Night After Night

Playlist (I Am Sitting in a Room).

A weekly tally of memorable things Steve Smith has stuck in his ears.

Tim Feeney - Burrow (Marginal Frequency; 2018)

Jlin - Autobiography (Planet Mu; due Sept. 28, 2018)

R.E.M. - Monster (Warner Bros.; 1994)

Gabriel Kahane - Book of Travelers (Nonesuch; due Aug. 24, 2018)

Robert Rich – Live at the Gatherings 2015 (Industry8; 2017)

Mary Halvorson - The Maid with the Flaxen Hair – A Tribute to Johnny Smith (Tzadik; due July 27, 2018)

Henry Threadgill - Double Up, Plays Double Up Plus (Pi Recordings; 2018)

Christopher Fox - Works for Piano - Philip Thomas (Hat[now]ART; 2014)
> L'ascenseur; At the Edge of Time; Thermogenesis; Republican Bagatelles

Clara de Asís and Bruno Duplant - l'inertie (Marginal Frequency; 2018)

Matt Barbier - Platonic Solids (self-released; 2018)

Matthew Shlomowitz – Avant Muzak (all that dust; 2018)
> Popular Contexts 7: Public Domain Music - asamisimasa; Popular Contexts 8: Five Soundscapes for a Contemporary Percussionist - Håkon Stene; Avant Muzak - asamisimasa

Tom Djll - Serge Works (Other Minds; 1983-88/2018)

Alvin Lucier – Illuminated by the Moon (ZHdK; 2017)
> I Am Sitting in a Room – Alvin Lucier; Music for Solo Performer – Alvin Lucier; Charles Curtis – Charles Curtis; Double Rainbow – Joan La Barbara; Nothing Is Real (Strawberry Fields Forever) – Johannes Herrmann; Braid – ensemble/Felix Protos; Two Circles – ensemble/Felix Protos; Hanover – Ever Present Orchestra/Lars Mlekusch; Step, Slide and Sustain – Trio Retro Disco; One Arm Bandits – Charles Curtis, TJ Borden, Judith Hamann, Reynard Rott

Various artists - Best of Hearts of Space, No. 1: First Flight (Hearts of Space; 1983/2009)

Günter Schlienz - Collage Tristes (Was Ist Das?; 2017)

Various artists - Opika Pende: Africa at 78 RPM (Dust-to-Digital; 1909-1960s/2011)

Goings On About Town, July 30, 2018.

My contributions to the Goings On About Town section in the July 30, 2018 issue of The New Yorker, covering the dates July 25-31.

[This event took place in the Glass Box Theater at the New School; link.]

[This event took place at Tanglewood in Lenox, MA; link.]

[This event took place at St. Peter's Church, Lexington Ave.; link.]

[This event took place at St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church, Brooklyn Heights; link.]

Playlist (Two Weeks).

A weekly tally of memorable things Steve Smith has stuck in his ears.

July 2-8, 2018

Stephen Cornford - Electrocardiographs of a Cathode Ray Tube (A Wave Press; 2018)

Glorias Navales - Glorias Navales Presenta El Blues de Istvan (A Wave Press; due Sept. 22, 2018)

Marianne Schuppe - nosongs (Edition Wandelweiser; 2018. Audio samples here.)

John Adams - Doctor Atomic - Gerald Finley, Julia Bullock, BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Orchestra/John Adams (Nonesuch; 2018)

Luciano Berio - Sinfonia; Pierre Boulez - Notations; Maurice Ravel - La valse - Roomful of Teeth, Seattle Symphony Orchestra/Ludovic Morlot (Seattle Symphony; due July 20, 2018)

Michael Pisaro/Reinier van Houdt - Shades of Eternal Night (Gravity Wave; 2018)

Philip Sulidae - Ramshead (Unfathomless; 2018)

John Tilbury/Keith Rowe/Kjell Bjørgengen - Sissel (Sofa; 2018)

David Lacey, Paul Vogel & Mark Wastell - Live at I&E (Confront; 2006)

Portal - ION (Profound Lore; 2018)

Cassandra Miller - O Zomer! (Another Timbre; due August 2018)
> O Zomer! - Apartment House; Philip the Wanderer - Philip Thomas; For Mira - Mira Benjamin; Duet for Cello and Orchestra - Charles Curtis, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Ilan Volkov

Alex Jang - momentary encounters (Another Timbre; due August 2018)
> momentary encounters 5 - Heather Roche; any three players - Apartment House; a gray bent interior horizon - Cristián Alvear; distributed tourism - Apartment House

Lance Austin Olsen - Dark Heart (Another Timbre; due August 2018)
> Theseus’ Breath (2 realisations); Dark Heart; A Meditation on the History of Painting - Terje Paulsen, Gil Sansón, Ryoko Akama, Isaiah Ceccarelli, Katelyn Clark, Mira Benjamin, John Lely, Anton Lukoszevieze

Linda Catlin Smith - Wanderer - Apartment House (Another Timbre; due August 2018)
> Wanderer; Morning Glory; Stare at the River; Light and Water; Knotted Silk; Music for John Cage; Sarabande; Velvet

King Crimson – 2017 North American Tour “Hot Tickles” (DGMLive; 2017. More information here.)

Anthony Roth Costanzo - ARC: Glass/Handel (Decca Gold; due Sept. 22, 2018)

Robert Rich and Markus Reuter - Flood Expeditions: The Gatherings, 19 May 2018 (self-released; 2018)

William Selman - Musica Enterrada (Mysteries of the Deep; 2018)

James MacMillan - String Quartets - Royal String Quartet (Hyperion; due July 27, 2018. Audio samples here.)
> Visions of a November Spring (String Quartet No. 1); Why is this night different? (String Quartet No. 2); String Quartet No. 3

Certain Creatures - Nasadiya Sukta (Mysteries of the Deep; 2018)

Rapoon - Sanctus Equinox (Winter-Light; 2017)

Ingrid Laubrock - Contemporary Chaos Practices (Intakt; due November 2018)

Ziggurat - Ritual Miasma (Caligari; 2017)

Travis & Fripp - Travis & Fripp I (DGM iPhone app; 2018)

Graham Halliwell & Mark Wastell - At Bonnington (Confront; 2002/2018)

Francis Plagne & Crys Cole - Two Words (Black Truffle; due July 27, 2018)

Rutger Zuydervelt with Ilia Belorukov and René Aquarius - The Red Soul (Sofa; 2018)

Gabriel Kahane - Book of Travelers (Nonesuch; due Aug. 24, 2018)

Punch Brothers - All Ashore (Nonesuch; due July 20, 2018)

July 9-15

Various Artists - The Washington City Paper Guide to American Primitive (Spotify playlist; 2018)

Punch Brothers - All Ashore (Nonesuch; due July 20, 2018)

Lucy Railton - Paradise 94 (Modern Love; 2018)

King Crimson – 2018 European Tour “Hot Tickles” (DGMLive; 2017. More information here.)

Alex Mincek - Images of Duration (in Homage to Ellsworth Kelly) - Yarn/Wire (Northern Spy; due Aug. 24, 2018)

Lo! - Vestigial (Pelagic; 2017)

Big Heart Machine - Big Heart Machine (Outside In; due Aug. 24, 2018)

Morton Feldman - For John Cage - Aisha Orazbayeva, Mark Knoop (all that dust; 2018. Audio sample here.)

Matthew Shlomowitz - Avant Muzak -Håkon Stene, Asamisimasa (all that dust; 2018. Audio sample here.)
> Popular Contexts 7: Public Domain Music; Popular Contexts 8: Five Soundscapes for a Contemporary Percussionist; Avant Muzak

Hong Chulki/Will Guthrie - Mosquitoes and Crabs (Erstwhile; 2018)

Dead and Company – Citi Field, Flushing Meadows, NY, June 15, 2018 (Nugs.net; 2018)

Milton Babbitt - Philomel - Juliet Fraser (All That Dust; 2018. Audio sample here.)

Luigi Nono - La Fabbrica Illuminata - Loré Lixenberg (All That Dust; 2018. Audio sample here.)

Séverine Ballon - Inconnaissance (All That Dust; 2018. Audio sample here.)

Sean McCann - Fountains (extended version) (Roll Over Rover/Round Bale; 2010/2018)

Nima Aghiani - REMS (PTP; 2018)

Various artists - Paramount Blues: Lock and Key Blues (Black Swan; 2007)

Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (Atlantic; 1967)

Leonard Bernstein - Mass - Jubliant Sykes, Asher Edward Wulfman, Morgan State University Choir, Peabody Children's Chorus, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop (Naxos; 2009)

Goings On About Town, July 23, 2018.

My contributions to the Goings On About Town section in the July 23 issue of The New Yorker, covering the dates July 18-24.

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How I became a professional journalist (hint: you're looking at it).

A thread from Twitter, begun as a simple response to someone else's tweet on Thursday…

Jobs I did before full-time professional* journalism:

Babysitter
Floor cleaning/maintenance
Busboy
Dishwasher
Kitchen prep
Record store clerk
Radio program host
Publicist

(* but also wrote for my college paper and freelanced for alt-weeklies mag long before that…) https://t.co/WrBpsT9mXm

— Steve Smith (@nightafternight) July 12, 2018

After which came another response to a subsequent tweet on Friday, inspired by the first…

Diligent work at small jobs for low pay, at first. But honestly, I made some very good friends during my seven-year PR detour, and when I returned to journalism, some of those friends opened doors. I owe huge debts to Larry Blumenfeld, Bradley Bambarger, and K. Leander Williams. https://t.co/oCzxYmUAdh

— Steve Smith (@nightafternight) July 13, 2018

To explain that last sentence: Larry Blumenfeld, during his fondly remembered tenure as editor of Jazziz, hired me to write a handful of small articles while I was working in P.R. – obviously I never wrote about anything remotely related to the clients I represented – and then brought me on as his assistant editor when BMG Classics, the last company at which I held a P.R. job, eliminated my department and laid off most of the staff in 2000. Thanks to Larry, I wasn't unemployed even for a weekend.

Bradley Bambarger brought me back to classical music journalism – and, really, to classical music, period – early in 2001, when he hired me to take over his weekly column about the classical recording industry at Billboard. And K. Leander Williams, who knew me mostly from the jazz world, but also was aware of my classical background and the new Billboard post, passed my name to the powers-that-were at Time Out New York when that magazine was looking for a classical-music editor, also in 2001.

I then added a brief thread later on Friday, expanding upon that second response tweet and taking a little more agency for my route to full-time employment in journalism.

Also! In what amounts to a mix of serendipity, tenacity & chutzpah, I “arrived” during peak years for blogs. So in addition to part- or full-time employment, I blogged frenetically. That gave potential editors and employers something to look at, unfiltered.

— Steve Smith (@nightafternight) July 13, 2018

Having related employment helped immeasurably - I won’t deny the “legitimizing” effect. But because of blogging, some publications I’d tried unsuccessfully to crack for years eventually came and found me.

— Steve Smith (@nightafternight) July 13, 2018

Personal blogs may not be as big a deal now, but as an editor I still scan them - and websites, and social media (including Twitter) - for promising new writers to hire.

— Steve Smith (@nightafternight) July 13, 2018

So while I pretty much will never advocate for writing for someone else for no pay, I am a strong proponent of any aspiring/practicing writer putting her/his words out into the world by any means necessary - through one’s own channels.

— Steve Smith (@nightafternight) July 13, 2018

A true story. Maybe someday I'll expand on it in prose, but for now, I just wanted to preserve that thread and stick it all in one place.

Goings On About Town, July 9/July 16, 2018.

My contributions to the Goings On About Town section in the July 9/July 16 double issue of The New Yorker, covering the dates July 4-17.

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Playlist (Debris of Consequence).

A weekly tally of memorable things Steve Smith has stuck in his ears.

King Crimson - The Elements 2018 Tour Box (DGM; 2018)

Jim O'Rourke - sleep like it's winter (Newhere; 2018)

Norbert Rodenkirchen/Robbie Lee/James Ilgenfritz - Opalescence (Telegraph Harp; 2018)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Requiem in D minor (K. 626); Kyrie in D minor (K. 341) - Barbara Bonney, Anne Sofie von Otter, Hans Peter Blochwitz, Williard White (Philips; 1987)

Toshi Ichiyanagi - sapporo - Eye Music (Edition Wandelweiser; 2018; listen here.)

Franz Joseph Haydn - The Creation - Donna Brown, Sylvia McNair, Caroline Stormer, Michael Schade, Rodney Gilfry, Gerald Finley, Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists/John Eliot Gardiner (Archiv; 1997)

John Cage - Two2 - Mark Knoop & Philip Thomas (Another Timbre; 2018)

Francis Plagne & crys cole - Two Words (Black Truffle; due July 27, 2018)

Foresteppe - Mæta (Eilean; due July 7, 2018)

The Prairie Lines - Today Leap and Stop Time (Eilean; due July 7, 2018)

John Coltrane - Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album (Impulse!; 1963/2018)

Cyril Bondi, Pierre-Yves Martel & Christoph Schiller - tse (Another Timbre; 2018)

Magnus Granberg - Es schwindelt mir, es brennt mein Eingeweide (Another Timbre; 2018)