EARL HOWARD / 5 Saxophone Solos
Earl Howard, Saxophone
Earl Howard is a virtuoso saxophonist and has developed an extended repertoire for the instrument including Cinco Centavos for solo saxophone and Naked Charm for saxophone and tape which was performed at the New Music America festival in Hartford, Connecticut. He has received Composer fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation on the Arts. He has produced numerous soundtracks for some of the leading film and video artists including Nam June Paik, Mary Lucier, Rii Kanzaki, Bob Harris, and Bill Brand.
Howard has been performing his compositions in the United States and Europe for the past thirty years. His recent compositions include music for live electronics, electronic tape music as well as music for electronics and instruments. Earl Howard's method of creating orchestrated sounds with electronics and adding live, improvisational performance creates a unique, densely layered composition that has been performed to enthusiastic audiences at Merkin Hall, the Whitney Museum, The Kitchen, Roulette, and Carnegie Recital Hall. His works have been performed and recorded by a number of musicians including Anthony Davis' recording of Particle W, for piano and tape and Gerry Hemingway's recording of D.R. for solo percussion. The recording, Pele's Tears on Random Acoustic represents ten years of his electronic music and he recorded Fire Song with hyperpianist, Denman Maroney for Erstwhile. In 1985 Ursula Oppens and Anthony Davis commissioned Mr. Howard to compose Monopole for two pianos and tape. The Parabola Arts Foundation commissioned Quarks for tape and the Episteme Ensemble.
TRACK LIST
Solo 1 (10:04)
Solo 2 (11:58)
Solo 3 (12:23)
Solo 4 (7:33)
Solo 5 (21:15)
REVIEWS
Ty Cumbie, All About Jazz
Saxophonist Earl Howard’s solo CD, released on Tom Buckner’s wonderful Mutable Music, reveals a quirky command of the instrument and ideas that defy easy analysis. For five fearless intervals, Howard publicly probes a private realm of sound. The results are almost always far from unlovely. Throughout there’s an undertone of antipathy—and, paradoxically, a seeming affinity—for comfortable intervals in melody. There is no obvious interpolation of rhythm whatsoever, giving the recording a stark, abstract feel. Yet this is not an entirely atonal work, at least to the non-analytical ear. Granted, Howard probably approached the pieces without a tonal center in mind, yet they each have their own timbre and tonality, however inadvertent. Howard seems to adhere to modern music’s genral departure from traditional tonality, yet, that tonality—present or otherwise—is not the deciding factor as to whether this recording is—or is not—worth a listen. He seems to want to make a new and distinctive statement in solo instrumental music and particularly on the saxophone. Howard’s saxophone work sounds a bit similar in style and texture to Jorrit Dijkstra’s fabulous experiments with solo sax and electronics, though Dijkstra’s are far stronger both musically and in their bracing innovations. Both artists are working in the fresh territory Anthony Braxton’s brave, lonely pioneering created.
