He may not be well-known, but 20th century music would unwind somewhat differently minus multi-wind instrumentalist Jon Gibson. His membership in the defining ensembles of New York City Minimalism is without peer, but he’s also a composer spanning roughly 50 years. Gibson’s debut under his own name emerged in 1973; Visitations contains two side-long tracks establishing that he was trapped beneath nobody’s stylistic umbrella. It gets its first-time vinyl reissue this week through Superior Viaduct.
Born in 1940, saxophonist, clarinetist and flautist Jon Gibson studied at Sacramento State and received his BA from San Francisco State in 1964. By the end of the decade he’d secured placement in the history of New Music, but for an artist of such achievement his name is raised far too seldom. He started out in the improvisation-based New Music Ensemble, his most famous cohort in the group being its founder, the prolific composer Larry Austin.
Folks bonkers for experimentalism might recognize the Ensemble’s Richard Swift, Stanley Lunetta, and Arthur Woodbury; along with Austin, they were subsequently involved in the magazine Source: Music of the Avant-Garde. The New Music Ensemble cut what appears to be a self-released record in 1964, but it doesn’t seem to have been given a very large pressing and today looks to be utterly scarce. I’d love to hear it, almost as much as I would’ve treasured witnessing the November 4, 1964 premier of Terry Riley’s In C at the San Francisco Tape Music Center.
Gibson was a participant in that performance as he helped to debut Steve Reich’s Drumming and a bit later Philip Glass’ Einstein on the Beach, all this activity kinda making him minimalism’s Freddie Hubbard (look up the jazz trumpeter’s credits to understand); he also worked with La Monte Young, Frederic Rzewski, Alvin Curran, Robert Ashley, Christian Wolff, Harold Budd, and others.
Magnifying his stature as a collaborator, Gibson premiered “Reed Phase” in ’67, the piece written by Reich specifically for the instrumentalist; not to be outdone, Glass wrote “Gradus (For Jon Gibson)” in ’68. The result is that heavy-duty fans of those two minimalist cornerstones will probably know of Gibson but less devoted listeners either won’t or will lack familiarity with his compositional output.
The lessening of profile is partially exacerbated by a body of work as composer defined by longevity and not size; Visitations was his first of two LPs for Chatham Square, the label Glass created to document his own music and the efforts Gibson, Dickie Landry, and the great experimental filmmaker Michael Snow (he of the masterpiece Wavelength).
Folks dabbling in Glass or Reich may have falsely concluded that Minimalism is dominated by repetitive, frequently rhythmical patterns, and furthermore if digging into later recordings, that the movement is overly sophisto and safe. Just add Riley to the equation and Minimalism broadens, and it widens even more with the inclusion of Young, Tony Conrad, Julius Eastman, Pauline Oliveros, Angus MacLise, and Charlemagne Palestine.
In other words, during the ‘60s and ‘70s Minimalism possessed edge, often intersecting with the Drone; Visitations fits into that scenario perfectly well. And inspired by the writings of Carlos Castaneda (his texts were once ubiquitous on their shelves of anybody halfway interested in post-hippie mysticism; after his popularity crested and fell, they beleaguered the inventory of used bookstores), it also shares a few traits with the New Age, though folks holding a low tolerance for shamanism really needn’t worry.
“Visitations I” opens with a sustained cymbal wash lending an immediate air of tenseness rather than tranquility. As it proceeds, additional cymbals enter, briefly acquiring a rhythmic pattern; the realized objective is a layered, gradually drifting atmosphere. As horns come in Gibson’s music takes on a similarity to avant-Modernist classical alongside a resemblance to the free improvisation of AMM and Musica Elettronica Viva, unsurprising given the aims of the New Music Ensemble.
In fact, AMM and Gibson both took part in 1972’s International Carnival of Experimental Sound, a 14-day festival occurring in London and coordinated by US-expatriate Harvey Matusow (UK correspondent for the aforementioned Source magazine); evidence of their performances endure via AMM’s At the Roundhouse CD and Gibson’s “Thirties (30’s),” nearly half an hour of live pattern music receiving belated release on New Tone Records’ CD reissue of Visitations.
The approximate opening half of “Visitations I” is considerably less demanding than AMM, an observation that shouldn’t give those requiring vocals and traditional structure a sense of security. To be sure, Gibson’s music requires a compatibility with abstraction, though what’s heard on the LP’s first side is ill-described as formless.
And as things progress a shift occurs, leading the ear into tangibly spiritual regions, in part due to the discernible rise of shakers, rattles, and a gong, and even more so as a wind stream distinguishes itself as that official horn of spirituality, the flute. Overlapping with these adjustments is the introduction of an environmental motif through the sound of flowing water.
As “Visitations I” transforms the intensity doesn’t flag, nor does my interest as Gibson’s fluting avoids the flimsy or the flaky. To the contrary, there is a moment where he nicely approximates an operatic female voice and reinforces the relationship to the Classical canon. “Visitations II” is a distinct piece and not a continuation of side one, though it begins with more moving water; as my thoughts turned to the amount of layering and alteration, if any, that was given to the source recording, the tones of a synthesizer subtly ascend in the mix.
Variations unfurl. A rising-falling-deepening suggests tape-manipulation as percussive elements add dimension, and the first half of “Visitations II” can be aptly assessed as “nature music” but without the triteness that diminishes so many “captured sounds of the rainforest” affairs. As trilling flutes persist, the latter portion of side two takes on a studio-enhanced ambiance of mysteriousness; tones become drones, looping is apparent, and speed modification remains evident.
Altogether Visitations is a fine record, though one that’s goodness doesn’t quite reach the apex of minimal-drone affairs; in truth when sizing up Gibson’s early material this writer prefers “Thirties (30’s)” and his Chatham Square follow-up, ‘77’s Two Solo Pieces (which hopefully Superior Viaduct has in the pipeline).
Any post-‘70s stuff is yet to be personally absorbed; enticing however is compact disc comp In Good Company from Point Music, the ’79 performance found on the Criss X Cross CD from John Zorn’s Tzadik imprint, the Free Music Archive download of a 2009 live event at Brooklyn’s ISSUE Project Room featuring Gibson and fellow minimalist Phill Niblock, and the ‘13 CD The Dance issued through Orange Mountain Music, a label started by Glass producer Kurt Mankacsi and former Contortions drummer Don Christensen.
But really, anybody desirous for a doorway into Jon Gibson should mosey up to the appropriate Glass and Reich recordings and then pick up a copy of Visitations. It’s a very important and highly enjoyable work, and it’s grand to have it back on LP.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
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