Philip-

Ken Field

Under the Skin

Innova 208

1. Under the Skin (2:21)

2. Streaming (3:12)

3. Dressing Part 1 (1:57)

4. Five Saxophones in Search of Meaning (4:09)

5. Downpour (1:13)

6. Om on the Range (4:51)

7. Dressing Part 2 (2:38)

8. Slits in the Curtain (4:46)

Ken Field - alto saxophones, percussion

Jesse Williams - acoustic and electric bass

Phil Neighbors - drums

All music composed by Ken Field, published by Conical Music/BMI

This music was commissioned by choreographer/dancers Art Bridgman and

Myrna Packer of Bridgman/Packer Dance for their work "Under the

Skin", the second in a trilogy of pieces that integrate live dance performance, innovative video technology, and original music collaborations. www.bridgmanpacker.org

All music composed by Ken Field, published by Conical Music/BMI

"Om on the Range" appears on the O.O.Discs CD "Subterranea", and is

included here by permission of O.O.Discs. www.oodiscs.com

Ken Field is a Vandoren Performing Artist, and uses Vandoren reeds

and mouthpieces for performance and recording. www.vandoren.com

Ken Field - alto saxophones, percussion

Jesse Williams - acoustic and electric bass

Phil Neighbors - drums

Produced by Ken Field

Except as noted, all music recorded and mixed by Andy Pinkham at

Mortal Music, Charlestown, MA, Feb. 2005.

"Five Saxophones in Search of Meaning" recorded by George Hicks at the Chicken Loft, Cambridge, MA 1988-1990, with additional material recorded and mixed by Andy Pinkham at Mortal Music, Charlestown, MA, Feb. 2005.

"Om on the Range" recorded by Ken Field in The Henge, Roswell, NM, May 1995, mixed by Huck Bennert at Wellspring Sound, Concord, MA.

Cover images from video of "Under the Skin" performance by Art Bridgman & Myrna Packer at the Duke on 42nd Street, NYC.

Back cover photo of Ken Field by Paul B. Goode. www.paulbgoode.com

Mastered by Jody Elff, www.elff.net

Ken Field website design and maintenance by Andrew Doss/Dosswerks:

www.dosswerks.com

Thanks to Art Bridgman, Myrna Packer, Philip Blackburn, Chris Campbell, Joseph Celli, Paul B. Goode

I cringe when choreographers tell me they’ve commissioned music for a new dance.

More often than not, the composer doesn’t really care about the choreography. It’s a chance to create new work on someone else’s tab. And usually, the choreographer spends so much time micromanaging the composer that the dance itself is an afterthought.

So I was apprehensive when choreographers Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer told me they’d commissioned Ken Field to create a score for a new multimedia piece called “Under the Skin.”

Don’t get me wrong. Bridgman and Packer are old hands at this. They’ve been working together since 1978 and have commissioned several notable composers along the way, including Robert Een and Glenn Velez.

Besides, Bridgman and Packer are smart choreographers. Smart people, for that matter. They have common sense. And they understand scale. Most choreographers are, at heart, empire builders. But as far as I know, Bridgman and Packer have never felt possessed by the urge to get big, to hire dozens of dancers and create the Great American Dance Epic.

Small, pithy, profound – this is what they do. They’re the dance world equivalent of miniaturists.

But “Under the Skin” was different. It involved an incredibly complex meshing of video projection, stage lighting and dance. As performers, Bridgman and Packer would bob in and out amongst hundreds of rapidly changing projected images. It’s as if they had finally recruited that cast of thousands – except that they were all digital blips and swirls captured on video.

Ken’s music would become one more frenetic element in the midst of this already jam-packed sensory onslaught.

Scary.

As it turns out, I needn’t have worried.

Ken was the ideal collaborator, a kindred artistic spirit. He’s an adventurer, the kind of guy who always has a dozen ideas churning in his brain.

More important, he’s the kind of artist who, when posed with some extraordinarily challenging project, says “why not” instead of “why.”

In 1998, for instance, he showed up in a Tokyo club one August night, met up with a trio of Japanese musicians – all of them strangers – and proceeded to create as alluring an hour of improvisation as a microphone has ever had the good fortune to record.

So when Bridgman and Packer called and asked if he’d like to score their newest work, the decision was simple. “Sure – why not?”

…………………..

“I’m not real familiar with writing for dance,” Ken said to me when we first talked about “Under the Skin.”

I don’t know why he felt compelled to admit it. Perhaps it’s because I’m a dance writer and he was sure I’d notice a certain hesitance when he began to talk about choreography.

Or maybe it’s because he’s a guy committed to improvisation – a musical world unfettered by outside sources – and he had just agreed to create a score that was not only fettered, but was inextricably locked into place by its collaborators.

But I think Ken understands the relationship between dance and music more than he realizes.

Crank up this music in a room filled with small kids and I guarantee you that they’ll all be dancing within 45 seconds. Maybe 30. Maybe even less. They’d immediately recognize “Under the Skin” for what it is – unabashed dance music.

Not the “dance music” that pop music writers love to babble about. It’s not that endlessly thumping stuff that overpowers everything in its way.

But this is dance music.

Rhythmic, playful, driving, flip, occasionally funky, audaciously sassy, filled with life and humor and . . . well, how could you not dance to it?

For all of Ken's anxieties about writing for dance, it was obvious right away that he got it.

The title track is no more than 30 seconds old and I can swear there’s a tiny phrase from “Peter and the Wolf” in there. Can that be? But before I have time to figure it out, Ken and his layered saxophones – they’re all him – are long gone. They’ve raced ahead.

He slows down occasionally to give me a chance to catch up. But mostly, Ken’s music powers ahead, churning and loping its way through whatever silence might lie in its way.

By the time he gets to “Dressing, Part 1,” he’s ready for fun. He squeaks and squawks and lays down a deliciously clunky sea of sounds interrupted by the occasional honk of a cheeky sax. It’s a hoot. And it’s smart. And it’s so fabulously thick that it would take my old music composition professor a week to unravel the richness of the composition.

It’s rare that commissioned dance music has a life beyond the choreography.

“Under the Skin” has earned one.

For Bridgman and Packer, Ken provided the perfect musical complement to the mass of images and movement on the stage. It never overwhelmed. But it didn’t slip softly into the background, either. This was one of those occasions where all the collaborating elements were expertly crafted and had the power and integrity to work with – and against – one another.

As a stage work, “Under the Skin” – the whole package – is dazzling theater.

And on CD? Without those stunning visual elements? The music stands on its own, a delectable mass of sounds and harmonies, of rhythms and melodies so inextricably intertwined that it’s hard to imagine them existing apart from one another.

As for the dancing, it’s all there. Just listen.

— David Lyman is an arts writer who lives in Cincinnati