The first and only authorized biography there will ever be about Keith Rowe, his solo career, and his influence as the guitarist in the cult British "jazz" band AMM, a group who counted Pink Floyd, The Who, and Cream as admirers.
Brian Olewnick is a new-music writer and visual artist. He helped run the avant-garde jazz loft Environ from 1976-1980 and was eventually seduced into writing about contemporary music in various forms from jazz to modern classical, free-improvisation, and beyond. He has written for All Music Guide, The Wire, Time-Out New York, and other publications in addition to his blog, Just Outside, one of the principal sites for analysis of new music, where he has published over 2,000 reviews since 2006. He has given talks on the craft of writing about contemporary music in Philadelphia, Västerås, Sweden, and Sokołowska, Poland. He lives with his wife, Betsy, in Kinderhook, New York. Keith Rowe (b. 1940, Plymouth, England) is an improvising guitarist and electronicist. He is a founding member of the ensemble AMM (1965), a group combining aspects of avant-garde jazz and post-Cageian contemporary music and one of the most influential and revolutionary musical ensembles of the past 50 years. AMM drastically revised what was possible in music and stripped much baggage from the existing form, doing away with stars, solos, and even the necessity to play anything at all!Their influence has been felt from rock (early Pink Floyd and Yoko Ono, to Sonic Youth, David Sylvian, and beyond) to "classical" (Christian Wolff and Merce Cunningham through the Wandelweiser school). His conceptual and technical advances have been adopted by scores of musicians through the years while he continues to move on into uncharted territory in recorded works, interactions with videographers and dancers, graphic art, and more. He has appeared on over 200 recordings and has been the subject of several exhibitions documenting both his sound and visual artwork. He lives with his wife, Stephanie, in Clisson, France.
"A very readable and well-researched account, with lots of great
anecdotes."
*The Wire*
Whether you've attended to Keith Rowe's music for mere minutes or
for decades, Brian Olewnick's terrific biography brings home the
fact that much of what you know about this crucial artist likely
contains significant gaps. No longer. This marvelously researched
life in its similarly fine telling-not to mention the
bringing-together of a tremendous collection of written materials
on Rowe and AMM-occupies a much-needed place in the literature on
improvised and experimental music from the 1960s forward, and its
nexus in Rowe of performance, politics, and visual art.
*David Grubbs, Musician and author ofRecords Ruin the Landscape:
John Cage, the Sixties, and Sound Recording*
Whether you've attended to Keith Rowe's music for mere minutes or
for decades, Brian Olewnick's terrific biography brings home the
fact that much of what you know about this crucial artist likely
contains significant gaps. No longer. This marvelously researched
life in its similarly fine telling-not to mention the
bringing-together of a tremendous collection of written materials
on Rowe and AMM-occupies a much-needed place in the literature on
improvised and experimental music from the 1960s forward, and its
nexus in Rowe of performance, politics, and visual art.
*David Grubbs, Musician and author of Records Ruin the Landscape:
John Cage, the Sixties, and Sound Recording*
Despite having extreme music as his subject, along with even more
extreme politics, bitter feuds and the convoluted history of AMM
and free improvisation, Brian Olewnick brings clarity, even-handed
compassion, wry humour and insight to one of the great stories of
post-war avant-garde music.
*David Toop, author ofOcean of Sound and Into the Maelstrom*
"For someone interested in going 'beyond' with music and with
guitar, this essential history will help you set your sights on
places no musician has gone."
*Guitar Moderne*
"Keith Rowe, it seems, was always an original.But even avowed
admirers of his work will glean from Brian Olewnick's weighty and
exhaustively researched biography a new understanding of just how
original the now-seventy-eight-year-old performer was and still
remains. The book provides an invaluable explanation of how Rowe
developed his entirely unprecedented approach to the guitar-and why
his influence primarily has been felt second hand, through the more
widely publicized efforts of acolytes such as the psychedelic-rock
innovator Syd Barrett and the indefatigable improviser Fred
Frith."
*musicworks*
"One can not underestimate the importance and innovation of
the work undertaken by Brian Olewnick."
*Ondarock*
"If you have even a passing interest in AMM, Rowe, or the artist's
path, this book is essential."
*Dusted*
As seen in: Jazz Word, 15 Questions
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