MUSIC

Nameless Sound is Houston’s most vital presenter of cutting-edge creative music, free improvisation, avant-garde jazz, electro-acoustic improvisation, new music and uncategorizable sound-making. Nameless Sound presents Bob Ostertag & James Magee. Friday, November 19, 2010, 8 pm,  at 14 Pews, 800 Aurora St.

Bob Ostertag (pictured at right, San Francisco)- computer/ electronics
James Magee (pictured at left, El Paso) - voice, text

Bob Ostertag and James Magee are two artists who have formed singular paths that defy easy categorization and are driven by very individual concerns.

A key participate in the New York “Downtown” scene of the early 80’s, Bob Ostertag was a close collaborator with the likes of John Zorn, Fred Frith, Zeena Parkins, and Ned Rothenberg. Starting out with a home-made synthesizer, Ostertag was ahead-of-his time in his development of sampling, tape manipulation, and custom-made electronic instruments in the context of collaborative free improvisation.

A greater involvement in politics led to his release Voice of America. And though he was at the forefront of new media in improvised music (anticipating movements that would catch up to him in several years), Ostertag abandoned music for nearly seven years when he moved to El Salvador in 1982. Ostertag became an expert in the political crises in Central America, publishing journalistic work in a diverse range of publications. His experiences in El Salvador were later synthesized into his piece Sooner or Later.

In 1989, Ostertag returned to music. He appeared in the film Step Across the Boarder about Fred Frith. He composed All the Rage for the Kronos Quartet. One particularly innovative project was Say No More with Mark Dresser, Gerry Hemmingway, and Phil Minton. A project that spanned 4 CDs, Say No More was a complex process whereby Ostertag recorded/sampled the other three in a live improvisation. Those samples were edited and collaged to make a new piece. The new piece was later performed by the musicians and sampled again to collage further.

In 1999, Ostertag put his Ensoniq ASR-10 sampler aside, and began writing his own audio performance software on Max/MSP (allowing him to use various controllers, game pads and drawing tablets in his performances). Bob Ostertag is currently professor of Technocultural Studies at University of California at Davis.

To say that James Magee has forged his own path would be an understatement. Having graduated from law school in 1971, Magee served as a legal aide for the United Nations before following his vision as a self-taught artist (and taking on a series of odd jobs as a cab driver, welder, oil-rig roughneck, and junkyard laborer). In the decades that would follow, Magee would work in relative solitude away from the centers of “The Art World”. He would give life to three artistic identities, each with its own distinct body of work. (It was a long time before these three were commonly known to be the same person.) Perhaps the most well-known of the three, Annabel Livermore works in oil and watercolors, painting sumptuous landscapes and depicting scenarios of a dark world. Horace Mayfield works with found objects and materials including fabrics and plastics, recycled thrift store paintings, as well as paint and photographs. James Magee himself works with pieces that wed heavy, industrial pieces (often found) with delicate and textural materials (like tea leaves and honey). The power and strength of the pieces are given very special quality (and expression) through their fragile materials and their juxtapositions.

In 1981, Magee moved to El Paso, Texas and began his life’s work. “The Hill” is a monumental (yet very personal) work of art, isolated on remote private land 70 miles East of El Paso. Complex and monumental, The Hill consists of 4 buildings (40 feet long, 20 feet wide and 17 feet in height), three of which house installations by Magee. Crafted of irregularly-cut shale rock, each building is entered through a majestic iron portal, 8 feet wide and the full height of the building. The Hill sits in a gently rolling landscape with mesmerizing views of snow-capped mountains and limitless West Texas skies. Having done much of the work himself or with one assistant, The Hill has been an impressively solitary endeavor for Magee. In its three decades, only a handful of people have ever visited the site. James Magee’s collaboration with Ostertag will involve the recitation of his “Titles”: essentially poems (sometimes 60 lines long) that serve as titles to his pieces. These poems are beautifully worded dream-like observations, intoned in otherworldly voices. They are as much about sound as they are about the meaning of the words. Like all of Magee’s works, they suggest a balance of strength and fragility at the center of all creation. They reflect a very inspired and personal expression of an individual’s experience in this world.

A major exhibition of Magee’s work is currently on display at The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. The exhibit coincides with a new book about Magee and The Hill, published by Prestel USA.

http://www.nashersculpturecenter.org/exhibitions/current.

For more information on Bob Ostertag:
http://bobostertag.com/  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Ostertag  

For more information on The Hil of James Magee:
http://www.mageehill.org/  
http://www.granta.com/Online-Only/Jim-Magees-Hill