Andy Kozar - A Few Kites (2020) [Hi-Res]

American trumpet soloist Andy Kozar releases “A Few Kites,” his premiere solo record, featuring extraordinary new works for trumpet and electronics from many of the country's leading composers. Best known for being one fourth of the 'inventive' (New York Times) and 'cultivated' (The New Yorker) group loadbang, Andy is committed to commissioning new works for trumpet and electronics as part of a larger project to grow the repertoire for his instrument. The composers on this disc, Paula Matthusen, Ken Ueno, Scott Worthington, Quinn Collins, Tyler Harrison, Davíð Brynjar Franzson, Eve Beglarian, Heather Stebbins, and fellow loadbanger Jeffrey Gavett, all offer different interpretations of what a trumpet and electronics piece should be in their unique languages. The combination of Andy’s performative dexterity and innate sensitivity to phrase delivers performances that hover above stale musical ground while still being tethered to a new music tradition.

The opening work of this record, Quinn Collins' Blister, is a technical tour-de-force, highlighting Andy Kozar's virtuosic abilities on the instrument. The electronics include a juxtaposition of found audio objects (bending of metal sheets, breaking of glass, and the dragging of chains) and synthesized material. Both the trumpet and synthesized electronic material primarily use eight chords, which are approached melodically either intuitively or by employing algorithms using Markov chains in a computer application titled Grace by Heinrich Taube. The inspiration for Paula Matthusen's on the imagined relations of night sounds (and silent darkness) lies in the ever-changing soundscapes of New York City. The source material is drawn from field recordings conducted overnight at the Great Lawn in New York City’s Central Park, beginning at the start of summer in June, and ending in early September. Interested in the present soundscape of the city that never sleeps, the work invites the audience to listen in on the various states of sonic activity as they transition gradually from sunset to sunrise, as well as early to late summer.

In Ken Ueno's Quentin, the first, short, movement is played on a part of the trumpet that is not normally played separately from the rest of the instrument: the first valve slide. In fact, it is a first valve slide from a Bb trumpet (a deconstruction of a trumpet), whereas the rest of the piece is played on a C trumpet, “hacked” with a 7-ft tube inserted into the first valve. The timbral distortion effected by these ostensible preparations and the microtonal focus of the piece are ways in which the composer imagines a kind of primitivist music of the future. Or, put another way, music which at once can be evocative of some faint memory of a folk music of an esoteric tribe of the ancient past as much as a experimental music of a virtuosic music cult in an unspecific distance into the future.

Andy Kozar, trumpet
Quinn Collins, electronics
Paula Matthusen, electronics
Ken Ueno, electronics
Leah Asher, violin
Scott Worthington, electronics
Tyler Harrison, electronics
Davíð Brynjar Franzson, electronics
Jeffrey Gavett, electronics
Heather Stebbins, electronics
Scott Worthington, electronics
Eve Beglarian, electronics