A Mouth at Both Ends, by Joe McPhee, Tashi Dorji, Bill Orcutt

A Mouth at Both Ends

by Joe McPhee, Tashi Dorji, Bill Orcutt

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	1.	A Mouth 21:02
	2.	Both Ends 20:48

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BUY VINYL AT TASHI's BANDCAMP: tashidorji.bandcamp.com/album/a-mouth-at-both-ends

"Thursday, June 7th, ISSUE presents an evening of improvisations between celebrated four-string guitarist Bill Orcutt, unbound Bhutanese guitarist Tashi Dorji, and Poughkeepsian creative jazz originary Joe McPhee. While all three musicians are tireless collaborative improvisers and iconoclast solo performers, each possesses an enduring aesthetic approach that’s as independent as it is profoundly empathic.

The evening features two duo sets (Orcutt & Dorji, McPhee & Dorji), culminating with the three coming together for a debut trio performance -- a combination that’s sure to yield unseen results. Here, Dorji’s erceness is the consistent thread within each conversation, a discourse owing between the mutually frenetic stylings of Orcutt and deeply intentional mediations of McPhee.

Bill Orcutt’s authorship of a highly disruptive version of “The Great American Songbook” lls chasms of negative historical space -- with ows of fragmented notes revising, interpolating, and critiquing the form. Here, Orcutt expands the ruptures of songcraft, breaking each melody into in nitesimal pieces, coding each part into new narratives. Marked by an inimitable, sputtering style, Orcutt’s prophetic stature in American guitar music is indisputable given his constant re-discovery of the vibrancy of “rotten” historical materials -- either in guitar song, or in noise during years prior in Harry Pussy. In the words of critic Matthew Philips, “he brings these pieces of history out from the invisibility where they had festered ever since their last audition.”

Tashi Dorji’s own omnivorous skewering of guitar traditions has developed a highly idiosyncratic take on on the instrument, one de ned by his non-stop movement and profound openness to technique. Although much as been said about his parallelisms with the stark improvisational world of Derek Bailey and meditative energy of Ben Chasny, Dorji has reached the point where his hybrid style has amalgamated into a new form altogether. Although his lawless approach can often express itself ercely, with roots in the more savage strands of avant-jazz or free folk, his playing can quickly deviate to impressionistic, emotive gesturing -- harmonizing between quiet chord-sustain and knobby, quick passages.

The instrumental outlier, Joe Mcphee serves as the non-sequitur in response to Orcutt and Dorji’s guitar vexations. Combining his jazz lineage with extended instrumental and electronic techniques, McPhee often approaches his music conceptually by “disrupting an apparent sequence and arriving at the solution from another angle.” Deeply informed by this spirit, McPhee’s notion of “sideways thinking” in creative improvisation led him to develop the concept of “Po Music,” described as a “process of provocation” (Po is a language indicator to show that provocation is being used) to “move from one xed set of ideas in an attempt to discover new ones.” McPhee concludes, “It is a Positive, Possible, Poetic Hypothesis.” The application of Po
principles to creative improvisation are likely to be at play in conversation with the wild stylings of Orcutt and Dorji."

credits

released December 25, 2023

Recorded by Bob Bellerue
Mixed by James Emrick
Photography by Cameron Kelly Courtesy ISSUE Project Room

Performance
Thursday, June 7th, 2018
ISSUE Project Room
22 Boerum Place, Brooklyn

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about

Bill Orcutt San Francisco, California

shows

Apr 29

Solar Myth (presented By Ars Nova Workshop)

Philadelphia, PA
Apr 30

Le Poisson Rouge

New York (NYC), NY
May 6

Cedar Cultural Center

Minneapolis, MN
Jun 19

The Chapel

San Francisco, CA
Jun 20

Zebulon

Los Angeles (LA), CA

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