Turning Demos into Dreams: David Darling's Other Worlds on Echoes
On the next Echoes, music off the second posthumous release by cellist David Darling, Other Worlds. One of 35 Icons of Echoes, Darling left a lot of unfinished recordings before his death in 2021. His producer and friend, Mickey Houlihan got producer Michael Verdick to take these demo and scratch recordings and arranged other musicians and electronic rhythms around them to get them into shape. Usually I hate these posthumous releases that involve musicians who may have never had any association with the artist. It’s, something that’s been ingrained in me since the first posthumous releases of Jimi Hendrix’s music on albums like Crash Landing. But David Darling’s Other Worlds works, and is totally different from the Hans Christian’s ambient interpretations of Darling’s demos on Ocean Dreaming Ocean. We’re always in an other worlds on Echoes from PRX.
The late David Darling (https://www.daviddarling.com/; https://www.musicforpeople.org/wp/about-mfp/remembering-david-darling/) has been my mentor in improvisation ever since my daughter (https://www.rebeccazookmusic.com/) first introduced him to me in 1999 at a Music for People (“MfP”)(https://www.musicforpeople.org/wp/) “Art of Improvisation” workshop. His continuing — indeed, growing — influence on me exemplifies my belief that one’s mentors and teachers are always at one’s elbow, even long after they’ve left this mortal coil. I, together with his many followers, continue to carry his vision forward in the best way we can.
Myself, I’ve been involved in a series of improvisational ensembles (the “Lost Civilizations experimental music project” (https://www.tedzook.com/lost-civilizations/), then “Heterodyne” (https://www.tedzook.com/heterodyne/) and now “Fanoplane” (https://www.tedzook.com/fanoplane/ — co-founded with Bob Boilen (https://bobboilen.info/), creator of NPR’s “All Songs Considered”/”Tiny Desk Concert”)). The “Fanoplane” lineup includes fellow MfP member Patrick Whitehead (https://www.musicforpeople.org/wp/graduates/patrick-whitehead/).
Hewing to the principles of improvisation that David Darling instilled in me, performances by all of these ensembles are 100% unscored, unrehearsed and improvised extemporaneously on the spot — we just load in, set up, tune up and play. I describe it as akin to jumping off a cliff into the loving arms of the Muse. I bring to the stage the utter abandonment that David Darling so enthusiastically supported when our paths crossed at Music for People workshops — I quip that the less I think, the better I play; I play the best when I think the least.
Here’s a link to the most recent “Fanoplane” performance: https://tinyurl.com/y3895tpk . Your readers may enjoy this account by “Fanoplane” spoken word artist Dan Gutstein (https://www.dangutstein.com/) about a recent “Fanoplane” performance at DC’s Black Cat: https://dangutstein.blogspot.com/2024/10/praise-poem-for-improvisational.html. Dan has quite a way with words, his recent POOR GAL: THE CULTURAL HISTORY OF LITTLE LIZA JANE received a 2024 Special Recognition Award from the ASCAP Foundation in its 55th annual Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Book Awards.
Heartfelt thanks to the Music for People improvisational community that David Darling nurtured for so many years; Mickey Houlihan for his involvement in many of his recordings; and to John Diliberto’s Echoes for helping disseminate the work of this astonishing person who, although perhaps not still in this realm physically, continues to exert his influence, an influence that I am confident will extend many generations into the future!