The US Concerts

This CD includes both tracks performed by various formations that were first included on the album "USA Concerts" released after my first US tour in 1978 as well as five previously un-issued tracks. The first of these was recorded in 1980 with cellist Tom Corra at Creative Music Studio, Woodstock, the second a few years later in 1985 in Bologna at NoWall, in duo with alto player Jack Wright from Philadelphia, while the third was recorded at Zoo Place in NY with Toshinori Kondo and Eugene Chadbourne. The forth and the fifth contains the debut recording of two important musical happenings: the one that took place in 1978 in Berkeley with piano-player, Gregg Goodman, and the one that took place in Los Angeles in 1979 with clarinet player, John Carter and saxophonist, Vinnie Golia.

I can recall that during those years there was a definable new wave sweeping across the East Coast music scene, along with a radical soul and a quest for new sounds, a real revolution that marked a overcoming of the Afro-American influences which had dominated the 70s' Free Jazz movement. In New York, concerts were happening in the most unlikely venues, from the punk shrine that was CBGB's to the multimedia space of the Zoo, up to avant-garde sanctuaries like the Environment and The Kitchen. Meanwhile in the South the new music flag was being kept aloft by groups of artists working out of Birmingham, Alabama, who busied themselves organizing concerts and recording sessions and trading gigs with their more fortunate New York cousins. This East coast axis continued to flourish for several years up to the present days. In the same period on the Pacific Rim a group of brave musicians started the improvised music scene in Los Angeles and San Francisco involving themselves in a slightly similar language with a more California-like connotation.

This CD is therefore a kind of evidence to that golden age of new music, the way it was and was not to be again.

1 TRIO WEST #1 10.42
John Carter clarinet
Vinnie Golia reeds
Andrea Centazzo percussion Recorded at KPFK Los Angeles July 16, 1979

2 TRIO WEST #2 8.13
John Carter clarinet
Vinnie Golia reeds Andrea Centazzo percussion
Recorded at KPFK Los Angeles July 16, 1979

3 LIVE IN WOODSTOCK 5.28
Tom Corra cello
Andrea Centazzo percussion
Recorded live at Creative Music Studio, Woodstock, NY December 1980

4 NY TAPES #1 4:57
Toshinori Kondo trumpet
Andrea Centazzo percussion
Recorded live at WKRC RADIO, New York November 7, 1978

5 NO WALL 4.43
Jack Wright alto saxophone
Andrea Centazzo percussion
Recorded live at No Wall, Bologna, Italy April 1986

6 MC CLUNG #1 8.03
Ladonna Smith violin, viola, voice
Davey Williams electric guitars, banjo
Andrea Centazzo percussion
Recorded live in concert at mc clung gallery, Jackson Mississippi November 19,1978

7 MC CLUNG #2 4.15
Ladonna Smith violin, viola, voice
Andrea Centazzo percussion
Recorded live in concert at Mc Clung Gallery, Jackson Mississipi November 19, 1978

8 NY TAPES # 2 5.35
Eugene Chadbourne guitars
Andrea Centazzo percussion
Recorded live at WKRC RADIO, New York November 7, 1978

9 ELECTRIC DUO 4.07
Dave Williams electric guitars
Andrea Centazzo percussion
Recorded live in concert at Ferg Forum, University Of Alabama, Tooscalusa, Alabama November 17,1978

10 WEST DUO 9.53
Gregg Goodman piano
Andrea Centazzo percussion
Recorded at the Finger Palace Berkeley December 10, 1978