Paul Nash: The Triumph of Life and Legacy
By Mark Kirby
"My life has been given sudden definition,
An end point that I can almost prepare for,
At once frightening and magnificent..."
Paul Nash Diary, December 28 2003
The measure of a person's life can be seen in the impact they have on other lives and how they handle the often grim vagaries of life. In the face of one's own mortality, the entirety of emotions and fears can be overwhelming. Many though decide to soldier on and concern themselves with the time they have left, the mark they leave behind; with the story of how they inhabited this life and walked the earth.
Paul Nash -- composer, educator and jazz guitarist -- has written such a life story. After earning degrees in both jazz and classical composition, he created the 10-piece Paul Nash Ensemble in 1977. The group included trumpeter Mark Isham who, influenced by Nash's genre of morphing ideas, created New Age music for Windham Hill Records and become a Grammy and Academy Award nominated soundtrack composer. Nash also helped to organize the Bay Area Jazz Composers Orchestra, an ensemble that explored the merging of jazz and classical music. This group featured notable musicians such as trumpet player Tom Harrell and vibist David Samuels.
In 1990, he moved back to New York and founded the Manhattan New Music Project (MNMP), which brought together various new music performers, including French horn innovator Tom Varner and unsung guitar great Vic Juris, among others. Under the MNMP umbrella, Nash wrote chamber music, orchestral pieces and playful avant garde compositions inspired by John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
After discovering he had a fatal brain tumor, Nash determined to stamp a legacy to his lifelong career, "...for the prize of life itself (is) the excitement of creation no matter who hears a piece." With the help of producer Julia Reinhart, he set about creating his musical legacy. One part of this is the organization and re-mastering of his earlier compositional works, which are to be released in a seven-part retrospective series.
The other is a two-CD project, one of which you have before you, meant to represent the definitive works that sum up his musical journey. The first CD, "Jazz Cycles," is a work that takes the listener through the development of various jazz styles based on musical elements explored and developed over a 30-year period. The second, "Avant Noir," is a ten-composition work that combines avant garde jazz with the familiar sound and feel of soundtracks from old film noir movies. On both works, Paul is accompanied by a special group of performers associated with MNMP, including Rolling Stones saxophonist Tim Ries, Bruce Williamson, unsung guitar hero Vic Juris, Grisha Alexiev, Jim Ridl, Shane Endsley and Jay Anderson.
Paul Nash has proved throughout his life, and especially in his final year, that the human heart, mind and soul can live on in the things one leaves behind, things that touch and influence people's lives.
ALL PROCEEDS FROM THIS RECORDING WILL BENEFIT THE MANHATTAN NEW MUSIC PROJECT, A PUBLIC CHARITY INCORPORATED UNDER CHAPTER 501(c)(3) IN NEW YORK, TO CONTINUE AND PROMOTE THE WORK OF PAUL NASH.
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The Manhattan New Music Project (aka MNMP) has been recognized worldwide for excellence in jazz and contemporary music since it was founded in 1990 by a group of like-minded composers who were looking for an outlet to present innovative approaches to presentation and musical composition across musical boundaries. MNMP has presented music by dozens of composers from around the US and abroad through its New York City-based concert series in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Knitting Factory, Sweet Basil, The Fez, Iridium and the Anne Goodman Recital Hall. In early 2007, MNMP won the CMA/ASCAP award for adventurous programming by a jazz ensemble.
JAZZ CYCLES is MNMP's third release of music written by its artistic associates (Mood Swing and The Soul of Grace, both released on Soul Note Records being the others). Recorded on December 6 2004 live at M&I Studios in a magical single six hour session in two takes and without any overdubs, it mirrors the urgency MNMP's late founder Paul Nash felt in the last year of his life to finish his musical work and the collaborative effort of the band to do right by its ailing leader. Feeling increasingly ill during the mixing session the following day, Paul went to the hospital directly from the studio and passed six weeks later.
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