Fennessy / Bishop / Smith - CERBERUS: BARK / BITE (March 2022 Balance Point Acoustics)

1. BARK 22:06

2. BITE 24:51

Sean C. Fennessy - cornet/stuff

Jeb Bishop - trombone/things

Damon Smith - double bass/objects

Recorded live at Machines with Magnets, Pawtucket Ri May/December 2018

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Ra Kalam Bob Moses / Damon Smith duo - Purecircle (February 2022 Balance Point Acoustics)

Dip your fingers in the boiling water.

Scald your fingers.

Let your fingers sing the pain.

From "Sounds" (Klänge) Wassily Kandinsky 1912

1. Let Your Fingers Sing The Pain 06:40

2. Radiated Violet 04:59

3. Purecircle 1 01:02

4. Sound Hangs Hopelessly in the Sky 09:13

5. Wild Foam 03:34

6. True Mortar 07:09

7. Purecircle 2 01:02

8. Heavy Earth 07:27

9. Invisible Bell 05:12

10. Speaking Windows 09:47

11. Purecircle 3 01:04

12. The Blueish Wavelet Tosses 06:46

13. Cooled off Flash 03:37

14. Who Led You in Deeper 09:17

Ra Kalam Bob Moses - drums, percussion, gongs, spring drum

Damon Smith - double bass, Voice (track 2)

Design by Alan Anzalone

Cover art by Ra-Kalam Bob Moses

Mixed and Mastered by Weasel Walter

David J. Sullivan - recording engineer

Recorded at Native Pulse on October 14th 2021, in Quincy, Massachusetts

Double bass parts for Purecircles 1-3 recorded by Ryan Wasbo at Birdcloud studios on January 28th

Purecircles 1-3 mixed by Ryan Wasoba

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Jason Stein / Damon Smith / Adam Shead - Volumes & Surfaces (January 2022 Balance Point Acoustics)

1. Heterodox Symmetry 04:27

2. The Deaf Voice of the Light 15:04

3. Clearly, Blue Is for Sitting 08:46

4. The Non Dimension of the Present 11:29

5. Clearly, Blue Is for Sitting 08:32

Jason Stein - bass clarinet

Damon Smith - double bass

Adam Shead - drums, percussion

Recorded in Chicago, August 29, 2021 by BIll Harris

1-5 at Elastic Arts 6-8 at The Hungry Brain

Design By Adam Shead

Mixed & Mastered by

Cover art by Adam Shead

Titles from the writings of Eduardo Chillida

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Damon Smith + Peter Kowald, Joëlle Léandre & Bertram Turetzky - Bass Duos 2000​-​2007 (January 15, 2021 Balance Point Acoustics)

I met Joëlle Léandre when she was a visiting professor at Mills college in 2002. This was very exciting, as I had been collecting her albums since I started to play the double bass and she was an important influence on my work. I had a bass lesson scheduled with her the day we lost Maestro Kowald. She was very close to him and it was devastating to her. For me, it meant losing a role model; for her, it was losing a close friend and supporter. We had a long phone conversation and she told me many stories about him. A few days later, Henry Kaiser graciously offered to let me record a solo for Kowald in his home studio. I thought a bass duo with Joëlle would be more fitting and I believe it was. Still, the sadness surrounding the session kept us from dealing with it for many years. I would get it out and try to consider track order or titles, maybe email Joëlle about it, and that would be the extent. Both her work and his remain a guide for me as I continue my work in the music. I am glad to finally get this session out into the world!

The reason I started playing music was because of seeing the great Mike Watt play with the band fIREHOSE. His extremely physical and multi-textured approach to the bass guitar logically pushed me to improvised music and the double bass. In the 1990s I had formed a bass quartet with George Cremaschi, Lincoln Smith, and Morgan Gubberman and we decided to ask Watt for a composition for our next performance. Watt replied saying he has lots of compositions and that he would just come up and play them with us. The music he brought consisted of his pieces from the monumental minutemen album Double Nickels on the Dime. I am a bit too young to have seen the minutemen so this was an incredible experience: the first time I heard these songs live was playing them with Watt! I should mention that Watt's bass duo DOS, with the great Black Flag bassist Kira Roessler, is now his longest running band and the first time I ever heard a bass duo was one of their albums! We got quite a nice guarantee for the show and I asked Watt if we could spend half of it bringing Bertram on board.

Watt was excited by the idea! Bert was into playing a rock club and said "I used to play places where you had to check your guns and knives at the door. It will be great!" At the show a punk rocker yelled, "Play louder" during a break in his set that night. Bert replied, ”You listen louder.” I ended up getting lessons from Bert, organizing many Bay Area concerts and workshops for him, and we developed a friendship. For me as a young bassist, he was very generous with his time. His commitment to improvised music was very inspiring as was his tireless effort to catalog the available timbres and techniques for the instrument, resulting in his book The Contemporary Contrabass. Originally meant as a resource for composers, it is an incredible guide for improvisors trying to deepen their relationship to the instrument. During a phone conversation one of us casually suggested a duo album. The magnitude of recording with this master did not sink in until just a few days beforehand! It was originally released in an edition of 100 CDRs that sold out pretty quickly.

These experiences are formative for me and have shaped the way I work with the instrument in improvised music. Not everyone has the opportunity to go directly to the source of the area they are working in, and these duos are certainly the source for me. Dave Holland and Barre Phillips made the first improvised double bass duo LP. It seems to me that Kowald's series of three LPs on FMP with Barre Phillips, Maarten van Regteren Altena and Barry Guy solidified it as a working method, and this meant having the duo as an available format in which I could work. My longest running bass duo is with the Texas bassist Thomas Helton, and hopefully an album will come out of our work as well.

Damon Smith

1. Peter Kowald & Damon Smith - Broken Mirrors April 28th 1 15:34

2. Peter Kowald & Damon Smith - Broken Mirrors April 28th 2 16:07

3. Peter Kowald & Damon Smith - Reflections on April 28th 1 03:45

4. Peter Kowald & Damon Smith - Reflections on April 28th 2 03:58

5. Peter Kowald & Damon Smith - Reflections on April 28th 3 03:12

6. Peter Kowald & Damon Smith - Reflections on April 28th 4 04:38

7. Peter Kowald & Damon Smith - Reflections on April 28th 5 02:32

8. Peter Kowald & Damon Smith - Reflections on April 28th 6 03:57

9. Peter Kowald & Damon Smith - Reflections on April 28th 7 07:20

10. Joëlle Léandre & Damon Smith - Throw off the Husk 04:35

11. Joëlle Léandre & Damon Smith - Ancestor & the Future 03:04

12. Joëlle Léandre & Damon Smith - Lost & Lucid 03:24

13. Joëlle Léandre & Damon Smith - Time Dries Up (DS solo) 01:18

14. Joëlle Léandre & Damon Smith - Mirrors Without Dust 02:34

15. Joëlle Léandre & Damon Smith - Uweaving the Threads (JL solo) 04:50

16. Joëlle Léandre & Damon Smith - Listening to the Same Blood 02:46

17. Joëlle Léandre & Damon Smith - Hive of Instants (DS solo) 02:19

18. Joëlle Léandre & Damon Smith - Building our Erosions 03:31

19. Joëlle Léandre & Damon Smith - Flowers Without Venom 03:05

20. Joëlle Léandre & Damon Smith - Unfingers its Grasp 04:22

21. Joëlle Léandre & Damon Smith - Sky Without Birds 01:58

22. Bertram Turetzky & Damon Smith - Vulturegrip 04:12

23. Bertram Turetzky & Damon Smith - Coalmarked 10:37

24. Bertram Turetzky & Damon Smith - Chalkravine 06:35

25. Bertram Turetzky & Damon Smith - Woodsong 02:05

26. Bertram Turetzky & Damon Smith - Slickensides 06:14

27. Bertram Turetzky & Damon Smith - Southbright 10:51

28. Bertram Turetzky & Damon Smith - Northtrue 08:27

Damon Smith Bass Duos

Peter Kowald 2000

Joëlle Léandre 2002

Bertram Turetzky 2007

Disc One:

Peter Kowald double bass

Damon Smith double bass

Broken mirrors:

Recorded on 28 April 2000 at Gallery 2310 Oakland, California; this is one piece with an index point for convenience only.

Reflections on April 28th 2000:

Recorded on 3 May 2000 in Oakland, California

Remastered by Weasel Walter 2021

Front cover drawing (reproduced above) by Peter Kowald; design by Kowald and Jürgen Schäfer.

Disc Two:

Joëlle Léandre double bass

Damon Smith Jdouble bass

Recorded by Henry Kaiser September 2002

DAT transfer by Ryan Edwards

Mixed by Maikol Seminatore 2020

Mastered by Weasel Walter

Titles from English translations of poems by Andrée Chedid

Disc Three:

Bertram Turetzky double bass

Damon Smith double bass.

Remastered by Weasel Walter 2021

Recorded on 11 November 2007 at 1510 8th St. Performance Space, Oakland, California, tracks 1-5 in studio, tracks 6-7 live.

Front cover photograph (reproduced above) by Damon Smith; design by Alan Anzalone.

Titles are English translation of invented German compound words by Paul Celan

Front cover drawing by Peter Kowald

Overall design by Allen Anzalone

Thanks to Clifford Allen for editing help!

PDF of full cover art & liner notes including the original Mirrors, Broken, But No Dust notes included with all downloads

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Paul Hartsaw / Damon Smith / Jerome Bryerton - Precipitation of a DecisIon (January 2022 Balance Point Acoustics)

1. Demarcation of Contents 05:38

2. Memory Prop 04:12

3. Sea of Reeds 06:08

4. Empty Time 05:28

5. Dissolution Through Expansion 02:41

6. Bits of Heat 04:05

7. Elimination of Empty Spaces 08:28

8. Light in the Pool 04:06

9. Reversal of Loss 06:12

10. Trickling from Dripping Wounds 04:25

11. Memory not Reliable 04:38

12. Paul Hartsaw / Damon Smith - Ghost with Necktie 02:41

13. Paul Hartsaw / Damon Smith - Flour in the Sausage 05:06

14. Paul Hartsaw / Damon Smith - To Each His (Own) Palm Tree 11:19

15. Paul Hartsaw / Damon Smith - Potato Pyramid in Zwirner's Cellar 04:43

16. Paul Hartsaw / Damon Smith - Higher Beings Command-Paint an Angel 02:35

17. Paul Hartsaw Damon Smith - Knitted Alps 01:27

18. Paul Hartsaw / Damon Smith - Untitled (Platypus) 04:53

19. Paul Hartsaw / Damon Smith - Protocol from the 29th of July 07:44

Cover Art:

Eliot Daughtry Postcard 1 & 5

Photographs by Melissa Venator

Design by Alan Anzalone

Disc 1 Precipitation of a Decision (track 1-11)

Artist: Paul Hartsaw – Damon Smith – Jerome Bryerton

Title: Precipitation of a Decision

Recorded: Bird Cloud Studio in St. Louis, MO

Date: May 15, 2021 (05/15/2021)

Recording Engineer: Ryan Wasoba

Paul Hartsaw – tenor saxophone;

Damon Smith – double bass;

Jerome Bryerton – percussion

Ttitles from Anselm Kiefer's Notebooks

Disc 2: The Ride on the 8 Of Infinity (tracks 12-19)

Artist: Paul Hartsaw – Damon Smith

Title: The Ride on the 8 Of Infinity

Recorded: 1510 Studio in Oakland, CA

Date: February 2, 2008 (02/02/2008)

Recording Engineer: Scott Looney

Mastered by Weasel Walter

Paul Hartsaw – soprano & tenor saxophones;

Damon Smith – double bass, laptop, field recordings

For Sigmar Polke

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Davis / Smith / Cheli Trio - Composite (November 2021 Balance Point Acoustics)

13 Improvisations for guitar, electronics, double bass and percussion

1. Carve 01:03

2. Quarry 05:03

3. Cluster 06:14

4. Nodes 03:31

5. Arches 04:30

6. Folded 02:35

7. Steep 04:42

8. Basin 04:24

9. Composite 04:18

10. Form 05:23

11. Trench 03:50

12. Crust 05:29

13. Form 11:55

Seth Andrew Davis - guitar and electronics

Kevin Cheli - percussion and mallets

Damon Smith - double bass

Recorded by Ryan Wasoba on March 27, 2021,

at Bird Cloud Recording in Collinsville, IL

Mixed/Mastered by Ryan Wasoba

Artwork/Design by Kevin Cheli

All music by Kevin Cheli, Seth Andrew Davis, and Damon Smith

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Rebecca Novak / Danny Kamins / Sandy Ewen / Damon Smith / Jerome Bryerton - Groundwater Recharge (September 1, 2021 Balance Point Acoustics)

1. Groundwater Recharge 07:17

2. Trio A 04:45

3. 2-way speakerphone system with caller ID 06:59

4. Trio Anemone 05:04

5. Hierarchy of Furniture* 07:41

6. Trio A/B 04:08

7. Back Channeling 08:48

Improvised music for Quintet (+Trios)

Rebecca Novak - piano, cornet, radio, glassware

Danny Kamins - baritone sax

Sandy Ewen - guitar

Damon Smith - double bass

Jerome Bryerton - percussion

Track 2 - Ewen, Bryerton, Smith

Track 4 - Novak, Bryerton, Smith

Track 6 - Kamins, Bryerton, Smith

*Alauna Rubin - clarinet (Track 5)

Recorded in May 2016 by Jonathan Chan and Alauna Rubin at SugarHill Recording Studios, Houston, Texas

Mixed & Mastered by Ryan Edwards

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Jerome Bryerton / Damon Smith - .​.​.​There Must be a Reason for Generating Sounds​.​.​. (July 2021 Balance Point Acoustics)

11 duos for Wolfgang Fuchs

From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, Jerome & I toured & recorded with the great Wolfgang Fuchs. It was a formative experience for both of us. All titles are quotes by Fuchs. He was a constant source of wisdom and humor.

1. Three (-1) Italian Dogs 02:05

2. This is Clear 07:07

3. I Don't Want to go to Porky's 06:30

4. One Minute, One Espresso, One Cigarette 05:42

5. I am Sorry, You Cannot be Both 06:08

6. I Played Very Loud and I did not Listen 09:22

7. This is not About Friendship 08:54

8. The Blue Letter 04:03

9. From the East 03:10

10. I like Music - and Musicians (Gary Peacock in memorium) 03:36

11. Your Lights Made me Public 03:40

Recorded by Ryan Wasoba

Mixed and Mastered by Weasel Walter

Design by Alan Anzalone

Cover artwork by Max Neumann

© Max Neumann

Photgraph of Fuchs & Bryerton by Damon Smith

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Roscoe Mitchell / Sandy Ewen / Damon Smith / Weasel Walter - A Railroad Spike Forms The Voice (May 2021 Balance Point Acoustics)

“Don’t follow.”

That’s the admonition saxophonist and composer Roscoe Mitchell (b. 1940) was known to give his students at Oakland’s Mills College in one-on-one sessions. In musical communication and creation, not following or directly responding to others is central to Mitchell’s philosophy and approach. As he said to me in a recent conversation, “I just let things develop with my intent, with my work, and I’ve never been a person that went around looking for people to play with. I mostly just work on my music and let things unfold, being that I’m a true believer in that you set your own environment and then you let it unwind on its own. I think the main thing is to concentrate on your music and the various ways that you develop it.” Building on a decades-long tenure as one of creative music’s leading minds, Mitchell began teaching at Mills in Fall 2007 and retired in 2019. He also taught at CalArts, the University of Wisconsin in Madison (where he now lives), and the University of Illinois. Spurred by artist-educators like Mitchell, Mills’ graduate program in Performance and Literature, which includes Improvisation as a core tenet, has been a key component of the Bay Area music community.

Mitchell is unflaggingly focused on his own practice as a soloist and composer, the latter often including large-scale works for orchestra. His predilection for collaborators that he can regularly practice or study with results in fewer one-off meetings that could shake things loose. That said, he is adamant about “always learning” and the importance of constant reflection and growth cannot be understated. Therefore, this collaboration with the working trio of guitarist Sandy Ewen, bassist Damon Smith, and drummer Weasel Walter is among the more intriguing meetings to emerge in his discography. It presents a situation that is both new and an example of each musician’s devotion to their art, spurred on by curiosity and conviction. A Railroad Spike Forms the Voice (its title drawn from a poem by late and longtime Mitchell collaborator Joseph Jarman) was recorded in April 2014 at Oakland’s Duende, a restaurant and venue run by free music connoisseur and chef Paul Canales. Smith and Walter had been part of a workshop performance Mitchell directed at Mills (though neither attended the school). The saxophonist reconnected with Smith and was introduced to Ewen’s music at a 2012 workshop in Houston. As the bassist relates, “Roscoe criticized everyone there except for Sandy. She was doing her thing, and he said to a saxophone player ‘why don’t you play like her? I can listen to what she’s doing for hours, this is great.’ When he asked what Weasel and I were up to, I told him that we just made a trio record with Sandy and he said he’d like to hear it.” According to Ewen, Mitchell played their first trio album (ugEXPLODE ug53) for Mills students as an example of quality improvised music, and that sowed further seeds for an eventual meeting.

The Ewen/Smith/Walter trio came about in 2011; Smith had relocated to Houston and linked up in a duo with Ewen, subsequently bringing Weasel to Texas for a series of concerts from which the trio concept would take root. Since that time they have recorded three CDs (two eponymously titled albums on ugEXPLODE and Live in Texas, a split release on Chiastic Society and Balance Point Acoustics) and performed live on numerous occasions, including expanded lineups with trumpeter Peter Evans, trombonist Jeb Bishop, or saxophonist Jim Sauter, as well as with Mitchell. As a result of this work, their identity as a unit has become quite singular if somewhat fluid within its circumstances. As Ewen tells it, “I can’t tell if it’s evolved or if it’s the fact that when we record it’s always going to be different. I don’t know if the group is actually shifting or if it’s just random snippets of what we sound like on any particular day.” Walter opines that “it’s interesting to think that there would be an expectation of what our trio sounds like – it’s kind of terrifying to me. I think part of our mutual interest in playing with each other is that each person has a very distinctive musical personality, and that individuality and the counterpoint that results is really important to us.”

The environment around the Duende concert was positive – Smith and Walter were in the Bay Area recording with guitarists Henry Kaiser and Ray Russell while Ewen had gigs nearby, and as the bassist puts it, “we were all in a good mood and it was a fun trip. We were excited to play with Roscoe and even Weasel, when the prospect of playing with him came up, was excited – and he doesn’t get excited very easily!” The concert itself was very well attended, in part because the combination of musicians was somewhat unexpected. Guitarist/composer Karl Evangelista, who studied with Mitchell at Mills and attended the performance, recalled that “you had two people who were really deep in the free jazz vernacular and they knew what Roscoe did, which is that Roscoe just plays, and Sandy’s also kind of solipsistic – not in a negative sense but she’s also not going to trade free jazz licks either. That was the interaction or the potential that I think everyone was fascinated by.” The set consisted of one long piece without breaks or interruptions and no encore, introspective and churning through events, actions, and inquiries.

Though on paper A Railroad Spike Forms the Voice might look like a guest soloist with free improvisation rhythm section, the session does not operate that way, either on disc or as an event. Significant space is given to solos, duos, and trios, and the piece is as much about, as Smith says, the fact that “we felt obligated to give him our music, which is a little bit different than a meeting with an old master in that sense.” It is a collective sharing of information and approaches, responses and diversions that spiral off into alternate paths or worlds, with silence just as valid an interpretation as sparks that fly. Known for his wide palette of horns, Mitchell here favors sopranino, soprano, and alto saxophones and exalts in closely valued hues and narrowly demarked areas, further accentuating the isolation or apartness of his music. One focus of his instrumental research is Baroque and early music, its crotchety intonation and perceived stasis an unsurprising affinity.

This is a recording that is monumental in scope, singular but also parsable. There are sections that hark back to the disjunctive spars of early Art Ensemble of Chicago recordings – at 26 minutes in, Smith walks alongside laconic, acrid alto saxophone tendrils, their movements punctuated by kit jabs and gradual guitar creep. Unhurriedness is not something one expects with Smith and Walter, and it’s not deference either. Their ears put the proceedings into a state of mindful creation and allow any ensuing fireworks a sense of necessity and logic. As Mitchell untethers long soprano lines and puckered subtones, a froth of allover patter and meaty scribble emerges underneath and around him, but one can parse the latticework of activity into numerous converging (or parallel) threads and components. A tug-of-war between low bass gurgle, crinkling guitar strings, and high-pitched, hoarse sopranino cries acts as both one and three organisms in gloriously present interaction, nodding at one another but tending a greater fire. Not only do Ewen, Smith, and Walter not follow or ping-pong off of Mitchell, but they don’t do this with one another, either. A Railroad Spike Forms the Voice is a sprawling essay on communication and connection, its title apt: these four creative minds have set forth on a unified steely path, punctuated by decisive beauty and realness. We’re lucky to be able to participate from our vantage point. Clifford Allen, Brooklyn, March 2021 

1. A Railroad Spike Forms The Voice 01:12:23

Roscoe Mitchell (saxophones)

Sandy Ewen (guitar)

Damon Smith (double bass)

Weasel Walter (drums)

Recorded at Duende in Oakland, California on April 11, 2014

Mixed by Weasel Walter

Published by Art Ensemble of Chicago Publishing Co. (ASCAP) / Sedition Dog Music (BMI)

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Birgit Ulher / Damon Smith / Chris Cogburn - The Eternity Cult (May 2021 Balance Point Acoustics)

1. Is the Longest Disease of Mankind 35:05

Birgit Ulher - trumpet, radio, speaker, objects

Damon Smith - double bass

Chris Cogburn - percussion, electronics

Recorded Feb 17th, 2018 in Denton, TX

Mastered by Weasel Walter

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Joe Morris / Damon Smith - Gusts Against Particles (May 1, 2021 Open Systems Records)

This LP is the first release for Open Systems and is a limited, hand numbered edition of 200 copies. The digital version is unlimited.

Duets are conversations, pure and simple. They can be long threads, emphatic, full of query and answer, or emotion and subtlety. At best, they have all the hallmarks and inside commentary of an old relationship, but even first-time meetings can feel like the participants have known one another for ages. You might know that feeling, too: someone you’ve been aware of and finally get to spend time with, over the minutes or hours that follow a gentle easing-in becomes a gush of ideas and rejoinders. Joe Morris (b. 1955, New Haven, CT) and Damon Smith (b. 1972, Spokane, WA) have traveled in similar improvised music circles for decades, though Gusts Against Particles is their first duo and first proper album together.

The two met in 2006 under the guise of sessions for Healing Force, a super-group CD put together by guitarist Henry Kaiser to explore the late music of Albert Ayler. At that time Smith was living in the Bay Area and cutting his teeth in its free music scene while Morris was based out East, teaching at the New England Conservatory and leading a number of harmonically and rhythmically game-changing small ensembles.

Flash forward 13 years and Smith was living and working in Boston, performing with artists like pianists Pandelis Karayorgis and Eric Zinman, drummers Ra Kalam Bob Moses and Curt Newton, trombonist Jeb Bishop, and cornetist Stephen Haynes. Just prior to the bassist’s 2019 relocation to St. Louis, a few concerts were set up with Morris alongside this studio recording. Of Morris, Smith says “I got into his work pretty soon after getting into the music. I love that he knows free jazz as well as the European traditions.

He is well versed in the harmonic language of Jimmy Lyons, which is foundational for me since I came up as [alto saxophonist] Marco Eneidi's understudy. Playing with him is more like playing with a horn player than a guitarist. It is unlike playing with [Sandy] Ewen or Kaiser. The main thing about playing with him is I am able to think and play faster and more effortlessly than on my own.”

Morris has also worked frequently as a contrabassist, though the guitar is his primary and longest-lasting mode of expression. He’s performed and recorded in duo with other legendary bassists in free music, people like William Parker, Barre Phillips, and Christian Weber, not to mention in deep dialogues with other modern instrumental travelers (eg. reedist Anthony Braxton, saxophonist Evan Parker, trumpeter Nate Wooley, pianist Matthew Shipp, and guitarist Mary Halvorson). So, there is a lot of history to reckon with, as well as a lot of instantaneous creation.

As Morris thinks back to meeting Smith and subsequent experience, he notes that “[Damon’s] playing expresses the pulse much more now on the bass than he did back then… I never generalize in any way about the particulars of anyone I play with. I listen for very specific things no matter who I play with, and I respond and interact in very specific ways depending on what I hear from them and what they do in response to me.”

In terms of the dialogic meat, Morris and Smith are both masters of an expanded but very distinct palette, the guitarist using muting objects, pedals, and picking motions that create a hive of sounds from scrabbled density to ghostly drabs hanging between nodes of a western scale. Smith is graceful and also knows how to manhandle the bass, interweaving additional bows, brushes, woody palm-swabs and plastic chain as well as making his presence known through a trusty, surefooted pizzicato walk. The array of string sounds on these pieces is dazzling and often dense, and it’s sometimes hard to believe this music comes from two people composing spontaneously. Morris puts it this way: “the inspiration is in life and the decades of trying to grow as an artist.

The music is made with skill and quick decision making in the moment, using the knowledge I have about improvising. That includes close listening and doing the best I can to decipher the other musicians’ contributions.” Now, the onus is on you, the listener, to enter the conversation and the experience. CLIFFORD ALLEN

1. Waves of Extension

2. Equalization Staggering

3. Momentum Redoubling

4. Double of Any

5. Multiple Presences

Joe Morris, Guitar

Damon Smith, Double Bass

Recorded by Joe Morris, June 10, 2019

Mixed and Mastered by Weasel Walter

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Guillermo Gregorio / Damon Smith / Jerome Bryerton - Room of the Present (March 2021 Fundacja Słuchaj)

This album is structured around two performances of Guillermo Gregorio’s graphic score Moholy 2, inspired by the remarkable art and ideas of László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946). More about him later. Gregorio’s fascinating score, illustrated here, deserves center stage.

In the complete score, at top, shapes float in a blank void. Bars of notated music and sections of musical staff are the only reminders of a conventional score. Look at them again and imagine that you can’t read music. Black dots scatter, one by one, across five parallel, horizontal lines. Gregorio isolates the dot and the line and reimagines them as the vocabulary for a new visual language that only exists in this universe. Dots grow into circles and shrink into specks. They rotate to form ellipses and cut off into hemispheres and circle segments. Lines wander and multiply, streak across the void at dynamic angles and assemble with martial order to create geometric shapes. One renegade line in the upper right arranges itself into a nest of intertwined triangles. Like all good graphic scores, Moholy 2 offers the performer countless variations of simple units to interpret.

But this complete score with all its richness is only part of a two-layered system. A second sheet, which Gregorio calls a “mask,” sits on top of the complete score, blocking it except for twelve open circles that focus the performer’s attention on specific passages. Moving the mask invites the potential for endless permutations. For these performances, black-and-white versions of the score were used, but the color versions illustrated here introduce a new layer of complexity.

The score’s hybrid status as art and music, its geometric abstraction, elegant simplicity, and infinite variety, continue the spirit of Moholy’s expansive art. A polymath, he introduced Russian-style constructivism to Berlin, led the Bauhaus metal workshop, worked as a set and lighting designer for experimental theaters, and founded the New Bauhaus in Chicago, now the Institute of Design, all before his death at the age of 51. Even more impressive are his writings, which open a window into one of the 20th century’s most inquisitive minds. In his first book, Painting, Photography, Film published in 1925, Moholy exhorted his reader to understand art as part of the Gesamtwerk, the wholeness of life, a vast integrated totality of action and idea. More than his paintings, Moholy’s words continue to inspire creative artists like Gregorio today.

1. Improvisation 4 04:51

2. Moholy 2 take one 06:57

3. Madi Piece nr. 1: Planimetria 08:10

4. Cards 10:10

5. Coplanar 1+2 07:35

6. Improvisation 1 06:22

7. Improvisation 2 10:17

8. Madi Piece Nr. 2 06:12

9. Moholy 2 take two 04:54

10. Otra Musica 4b 06:09

11. Improvisation 3 06:40

Guillermo Gregorio - Bb clarinet, A clarinet, alto clarinet, and alto saxophone, conduction (Moholy 2)

Damon Smith - double bass

Jerome Bryerton - percussion, selected cymbals, misc. drums

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Tanja Feichtmair / Damon Smith / Gino Robair - The Shrilling of Frogs BPA -11 (March 2021 Balance Point Acoustics)

1. Throw Off the last veil 04:57

2. Bitterest Joys 10:51

3. Drowned in Yellow Streets 05:38

4. Carpets on the Barren Land 06:44

5. Sank into the Gold 06:34

6. Astray in Everything 01:40

7. My Thousand Greedy Wishes 05:00

8. Nothing's Dull or Rough 05:52

9. Boil Over & Blossom 08:49

10. Transfigured Ground 02:04

11. Thought is Untrue 01:48

12. A First Decision 05:26

13. Various Costumes 03:55

Tanja Fechtmair - alto saxophone & Bass clarinet

Damon Smith - double bass

Gino Robair - percussion

Recorded by Scott R. Looney 8/11/2003 at 1510 Studios Oakland, Ca

Mastered by Weasel Walter

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Jaap Blonk / Bart van der Putten / Pieter Meurs / Damon Smith - Hugo Ball Six Sound Poems 2CD Set 1989 & 2013 (March 2021 Balance Point Acoustics)

The Life and Work of Hugo Ball.

This recording is a modern interpretation of sound poems written and performed by German Dadaist Hugo Ball more than a century ago. Those familiar with Ball know him as the author of these innovative works and founder of the Cabaret Voltaire, Dada’s Zurich birthplace. Despite the sound poems’ artistic legacy, they constitute only a small part of Ball’s creative output. The purpose of these liner notes, then, is to consider the complex life and work of the man behind the sound poems.

Ball was born in western Germany at the end of the nineteenth century to a large Catholic family with ties to the region’s leather industry. His parents pushed him to learn a useful trade, but Ball identified as an artist. He studied literature and philosophy at university before leaving to learn acting. Germany’s thriving experimental theater community was his creative home from 1911 to 1915.

Ball excelled as a dramaturge, championing new repertoire, promoting local actors, and writing influential essays on modern theater. World War I interrupted his collaboration with Vassily Kandinsky on what they called the New Theater, one “bursting at once in dance, color, mime, music, and word.” (Ball, “Das Münchner Künstlertheater,”1914) It would be a Gesamtkunstwerk for the twentieth century, a vision Ball later realized at the Cabaret Voltaire.

Ball’s initial response to the war was one of enthusiastic support. He volunteered for military service but failed his medical exam. Refusing to accept defeat, he traveled to the front on his own. What he saw there turned him against the war. He wrote scathing articles and forged papers to help men evade the draft. Facing arrest, he crossed into neutral Switzerland in 1915 on his own forged documents.

There, Ball’s immigration status forced him to work odd jobs, including as a vaudeville pianist. This inspired him to explore the cabaret as a site for his politically engaged New Theater. He opened the Cabaret Voltaire in February 1916, and it quickly attracted a core group of artists. Only five months later, Ball ended the experiment. The nightly performances exhausted him, and he resented others’ efforts to institutionalize Dada. After a period of recuperation, he returned briefly to organize a series of soirées but soon abandoned Dada, poetry, and theater for good.

After Dada, Ball reinvented himself as a writer. He began as a political reporter—something of a return to his antiwar days. This journalism coalesced as a book, Critique of the German Intelligentsia, in which Ball charted the development of German militarism from the Protestant Reformation to the future coming of a reactionary dictator. He also wrote two novels with Dada-esque characters and plots.

From his earliest years, Ball’s single-minded dedication to his art approached a secular monasticism. In 1920, disillusioned with his youthful values and current events, he returned to Catholicism and committed himself to the study of early Christian theology. As part of this rebirth, he expunged his diaries of sacrilegious content, erasing every trace of the younger man. Ironically, this coincided with a revival of popular interest in Ball’s Dada works.

If not for his death in 1927 at the age of forty-one, he might have reconciled his artistic, political, and theological interests; as it was, he remained an outsider for much of his career. He used his marginal status to explore innovative ideas unrestricted by normative mainstream society. In our increasingly homogeneous world, Ball’s resistance to dominant narratives offers an inspiring model for creative thinkers of the twenty-first century. Melissa Venator, Ph.D.

1. Jaap Blonk / Bart van der Putten / Pieter Meurs - Wolken (Clouds) 07:49

2. Jaap Blonk / Bart van der Putten / Pieter Meurs - Katzen Und Pfauen (Cats & Peacocks) 05:08

3. Jaap Blonk / Bart van der Putten / Pieter Meurs - Karawane (Caravan) 06:09

4. Jaap Blonk / Bart van der Putten / Pieter Meurs - GaDJI Beri Bimba 06:26

5. Jaap Blonk / Bart van der Putten / Pieter Meurs - Totenklage (Dirge) 14:13

6. Jaap Blonk / Bart van der Putten / Pieter Meurs - Seepferdchen Unf Flugfische (Seah 11:12

7. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Prelude 07:33

8. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Wolken (Clouds) 06:08

9. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Katzen und Pfauen (Cats and Peacocks) 04:38

10. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Karawane (Caravan) 05:57

11. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Interlude 07:34

12. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Gadji beri bimba 05:57

13. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Totenklage (Dirge) 07:03

14. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Seepferdchen und Flugfische (Seahorses and Flying Fish) 05:20

15. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Postlude 07:56

1989:

Voice – Jaap Blonk

Alto Saxophone – Bart van der Putten

Double Bass – Pieter Meurs

Recorded By – Dick Lucas

Artwork, Photography By – Arthur Nieuwenhuijs

Recorded live at BIMHUIS (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), May 11, 1989.

2013:

Jaap Blonk - voice

Damon Smith - double bass

Hugo Ball: Sechs Laut-und Klanggedichte 1916 (Six Sound Poems, 1916)

Recorded Tuesday May 26th, 2013 at KUHF by Ryan Edwards

Mixed and Mastered by Ryan Edwards

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Damon Smith Trio - Color Architecture (March 2021)

As i delved into the SF creative music scene in the 1990s, i met a whole community of artists that i would be working with... some to this day. among those early collaborators were Damon Smith and Jerome Bryerton. we had some good times making music, eating and arguing and i'm happy that we were able to document some of our work together here on Color Architecture as the Damon Smith Trio.

1 Color Architectue #1 (to Tom Schultz) 03:04

2 The Eye of Ra (to R.B._R.B.K.) 01:51

3 Emphasized Weights in Black and White (to Günter Christmann) 03:33

4 Grey Light for Flute solo (to John Stevens) 02:29

5 Elegy for Glenn Spearmann 02:29

6 The Algebra of Revolution (To Wadada Leo Smith) 02:19

7 Solo in E Minor for Fred Hopkins 01:25

8 Not Everything is in Line With the Ear (to Gianni Gebbia) 02:35

9 (Bert) + Nancy 02:47

10 Freedom is Necessarily only Partial (to Eneidi) 00:48

11 Abitrary Real Values (to Cy Twombly) 02:21

12 Ghost World (to Dan Clowes) 00:54

13 A Lesson for Later Work (to R.M.S.). 02:47

14 Lines for Trio (to Paul Klee) 03:46

15 The Division of Cells 01:54

16 Generatin Function and the Like (to L.S. Ellis) 02:20

17 Black Holes Dark Fields (to Peter Kowald) 04:07

18 Closely Bound up with Utility 01:11

19 40L 01:56

20 Color Architecture #2 for solo percussion 02:33

21 The Thin Lines Hold Their own in the Presense for the Heavy Point (to Mark Dresser) 02:16

22 A Force Capable of Dislodging one From the Gravitational Pull of the Earth (to Bill Dixon) 02:42

23 51A 02:18

24 10, No 20! 00:16

25 The Inner Attitude of the Observer 00:59

26 Dream Told by Moto(haru) 01:18

27 Governed by Contradiction 01:05

28 Lucifer Lies to Bring Time to a Stop 01:53

29 Color Architeture #1 (to Tom Schulz) Flute version 02:01

Damon Smith - contrabass

Jerome Bryerton - percussion

Jeff Chan - flute, bass clarinet and tenor saxophone

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Georg Graewe / Damon Smith / Michael Vatcher - Unhesitating (BALANCE POINT ACOUSTICS November 2018)

Unhesitating indeed! Pianist Georg Graewe, double-bassist Damon Smith, and drummer Michael Vatcher met for the first time at Oktaven Audio studios in Mt. Vernon, New York and dove into this wonderful recording that reflects the best attributes of each player. In its eight or so hours in the studio, this trio not only recorded lots of fine material; it also established a trio sound very different from the previous trio with double-bassist Marcio Mattos.

Georg Graewe - Steinway D piano 

Damon Smith - double bass 

Michael Vatcher - drums 

1. Prelude (Georg Graewe) 04:18

2. Ictus (Carla Bley) 03:58

3. Semaphore #04 (Georg Graewe) 04:21

4. Pointedly Bent 05:21

5. Caught Stillness 02:06

6. Schulerblicke (Georg Graewe) 01:00

7. Nothing Ever Was, Anyway (Annette Peacock) 04:14

8. Barely Curve the Water 02:11

9. Rooms Outlast You 03:45

10. Semaphore #05 (Gerog Grawe) 04:04

11. Rough Fields 06:35

12. Volume of the Moment 08:06

13. Semaphore #06 (Georg Graewe) 03:20

Recorded in Mt. Vernon, NY at Oktaven Audio on February 1, 2018 

Mixed in Houston, TX at Coincident Sound on September 10, 2018 

Mastered in Houston, TX at Coincident Sound on September, 30, 2018

Recording Engineer: Ryan Streber 

Assistant Engineer: Nathan De Brine 

Mixing/Mastering Engineer: Ryan Edwards 

Producer/Executive Producer: Russell Summers 

Graphic Design: Russell Summers 

Musician Photography: Russell Summers 

Cover Photography: László Moholy-Nagy 

Liner Notes: Bill Shoemaker 

© 2018 Estate of László Moholy-Nagy / Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York 

Pandelis Karayorgis Trio (Damon Smith / Eric Rosenthal) - Cliff (DRIFF RECORDS October 1, 2018)

Cliff explores density, pulse and texture in four extended trio improvisations. Karayorgis and Rosenthal share a long musical relationship dating back to the early nineties. For this session they are joined by bassist Damon Smith who has recently relocated to the Boston area and has played with both several times over the past couple of years.

This CD captures their first encounter as a trio in June 2018 during an informal house recording session.

Pandelis Karayorgis, piano

Damon Smith, bass

Eric Rosenthal, drums

1. Trio 1 11:21

2. Trio 2 12:17

3. Trio 3 18:56

4. Trio 4 09:05

Recorded in Cambridge, Mass., July 18, 2018. Recording, mixing and cover art by Pandelis Karayorgis. Graphic layout by Hidde Dijkstra.

Kenny Millions / Damon Smith / Weasel Walter - Fuck Music... Tell Jokes – You'll Make More Money (BALANCE POINT ACOUSTICS 2018)

Recorded live in the hipster graveyard of Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York, Fuck Music… Tell Jokes – You’ll Make More Money features the diaper jazz/fuck you trio of Kenny Millions, Damon Smith, and Weasel Walter. Millions (aka. Keshavan Maslak), who recorded with the 1970s era free jazz heavy hitters (David Murray, Paul Bley, Sunny Murray) before growing disillusioned with the music industry to become a noisy and more unhinged artist, is in full confrontational mode. He scolds the trust fund kids in the audience, tells them to suck his dick, says “fuck you” a lot, and plays skronk sax and bass clarinet while wearing Depends. A real mature session. Millions is joined by the equally fiery Damon Smith, a Quincy, Massachusetts-based double bassist who has played with the legends (Brötzmann, Cecil, Marshall Allen), and journeyman drummer Weasel Walter, known for this work with The Flying Luttenbachers and Lydia Lunch. The pro-dubbed cassette, manufactured in a limited edition of 100 copies, features photos by Peter Gannushkin. Recorded live at Heck in Brooklyn on February 2, 2018.

1. Fuck Music, Tell Jokes, You'll Make More Money 48:55

BALANCE POINT ACOUSTICS

Golia / Kaiser / Moses / Smith / Walter - Astral Plane Crash (BALANCE POINT ACOUSTICS August 1, 2018)

"Astral Plane Crash" features almost 80 full minutes of detailed, colorful and communicative free improvisation by a special quintet of veteran musicians including Vinny Golia (reeds), Ra Kalam Bob Moses (drums), Henry Kaiser (guitar), Damon Smith (bass) and Weasel Walter (drums). The core PLANE CRASH trio of Kaiser, Smith and Walter is a long-running unit, having worked together extensively in numerous contexts on releases like "Plane Crash" (ugEXPLODE, 2009) and "Plane Crash Two" (New Atlantis, 2015). Kaiser was amongst the first wave of 1970's US free improvisers and his diverse, endless discography is legendary. Since 2005, the versatile rhythm section of Smith and Walter has collaborated on almost 25 releases together.

Los Angeles-based workhorse mult-reedist Vinny Golia and mythic journeyman drummer Ra Kalam Bob Moses join the fray here in their first time musical meeting. Golia brings a virtuoso articulation to a wide range of woodwind instruments here, multiplying the timbral variety of the group sound greatly. Those more familiar with Moses as a first rate jazz drummer for icons like Gary Burton, Steve Swallow, Pat Metheny & Dave Leibman may surprised at his current advanced free improvisation concept documented here.

The results resound with clarity, as space opens up spontaneously for every combination of the players, all captured in a beautifully transparent studio mix. Although the momentum is constant, this isn't another blaring energy music blow-out - the density crackles with sensitivity, support and mutual respect.

This quintet unleashes an orchestral arsenal of articulated abstraction and explores longer narrative lines, culminating in the two epic forms revealed here. The release comes with a 12 page color booklet featuring the stunning artwork of artist Jordan Belson as a mystical visual counterpart to the sonic mindscapes of the audio.

BALANCE POINT ACOUSTICS

William Hooker Trio - Remembering (ASTRAL SPIRITS 2018)

“Remembering” was released on February 16, 2018 by “Astral Spirits” label. Energetic and live album was recorded by four famous jazz masters – William Hooker (drums), Ava Mendoza (guitar) and Damon Smith (double bass). These three original and unique jazz masters had been improvising together many times. Their improvisations are based on masterful and organic synthesis between various playing manners, unique sounds and outstanding solos. Each musician is improvising differently and has unique playing manner and sound. Free musical experiments, spontaneous solos, powerful, deep and vibrant bursts of energy – all these elements are the essential part of their improvisations. When these three jazz masters are improvising together, together they create interesting, unusual and innovative sound. They pay high attention to the extraordinary sound, try out experimental ways of playing and search for new timbres and noises. The improvising is based on original playing manner which is formed from various jaz and other music styles. The synthesis between avant-garde jazz, free improvisation, experimental music and some intonations of rock styles – all the elements of these music styles are masterfully combined together.

This album compositions have especially active and original sound. Energetic and expressive collective improvisations, free and spontaneous solos, deep and vibrant bass line and many other elements are heard in these improvisations. These three musicians are improvising expressively and creatively – their improvisations are full of unexpected stylistic turns and waves, original twists and innovative musical decisions. Guitar melodies by Ava Mendoza are evocative, deep and passionate. Improviser try out many different playing techniques and connects them with huge range of musical expressions.

Powerful and vibrant riffs, glamorous melodies, wild fast, active and rapid solos, virtuosic passages, various experimental ways of playing and traditional guitar playing techniques – all these elements are masterfully combined together in Ava Mendoza’s improvisations. Expressive and loud solos, rapid and vivid melodies, joyful and playful episodes, dramatic culminations or turbulent bursts of energy are gently connected together with soft, subtle and silent episodes. Huge range of different playing techniques, moods, characters and expressions create bright and striking musical language and solid melodic line. Double bass improvisations by Damon Smith are full of different playing manners, various moods and playing techniques – his playing is effective, emotional and dynamic. From subtle and repetitive rhythms, silent and peaceful episodes to the expressive, passionate and rapid melodies – all these elements change each other very rapidly and suddenly. Musician masterfully switches between turbulent and expressive melodies, free and turbulent improvisations, spontaneous solos and silent and subtle episodes.

His improvisations gently fit together with guitar melodies and create a solid and deep bass line. Drums improvisations by William Hooker are especially energetic and active – loud, powerful, turbulent and expressive drum rolls, solos and collective improvisations are the main elements of his improvisations. Huge amount of different rhythms, musical language elements, expressions, sounds and timbres are expressed and connected together in one place. William Hooker improvises inventively and with passion – all his improvisations are especially active, rapid, expressive and vivid. All the improvisations of this album have innovative and original sound, bright musical language and are based on masterful and original improvising.

1. Inevitable Units 6:46

2. Never In Doubt 5:21

3. Identical Natures 3:41

4. The Magistrate 4:51

5. Grand - I Will 7:02

6. Barriers To Good 5:15

7. Figure on a Cinema (drink) 2:35 

William Hooker drums

Ava Mendoza guitar

Damon Smith double bass

Recorded March 13th, 2017 at NYU

Recorded & Mixed by Aggie Tai

Mastered by Weasel Walter