David Dalle
Thursday October 13th, 2022 with David Dalle
John Luther Adams' Sila: The Breath of the World. Keith Jarrett in Bordeaux.
Today we will hear one of John Luther Adams' most experimental works, his 2013 "Sila: The Breath of the World". The premiere recording has just been released. I believe JLA's own description is probably the most helpful:
"In Inuit tradition the spirit that animates all things is Sila, the breath of the world. Sila is the wind and the weather, the force of nature. But it's also something more. Sila is intelligence. It's consciousness. It's our awareness of the world around us, and the world's awareness of us. In this time when we humans are so dramatically changing the Earth, Sila: The Breath of the World is an invitation to stop and listen more deeply.
Sila is scored for five ensembles of 16 musicians - woodwinds, brass, percussion, strings, and voices - who may perform the music in any combination, successively or simultaneously, outdoors, or in a large indoor space. The musicians are dispersed widely, surrounding the listeners, who are free to move around and discover their own individual listening points.
Sila comes out of the earth and rises to the sky, floating upward through sixteen harmonic chords, grounded on the first sixteen harmonics of a low B-flat. All the other tones in the music fall "between the cracks" of the piano keyboard - off the grid of twelve-tone equal temperament.
Like the harmonies, the flow of musical time in Sila is also off the grid. There is no conductor. Each musician is a soloist, who plays or sings a unique part at her or his own pace. The sequence of musical events is composed, but the length of each event is flexible. The music breathes.
A performance of Sila lasts about an hour. There is no clearly demarcated ending, as the music gradually dissolves back into the breath of the world." -John Luther Adams
I have listened to the 2014 live premiere of the work which was performed outdoors at the Lincoln Center in New York City. It is available on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUDjOyacZoU
However, the new recording is staggering. I just received it yesterday and I listened to it three times in a row. Breathtaking! It works best on a good stereo or with good headphones, volume turned up!
| Sila: The Breath of the World John Luther Adams/The Crossing, JACK Quartet, musicians of the University of Michigan Department of Chamber Music, University of Michigan Percussion Ensemble - Sila: The Breath of the World - Cantaloupe Music 
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| We continue with the Bordeaux Concert which was interrupted last week due to equipment failures. We will conclude the concert with parts VIII-XIII. But preceding Keith Jarrett, we will hear another jazz pianist, New Zealander Mike Nock from a 1981 ECM recording. |
| Forgotten Love Mike Nock, Eddie Gomez, Jon Christensen - Ondas - ECM |
| Part VIII Keith Jarrett - The Bordeaux Concert - ECM
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| Part IX Keith Jarrett - The Bordeaux Concert - ECM
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| Part X Keith Jarrett - The Bordeaux Concert - ECM
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| Part XI Keith Jarrett - The Bordeaux Concert - ECM
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| Part XII Keith Jarrett - The Bordeaux Concert - ECM
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| Part XIII Keith Jarrett - The Bordeaux Concert - ECM
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| My ongoing personal exploration of Pharoah Sanders continues, ending the show with Sanders live in concert from 1982. |
| Blues For Santa Cruz Pharoah Sanders, John Hicks, Walter Booker, Idris Muhammad - Pharoah Sanders Live... - Theresa Records |
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SILA! Thank you.
2:05 PM, October 13th, 2022