Village

My CityArts – New York column is about the Creative Music Symposium, organized by Karl Berger, pianist/vibist with his wife Ingrid Sertso, who cofounded with free-thinking Ornette Coleman of the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock NY (1972-1984). The symposium at Columbia University’s Center for Jazz Studies (directed by trombonist and digital music innovator George E. Lewis, once a CMS student/participant) last weekend dipped into the history and practices of the CMS, a paradise where cross-genre visionary improvisers (Don Cherry, Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, et al), composer/interpreters (Pauline Oliveros, Frederic Rzewski) and “world music” fusionists (Olatunji, Nana Vasconcelos) taught through oral transmission in an immersion setting.

Back in the day I wished I was musician enough to attend the Woodstock sessions, and as a budding writer was frustrated there was nowhere comparable to go — so moderating a symposium panel felt like I got to CMS at last.

The good news emerging from the day-long discussions was that John Zorn has agreed to let Berger start a new Creative Music Orchestra at his East Village performance space the Stone, every Monday night for three months. If it’s a success, the ensemble could be ongoing. Every 7:30 there will be an open rehearsal, followed at 9:30 by a performance of the work rehearsed — all for one low $10 admission.

Here’s hoping the new project takes hold — as the initiative to digitize and archive CMS recordings seems to have, with Columbia U’s libraries accepting some 400 boxes of quarter-inch tape and related ephemera, and non-profit Innova Records agreed to release compilation CDs of CMS music starting next fall. There are more than enough brilliant musicians in the five boroughs to fill up five such CMS orchestras, and the study of the fundamental rhythmic exercise “GamalaTiKa,” the overtone series and harmonics offers a young player more direct connection to the “playing” aspect of music than does learning to read scores.

This is the kind of pedagogy that could take root all over, encouraging spontaneous, personalized music wherever it reaches. That’s what happened last time, as the generation of CMS participants who emerged included percussionist Adam Rudolph, pianist Marilyn Crispell, tambin flutist Sylvan Leroux, bansuri flutist Steve Gorn, alto saxist Dan Davis, guitarist James Emery — all of whom were at the symposium — trumpeter Steven Bernstein, multi-instrumentalist Peter Apfelbaum and many others. More good music, mixing tradition and creativity, all the time!

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