Maybe Monday is an American
experimental
An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a ...
electroacoustic improvisation
Live electronic music (also known as live electronics) is a form of music that can include traditional electronic sound-generating devices, modified electric musical instruments, hacked sound generating technologies, and computers. Initially the pr ...
music ensemble comprising
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...
ist
Fred Frith,
koto
Koto may refer to:
* Koto (band), an Italian synth pop group
* Koto (instrument), a Japanese musical instrument
* Koto (kana), a ligature of two Japanese katakana
* Koto (traditional clothing), a traditional dress made by Afro-Surinamese women
* K ...
player
Miya Masaoka
Miya Masaoka (born 1958, Washington, DC) is an American composer, musician, and sound artist active in the field of contemporary classical music and experimental music. Her work encompasses contemporary classical composition, improvisation, ele ...
and
saxophonist
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pro ...
Larry Ochs.
The trio was formed in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
in March 1997 when they performed in a concert at the
Great American Music Hall
The Great American Music Hall is a concert hall in San Francisco, California. It is located on O'Farrell Street in the Tenderloin neighborhood on the same block as the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre. It is known for its decorative balconies ...
.
They have since toured the United States, Canada and Europe, and released three albums between 1999 and 2008.
Their music has been described as a "delicate mesh of electric and acoustic, ethnic and urban, tradition and experiment".
[
]
History
The idea behind Maybe Monday was Fred Frith's when he suggested to Miya Masaoka
Miya Masaoka (born 1958, Washington, DC) is an American composer, musician, and sound artist active in the field of contemporary classical music and experimental music. Her work encompasses contemporary classical composition, improvisation, ele ...
and Larry Ochs that they perform together at a concert in San Francisco in March 1997. Frith, an English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
multi-instrumentalist
A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays two or more musical instruments at a professional level of proficiency.
Also known as doubling, the practice allows greater ensemble flexibility and more efficient employment of musicians, where ...
, composer and improvisor was a founding member of the English avant-rock
Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with ...
group Henry Cow
Henry Cow were an English experimental rock group, founded at the University of Cambridge in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler, b ...
, and was currently Composer-in-Residence in the Music Department at Mills College
Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was ...
in Oakland, California
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...
. Ochs was a founding member of the San Francisco-based Rova Saxophone Quartet
Rova Saxophone Quartet is an American, San Francisco-based saxophone quartet, formed in October 1977. The name "Rova" is an acronym formed from the last initials of the founding members: Jon Raskin, Larry Ochs, Andrew Voigt, and Bruce Ackley. Wh ...
, and Japanese American koto
Koto may refer to:
* Koto (band), an Italian synth pop group
* Koto (instrument), a Japanese musical instrument
* Koto (kana), a ligature of two Japanese katakana
* Koto (traditional clothing), a traditional dress made by Afro-Surinamese women
* K ...
player Masaoka was currently active in jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
, Western classical music
Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" ...
, electronic music
Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroa ...
and traditional Japanese music
Traditional Japanese music is the folk or traditional music of Japan. Japan's Ministry of Education classifies as a category separate from other traditional forms of music, such as (court music) or (Buddhist chanting), but most ethnomusicolo ...
on the United States West Coast
The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast, Pacific states, and the western seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the contiguous U.S. ...
. Masaoka had been a student at Mills College and both Frith and Masaoka had worked with Ochs's Rova Saxophone Quartet.[
After their debut performance at the Great American Music Hall, Maybe Monday went on to tour the West Coast and ]Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
in 1998. A concert at Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...
's Unity Temple
Unity Temple is a Unitarian Universalist church in Oak Park, Illinois, and the home of the Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation. It was designed by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and built between 1905 and 1908. Unity Te ...
in Chicago in July 1998 was recorded live and released in 1999 on their debut album, ''Saturn's Finger''.[
In 2001, Maybe Monday returned to the ]San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
for a series of performances with guest musician Joan Jeanrenaud
Joan Jeanrenaud ( Dutcher; born January 25, 1956) is an American cellist. A native of Memphis, Tennessee, she played with the LLP Kronos Quartet from 1978 until 1999, when, after a sabbatical, she left to pursue a solo career and collaborations ...
on cello. One of the concerts in May 2001 at Guerilla Euphorics in Oakland was recorded live and released in 2002 on their second album, ''Digital Wildlife''. The same quartet appeared at the 19th Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville
The Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville is an annual international music festival held in Victoriaville, Quebec that showcases contemporary music.
The festival is known for its small scale (usually no more than 20 performan ...
in Victoriaville
Victoriaville is a town in central Quebec, Canada, on the Nicolet River. Victoriaville is the seat of Arthabaska Regional County Municipality and a part of the Centre-du-Québec (Bois-Francs) region. It is formed by the 1993 merger of Arthabaska, ...
, Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
, Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
in May 2002. In 2003 the original trio toured Europe, performing in Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...
, Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
, Nancy, Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...
, Lille
Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the N ...
and Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...
.[
In November 2006 Maybe Monday made their first ]New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
appearance at The Stone where they performed with guest musicians Ikue Mori
(born 17 December 1953), also known as Ikue Ile, is a drummer, electronic musician, composer, and graphic designer. Mori was awarded a "Genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation in 2022.
Biography
Ikue Mori was born and raised in Japan. She ...
(electronics), Zeena Parkins
Zeena Parkins (born 1956) is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist active in experimental, free improvised, contemporary classical, and avant-jazz music; she is known for having "reinvented the harp". Parkins performs on standard har ...
(harp), Carla Kihlstedt
Carla Kihlstedt (born 1971) is an American composer, violinist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist, originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania and currently working from a home studio on Cape Cod.
She is a founding member of Tin Hat Trio (1997, ...
(violin) and Gerry Hemingway
Gerry Hemingway (born March 23, 1955) is an American drummer and composer.
Hemingway was a member of the Anthony Braxton quartet from 1983 to 1994. He has also performed with Ernst Reijseger, Anthony Davis, Earl Howard, Leo Smith, George E ...
(percussion). This septet then went on to record the group's first studio album, ''Unsquare
''Unsquare'' is a 2008 studio album by Maybe Monday, a San Francisco based experimental electroacoustic improvisation music ensemble featuring guitarist Fred Frith, koto player Miya Masaoka and saxophonist Larry Ochs. It is their third albu ...
'' on November 18, 2006 at East Side Sound in New York City. It was released in January 2008 and was described by one reviewer as "a very rich recording of electro-acoustic improvisation."[
]
Members
* Fred Frith – electric guitar and effects
*Miya Masaoka
Miya Masaoka (born 1958, Washington, DC) is an American composer, musician, and sound artist active in the field of contemporary classical music and experimental music. Her work encompasses contemporary classical composition, improvisation, ele ...
– koto and electronics
* Larry Ochs – tenor and sopranino saxophone
Guest musicians
*Joan Jeanrenaud
Joan Jeanrenaud ( Dutcher; born January 25, 1956) is an American cellist. A native of Memphis, Tennessee, she played with the LLP Kronos Quartet from 1978 until 1999, when, after a sabbatical, she left to pursue a solo career and collaborations ...
– cello
*Ikue Mori
(born 17 December 1953), also known as Ikue Ile, is a drummer, electronic musician, composer, and graphic designer. Mori was awarded a "Genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation in 2022.
Biography
Ikue Mori was born and raised in Japan. She ...
– electronics
*Zeena Parkins
Zeena Parkins (born 1956) is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist active in experimental, free improvised, contemporary classical, and avant-jazz music; she is known for having "reinvented the harp". Parkins performs on standard har ...
– electric harp, electronics
*Carla Kihlstedt
Carla Kihlstedt (born 1971) is an American composer, violinist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist, originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania and currently working from a home studio on Cape Cod.
She is a founding member of Tin Hat Trio (1997, ...
– electric and acoustic violin
*Gerry Hemingway
Gerry Hemingway (born March 23, 1955) is an American drummer and composer.
Hemingway was a member of the Anthony Braxton quartet from 1983 to 1994. He has also performed with Ernst Reijseger, Anthony Davis, Earl Howard, Leo Smith, George E ...
– percussion, voice
Discography
*''Saturn's Finger'' (1999, CD, Buzz-Records, Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
)
*''Digital Wildlife
''Digital Wildlife'' is an album by composer and guitarist Fred Frith's group Maybe Monday which was released on the Winter & Winter label.
Reception
Allmusic gave the album 3½ stars. JazzTimes' Aaron Steinberg observed "''Digital Wildlife'' ca ...
'' (2002, CD, Winter & Winter
Winter & Winter is a record label in Munich, Germany that specializes in jazz, classical and improvised music. It was founded by Stefan Winter following the demise of his JMT Records label.
Since 1997 Winter & Winter has released records by Da ...
, Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
)
*''Unsquare
''Unsquare'' is a 2008 studio album by Maybe Monday, a San Francisco based experimental electroacoustic improvisation music ensemble featuring guitarist Fred Frith, koto player Miya Masaoka and saxophonist Larry Ochs. It is their third albu ...
'' (2008, CD, Intakt Records
Intakt Records is an independent record label, based in Zürich.
History
The label was founded in 1986 by Patrik Landolt.Margasak, Peter (September 2013) "Intakt's Landolt Takes Long-Term Approach to Avant-Garde". ''Down Beat''. p. 16. In the ea ...
, Switzerland)
References
External links
Larry's Side Projects: Maybe Monday
Rova Saxophone Quartet homepage
Miya Masaoka homepage
*
*
{{Authority control
American experimental musical groups
Musical groups established in 1997
Electroacoustic improvisation
Fred Frith
Intakt Records artists