Jazz Articles about Spooky Actions

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Spooky Actions: Quartet for the End of Time

by Ty Cumbie
February 12, 2006

The young Olivier Messiaen famously composed and premiered “Quartet for the End of Time in 1940-41 as a prisoner of the Nazis during World War II. One can apply just about as much meaningful drama to this story as one wants. It has even been suggested that Messiaen defeated the Nazis, in spirit at least, with this work of art before the physical act could be accomplished by the Allied powers. In any case, the work is widely worshipped. In ...

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Spooky Actions: Early Music

by Rex Butters
July 3, 2005

Bruce Arnold and John Gunther return with their Spooky Actions project, an inventive improvisational interpretation of musics not often tackled by jazz-based units. Having already rearranged the thorny intricacies of Webern and the soaring power of Native American melodies, here they address the haunting subtleties of early music, including variations on themes by Monteverdi, Dufay, and Von Bingen, as well as Gregorian chant. The quartet achieves a skillful balance in creating modern arrangements that retain connections to the deep reverence ...

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Spooky Actions: Early Music

by Jim Santella
April 6, 2005

Spooky Actions may seem an unusual name for a chamber quartet that makes serious study of music and interprets these thoughts with a unique spirit. The name is derived from a comment by Albert Einstein where he noted that certain seemingly unrelated objects could nevertheless exert a powerful influence upon each other. He called these relationships “spooky actions."

Along with Early Music, Spooky Actions has issued projects interpreting Native American melodies and the music of Anton Webern.