Ethnic groups within the Italian peninsula, 9th to the 4th centuries BC. Subsequently the invasions of the Gauls and the defensive activities of the Roman Republic made large changes in the map.

  Ligures

  Veneti

  Etruscans

  Piceni

  Umbrians

  Latins

  Samnites

  Messapii

  Greeks

The Umbri were an Italic people of ancient Italy.^[1] A region called Umbria still exists and is currently occupied by Italian speakers. It is somewhat smaller than the ancient Umbria.

Most ancient Umbrian cities were settled in the 9th-4th centuries BC on easily defensible hilltops. Umbria was bordered by the Tiber and Nar rivers and included the Appennine slopes on the Adriatic. The ancient Umbrian language is a branch of a group called Oscan-Umbrian, which is related to the Latino-Faliscan languages (Buck, 1904).

Early references[link]

Pliny the Elder wrote concerning the folk-etymology of the name:

The Umbrian people are thought the oldest in Italy; they are believed to have been called Ombrii (here, "the people of the thunderstorm," after ὅμβρος, "thunderstorm") by the Greeks because they survived the deluge (literally "the inundation of the lands by thunderstorms, imbribus). The Etruscans vanquished 300 Umbrian cities^[2]

Religion[link]

During the 6th–4th centuries BC, Umbrian communities constructed rural sanctuaries in which they sacrificed to the gods. Bronze votives shaped as animals or deities were also offered. Umbrian deities include Feronia, Valentia, Minerva Matusia and Clitumnus. The Iguvine Tablets were discovered in 1444 at Gubbio, Italy. Composed during the 2nd or 3rd centuries BC, they describe religious rituals involving animal sacrifice.^[3]

Political structure[link]

Two men held the supreme magistracy of uhtur and were responsible for supervising rituals. Other civic offices included the marone, which had a lower status than uhtur, and a religious position named kvestur. The Umbrian social structure was divided into distinct groups probably based upon military rank. During the reign of Augustus, four Umbrian aristocrats became senators. Emperor Nerva’s family was from Umbria.^[4]

According to Guy Jolyon Bradley, " The religious sites of the region have been thought to reveal a society dominated by agricultural and pastoral concerns, to which town life came late in comparison to Etruria."^[5]

Roman influence[link]

Throughout the 9th-4th centuries BC, imported goods from Greece and Etruria were common, as well as the production of local pottery.

The Romans first made contact with Umbria in 310 BC and settled Latin colonies there in 299 BC, 268 BC and 241 BC. They had completed their conquest of Umbria by approximately 260 BC. Incorporation into the Roman state occurred during the 3rd century BC when some Umbri were given full citizenship or citizenship without the right to vote. Also during the 3rd century BC about 40,000 Romans settled in the region. The Via Flaminia linking areas of Umbria was complete by 220 BC. Cities in Umbria also contributed troops to Rome for its many wars. Umbrians fought under Scipio Africanus in 205 BC during the Second Punic War. The Praetorian Guard recruited from Etruria and Umbria. The Umbri played a minor role in the Social War and as a result were granted citizenship in 90 BC. Roman veterans were settled in Umbria during the reign of Augustus.^[6]

Archaeological sites[link]

The towns of Chianciano and Chiusi (Umbrian: Camars) near modern Siena contain traces of Umbrian habitation dating to the 7th or 8th centuries BC. The inhabitants of Camars left their city after a defeat by Pelasgians; they subsequently crossed the Appennines to found a new city, Cameria or Camerta (modern Camerino).

Perugia was an ancient Umbrian center until it was overrun by the Etruscans c. 5th century BC.

Assisi, called Asisium by the Romans, was an ancient Umbrian site on a spur of Mount Subasio. Myth relates that the city was founded by Dardanus in 847 BC.

See also[link]

• Umbrian language
• Ancient peoples of Italy

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Bradley, Guy (2000). Ancient Umbria. State, culture, and identity in central Italy from the Iron Age to the Augustan era. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
• Buck, Carl Darling (1904). A Grammar of Oscan and Umbrian. Boston: Ginn and Company Publishers. 
• Domenico, Roy P.. Regions of Italy: A Reference Guide to History and Culture. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. pp. 367–371. 
• Pliny (1961). Natural History with an English translation in ten volumes by H. Rackham. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 
• Poultney, James Wilson (1959). The Bronze Tables of Iguvium. American Philological Association, Number XVIII. 

Michel Petrucciani
Background information
Birth name	Michel Petrucciani
Born	(1962-12-28)28 December 1962 Orange, Vaucluse, France
Origin	Orange, Vaucluse, France
Died	6 January 1999(1999-01-06) (aged 36) New York City, USA
Genres	Jazz
Occupations	Musician
Instruments	Piano
Years active	1975–99

Michel Petrucciani (28 December 1962, Orange, Vaucluse, France – 6 January 1999, New York City, USA) was a French jazz pianist.

Biography[link]

Michel Petrucciani came from an Italo-French family with a musical background. His father Tony played guitar, his brother Louis played bass and his brother Philippe also plays the guitar. Michel was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, which is a genetic disease that causes brittle bones and in his case short stature. It is also often linked to pulmonary ailments. This disease caused his bones to fracture over one hundred times until he reached adolescence. The disease caused pain that continued throughout his entire life. “I have pain all the time. I’m used to having hurt arms,” he said.^[1] In Michel's early career his father and brother occasionally carried him, literally, because he could not walk far on his own unaided. In certain respects though he considered his disability an advantage as he got rid of distractions, like sports, that other boys tended to become involved in.^[2] And he hints that his disability was helpful in other parts of his life. He said: "Sometimes I think someone upstairs saved me from being ordinary."^[3]

At an early age Michel saw Duke Ellington on television and wished to become a pianist like him. When Michel was four, his father bought him a toy piano of his own, but Michel smashed the piano with a toy hammer “When I was young, I thought the keyboard looked like teeth," he said. "It was as though it was laughing at me. You had to be strong enough to make the piano feel little. That took a lot of work.”^[3] Soon after this, Michel's father bought him a real piano.

From the beginning, Petrucciani had always been musical, reportedly humming Wes Montgomery solos by the time he learned to speak. The musician that would prove most influential to Petrucciani was Bill Evans, who he began listening to at around the age of ten. Petrucciani’s layered harmonies, lyrical style, and articulation of melody have always been linked most strongly to this early exposure to Evans.^[4] Petrucciani trained in classical piano starting at the age of four, and was making music with his family by the age of nine.^[5]

Petrucciani gave his first professional concert at the age of 13. At this point of his life, he was still quite fragile and had to be carried to and from the piano. His size meant that he required aids to reach the piano's pedals, but his hands were average in length. This had its advantages, however. At the beginning of his career, Petrucciani's manager would often smuggle him into hotel rooms in a suitcase in a bid to save money.

Petrucciani felt he needed to travel to Paris to begin his musical career, but he found it difficult to leave home. His father was protective, constantly concerned for his son’s wellbeing and reluctant to put him in any danger. Petrucciani’s drummer Aldo Romano said of Michel's father: “[He] was an idiot. He didn’t trust anybody. He wanted to keep Petrucciani as a partner, to play music with. He was very jealous. So I had to fight to take him to Paris, because his father didn’t want me to, because he wanted to keep him, like you would cage a monster.”^[1]

But at the age of fifteen Petrucciani made it to France. There he played with Kenny Clark in 1977 and Clark Terry in 1978.^[5] His breakthrough performance occurred in the jazz festival in the town Clioucat. Clark Terry was missing a pianist, and when Michel was carried onto the stage Terry thought it was some kind of joke—Petrucciani was not more than three feet tall. But Michel astounded Terry and the rest of the festival with his prodigious talent and virtuosity, especially given his size and condition.^[3] Clark Terry said, “When I heard him play—oh, man! He was a dwarf, but he played like a giant. I said, ‘listen, little guy—don’t run away. I’ll be back for you.”^[1]

Petrucciani's subsequent trip to Paris harbored mixed experiences, but was undoubtedly musically and personally transforming. Michel reports, “It was mostly to do with drugs and weird women, but I was lucky and got out safe.”^[3] Michel’s attitude during his time in France was largely immature and insecure, despite his considerable talent. He tended to overcompensate for his young age and small size by playing many more notes than necessary. He wore a yachtsman’s cap and frequently acted pushy and tough, referring to people as ‘baby’.^[3] “He acted tough and pushy, and his playing was tough and pushy. He knew how to say ‘motherfucker’ in French," said Michael Zwerin, who met Petrucciani when the pianist was fifteen. Petrucciani played in a trio with Kenny Clark during his time in Paris, and rose to stardom.^[1]

After his stint in Paris, Petrucciani returned to his family only for a brief visit. He began his professional life living with the drummer Aldo Romano. He was free of the protective presence of his father and was able to start living a truly adult life. Petrucciani began recording with Owl Records and began a friendship with the recording company’s owner, Jean-Jacques Pussai. Pussai recalls that Petrucciani always seemed to be in a hurry to record, saying, “I don’t want to lose time.” But eventually Petrucciani desired independence from Romano too. Romano remembers: “He didn’t feel free with me. So he had to kill his second father somehow to move on. He needed to escape. He needed to go very far, as far as he could go, and that was California."^[1]

Petrucciani travelled to the US after his trip to Paris, but it is not known whether he stopped in New York first. “Michel was really into bullshiting…he would lie to your face,” said French journalist Thierry Peremarti. This calls into question Michel’s strange account of his time in Manhattan. He claimed to have scammed his way into the city on bad checks and hid out in Brooklyn with the help of Sicilian family connections. He also claimed to have played piano in a midtown brothel.^[1]

What is known for certain is that he ended up in California in 1982, where he visited the retired saxophonist Charles Lloyd. Lloyd had stopped playing when people began to view his sidemen as more fashionable than he himself was.^[3] After hearing Petrucciani play, the saxophonist was so inspired that he agreed to tour with Michel.^[6] Lloyd said to Michel, “I was here not planning to play again. You triggered me. I heard this beauty in you and I said, 'well I have to take you 'round the world cause there’s something so beautiful, it was like providence calling.”^[6] Petrucciani and Lloyd’s tour of the West Coast was a huge success, and they continued their internationally. On February 22, 1985, with Petrucciani cradled in his arms, Lloyd walked onto the stage at Town Hall in New York City and sat him on his piano stool for what would be a historic evening in jazz history: the filming of One Night with Blue Note. The film's director John Charles Jopson would later recall in the reissued liner notes that the moment moved him to tears.

Petrucciani and Lloyd's performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival was made into an album, and in 1982 they won the 1982 Prix d’Excellence.^[3] But Petrucciani expressed mostly disdain and frustration at the awards he felt were being heaped upon him, believing that he was receiving so many at least in part because people believed he was going to die young.^[6]

Petrucciani moved to New York City 1984 and spent the rest of his life there. This was one the most wildly productive period of his career. He recorded with Wayne Shorter and Jim Hall, producing the trio album Power of Three.^[3] In 1986 Petrucciani recorded a live album with Wayne Shorter and Jim Hall. He also played with diverse figures in the US jazz scene including Dizzy Gillespie.^[7]

But he also made a priority of recording solo piano. Michel said: “I really believe a pianist is not complete until he’s capable of playing by himself. I started doing solo concerts in February 1993, when I asked my agent to cancel my trio dates for a year in order to play nothing but solo recitals….I had a wonderful time playing alone, and discovering the piano and really studying every night. I felt like I was learning so much about the instrument and about communicating directly with an audience. So it was an incredible experience. I really loved doing that, and afterwards getting on stage with a group again and playing with other people was a piece of cake!”^[8]

On the personal side, he had five significant relationships: Erlinda Montano (marriage), Eugenia Morrison, Marie-Laure Roperch, the Italian pianist Gilda Buttà (the marriage lasted three months and ended in divorce) and Isabelle Mailé (with whom he shares his grave). With Marie Laure he fathered a son, Alexandre, who inherited his condition. He also had a stepson named Rachid Roperch.^{[9] [10] [11]}

In 1994, he was granted a Légion d'honneur in Paris.

In the late 1990s, Petrucciani’s lifestyle became increasingly taxing. Musically, he was moving at a frenetic pace. He was performing over one hundred times per year, and in 1998, the year before he died, he performed one hundred and forty times. His social life was also becoming more costly—he began to drink more heavily and experiment with cocaine. He became too weak to use crutches and had to resort to a wheelchair. Petrucciani’s final manager said, “He was working too much—not only recording and doing concerts, but he was always on television, and he was always doing interviews. He got himself overworked, and you could see it. He pushed too much.”^[1]

Michel Petrucciani died just after his 36th birthday from a pulmonary infection. He was interred in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

On February 12, 2009, the French music channel Mezzo broadcast a special event paying homage to Petrucciani and the ten year anniversary of his death.

The first two American albums featuring Michel Petrucciani were produced by Gabreal Franklin. The first, 100 Hearts, a solo album, was produced at the famous RCA Studio A, on the Avenue of the Americas in New York City. The second was a trio album, recorded live at Max Gordon's old Village Vanguard club in New York City. These were among the first albums to use newly developed digital recording technology, on Mitsubishi X80 recorders, so early on that the only manuals available were in Japanese; but Franklin and Tom Arrison managed to get them to function by trial and error, and produced excellent results.

Personality and Musical Style[link]

Osteogenesis imperfecta seemed to contribute greatly both to Michel Petrucciani’s personality and his playing style. By his own account, Petrucciani was in almost constant physical pain of some kind throughout his short life.^[6] Yet in spite of this, he was known for a cheerful, playful, even cavalier personality. He said, “I love humor, I love to laugh, I love jokes, I love silliness, I love that, I think it’s great, I think laughter is worth a whole lot of medicine.”^[6]

Though he often exhibited arrogance, cockiness, and even womanizing tendencies in his adolescent years, the defining characteristic of Petrucciani was ultimately his great and unlikely confidence. Michael Zwerin recalled one example: “We were sitting there wondering what to play. It was kind of hot. And Michel said, ‘anybody know “Giant Steps?” Neither Louis nor I wanted to admit we didn’t really know it. So there was this great silence. And Michel said, “Well, I do!” and he pounded into a solo version of it at a very fast clip, and it was really amazing. That to me is Michel—‘Well, I do!’ Man, a confidence you wouldn’t believe.”^[1]

Petrucciani also appeared to have a quirky side. In a Mezzo documentary, he can be heard saying in a humorous voice, “I am very short!”^[6] Pussai, the owner of Owl Records, recalled when he used to carry Michel for convenience. “Sometimes, when I used to carry him, he would bite my ear. We’d walk into a restaurant, and he'd chomp.^[1]

During his last years in New York it seemed Michel’s general attitude of carelessness was magnified. He said to his manager, “I want to have at least five women at once, I want to make a million dollars in one night.” A common theory is that Petrucciani’s awareness of his greatly reduced lifespan compelled his perseverance, success, social life, and recklessness all to extremes, but this does not seem to be the case. Michel himself expressed denial of the life-shortening nature of his disease. In an interview, he said: “My handicap is not mortal. I won’t die because of my handicap. It has nothing to do with that.”^[6] He also said, “Eventually, when I get to be 75, I’ll write a book on my deathbed.”^[3] Yet other reliable sources assert that he was always aware of the potential effects of osteogenesis imperfecta.^[1]

What is known for certain is that Michel Petrucciani was fiercely determined to take all the joy and satisfaction from life that he could. “I’m a brat,” he said. “My philosophy is to have a really good time and never let anything stop me from doing what I want to do. It’s like driving a car, waiting for an accident. That’s no way to drive a car. If you have an accident, you have an accident—c’est la vie.” He certainly lived true to his maxim. Just one week before he died of a pulmonary infection, he was up all night celebrating the new year with his friends.^[8]

Stylistically, Petrucciani is most frequently compared to Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett for his lyricism and Oscar Peterson for his virtuosity. His playing was often quite dramatic; critics accuse him of over-indulgence and cheap showmanship; sometimes dismiss his music as being too accessible. Petrucciani was loose and playful in a rhythm section, and gave attention to a strong articulation of the melody. He sometimes paused at the peaks of his solo lines before descending again, as if in appreciation of his idea.^[4]

Michel distinguished himself most obviously from his primary inspiration in that he lacked Bill Evans’ cerebral approach to the piano. Petrucciani’s interest was primarily in simply playing; he spent little time reharmonizing or arranging.^[4]“When I play, I play with my heart and my head and my spirit….I don’t play to people’s heads, but to their hearts.” he says.^[1] The moments of musical clarity or bliss he describes come during his performances. “You know sometimes when I play a concert…and I have that right timing…those notes make me feel warm and good…it’s like lovemaking, it’s like having an orgasm. Yet despite his emphasis on performance, he disliked applause, calling it old-fashioned and a distraction.^[3]

Michel’s unbridled love of the piano in no way entailed artistic carelessness. Indeed, he described the piano as literally taking him to his grave. “It might lead me to death…meaning that I’d be on my deathbed saying, too bad I can’t live another year, I would have been much better.”^[3] He also complains about mistakes, saying, “…the pitfall is that when I make a mistake it sounds absolutely outrageous, really horrible because everything else is so clear!”^[8]

Wayne Shorter summed up Michel Petrucciani’s essential character and style in this quote:

“There’s a lot of people walking around, full-grown and so-called normal—they have everything that they were born with at the right leg length, arm length, and stuff like that. They’re symmetrical in every way, but they live their lives like they are armless, legless, brainless, and they live their life with blame. I never heard Michel complain about anything. Michel didn’t look in the mirror and complain about what he saw. Michel was a great musician—a great musician—and great, ultimately, because he was a great human being because he had the ability to feel and give to others of that feeling, and he gave to others through his music.”^[1]

Discography[link]

Michel Petrucciani's tomb

• Flash (1980)
• Michel Petrucciani Trio (1981)
• Date with Time (1981)
• Michel Petrucciani (1981)
• Estate (1982)
• Oracle's Destiny (1982)
• Toot Sweet (1982)
• 100 Hearts (1983)
• Live at the Village Vanguard (1984)
• Note'n Notes (1984)
• Cold Blues (1985)
• Pianism (1985)
• Power of Three (1986) with Wayne Shorter and Jim Hall
• Michel plays Petrucciani (1987)
• Music (1989)
• The Manhattan Project (1990) with Wayne Shorter, Stanley Clarke, Lenny White, Gil Goldstein and Pete Levin
• Playground (1991)
• Live (1991)
• From the Soul (1991) on December 28, 1991 with Joe Lovano
• Promenade with Duke (1993)
• The Blue Note Years (1993)
• Marvellous (1994)
• Conference De Presse (with Eddy Louiss) (1994)
• Au Theatre Des Champs-Élysées (1994)
• Darn that Dream (1996)
• Flamingo (with Stéphane Grappelli) (1996)
• Both Worlds (1998)
• Live in Germany (1998) and Trio in Tokyo (1999) (with Steve Gadd and Anthony Jackson, recorded in 1997)
• Solo Live (1999)
• Bob Malach & Michel Petrucciani (2000)
• Concerts Inedits/Live (2000)
• Conversation (2001) with Tony Petrucciani

Biography[link]

First biography : "Michel Petrucciani" (2011) by pianist and musicologist Benjamin Halay by Editions Didier Carpentier (prefaced by Didier Lockwood and Alexandre Petrucciani).

Tributes[link]

• A mosaic by Édouard Detmer in honor of Michel Petrucciani has been in the 18th district of Paris since July 2003.

• "Waltz For Michel Petrucciani", a song on the Finnish jazz Trio Töykeät's album Kudos, is dedicated to him.

• Christian Jacob's album Contradictions does his interpretation of eleven of Petrucciani's compositions as a kind of tribute.^[12]

References[link]

See Also[link]

• French jazz

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Michel Petrucciani

• A Tribute to Michel Petrucciani
• Artist site
• Interview (In French)
• "Mezzo" documentary on Petrucciani with interview
• Photos of Michel Petrucciani's grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery
• Photo of Petrucciani at Find a Grave
• Michel Petrucciani profile at Jazz Professional

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (August 2009)

Pat Metheny
Background information
Born	(1954-08-12) August 12, 1954 (age 57) Lee's Summit. Missouri, United States
Genres	Jazz, jazz fusion, folk jazz world fusion, post-bop, jazz-rock, crossover jazz
Occupations	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Electric guitar, acoustic guitar, guitar synthesizer
Years active	1974–present
Labels	ECM, Geffen, Nonesuch
Associated acts	Pat Metheny Group, Noa, The Orb, Steve Reich
Website	www.patmetheny.com
Notable instruments
Gibson ES-175 Ibanez PM20 Signature Model Ibanez PM100 Signature Model Ibanez PM35 Roland GR-300 Pikasso guitar

Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny (/məˈθiːni/mə-THEE-nee; born August 12, 1954) is an American jazz guitarist and composer.

He is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects. His style incorporates elements of progressive and contemporary jazz, post-bop, latin jazz and jazz fusion.^[1] Pat Metheny has three gold albums and 19 Grammy Awards.^[2] He is the brother of jazz flugelhornist and journalist Mike Metheny.

Biography[link]

Metheny was born and raised in Lee's Summit, Missouri, a suburb southeast of Kansas City. Following his graduation from Lee's Summit High School, he briefly attended the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida in 1972, where he was quickly offered a teaching position. He then moved to Boston to take a teaching assistantship at the Berklee College of Music with jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton.^[3] He first made his name as a teenage prodigy under the wing of Burton.^[4] In 1974 he made his recording debut on two sessions for pianist Paul Bley's and Carol Goss' Improvising Artists label, along with fretless electric bassist Jaco Pastorius.

Metheny entered the wider jazz scene in 1975 when he joined Gary Burton's band, where he played alongside resident jazz guitarist Mick Goodrick. Goodrick was a 1967 alumnus of Berklee, who had held a teaching post there in the early 1970s. The two guitarists were interviewed jointly by Guitar Player Magazine in 1975, bringing them to the attention of fellow guitar aficionados around the world. Metheny's musical momentum carried him rapidly to the point that he had soon written enough material to record his debut album Bright Size Life with Pastorius and drummer Bob Moses.

Metheny's next recording, 1977's Watercolors, was the first to feature pianist Lyle Mays, Metheny's most frequent collaborator. The other musicians on this session were Eberhard Weber on upright bass and Danny Gottlieb on drums. Metheny's next album formalized his partnership with Mays and began the Pat Metheny Group, featuring several songs they co-wrote; the album was released as the eponymous Pat Metheny Group on West German musician/producer Manfred Eicher's ECM record label. Pat Metheny also has released notable solo, trio, quartet and duet recordings with musicians such as Jim Hall, Dave Holland, Roy Haynes, Toninho Horta, Gary Burton, Chick Corea, Pedro Aznar, Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Haden, John Scofield, Jack DeJohnette, Herbie Hancock, Bill Stewart, Ornette Coleman, Brad Mehldau, Joni Mitchell and many others.

Pat Metheny has also joined projects such as Song X with Ornette Coleman; Parallel Realities; and Jazz Baltica, with Ulf Wakenius and other Nordic jazz players like E.S.T., Nils Landgren and has played with unique singers from all over the world, such as Silje Nergaard on Tell Me Where You're Going (1990), Bruce Hornsby on Harbor Lights (1993) and Hot House (1995), Noa on Noa (1994), Abbey Lincoln on A Turtle's Dream (1994) and Anna Maria Jopek on Upojenie (2002). His collaboration with other great musicians also contains works with Milton Nascimento, Santana, Dominic Miller, Michael Brecker, Trilok Gurtu etc.

Pat Metheny has been touring for more than 30 years, playing between 120 and 240 concerts a year.

Pat Metheny Group[link]

The Pat Metheny Group is a fusion band founded in 1977. The first Pat Metheny Group release, 1978's Pat Metheny Group, featured the writing duo of Pat Metheny and pianist Lyle Mays, a collaboration which has spanned over 25 years and 15 albums. The recording featured the electric bass playing of Jaco Pastorius's protégé Mark Egan. The second group album, American Garage (1980), was a breakout hit, reaching #1 on the Billboard Jazz chart and crossing over onto the pop charts as well, largely on the strength of the up-tempo opening track "(Cross the) Heartland" which would become a signature tune for the group. This early incarnation of the group included Mark Egan on electric bass and Dan Gottlieb on drums.

The group built upon its success through constant touring across the USA and Europe. The early group featured a unique sound, particularly due to Metheny's Gibson ES-175 guitar coupled to two Eventide Clockworks' Harmonizer digital delay units and Mays' Oberheim and Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 synthesizers and Steinway piano. Even in this early state the band played in a wide range of styles from folk to rock to experimental. Metheny later started working with the Roland GR-300 guitar synthesizer and the Synclavier guitar system made by New England Digital. Mays expanded his setup with the Synclavier keyboard and later with various other synthesizers.

Left to right: Steve Rodby and Pat Metheny.

From 1982 to 1985 the Pat Metheny Group released Offramp (1982), a live set Travels (1983), and First Circle (1984), as well as The Falcon and the Snowman (1985), a soundtrack album for the movie of the same name in which they collaborated with David Bowie. A single from the soundtrack, 'This Is Not America', reached number 14 in the British Top 40 in early 1985 as well as number 32 in the USA.

Offramp marked the first appearance of bassist Steve Rodby (replacing Mark Egan) and Brazilian "guest artist" Nana Vasconcelos whose work on percussion and wordless vocals marked the first addition of Latin music shadings to the Group's sound, a trend which would continue and intensify on First Circle with the addition of Argentinian multi-instrumentalist Pedro Aznar, which also marked the group debut of drummer Paul Wertico (replacing Dan Gottlieb) - both Rodby and Wertico were members of the Fred Simon Group at the time, and had played in Simon-Bard as well, in Chicago, before joining Metheny.

This period became a peak of commercial popularity of the band, especially for the live recording Travels. First Circle would also be Metheny's last project with ECM Records; Metheny had been a key artist for ECM but left following conceptual disagreements with label founder Manfred Eicher. The next Pat Metheny Group releases would be based around a further intensification of the Brazilian rhythms first heard in the early 1980s. Additional Latin musicians appear as guests, notably Brazilian percussion player Armando Marçal. Still Life (Talking) (1987) was the Group's first release on new label Geffen Records, and featured several popular tracks, followed by Letter from Home (1989) which also featured Aznar and Marçal. During this period The Steppenwolf Theater Company of Chicago featured an assortment of compositions by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays for their production of Lyle Kessler's play Orphans where it has remained special optional music for all productions of the play around the world since.

Metheny then again delved into adventurous solo and band projects, and four years went by before the release of the next record for the next Pat Metheny Group, a live set entitled The Road to You, which featured tracks from the two Geffen studio albums amongst new tunes. The group integrated new instrumentation and technologies into its work, notably Mays' unique playing technique accomplished by adding midi-controlled synth sounds at command during acoustic solos via a pedal on the piano.

Mays and Metheny themselves refer to the following three Pat Metheny Group releases as the triptych: We Live Here (1995), Quartet (1996), and Imaginary Day (1997). Moving away from the Latin style which had dominated the releases of the previous 10 years, these albums were the most wide-ranging and least commercial Group releases, including experimentations with sequenced synthetic drums on one track, free-form improvisation on acoustic instruments, and symphonic signatures, blues and sonata schemes.

After another hiatus, the Pat Metheny Group re-emerged in 2002 with the release Speaking of Now, another change in direction adding musicians to the band who are one generation younger and thus grew up with the Pat Metheny Group. The new members on the bandstand are the drummer Antonio Sanchez from Mexico City, trumpet player Cuong Vu, and bassist, vocalist, guitarist, and percussionist Richard Bona from Cameroon.

Metheny touring in 2003
Courtesy: Tyrone Lancaster

The latest release, 2005's The Way Up, is another large concept record which consists of one 68 minute-long piece (although split into four sections solely for CD navigation), a tightly organized, but not through-composed piece based on a pair of three-note kernels: The opening B, A#, F# and the derived B, A, F#. The reception of The Way Up was consistent, with standing ovations in each of the almost 90 concerts during the world tour 2005. On The Way Up, harmonica player Grégoire Maret from Switzerland was introduced as a new group member, while Richard Bona contributed only as a guest musician.

During the world tour Brazilian multi-instrumentalist Nando Lauria completed the line-up of the Pat Metheny Group. The Way Up was released through Nonesuch Records and all of Metheny's Geffen and Warner Brothers back catalogue is to be released on the label. Core members of the group are leader and founder, guitarist Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays (piano, keyboards) and Steve Rodby (double and electric bass) who joined in 1980. Drummer Paul Wertico replaced Dan Gottlieb in 1983 and continued to play with the group for more than 18 years, until he was replaced by Antonio Sanchez, currently also a member of The Pat Metheny Trio.

The current Pat Metheny Group members are Pat Metheny (guitars), Lyle Mays (piano and keyboards), Steve Rodby (double bass, electric bass), Antonio Sanchez (drums), Cuong Vu (trumpet). Other musicians that have been hired regularly for Metheny Group tours are: the late Mark Ledford (vocals, trumpet, guitar); David Blamires (vocals, miscellaneous instruments); Armando Marçal (percussion); Pedro Aznar (vocals, guitar, percussion); Richard Bona (vocals, guitar, bass, and percussion). On the most recent tour to promote the record "The Way Up", Grégoire Maret (harmonica, percussion, vocals) and Nando Lauria (guitar, percussion, vocals) joined the Group. Pat Metheny has collected 19 Grammy Awards, and of them, as part of The Pat Metheny Group, 10 of those awards were consecutive.

Side projects[link]

When working outside of the confines of the PMG, Metheny has shown different sides to his musical personality. On Secret Story (1992) and Orchestrion (2009), he has ventured into forms of orchestrating his music not covered by the PMG. In the late '80s Metheny began collaborating more with established jazz figures such as Ornette Coleman, Chick Corea, Michael Brecker, Joshua Redman, Charlie Haden, Jim Hall, Dave Holland, Christian McBride, David Sanchez and Roy Haynes. Despite his conversion from Brazilian and Latin jazz into more traditional jazz, Metheny still pushed the envelope in the mid-90s with avante garde albums in Zero Tolerance for Silence and The Sign of Four (with Derek Bailey). Metheny's latest side projects teams him with Brad Mehldau and his Trio. In 2006, Metheny appeared as a sideman on Brecker's last album, Pilgrimage.

Guitar contributions[link]

Pat Metheny and his guitar.

Continuing the tradition of jazz guitarists borrowing tones and techniques from their rock counterparts, Metheny has made alterations to the jazz guitar tone palette.

Twelve-string electric[link]

Prior to Metheny, Pat Martino had used the electric twelve-string guitar on a studio album, Desperado, and John McLaughlin had used a double-neck electric guitar with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. (Lenny Breau had introduced the acoustic twelve-string to jazz.^{[citation needed]}) Metheny introduced alternate 12-string tunings to jazz^{[citation needed]}; these can be heard on tunes such as "Sirabhorn" (from Bright Size Life) and San Lorenzo (from Pat Metheny Group and Travels).

Six-string electric[link]

Metheny's tone, which has evolved over the years, involves using the natural full-frequency response of his hollow-body guitar, combined with high-midrange settings on his amplifier to create a smooth, sustaining lead sound that is virtually devoid of piercing treble yet is able to cut through a dense mix. By using digital signal processing that involves digital delay/chorus and reverb, he has created a big, rich, and resonant instrumental voice.

Guitar synthesizer[link]

Metheny was also one of the first jazz guitarists to make heavy use of the Roland GR-300 Guitar Synthesizer. While John Abercrombie and Bill Frisell also used it heavily in the 1980s, Metheny is the only one of the three who still uses the instrument on a regular basis. Unlike many guitar synth users, Metheny limits himself to a very small number of sounds. In interviews, he has argued that each of the timbres achievable through guitar synthesis should be treated as a separate instrument, and that he has tried to master each of these "instruments" instead of using it for incidental color. One of the "patches" that Pat used often is on Roland's JV-80 "Vintage Synth" expansion card titled "Pat's GR-300".

42-string Pikasso guitar[link]

Metheny plays a custom-made Pikasso I created by Canadian luthier Linda Manzer on "Into the Dream" and on the albums Quartet, Imaginary Day, Jim Hall & Pat Metheny, Trio→Live, and the Speaking of Now Live and Imaginary Day DVDs. Metheny has also used the guitar in his guest appearances on other artist's albums.

Manzer has also made many acoustic guitars for Metheny, including a mini guitar, an acoustic sitar guitar, and also the baritone guitar, which Metheny used for the recording of One Quiet Night. His latest use of the Pikasso is found on the album Metheny Mehldau Quartet, his second collaboration with pianist Brad Mehldau and his trio sidemen Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard; the Pikasso is featured in Metheny's impressionistic composition "The Sound of Water."

Influences[link]

Metheny playing the guitar controller for the Roland GR300 Guitar Synthesizer.

As a young musician, Pat Metheny did everything he could to sound like Wes Montgomery, but when he was 14 or 15, he decided that he felt that it was disrespectful to imitate him.^[5] In the liner notes on the 2-disc Montgomery compilation Impressions: the Verve Jazz Sides, Metheny is quoted as saying, "(Smokin' at the Half Note) is the absolute greatest jazz-guitar album ever made. It is also the record that taught me how to play."

The angular compositions, asymmetrical lines, relentless rhythmic drive, and deep blues feeling of Ornette Coleman's New York is Now (Blue Note) inspired Metheny to find his own direction.^[6] He has recorded Coleman compositions on a number of his records (starting with a medley of "Round Trip" and "Broadway Blues" on his debut Bright Size Life); worked extensively with Coleman collaborators such as Charlie Haden, Dewey Redman, and Billy Higgins; and has even made a record, Song X, with Coleman.

Metheny's playing (as well as his tone) also show significant influence by Jim Hall, Joe Diorio, Kenny Burrell, Joe Pass, John McLaughlin and other classic jazz players^{[citation needed]}. Metheny has often been quoted saying that he is as likely to name non-guitarists as significant stylistic influences as fellow guitar players, giving as examples players like Clifford Brown and John Coltrane^{[citation needed]}. He has stated that Miles Davis' live album Four & More was hugely influential on his pursuit into jazz music. He has also admitted to being heavily influenced by The Beatles, going so far as to say that everything by The Beatles has impacted him as a musician. He has paid significant attention to the evolution of guitar playing across genres, however, and is familiar with the playing of notables from the likes of rocker Eddie Van Halen to Leo Kottke.^{[citation needed]}

In particular, he has been influenced by Brazilian music--both the European-influenced jazz sound of the bossa nova and the intensely polyrhythmic Afro-Brazilian sounds of the country's northeast.^{[citation needed]} Metheny made 3 albums on ECM with the Brazilian vocalist and percussionist Naná Vasconcelos in the early 1980s. He also lived in Brazil from the late 1980s to the early 1990s and performed with several local musicians such as Milton Nascimento and Toninho Horta. He also played with Antonio Carlos Jobim as a tribute, in a live performance in Carnegie Hall Salutes The Jazz Masters: Verve 50th Anniversary before Jobim’s passing away.

He is also a fan of several pop music artists, especially singer/songwriters including The Beatles; James Taylor (after whom he named the song "James" on Offramp); Bruce Hornsby, Cheap Trick, Joni Mitchell, with whom he performed on her Shadows and Light (1980, Asylum/ Elektra) live tour. Metheny is also fond of Buckethead's music. He also worked with, sponsored or helped to make attractive recordings of unique singer/songwriters from all over the world such as Pedro Aznar (Argentina), David Bowie (UK), Silje Nergaard (Norway), Noa (Israel), and Anna Maria Jopek (Poland).^[7]

Two of Metheny's recordings, The Way Up and Orchestrion, evidence the influence of American minimalist composer Steve Reich and utilize similar rhythmic figures structured around pulse. Reich's composition Electric Counterpoint was first recorded by Metheny and appears on the Different Trains CD released by Nonesuch Records in 1987.

Metheny Brothers[link]

Pat took part in recording some of the CDs by his older brother, trumpeter Mike Metheny, a jazz musician and a trumpet player based in Kansas City, Missouri, among them Day In - Night Out (1986) and more recently Close Enough for Love (2001).^[8][9]

Bibliography[link]

• Goins, Wayne E. (2001). Emotional Response to Music: Pat Metheny's Secret Story. Edwin Mellen Press. 

Discography[link]

Early recognition[link]

Chuck Lorre (producer of Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory) mentions Pat Metheny in his weekly 'vanity card'^[10] (shown briefly after the credits of the Season 1 Episode 12 episode of The Big Bang Theory entitled "The Jerusalem Duality"). To summarize, Chuck Lorre was a professional guitarist at the age of 22. He was invited to audit a jazz guitar class at the University of Miami, and his ego was crushed when Pat Metheny began to play. Chuck says that this experience played a part in shifting his focus toward television.

Awards & Recognition[link]

In 2011, Pat Metheny was voted "Guitarist of the Year" in the DownBeat Magazine's Readers Poll.

In 2010, Pat Metheny was voted "Guitarist of the Year" in the DownBeat Magazine's Readers Poll.

In 2009, Pat Metheny was voted "Guitarist of the Year" in the DownBeat Magazine Readers Poll.

In 1995, Pat Metheny was granted the Miles Davis Award by the Montreal International Jazz Festival.

List of Grammy Awards received by Pat Metheny:^[11]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pat Metheny

• The Pat Metheny homepage - biographies, discographies, discussion and songbook forums, tour dates, etc.
• The most complete Pat Metheny discography with radio shows, promos a. o.
• Pat Metheny entry at AllMusic.com
• Pat Metheny profile, NNDB
• Pat Metheny's guitar rig
• Pat Metheny at the Internet Movie Database
• Pat Metheny discography at MusicBrainz
• Pat Metheny's artist file on the Montreal International Jazz Festival's website

Gerald Clayton
Background information
Born	(1984-05-11) May 11, 1984 (age 28) Utrecht, Netherlands
Origin	Southern California, United States
Genres	Mainstream jazz
Occupations	Musician
Instruments	Piano
Labels	ArtistShare Verve Sin-Drome
Associated acts	Gerald Clayton Trio Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra The Clayton Brothers Diana Krall Roberta Gambarini Quartet
Website	www.geraldclayton.com

Gerald William Clayton is a jazz pianist and composer born in Utrecht, Netherlands, and raised in Southern California. He is the son of bassist/bandleader John Clayton and the nephew of multi-instrumentalist wind player Jeff Clayton.

Biography[link]

Gerald Clayton studied classical piano with Linda Buck for eleven years, starting at the age of seven,^[1] and jazz piano and composition with Donald Vega, Shelly Berg, Kenny Barron and Billy Childs. He graduated from Los Angeles County High School for the Arts in 2002. At graduation, he was selected by the Music for Youth Foundation as one of four young musicians to receive a scholarship and perform at Steinway Hall.^[2] In September, 2002, he received the Shelly Manne Award for emerging young artists from the Los Angeles Jazz Society.^[3] In 2006, he received the Bachelor of Arts degree through the Jazz Studies program at USC Thornton School of Music; a program that included his father as senior lecturer. He took second place in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Piano Competition.^[4][5] In the winter of 2006–2007, Gerald Clayton moved to New York City where he currently resides. Clayton is currently represented by Addeo Music International (AMI).

Influences[link]

Gerald Clayton reports that his influences include Oscar Peterson, Monty Alexander, Benny Green and Ray Brown. His most important musical influence is his father, John Clayton.

Major appearances[link]

Gerald Clayton currently tours with The Clayton Brothers and the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. He leads the various permutations of the Gerald Clayton Trio, including the addition of extra players and the accompaniment of jazz vocalists. He has performed in a duo with his father, John Clayton. He appears regularly at the Jazz Gallery in New York, where his own compositions are presented. He has taken part in several world tours with the Roy Hargrove Quintet.

• November 14, 2005 Gold Room of the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. "Handful of Keys" with Robert Edward Thies^[6]
• Summer 2006 world tour with the Roy Hargrove Quintet
• January 13, 2007 Jazz Gallery Composers Series. Gerald Clayton Trio with David Wong on bass, Pete Van Ostrand on drums and Roy Hargrove joining on trumpet^[7]
• January 12, 2007 IAJE 2007 NEA Jazz Masters Awards Concert, The Clayton Brothers Quintet.
• April 11, 2007 Gerald Clayton Trio with Melissa Morgan at Steamers^[8]
• July 27, 2007 Roy Hargrove Quintet at Centrum
• Summer/Fall 2007 world tour with Roy Hargrove Quintet
• September 28, 2007 Gerald Clayton Composers Series at The Jazz Gallery
• November 9, 2007 Gerald Clayton Trio at Kennedy Center
• February 1, 2008 Gerald Clayton & Yosvany Terry. Composers Series Part II at The Jazz Gallery
• February 14, 2008 through February 17 Newport Beach Jazz Festival
• February 21–22, 2008 Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival at University of Idaho
• May 8, 2009 opening concert of the Klavierfestival Ruhr at Bochum, Germany
• July 9, 2011 Clayton performed with his Gerald Clayton trio at the North Sea Jazz Festival at Rotterdam in The Netherlands

Fan-funded debut as a leader[link]

The fan-funded ArtistShare platform was used for Clayton's discographic debut as a leader, releasing^[9] the trio album Two-Shade.^[10]

Grammy nomination[link]

In 2010, Gerald Clayton was nominated for a Grammy for 'Best Instrumental Composition' for "Battle Circle", which is featured on the also Grammy nominated Clayton Brothers album, New Song and Dance. In December 2009, Clayton was nominated for Best Improvised Jazz Solo, for his solo on Cole Porter's "All of You" off of Clayton's Two-Shade album. His nomination was one in a pool of much more established jazz stars such as Terence Blanchard and Roy Hargrove, with whom Clayton toured for several years.

Additionally, The Clayton Brothers' Brother To Brother received a Grammy nomination in the Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group category. Gerald Clayton plays piano on the album, which holds loosely to a theme of songs that were originally made famous by earlier musical groups of brothers such as Thad, Hank and Elvin Jones. Clayton's piano playing was described by Ben Ratliff of The New York Times as "[filling] up the available space" with Clayton "busying himself with prettiness and authority."^[11] Ratliff continued, "If you've listened to much hard bop or mainstream jazz of the early '60s, you might find some easygoing clichés in his playing – or maybe even an awful lot of them – but they are smoothly rendered. More important, the friendly rhetoric of this music allows them."^[11]

Gallery[link]

• Clayton Brothers at IAJE Jan 2007.jpg

  John and Gerald Clayton performing as part of the Clayton Brothers Quintet at IAJE in 2007.

Discography[link]

• Bond: The Paris Sessions - Gerald Clayton (2011)
• When the Heart Emerges Glistening - Ambrose Akinmusire (2011)
• Bridging the Gap - Dick Oatts & Terell Stafford Quintet (2010)
• Two-Shade – Gerald Clayton (2009)
• Reverence – Kendrick Scott (2009)
• Until I Met You – Melissa Morgan (2009)
• Brother to Brother – The Clayton Brothers (2008)
• Earfood – Roy Hargrove (2008)
• From This Moment On – Diana Krall (2006)
• Christmas Songs – Diana Krall (2006)
• Easy to Love – Roberta Gambarini (2006)
• Back In The Swing Of Things – Clayton Brothers (2005)
• Dissertation on the State of Bliss – Laura Welland (2005)
• Complex Simplicity – Teedra Moses (2004)
• Trumpet Talk – Bobby Rodriguez (2003)

Personal life[link]

Clayton played competition soccer in school for eight years and enjoys dancing.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Gerald Clayton Interview with Linus Wyrsch, breakthruradio.com, November 2010
• Gerald Clayton official website
• Flickr photos of Gerald Clayton
• Gerald Clayton Trio: Live At The Village Vanguard by NPR

Yvonne Rainer (born November 24, 1934, San Francisco) is an American dancer, choreographer and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is frequently challenging and experimental. Her work is sometimes classified as minimalist art.

Early life[link]

Rainer was born in the Richmond district of San Francisco to parents, Joseph and Jeanette, who considered themselves radicals. As a child, she was sent to live at Sunnyside, a boarding institution in Palo Alto, with her older brother Ivan for several years. Her parents visited them each Sunday in their 1938 Pontiac Sedan. By 1941, she moved back with her parents at the age of seven to a new house in the Sunset that she describes as "an unfamiliar neighborhood of white protestant working class families." From the age of twelve, she had been "exposed to the heady commingling of poets, painters, writers, and Italian anarchists." She went to Lowell High, and after graduation, she attended San Francisco Junior College for a year, then Berkeley for a week. She dropped out of college by the end of September 1952.

At a very young age^[vague], her father introduced her to films, while her mother introduced her to ballet. While she was still at Sunnyside, her mother enrolled her in dance classes. Rainer writes,

I am five or six when my mother enrolls me in a dance school a few blocks from Sunnyside. After being taken to the school several times, I am expected to walk there by myself once a week...All the little girls are able to touch the backs of their heads with their toes. It seems to me that I am the only one who can't.

Rainer found herself hanging out at the Cellar around 1955, where she would listen to poets accompanied by cool jazz. It was here that she met Al Held, a painter. He introduced her to various artists whom were natives of New York. It was in August 1956, that she followed Al to New York at the age of twenty-two.

I remember walking down 5th Avenue past Madison Square Park, overwhelmed by an ineffable sense of infinite possibility. Someone else might have described it as a 'conquer-the-world' kind of feeling. For me it was simply pure open-minded excitement. Though I had no idea what the future held, it was already signaling with open arms.

^{[citation needed]}

It was Dolly Casella, a close friend, who introduced Rainer to the dance classes of Edith Stephen, a modern dancer. She went to her first adult dance class with Stephen who told her that she was not very "turned out." Rainer admits, "What she didn't say was something that I would gradually recognize in the next couple of years, that my lack of turn-out and limberness coupled with a long back and short legs would reduce my chances of performing with any established dance company." In 1959, she began studying at the Martha Graham School and later with James Waring and Merce Cunningham.^[1]

Dance and choreographic work[link]

Rainer was one of the organizers of the Judson Dance Theater, a focal point for vanguard activity in the postmodern dance world throughout the 1960s, and she formed her own company after the Judson performances ended. Rainer is noted for an approach to dance that treats the body more as the source of an infinite variety of movements than as the purveyor of emotion or drama. Many of the elements she employed—such as repetition, patterning, tasks, and games—later became standard features of modern dance.

In her early dances, Rainer focused on sounds and movements, and often juxtaposed the two in arbitrary combinations. Somewhat inspired by the chance tactics favored by Cunningham, Rainer’s choreography was a combination of classical dance steps contrasted with everyday, ordinary, pedestrian movement. She used a great deal of repetition, and employed narrative and verbal noises (including wails, grunts, mumbles, squeaks, and shrieks, etc.) within the body of her dances.

Repetition and sound were employed in her first choreographed piece, Three Satie Spoons (1961), a solo performed by Rainer. She made squeaking noises throughout the piece and said, “The grass is greener when the sun is yellow^[3].” Over time her work shifted to use more narrative and cohesive spoken word. Ordinary Dance (1962) was a combination of movement and narrative, and featured the repetition of simple movements while Rainer recited a poetic autobiography. One characteristic of Rainer’s early choreography was her fascination with using non-dancer performers. We Shall Run (1963) had seven performers, both dancers and non-dancers clad in street clothes who ran around the stage for twelve minutes creating various floor patterns to music by Berlioz^[4].

A turning point in Rainer’s choreography came in 1964, when, in an effort to strip movements of their expressive qualities, she turned to game structures to create works. All movement aimed to be direct, functional, and to avoid stylization. In so doing, she aimed to remove the drama from the dance movement, and to question the role of entertainment in dance. Throughout this stage of her choreography she worked towards movement becoming something of an object, to be examined without any psychological, social or formal motives. She opted for neutrality in her dances, presenting the objective presence of the human body and its movements, and refused to project a persona or create a narrative within her dances. In 1965, as a reaction to many of the previously stated feelings, Rainer created her "No Manifesto," which was a strategy formulated to demystify dance:

This exploration in reducing dance to the essentials climaxed with one of Rainer’s most famous pieces, Trio A (1966), initially part of a larger work entitled The Mind Is a Muscle. Something of a paradigmatic statement that questioned the aesthetic goals of postmodern dance, Trio A was a short dance that consisted of one long phrase. In Trio A, Rainer attempted to remove objects from the dance while simultaneously retaining a workmanlike approach of task-based performance. Not simple but certainly not fancy, it was a demanding piece of work, both to watch and to perform. She explored such dynamics as repetition, the distribution of energy, and phrasing. The movement consisted of task-oriented actions, emphasizing neutral performance and featuring no interaction with the audience. The dancer was to never make eye contact with her observers, and in the case that the movement required the dancer to face the audience, the eyes were to be averted from the audience or the head was to be involved in movement. As the Museum of Modern Art describes it: "It freed the dancer's body from the rigid fragmentation and artificiality of choreographed movement."^[6] The first time the piece was performed it was entitled The Mind is a Muscle, Part 1, and was performed by a set of three simultaneous solos by Rainer, Steve Paxton, and David Gordon. Trio A has been widely adapted and interpreted by other choreographers.

Rainer has choreographed more than 40 concert works.

A few of her other works include:

• Three Seascapes (1961) a solo of Rainer’s considered to be radical because the finale featured Rainer screaming wildly and thrashing around the space.^[7]
• Terrain (1962) was Rainer’s first evening length work. It had several sections, including two “Talking Solos,” which were autobiographical stories recited to an unrelated movement phrase.^[8]
• Continuous Project-Altered Daily (1969) was installed at the Castelli Warehouse in Harlem. It produced "spontaneous behavior within a formal setting."
• War an antiwar dance performed by thirty people at Douglass College protesting Vietnam in 1970.
• Street Action a performance to protest the Cambodian invasion in 1970. Visually, there were three columns of people wearing black armbands while walking with their heads down.^[9]
• This is the story of a woman who… (1973) was one of Rainer’s many works that used objects invested with strong meanings and attempted to strip them of that meaning. In this work she used a gun but instructed the dancers to never point or fire it at anyone.^[10]

Cinematic work[link]

Rainer sometimes included filmed sequences in her dances, and in the mid-1970s she began to turn her attention to film directing. Her early films do not follow narrative conventions, instead combining reality and fiction, sound and visuals, to address social and political issues. Rainer directed several experimental films about dance and performance, including Lives of Performers (1972), Film About a Woman Who (1974), and Kristina Talking Pictures (1976). Her later films include The Man Who Envied Women (1985), Privilege (1990), and MURDER and murder (1996). MURDER and murder, more conventional in its narrative structure, is a lesbian love story as well as a reflection on urban life and on breast cancer, and it features Rainer. Her film work^[12] has received several awards, and in 1990 she was a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship.

Short synopses:^[13]

• Journeys From Berlin/1971 explores the ramifications of terrorism
• Kristina Talking Pictures looks at the contradictions between the private and public persona
• Lives of Performers is about a man who cannot decide between two women
• The Man Who Envied Women is a film about the breakup of a marriage
• MURDER and murder (see paragraph above)
• A Film About a Woman Who... is considered Rainer's landmark film, about a woman with sexual dissatisfaction
• Privilege a film about menopause.

Feminism[link]

Reading feminist writing and theory allowed Rainer to examine her own experience as a woman, and she was able to think of herself as a participant in culture and society. Little did Rainer realize that her prior choreography was a direct challenge of the "traditional" dance and ultimately feminist in nature. Throughout the 1980s, Rainer was celibate, and she was determined "not to enter into any more ill-fated heterosexual adventures..." She began attending Gay Pride Parades and considered herself a "political lesbian." Rainer participated in a demonstration in New York and Washington D.C. to protest the challenges to Roe v. Wade during this same time period. At the age of 56, she overcame her fears of identifying as a lesbian by becoming intimate with Martha Gever. She says it was "euphoric." They are still together today.

Feminist Audre Lorde's famous statement posed, "You can't dismantle the master's house using the master's tools." Rainer rebutted her theory by stating, "You can, if you expose the tools."^[14]

References[link]

Notes

Bibliography

• Atlas, Charles. Philadelphia, PA: University of the arts. 
• Green, Shelley (1994). Radical Juxtaposition. The films of Yvonne Rainer. New York: Scarecrow Press Inc.. ISBN 0-8108-2863-4. 
• Rainer, Yvonne (1999). A Woman Who... Essays, Interviews, Scripts. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-6078-4. 
• Rainer, Yvonne (2006). Feelings Are Facts: A Life. Cambridge, Massachusetts & London: The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-18251-3. 

Archival Collections

• The Fales Library at NYU houses the Yvonne Rainer Grand Union performance videotape collection. This collection contains seven videotapes that document a series of Grand Union performances. The performances took place on May 28, 1972 at the Joe LoGiudice Gallery at 59 Wooster Street in SoHo.
• Yvonne Rainer papers, Getty Research Institute. Los Angeles, California Her papers document her life as an artist from the late 1950s through 2006, and include photographic material dated as early as 1933. Materials include dance scores; programs and posters; photographic and audiovisual documentation of performances, rehearsals, and films; correspondence; writings, including Rainer's feature-length film scripts; and critical response to her work.

External links[link]

• Yvonne Rainer speaks to Robert Storr about her life as choreographer and film-maker at the Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Visual Arts.
• The Fales Library Guide to the Yvonne Rainer Grand Union performance videotape collection
• Biography on sensesofcinema.com.
• Review of Feelings Are Facts, by Daniel Ross.
• Yvonne Rainer in the Video Data Bank
• Films by Yvonne Rainer and Writings by and about Yvonne Rainer at Ubuweb
• Conceptual Paradise
• "Step-by-step guide to dance: Yvonne Rainer"
• Yvonne Rainer, "Letters to Judith Mayne"
• Yvonne Rainer at the Internet Movie Database
• "Yvonne Rainer, Trio A at perform feminism"