We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Ornette Hawkins - The Other Side Of What EP

by Ornette Hawkins

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $4 USD  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    4 track vinyl, limited run.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Ornette Hawkins - The Other Side Of What EP via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 10 days

      $10 USD

     

1.
2.
3.
4.

about

Music cannot lie. Music can only be lied about. I have a lot more to say on this. I think about music a lot; as a person, I want to stay open to everything. Music is always in touch with something. It doesn’t matter what it is. Swing is no fixed thing. Time is fixed.”
- Ornette Hawkins

Ornette Hawkins is not only a seasoned band leader and accomplished improviser, but also a seeker of new sounds. Using computers and electronics, synthesizers, and his environment in conjunction with traditional instrumentation, he creates new landscapes upon which his improvisers can run wild. Says Hawkins, “My job is to create a vessel; a framework to give the musicians the space to respond. I’m creating a conversation between the composer and the improviser.” That Ornette would find the most compelling material from these improvised conversations seems to find some merit in recent studies.

It appears … that jazz musicians create their unique improvised riffs by turning off inhibition and turning up creativity.

In a report published Feb. 27 in Public Library of Science (PLoS) ONE, the scientists from the University’s School of Medicine describe their curiosity about the possible neurological underpinnings of the almost trance-like state jazz artists enter during spontaneous improvisation.
(This is Your Brain on Jazz: Researchers Use MRI to Study Spontaneity, Creativity. February 26, 2008. www.hopkinsmedicine.org)

These studies demonstrate that during improvisation, the parts of the musicians’ brains that control the physical sense of self are deactivated whilst those parts of the brain associated with the inner self are activated. In his music, Hawkins captures this spirit of spontaneous creativity from his improvisers, by giving them the freedom to interact with his compositions.

The brains of jazz musicians engrossed in spontaneous, improvisational musical conversation showed robust activation of brain areas traditionally associated with spoken language and syntax, which are used to interpret the structure of phrases and sentences. But this musical conversation shut down brain areas linked to semantics - those that process the meaning of spoken language, according to results of a study by Johns Hopkins researchers.
(The Musical Brain: Novel Study of Jazz Players Shows Common Brain Circuitry Processes Both Music and Language. February 19, 2014. www.hopkinsmedicine.org)

The idea of studying creativity's roots in freestyle is actually a takeoff from a similar study done with improvisational jazz. Here, the researchers called special attention to increased activity that was observed in the part of the brain associated with the inner self, the subjective perspective unmediated by outside stimuli … In the absence of self-editing, the researchers further noted of the freestyle experience, "ongoing actions, moment to moment decisions and adjustments in performance may be experienced as having occurred outside of conscious awareness." This, they suggest, could explain why artists sometimes claim the guiding influence of some outside agency on their creative process … That changes in brain activity are so clear, and so obviously powerful, only confirms the extraordinary nature of the creative mind.
(The Neuroanatomy of Freestyle Rap. Lindsay Abrams. Nov 19, 2012. The Atlantic)

Sartre once said that jazz musicians “are speaking to the best part of you, the toughest, the freest.” It is this spirit of freedom which Ornette says he wishes to capture. Only from this unleashing of uninhibited creativity can transcendence be achieved, and it is transcendence that Ornette Hawkins desires the most.

The trombone sweats, you sweat, the trumpet sweats, you sweat more, and then you feel that something has happened on the bandstand; the musicians don’t look the same: they speed ahead, they infect each other with this haste, they look mad, taut, they seem to be searching for something. Something like sexual pleasure. And you too begin to look for something. You begin to shout; you have to shout; the orchestra has become an immense spinning top: if you stop, the top stops and falls over. You shout, they shriek, they whistle, they are possessed, you are possessed, you cry out like a woman in childbirth. The trumpet player touches the pianist and transmits his obsession in a kind of Mesmerism. You go on shouting. The whole crowd shouts in time, you can’t even hear the jazz, you watch some men on a bandstand sweating in time, you’d like to spin around, to howl at death, to slap the face of the girl next to you.
(Sartre on Bebop, I Discovered Jazz in America. Jean-Paul Sartre. November 29, 1947.The Saturday Review. Translated by Ralph de Toledano.)

His new set accomplishes a synthesis of philosophies and sounds, combining the methodical and spontaneous, the organic and synthetic, the compositional and improvisational. Through the musical explorations contained on this recording, Ornette Hawkins creates a timeless bridge between new and old; a contribution that furthers our musical lexicon and seeks to redefine our perspective.

This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again. In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely remarking as it went, `One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.'

`One side of WHAT? The other side of WHAT?' thought Alice to herself.
(Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis Carrol. 1865)

credits

released January 19, 2018

ORNETTE HAWKINS, drums & percussion; JOE HERRERA, trumpet; MATT RIPPETOE, saxophone; TODD SIMON, Rhodes,
MARC BLACKWOOD, bass & keyboards; MAXWELL HOUSTON, keyboards & soundscapes

Recorded at Crackwood Studios, Gateway Arts District, MD, USA. Arranged and Mixed at The Bass Barn, Takoma Park, MD, USA. Engineered by Maxwell Houston and Marc Blackwood.
Mastered by Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven Mastering,
London, England

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

AGN7 Audio Ypsilanti, Michigan

AGENT (AGN7) /ˈājənt/

1. A means or instrument by which a guiding intelligence achieves a result.
2. Something that produces or is capable of producing an effect: an active or efficient cause.

AGN7 AUDIO
1. Dystopian funk.
... more

contact / help

Contact AGN7 Audio

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Ornette Hawkins - The Other Side Of What EP, you may also like: