Rising – Gordon, I Moved
Michael Gordon – "I Moved"
from Anonymous Man
Sunrise, Wednesday May 27
Everybody up! Coffee. Singing. Let’s go.
This one will wake you up.
In our first week of Rising w/ The Crossing, we launched our new recording of Michael Gordon’s Anonymous Man. A few weeks later, we listened to one of its more melancholy moments. Today, we rediscover the energy that is a hallmark of Michael’s music, found in “I moved,” the second movement of this uniquely autobiographical piece, told in prose.
The landlord circumvented New York law by renting out commercial warehouse space to artists looking for a place to live and work.
This is such unlikely text for a musical setting. It’s just a sentence; no poetry. Yet, Michael makes it feel like verse, with a logic we can follow as it rolls out in real time. He sets up a motive of perpetual motion – like the continuo in Baroque music or rhythm section in Rock – and weaves sentences around. They feel metered.
I was playing in a band called Peter and the Girlfriends.
Peter was a girl who sang.
The Girlfriends were a bunch of guys who played guitars and drums.
The inertia of this piece is exhausting and exhilarating.
Exhilarate.
Exhaust.
Words that have wandered from their origins.
There is no "hausting," no "hilarating." But there is a drawing out, and hilarity.
And, there is the hale of Exhale, which we do with forethought in "I moved."
Many long exhalations on sung phrases, spinning out like chant, like
speaking on pitch.
It is all a Falling Forward.
The intense pressure of Musical Motion.
Invigorating.
Wait for it...
Six minutes in, a new motive enters the mix.
at full volume making all the noise we liked
Tenors sing a canon at the 8th note.
The person to our right is singing what we are singing a ½ second before us. And the person to our left is a ½ second behind.
It’s challenging. And thrilling.
Like an image, smudged (with precision).
Then, the altos join the canon.
Then, the sopranos.
18 voices singing a unison canon at the 8th note.
Mind-boggling. Uplifting. Affirming.
We’re grateful for that.
For music.
for a place to live and work
- The Whole Team @ The Crossing
A reminder that all our Rising w/ offerings are from live performances.
You can explore our studio recording of Anonymous Man HERE.
Anonymous Man
2. I Moved
words and music by Michael Gordon
recorded live in concert at The Month of Moderns 2018,
July 2, 2018 at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill
audio by Paul Vazquez of Digital Mission Audio Services
video art by Beth Haidle
Anonymous Man was commissioned
with the generous support of an Anonymous Donor.
* * *
I moved into the second floor of an abandoned factory at 22 Desbrosses Street in the fall of ‘81. The door had been left open. The landlord circumvented New York law by renting out commercial warehouse space to artists looking for a place to live and work.
Outside the streets were dark and desolate. The windows rattled from the cold and rain. The loft was piled high with trash. I called the landlord, Mister K, but no success. The building had been occupied by the Romanoff Caviar Company. The floors of my loft had been covered with waves of undulating concrete. There were drains every six feet. I bought the Reader’s Digest Complete Do It Yourself Manual, which had a lot of practical information on building walls and things like that.
I was playing in a band called Peter and the Girlfriends. Peter was a girl who sang. The Girlfriends were a bunch of guys who played guitars and drums. We rehearsed on Desbrosses Street at night at full volume, making all the noise we liked. Then we’d plaster the town with posters for our show and end up at the Market Diner. I was in graduate school at the time and had a job at a furniture store which sold porch swings in Manhattan. A professor from Mississippi, on his Sabbatical year, brought up truckloads of porch swings and hired me to run his store.