Archives - 1969
AUDIO
November 1969
MOOG JAZZ in the GARDEN - BERTRAM STANLEIGH
There has been so great a proliferation of Moog Synthesizer recordings in the last year or so that no general introduction to these instruments is necessary. Probably the best known of the lot has been Columbia's Switched-on Bach, a group of Bach works successfully transcribed for electronic synthesizer by composer Walter Carlos. Original music for these instruments has been recorded on Elektra by Andrew Rudin and others, but serious composition has not been the sole medium for these instruments. Both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones own and use Moog Synthesizers in their musical performances, and a flock of pop and rock recordings with Moog embellishments have been released recently.
Until August 28, however, the Moog Synthesizer was confined to the recording studio, where its older and more cumbersome ancestors had always worked. On that date an important new step was taken in public musical performance. The Moog was introduced to a live audience at the final 1969 concert of the Museum of Modern Art's "Jazz in the Garden" series. The compact, modular construction of the Moog has made it possible to encompass a wide variety of oscillators, filter banks, reverb units, mixers, etc., in a single console and to control these circuits through a pair of organ-like keyboards. As a result, music can be produced directly without the recording, dubbing, splicing, looping, redubbing complications of earlier synthesizers. Any musician who is familiar with keyboard techniques can generate some sort of musical output from a Moog in a very short space of time, and improvisation can be interpolated into a performance as freely as with any conventional instrument.
The first Moog concert featured two jazz composers, Herb Deutsch and Chris Swanson, and their quartets. The instrumentation was entirely electronic, employing polyphonic, bass, and percussion synthesizers, and an electronic piano. The output of each instrument was fed to a separate, large Bozak CM-109 speaker system. The output of these units was in turn picked up by a microphone and fed to the Museum's sound reinforcement system, consisting of several compact acoustic - suspension systems hung along the Fifty-Fourth Street wall
of the Sculpture Garden. No prerecorded tapes were employed. Every sound produced was created on the spot, and though this was composed music that had been carefully rehearsed, there were ample breaks in both composers' work for prolonged improvisation.
Interest in the concert had been particularly high. The advance sale of tickets had been greater than for any previous performance in this very popular series, and when this writer arrived at the Museum at 6 p.m. to observe advance preparations for the 8:30 concert, there was already a large crowd gathered
on 53rd Street waiting to get in. The public was allowed into the garden at 7 p.m., and long before the starting time, the Museum was forced to turn away would-be attendants. Those lucky enough to get in waited and watched for an
hour-and-a-half while Robert Moog, his staff, and the two groups of
musicians made various adjustments to their synthesizers, patched modules, turned potentiometers, and flicked switches. All such adjustments were made with the aid of headphones, and not a single sound was fed to the audience until 8:30
when Mr. Moog stepped to the center of the concert platform, offered a few modest words of gratification at the wide interest in his equipment, and introduced Mr. Deutsch, Hank Jones on polyphonic synthesizer, Artie Doolittle, bass synthesizer, and Jim Pirone, percussion synthesizer.
Then, following a few preparatory bleeps, hoots, and grunts, the musicians swung into a pleasantly melodic four-movement suite that seemed strong on treble-bass contrasts but was somewhat lacking in emphatic mid-range voices. At various times, sounds were reminiscent of trumpet, flute, saxophone, harpsichord, accordion, and several varieties of drum, but, in general, one was content to listen to the music on its own terms, without trying to draw any comparisons with conventional instrumentation. These were real musicians playing real music, and it was clear that their message was getting to the audience.
The Chris Swanson group that rounded out the concert was some what more raucous than the Deutsch contingent, but their general style reflected the same main stream jazz - pop - rock orientation and they brought no new color voices to the sounds already heard. They were, however, participants in one of the evening's highlights. Just before the close of their number someone kicked a power plug loose and the audience was bathed in sudden silence. Poor Robert Moog
was clearly disconsolate as he announced the power failure and advised that the concert as at an end. But he was dealing with an audience that was having too much fun to quit. The plug was reconnected and another piece was played to everyone's delight. One thing was clear; from now on the Moog will have an established place in live performances.
There were many imperfections in the August 28th Moog concert and I'm sure they were as apparent to the audience as to this critic. But it was an audience that saw through surface flaws to the concert's real message. Concert history is filled with dazzling debuts ruined by discerning audiences. Robert Moog had the good fortune to have a sensitive audience note the promise of an instrument at a concert that was less than a total musical success.