Nate Wooley's guide to American Weirdos

August 2, 2016 6:58 AM

[Nate Wooley, T]he New York trumpeter and composer celebrates the USA’s lesser known maverick composers. "So here I attempt to give positive form and definition to this term while presenting some music that exemplifies the work of those American weirdos that have inspired me in the past 15 years. I define the artists below as having committed themselves to working outside of an established musical dialectic. Instead, they hurl themselves into the void of an idea with only their personal context and history as aesthetic anchor points. The starting point of their work is self-contained. Tradition, history, theory be damned. "
posted by OmieWise (11 comments total)

Nate is one of the most talented, well-rounded musicians I've had the pleasure to know.* If you liked reading this, there's a good chance you'll love (and I do mean love) Sound American, for which he's the editor-in-chief. He also curates the Database of Recorded American Music (DRAM). If you'd like to hear him in concert, he tours quite a bit, including Europe, which he updates on his Facebook page. Highly recommended. More about Nate on his site.

*We went to school together a couple years, played in jazz ensembles, and back then he wrote a piece or two to feature my bari sax playing *grin*. I love that he continues to include bari sax in performances; it's an instrument that's easily misunderstood. also yeah, showed him this post, so hi Nate *waves*
posted by fraula at 7:15 AM on August 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

Cool! I've linked to Sound American here before, specifically the issue featuring Ian Nagoski. It's a great project.
posted by OmieWise at 7:20 AM on August 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Here is the Sound American post I made, What is American Music. I got pretty down about it because no one seemed to care about what I thought was a great bunch of content.
posted by OmieWise at 7:25 AM on August 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

Nate is awesome. He interviewed the ensemble I play with for the Pauline Oliveros edition of Sound American since we play a lot of her music. Talking about music is like dancing about architecture but he pulls it off excellently, and he's a great musician too. Definitely worth paying attention to any project he's working on.
posted by Perfectibilist at 7:40 AM on August 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

OmieWise, this is a great post. Most of this music I was completely unfamiliar with - I love when that happens. I missed your previous post What is American Music which I think I'm gonna enjoy getting into as well. Thanks!
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:55 AM on August 2, 2016

Youtube Red Blue: posts like this are much more pleasant when you subscribe - youtube is great for music exploration once the ads are gone.
posted by idiopath at 9:08 AM on August 2, 2016

Nice to see Ellen Fullman in that list. Finally got to see/hear her Long String Instrument twice earlier this year and I have to say that the recordings don't do the sound justice.
posted by remembrancer at 9:39 AM on August 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Holy crap who the hell is/was (rip) Julius Eastman! That was one of the most gorgeous works I've ever heard! Strong link to the Minimalism earlier in that decade but filtered through a unique voice.

But all of these were terrific. So much amazing music that's just way off the radar. Thanks for the post!
posted by bfootdav at 1:02 PM on August 2, 2016

Nate's good people.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 3:08 PM on August 2, 2016

> I got pretty down about it because no one seemed to care about what I thought was a great bunch of content.

It's stuff I love but I can't usually find much to say about it... keep it up and be aware that the lurkers support you in page counts.
posted by ardgedee at 5:29 PM on August 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Nate just updated today that the full archives of Sound American are finally online :) enjoy!

I suspect y'all had something to do with it ;)
posted by fraula at 9:47 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]