Prismatic Park: Joe McPhee and Graham Lambkin
Photo Credit: Lawrence Kumpf
Madison Square Park
New York, NY 10010
Joe McPhee has been a deeply emotional composer, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist since his emergence on the creative jazz and new music scenes in the late 60s. Inspired by the music of Albert Ayler, he taught himself the saxophone and proceeded to cut two records that remain defining monuments to the civil rights era: the out free jazz of Underground Railroad and avant-funk of Nation Time. His odyssey since has taken McPhee through Deep Listening collaborations with Pauline Oliveros and countless left field improv sessions both within and way outside of the jazz tradition. Graham Lambkin is a multidisciplinary artist who first came to prominence in the early 90s through the formation of his experimental music group The Shadow Ring. A sound organizer rather than music maker, Lambkin looks at an everyday object and sees an ocean of possibility, continually transforming quotidian atmospheres and the mundane into expressive sound art using tape manipulation techniques, chance operations and the thick ambience of domestic field recordings.
In 1993 one of the chief concerns of Graham Lambkin’s then fledgling Shadow Ring was to emulate, on a cheap Casio keyboard, the electronic textures of ’70s Joe McPhee collaborator John Snyder’s ARP synthesizer. Twenty-two years later Lambkin and McPhee recorded their Chance Meeting album using chimes, whistle, pocket synthesizer, tape, Baoding balls and other objects. The recording is marked by the jovial spirit and wry humor that characterizes their collaborative dynamic, both in performance and friendship. Self-reflexively commenting on the process of creation as it unfolds, their weeklong residency will provide a rare public forum for the latest chapter of the Lambkin-McPhee drama. They now happily share the same branch of Stop & Shop in Poughkeepsie, NY and Prismatic Park will mark the fourth of their public appearances as a duo.
Tuesday, July 25th, 2017
1:00 PM Joe McPhee: Pauline Oliveros Tribute
1:30 PM Graham Lambkin: Untitled
Wednesday, July 26th, 2017
1:00 PM Joe McPhee: Billy Name’s Fifteen Minutes
1:30 PM Graham Lambkin: Untitled
5:00 PM Graham Lambkin & Joe McPhee: Improvisation # 1
Thursday, July 27th, 2017
1:00 PM Joe McPhee: Poetry Reading
1:30 PM Graham Lambkin: Untitled
5:00 PM Graham Lambkin & Joe McPhee: Improvisation # 2
Friday, July 28th, 2017
1:00 PM Joe McPhee: Sounds of the City
1:30 PM Graham Lambkin: Untitled
6:00 PM Graham Lambkin & Joe McPhee: Improvisation # 3
Saturday, July 29th, 2017
1:00 PM Joe McPhee: Resistance
1:30 PM Graham Lambkin: Untitled
4:00 PM Graham Lambkin & Joe McPhee: Improvisation # 4
Prismatic Park features three large sculptures of painted wood and prismatic glass by Josiah McElheny on view from June 13th through October 8th at Madison Square Park. These minimal, almost architectural forms are intended to create new performance spaces within the park, each functioning as an open stage-like platform for a different medium curated by each of three nonprofit organizations. Along with Danspace Project and Poets House, Blank Forms has been invited to commission ambitious new work that summons the potential for imagination, creativity, and performance inspired by the spontaneous audiences and chance encounters that only a public place can offer. Inhabiting a curvilinear, translucent blue sound wall for six weeklong residencies that may include rehearsals and workshops in addition to performances will be Lea Bertucci, Ánde Somby, Joe McPhee & Graham Lambkin, Shelley Hirsch, Matana Roberts, and Limpe Fuchs. Full schedule and details coming soon.