henry kuntz
Category: music label and artists| February 18th, 2008HUMMING BIRD RECORDS & TAPES
COMPACT DISCS - CASSETTES – LONG PLAYING RECORDS – EARTH SERIES CASSETTES
The music on HUMMING BIRD Records & Tapes is spontaneously composed, freely improvised. It is presented to the listener in its purest possible form, edited only for purposes of presentation on recorded media.
Multi-tracking has at times been utilized - as a separate but related improvising endeavor - to create unusual and unlikely instrumental ensembles and to suggest open-ended ways of approaching form and content during real-time group improvisation.
COMPACT DISCS
Opeye
MOSS ‘COMES SILK (HB CD 1)
Henry Kuntz / tenor saxophone, Chinese musette, Nepalese bamboo flute, Bolivian & Balinese bamboo flutes; Ben Lindgren / doublebass, Balinese gamelan; Brian Godchaux / viola, Balinese gamelan “selunding,” percussion; Esten Lindgren / trombone, trumpet, Hawaiian conch shell, steel guitar, ukulele, percussion; John Kuntz / steel guitar, mandolin, ukulele, Javanese gamelan, wind-up toy xylophone, percussion. Recorded September 22, 23, 1995
Highlights the formal advances possible in group playing when free improvisation is approached in its most natural manner. The uniqueness and complexity of each player’s part is expanded to the farthest extent possible while maintaining a recognizable group entity and musical identity.
“Intelligent, dynamically rich free improvisation” – Michael Tucker, Jazz Journal
“The closest sonic corollaries might be found in the freest playing of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, although there is no single precedent for OPEYE’s kaleidoscopic instrumental textures.” – Derk Richardson, SF Bay Guardian
15 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Henry Kuntz / Don Marvel
ONE ONE & ONE (HB CDs 2 & 3)
ONE: CIRCLE-CYCLE (CD 2)
Henry Kuntz / solo tenor saxophone (Recorded January 27 1998 & June 9, 1997)
The Nature of Form in Time
The Spirit of Sounded Space
The Sound of 1 as The Sound of One
ONE & ONE: 12 PATHS TO KNOWLEDGE (CD 3)
Don Marvel / time machine, prophet sampler, old turntable, live signal processing and mixing; Henry Kuntz / tenor saxophone, Chinese musette and Nepalese bamboo flute. (Recorded April 18, 1998)
Illusion and Reality With Allusion To Reality
To Seek is To Find, But Not Always What is Sought
“HENRY KUNTZ has reinvented himself on this amazing 2-CD set, his most challenging and best release. He and DON MARVEL explode the boundaries of the improvisational idiom, transcending all conventional concepts. Truly something new.” – Henry Kaiser
16 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Opeye
MEDITATIONS ON IMPERMANENCE (HB CDs 4 & 5)
DAY OF THE DEAD (CD 4)
Documents a live ritual/performance at “Beanbenders,” Berkeley on November 1, 1998. It includes a 39-minute audio track and a SPECIAL 23-MINUTE VIDEO TRACK.
LADY LUCK STRIKES AGAIN (CD 5)
Features music recorded on March 4, 2002 at “Tuva Space,” Berkeley.
Henry Kuntz / tenor saxophone, Chinese & Moroccan double reeds, Balinese & Javanese gamelans, Balinese & African wood xylophones, bamboo flutes, Mexican toy violins, percussion; Ben Lindgren / doublebass, piano, National steel guitar; Brian Godchaux / violin; Esten Lindgren / trombone, trumpet, guitar, alto saxophone, Tibetan conch, bull’s horn, drums and percussion; John Kuntz / electric and acoustic ukeleles, mandolin, Balinese & Javanese gamelans, wood xylophones, toys and percussion.
Spirits are invited and entertained in OPEYE’s 1998 Day of the Dead performance/ritual; we approach the Spirit World anew in 2002 contemplating the ironies of life’s final journey.
“An all-inclusive portraiture of the group’s seamless melding of worldly percussion, horns, and stringed instruments into a free-flowing modus operandi.” – Glenn Astarita, All Music Guide
24 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Henry Kuntz
WAYANG SAXOPHONY SHADOW SAXOPHONE (HB CD 6)
Henry Kuntz / tenor saxophone (Recorded April 14, 2006 solo; January 7 & February 18, 2006 for four tenors)
In an alluring set of solo and multi-track improvisations inspired by his mixed-media presentations of saxophone and puppet theatre, Henry Kuntz re-examines the sound, technique, and musical dimensions of the tenor.
“The saxophone considered both as a resonator and source of sounds - extended mouthpiece clicks, vocal and fricative effects or continuous sounds that hesitate, moving back into the realm of its component elements - is later presented, through overlaying, as a complete polyphonic, seemly conceived in reverse order instrument.” – modisti, February 23, 2007
“What is amazing to me is that Henry is able to layer these strange and unique sounds into something solid that speaks to us like the long lost or buried voices of ghosts.” - Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery
14 Euro include shipment cost world-wide.
CASSETTES
Henry and John Kuntz
NEW WORLD MUSIC (HBT 001)
Henry Kuntz / Indian snake charmer’s flute, Chinese musette, tenor saxophone, bamboo flute, bells; John Kuntz / ukelele, harp, mandolin. (Recorded December 20,21, 1980 “live” at Woody Woodman’s Finger Palace, Berkeley.
Exhilarating, micro-rhythmic music suggesting any number of conceptual breakthroughs.
7 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Henry and John Kuntz
ARCHANGELIC THE LAW OF ONE (HBT 002)
Henry Kuntz / voice, Ecuadorian and Indian bamboo flutes, Chinese musette; John Kuntz / ukelele, tenor ukelele, ukelele banjo. (Recorded June 28, 1981)
Exploring the edges - the soft, the sharp, the light, the dark, the funny, the “mystical.”
7 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Henry and John Kuntz
(tHe cHILd cLowNs) tHE mAgiC lAnd (HBT 003)
Henry Kuntz / hollowed-out log violin and toy violin (both Indian-made, Mexico), Ecuadorian bamboo flute, Chinese musette, tenor saxophone, voice; John Kuntz / ukelele, ukelele banjo, tenor ukelele. (Recorded March 19, 20, 1983 and during various 1982 performances)
A multi-timbred, multi-purposed and proposed “primitive” string extravaganza. Wood, metal, and human lung interjection.
“Nothing short of marvelous!…the best yet” - La Donna Smith (violinist and co-founder of Trans Museq and of the journal The Improvisor.)
7 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Henry and John Kuntz
ATITLAN / LUNA NEGRA (HBT 004)
Henry Kuntz / tenor saxophone, violins (Indian-made, Mexico), Ecuadorian and Indian bamboo flutes, Chinese musette, voice, bells; John Kuntz / ukelele, tenor ukelele, ukelele banjo. (Recorded March 12, 13, 1985 and in performance August 30, 1981 & December 28, 1979)
An exuberance and dark humor. A rounding out and recapitulation. Musical areas not fully or specifically documented on previous recordings.
7 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Trio Opeye
NORTHWEST COASTAL MUSIC (HBT 005)
Brian Godchaux / violins, thumb piano, Mexican rattles, Indian bells, percussion; John Kuntz / ukelele, tenor ukelele, ukelele banjo, thumb piano, Mexican rattles, small Tahitian log drum, Indian bells, voice, percussion; Henry Kuntz / violins (Indian-made, Mexico), Bolivian bass flute , Indian snake charmer’s flute, various other flutes, Chinese musette, small Indian gong, percussion. (Recorded October 11, 18, 1986)
Virtuosity and the ritual come full circle in this open-ended, fluid, and hard-edged cultural metamorphosis.
“Primal, almost shamanistic in approach and just plain straight forward” – La Donna Smith, The Improvisor
8 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Trio Opeye
NATIVE INTELLIGENCE (TRANCE AND DREAM CYCLES) (HBT 006)
Henry Kuntz / violin and toy violin (Mexico), Balinese bamboo xylophone, African balafon (Mali), tenor saxophone, flutes, drums, rattles, voice; John Kuntz / ukeleles, guitar, mandolin, autoharp, metallophone, toy xylophone and bamboo xylophone, drum, small percussion; Brian Godchaux / violins, mandolin, bamboo xylophone, thumb piano. (Recorded November 27, December 6, 1987 & February 5, 1988)
Evocative and challenging journeys to the Nether-Spaces of SOUND, where the mind floats alertly and moves artfully, dynamically, freely… suspended for a time from ordinary reality.
“Lively, impressionistic, in a genuinely possessed-sounding way.”- The Improvisor (Winter 1988-89).
8 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Henry Kuntz
WHIRLS AWAY (HBT 007)
Henry Kuntz / Balinese gamelan and gamelan selunding, Balinese wood and bamboo xylophones, African balafon (Mali) and “fetish” gongs (Togo), Mexican Indian violin, Chinese musette, Bolivian bass flute, Thai mouth organ, voice. Four 4-track pieces of 20 plus minutes each - C-90 (Recorded October 30, 31, November 1,2, December 1-4, 1989.
“New” New Music! Innovation in the Innovations.
Improvisational form is freely extended in these sonically-rich, culturally-open multi-track ensembles.
“It’s from another planet!” - John Oswald (alto saxophonist, performance artist, “Plunderphonics” )
8 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Henry and John Kuntz
HOME (AT) THE RANGE (HBT 008)
John Kuntz / toy accordian, ukelele, guitar, Chinese gong, percussion; Henry Kuntz / Thai and Balinese wood xylophones, Balinese gamelans, African balafon (Mali), Chinese musette, soprano recorder. (Recorded May and September 1990)
A lively and spontaneous home-concocted brew of improvised doubles, plus two deeply experiential and highly experimental excursions into 4-track ALCHEMY!
8 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Henry Kuntz
TOTAL MUSIC: VOLS. 1 & 2 (HBT 009,010)
Henry Kuntz / Balinese and Javanese gamelans, Balinese wood and bamboo xylophones, African balafon (Mali), Balinese and Bolivian bamboo flutes, Chinese musette, tenor saxophone, Mexican Indian violins, thumb pianos.
Two C-60 Chrome Cassettes (specially priced, sold as a set only)
(Recorded January to August 1991)
Melodically and rhythmically-concentrated textural layers, busy surfaces, the compacted parameters of free improvisation. TOTAL MUSIC!
“This is deep, challenging music, informed by fairly disparate traditions.”- Myles Boisen (guitarist, Splatter Trio) - Freeway (Spring, 1993).
10 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Henry Kuntz / New Trio Opeye
ON THE PATH OF DARKNESS IS THE WAY OF LIGHT (HBT 011)
Scott Braziel / keyboard electronics; Henry & John Kuntz / wind, wood, string, and percussion instruments. (Trio Opeye recorded “live” October 5, 1990; two multi-track improvisations by Henry Kuntz March 1992)
Impressionist Flights, Surrealist Delights!
8 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Henry Kuntz
PLACELESS TIMELESS: VOLS 1, 2, 3 (HBT 012, 013, 014)
Henry Kuntz / Balinese and Javanese gamelans and wood and bamboo xylophones, Thai and African wood xylophones, Tibetan bowls and bell, Chinese musette, tenor saxophone, Indian snake charmer’s flute, Mexican Indian violin, assorted drums and percussion. Three C-46 Chrome Cassettes (specially priced, sold as a set only) (Recorded February through November 1993, and one piece March 1991)
Orchestral breadth, formal clarity, and instrumental purpose are highlighted in these engaging and explorative multi-track ensembles!
12 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Opeye: Trio & Quartet
ROYAL GARDEN SWEET (HBT 015)
Ben Lindgren / doublebass; Esten Lindgren / trombone, conch shell trumpet, ukulele banjo, Thai wood xylophone; John Kuntz / ukulele, ukulele banjo, mandolin, Balinese & Javanese gamelans and various drums and percussion; Henry Kuntz / Nepalese, Balinese, and Bolivian wood flutes, Chinese musette, tenor saxophone, conch shell trumpet, and various drums and percussion. (Recorded January 22 and July 23, 1994)
Innovation in these classically improvised sound excursions is a logical outgrowth of a well-founded and felt traditional continuum.
“Henry Kuntz is the Ornette Coleman of Nepalese, Balinese and Bolivian flutes…..Opeye’s music has much more in common with the subconscious designs of weird dreams, things falling down basement stairs and squirrels in the attic. First-rate improvisation, an environment for relaxed little prophesies, which is ironic since the music is so constantly active.” –Davey Williams, The Improvisor, Volume XI, 1996.
8 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Henry Kuntz
THE MAGIC OF MYSTERY (HBT 016)
Henry Kuntz / tenor saxophone; Chinese musette; Thai, Nepalese and Bolivian bamboo flutes; Thai, Balinese, and African wood xylophones; Balinese and Javanese gamelans; Tibetan bowls; assorted drums, gongs, and percussion. Four multi-track pieces. (Recorded June, September 1994) Also available as a limited edition cdr on Foxglove.
Prototype wind and percussion ensembles emphasizing sharply contrasted and divergent textural timbral, and rhythmic elements.
“Pursuing his singularly eccentric aesthetic, Kuntz’s newest solo tape presents four remarkable pieces…Avoiding the steady rhythms and hummable melodies of the actual ‘Third World’ musics whose instruments he uses, Kuntz has long been working in a way that is closer (sonically) to the plant and insect life of the wildest lands than to the music of the humans who inhabit them…All his playing is underpinned by an uncanny attention to detail, resulting in a strangely ‘activated’ music from one of the most personalized voices in contemporary improvisation.” – Davey Williams, The Improvisor, Volume XI, 1996.
8 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
LONG PLAYING RECORDS
Henry Kuntz
CROSS-EYED PRIEST (HB 1001)
Henry Kuntz / tenor saxophone, Henry Kaiser / electric guitar, Charles K. Noyes / drums and percussion, Greg Goodman / piano and percussion. (Recorded: Side A
Kuntz solo and Side B,2, Kuntz-Goodman, “live” at Woody Woodman’s Finger Palace May 6, 1979; Side B,1, Kuntz-Kaiser-Noyes June 1979)
Primal, “magical” special-textural constructs
Avant-Garde music critic Peter Riley included this on his list of favorite records for 1980 (CODA No. 176)
7 EURO inclusive shipment world-wide
Henry Kuntz
ANCIENT OF DAYS, LIGHT OF GLORY (HB 1002)
Henry Kuntz / tenor saxophone, bamboo flute (India), John Kuntz / harp, John Gruntfest / alto saxophone, Charles K. Noyes / drums and percussion. (Recorded mid-1980, most pieces “live” at Woody Woodman’s Finger Palace: Kuntz solo and in duo with John Kuntz, Gruntfest, and Noyes) Three-color hand silk-screened cover by artist Jerry Pierson.
From the purely textural to the texturally elegant: a movement toward a “new” melodicism.
13 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
EARTH SERIES CASSETTES
AUTHENTIC ON-LOCATION RECORDINGS OF WORLD MUSIC
The Earth Series cassettes were recorded using a single omni-directional Sony microphone positioned so as to obtain the highest quality natural mix in the music. All of the material was recorded in “real life” circumstances under conditions far from optimal for recording. Yet there is an oustandingly good sound-to-noise ratio on each of these tapes. HUMMING BIRD EARTH SERIES is releasing this music because of its uniqueness and general unavailability on the commercial market. The cassettes are “real time” dubs from metal masters and utilize type “B” Dolby noise reduction to ensure that everything originally recorded can be optimally heard by the listener. Descriptive notes are included with each release.
Mexico
BRASS BAND AND MARIMBA MUSIC FROM THE COAST AND ISTHMUS OF OAXACA (ES 100)
Hot Coastal nights explode with fiesta sounds — fast, enticing rhythms and the whistling, swirling, and crackling of a thousand fireworks! Also, distinctively percussive (and highly virtuostic) marimba stylings from Mexico’s isthmus — marimba as it is played nowhere else!
“Field recordings from Mexican festivals that make you feel you’re right there, sipping Dos Equis and whooping it up.” - Jay Walljasper, UTNE READER, January 1989.
“The music abounds with the fiesta spirit of the village on this upbeat cassette.”
- Francine Rota, EAST WEST, August 1988.
8 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Guatemala
INDIAN RITUAL MUSIC FROM CHICHICASTENANGO (ES 200)
The cobbled and dirt streets of “Chichi” come alive with the mesmerizing tones of the oboe-like chirimia, wood flute, and drums. These old sounds mix with the buzz of the marimba and a shifting chorus of trumpets and saxophones. Plus a bit of highly-charged Mexican folklore from San Cristobal de las Casas.
“This music is very charming — ragged at times, but with a heart.” - Kathryn Lyle, DOWN HOME MUSIC NEWSLETTER, January 1989.
8 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Bolivia
NATIVE RITUAL MUSIC FROM ITALAQUE: PANPIPES, FLUTES, & DRUMS (ES 300)
Extraordinary, ancient, trance-like music from a village high in the Bolivian Andes. Sounds of the wind and of the earth. A Musicians’ Festival!
“The fiesta music of the legendary Italaque community is fascinating. Such layers of extraordinary sounds and resonances.” - Jan Fairly, FOLK ROOTS (England), March 1988.
“My favorite of the tapes is Bolivia… The music is wild, and the overlapping of sounds of one group playing with the other (different songs, mind you) is mesmerizing.” - Cliff Furnald, DIRTY LINEN # 25, Spring 1989.
8 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Bali
SURVIVAL AND CREMATION RITUAL MUSIC: ANCIENT GAMELAN SELUNDING AND MOBILE GONG ENSEMBLES (ES 400)
The fascinating metallophone music of Bali, heard in one of its most archaic modes on the rarely played ancient iron gamelan of Tenganan. And the engrossing gong and percussion sounds that mark the island’s cremation processions and ceremonies.
8 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Guatemala
MARIMBA MUSIC FROM THE FESTIVAL OF TODOS SANTOS (ES 500)
Some of the purest Indian marimba music — melodically rich, rhythmically inviting, with that underlying sensual BUZZ that accounts for its ‘other-dimensionality’.
“Guatemala presents a special aspect of the festival music of Central America. The marimba of the region is a wonderfully raspy device, and the music played on it is a beautifully melodic thing… light-hearted but complex.” - Cliff Furnald, CMJ “New Music Report,” December 6, 1991.
8 EURO include shipment cost world-wide
Please use the attached form for orders within the United States. The indicated prices in this list are in US Dollar. Metropolis does not deliver orders into the United States of America. Please feel free to place orders directly at Hummingbird Records, even you are located anywhere in the World if you wish pricing’s in US Dollar. Thanks!
HUMMING BIRD RECORDS AND TAPES PRINTABLE ORDER FORM
HB 1001 CROSS-EYED PRIEST - $6.95
1002 ANCIENT OF DAYS, LIGHT OF GLORY - $12.95 (Only a few copies remain)
HBT 001 NEW WORLD MUSIC $6.95
002 ARCHANGELIC V THE LAW OF ONE $6.95
003 (tHe cHILd cLowNs) tHE mAgiC lAnd $6.95
004 ATITLAN / LUNA NEGRA $6.95
005 NORTHWEST COASTAL MUSIC $7.95
006 NATIVE INTELLIGENCE $7.95
007-C-90 WHIRLS AWAY $7.95
008 HOME (AT) THE RANGE $7.95
009,010-(2) TOTAL MUSIC 1 & 2 $9.95
011 ON THE PATH OF DARKNESS IS THE WAY OF LIGHT $7.95
012,013,014-(3) PLACELESS TIMELESS 1, 2, & 3 $11.95
015 ROYAL GARDEN SWEET $7.95
016 THE MAGIC OF MYSTERY $7.95
ES 100 MEXICO $7.95
200 GUATEMALA (CHICHICASTENANGO) $7.95
300 BOLIVIA $7.95
400 BALI $7.95
500 GUATEMALA (TODOS SANTOS) $7.95
CD 1 MOSS ‘COMES SILK $12.95
2-3 ONE ONE & ONE $15.95
4-5 MEDITATIONS ON IMPERMANANENCE $23.95 (Only a few copies remain)
CD 6 WAYANG SAXOPHONY SHADOW SAXOPHONE $12.95
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