Keith Rowe (born 16 March 1940 in Plymouth, England) is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both AMM in the mid-1960s and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, his paintings have appeared on most of his albums. He is seen as a godfather of EAI (electroacoustic improvisation), with many of his recordings having been released by Erstwhile.
Rowe began his career playing jazz in the early 1960s with Mike Westbrook and Lou Gare. His early influences were guitarists Wes Montgomery, Charlie Christian, and Barney Kessel. [1] But he grew tired of what he considered the genre's limitations. He began experimenting. An important step was a New Year's resolution to stop tuning his guitar—much to Westbrook's displeasure. [1] He began playing free jazz and free improvisation, abandoning conventional guitar technique. He was featured in 'Crossing Bridges', a 1985 music programme based around jazz guitar improvisation, and broadcast by Channel 4 [2]
His change was partially inspired by a teacher in a painting class who told him, "Rowe, you cannot paint a Caravaggio. Only Caravaggio can paint Caravaggio." Rowe said that after considering this idea from a musical perspective, "trying to play guitar like Jim Hall seemed quite wrong." For several years he contemplated how to reinvent his approach to the guitar, again finding inspiration in visual art, specifically American painter Jackson Pollock, who abandoned traditional painting methods to forge his style. "How could I abandon the technique? Lay the guitar flat!" [3]
Rowe developed prepared guitar techniques: placing the guitar flat on a table [4] and manipulating the strings, body, and pick-ups in unorthodox ways. He has used needles, electric motors, violin bows, iron bars, [4] a library card, rubber eraser, springs, hand-held electric fans, alligator clips, and common office supplies in playing the guitar. Rowe sometimes incorporates live radio broadcasts into his performances, including shortwave radio and number stations (the guitar's pick-ups will also pick up radio signals, and broadcast them through the amplifier).
Percussionist Eddie Prévost of AMM said Rowe finds radio broadcasts which seem to blend ideally with, or offer startling commentary on, the music. (Prévost, 18). On AMMMusic, towards the end of the cacophonous "Ailantus Glandolusa", a speaker announces via radio that "We cannot preserve the normal music." Prevost writes that during an AMM performance in Istanbul, Rowe located and integrated a radio broadcast of "the pious intonation of a male Turkish voice. AMM of course, had absolutely no idea what the material was. Later, it was complimented upon the judicious way that verses from The Koran had been introduced into the performance, and the respectful way they had been treated!" [5]
In reviewing World Turned Upside Down, critic Dan Hill writes, "Rowe has tuned his shortwave radio to some dramatically exotic gameshow and human voices spatter the mix, though at such low volume, they're unintelligible and abstracted. Rowe never overplays this device, a clear temptation with such a seductive technology – the awesome possibility of sonically reaching out across a world of voices requires experienced hands to avoid simple but ultimately short-term pleasure. This he does masterfully, mixing in random operatics and chance encounters with talk show hosts to anchor the sound in humanity, amidst the abstraction." [6]
Rowe has worked with Oren Ambarchi, Burkhard Beins, Cornelius Cardew, Christian Fennesz, Kurt Liedwart, Jeffrey Morgan, Toshimaru Nakamura, Evan Parker, Michael Pisaro, Peter Rehberg, Sachiko M, Howard Skempton, Taku Sugimoto, David Sylvian, John Tilbury, Christian Wolff, and Otomo Yoshihide.
In 2008 at Tate Modern, London, Rowe performed a live collaborative work The Room with film makers, Jarman award winner Luke Fowler, and Peter Todd as a part of the programme accompanying the major retrospective of the painter Mark Rothko. The Room featured films by Fowler and Todd and live guitar improvisation by Rowe with subsequent iterations being presented in France and Spain and the Netmage festival in Bologna Italy. [7] The Room is also the title of a work by Rowe issued on CD in 2007 followed by The Room Extended in 2016 on a four CD set both from erstwhile records. [8]
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any general rules, instead following the intuition of its performers. The term can refer to both a technique—employed by any musician in any genre—and as a recognizable genre of experimental music in its own right.
Derek Bailey was an English avant-garde guitarist and an important figure in the free improvisation movement. Bailey abandoned conventional performance techniques found in jazz, exploring atonality, noise, and whatever unusual sounds he could produce with the guitar. Much of his work was released on his own label Incus Records. In addition to solo work, Bailey collaborated frequently with other musicians and recorded with collectives such as Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Company.
Cornelius Cardew was an English experimental music composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental music, explaining why he had "discontinued composing in an avantgarde idiom" in his own programme notes to his Piano Album 1973.
AMM was a British free improvisation group that was founded in London, England, in 1965. The group was initially composed of Keith Rowe on guitar, Lou Gare on saxophone, and Eddie Prévost on drums. The three men shared an interest in exploring music beyond the boundaries of conventional jazz, as in free jazz and free improvisation. AMM never achieved widespread popularity, but have been influential in improvised music. Most of their albums have been released by Matchless Recordings, which is run by Eddie Prévost. In a 2001 interview, Keith Rowe was asked if "AMM" was an abbreviation. He replied, "The letters AMM stand for something, but as you probably know it's a secret!"
poire_z was an electronic free improvisation music group formed in 1998. Its members all have long careers in improvised music; critic Fred Grand of Avant calls poire_z a "post-AMM supergroup."
M.I.M.E.O. is an experimental electroacoustic free improvisation group formed in 1997 on the initiative of several independent concert promoters in Europe. The abbreviation stands for "Music In Movement Electronic Orchestra". They have issued recordings on Erstwhile Records, Cathnor, Perdition Plastics, Grob, and other labels.
A prepared guitar is a guitar that has had its timbre altered by placing various objects on or between the instrument's strings, including other extended techniques. This practice is sometimes called tabletop guitar, because many prepared guitarists do not hold the instrument in the usual manner, but instead place the guitar on a table to manipulate it.
Gert-Jan Prins is a Dutch musician active in free improvisation.
Erstwhile Records is an independent record label devoted to free improvisation, particularly the electroacoustic variety, contemporary, experimental composed music, and combinations of both. Erstwhile was founded by Jon Abbey in 1999, whose personality and tastes are closely identified with the label.
Oren Ambarchi is an Australian musician. He is a multi-instrumentalist who plays mainly electric guitar and percussion.
Jazz piano is a collective term for the techniques pianists use when playing jazz. The piano has been an integral part of the jazz idiom since its inception, in both solo and ensemble settings. Its role is multifaceted due largely to the instrument's combined melodic and harmonic capabilities. For this reason it is an important tool of jazz musicians and composers for teaching and learning jazz theory and set arrangement, regardless of their main instrument. By extension the phrase 'jazz piano' can refer to similar techniques on any keyboard instrument.
John Tilbury is a British pianist. He is considered one of the foremost interpreters of Morton Feldman's music, and since 1980 has been a member of the free improvisation group AMM.
Michael John David Westbrook is an English jazz pianist, composer, and writer of orchestrated jazz pieces. He is married to the vocalist, librettist and painter Kate Westbrook.
The Supper at Emmaus is a painting by the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio, executed in 1601, and now in London. Originally this painting was commissioned and paid for by Ciriaco Mattei, brother of cardinal Girolamo Mattei.
Paul William Rutherford was an English free improvising trombonist.
Edwin John Prévost is an English percussionist who founded the free improvisation group, AMM.
Cornelis William Hendrik Fuhler was a Dutch/Australian improvisor, composer, and instrument builder associated with free jazz, experimental music and acoustic ecology. He played piano by manipulating sound with electromagnetic string stimulators like Ebows and motorized actuators. Fuhler also performed on guitar, turntables and synthesizer. He invented the keyolin, a combination of keyboard and violin.
Leslie Arthur "Lou" Gare was a British free-jazz saxophonist born in Rugby, Warwickshire, England, perhaps best known for his works with the improvised music ensemble AMM and playing with musicians such as Eddie Prévost, Mike Westbrook, Cornelius Cardew, Keith Rowe and Sam Richards.
Irma is a 1969 experimental opera by artist Tom Phillips, Fred Orton and Gavin Bryars.
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