Rod Poole in NYC June 2001

Rod Poole in NYC June 2001

In the recent posts on this list about the 2001 World Out of Tune Festival,
Rod Poole wasn't mentioned. From England by way of Los Angeles, he's
doing something very special with his Martin acoustic guitar, playing his
own material in Just Intonation. With the guitar fretted with the frets straight
across the neck, his compositions are full of rippling arpeggios, creating
clouds of sum and difference tones.

On June 14th, he opened for Jon Catler's Evolution for electric guitar and
orchestra at NYC's Makor Center at Central Park West. He performed his
"The Death Adder" in a 46-minute set that was hypnotizing and introduced
him to a full house of attentive New Yorkers.

Other gigs in the area included a show at Downtown Music Gallery in the
East Village on June 12th. Performing "The Death Adder" in a 35 minute
set where he dipped into free improv territory (he's played with Derek Bailey,
Donald Miller and members of AMM) by getting into a bit of extended technique
by plucking behind the capo and tapping rhythmically on the body in the middle
of the set. On June 17th, he played an enthusiastically received new composition
at ABC No Rio in the Lower East Side for about 30 minutes with a very short encore.

To sum up this quickie off-the cuff review, I would like to say that although Mr. Poole is
doing some real interesting work in the field of microtonality, he's making some
of my favorite music today. Amazing.

David Beardsley

David,

Thanks for the well-written review, esp:

> although Mr. Poole is doing some real interesting work in the field
> of microtonality, he's making some of my favorite music today.

Making music is more important than doing microtonal work any day!
Some one who is putting the horse before the cart...

Cheers,
Jon