“The only thing valuable in art is what cannot be explained.” the painter Georges Braque once wrote in his notebook. Double bassist, improviser and composer Daniel Barbiero, in this wide ranging collection of twenty essays on music, visual art, poetry, dance—and then some—never surrenders the prospect of meaning in these encounters with the inexplicable. He follows that possibility out to what appear to be breaking points of intelligibility in artistic expression, to those junctures that refuse to deliver an explicit, translatable message, only to discover in return something extra, something unexpected and surprising that can’t be experienced any other way.
Barbiero reconsiders Carlo Carrá in The Anti-Metaphysical Metaphysician and Umberto Boccioni in The Painter as Clairvoyant. He looks within the poetry and poetics of Russell Atkins and portrays the bassist Joëlle Léandre. He writes about Free Improvisation & How It Means, graphic notation as a variety of musical post-literacy, and about Imagining Barnett Newman While Playing Long Tones. He guides us through The Silver Age of Surrealism in Exile and those anonymous public spaces that he identifies as atopias. Barbiero looks where we often don’t, and his astute insights are continuously exhilarating and inventive.
“Daniel Barbiero affirms the value of much of the experimental work within twentieth century art, making it understood that there exist atopic situations, enigmatic residences toward which music, painting and art in general lead, and, as it turns out, that everything tends ultimately toward a universal dimensional duality of physical and artistic cosmoses: an evocative immersion in the “freedoms” lived both in the author’s direct experience as a musician and as a lover of pictorial and literary art." —Ettore Garzia, editor, Percorsi Musicali
“With each essay, even a long-time music head like myself always learns something. His writing not only enhances his subjects but also gives you additional food for thought as he walks you through complex ideas and concepts that you wouldn't have thought of otherwise. Feast on his work and you'll be glad that you did- it will fill up your mind and your soul." —Jason Gross, editor, Perfect Sound Forever
Barbiero reconsiders Carlo Carrá in The Anti-Metaphysical Metaphysician and Umberto Boccioni in The Painter as Clairvoyant. He looks within the poetry and poetics of Russell Atkins and portrays the bassist Joëlle Léandre. He writes about Free Improvisation & How It Means, graphic notation as a variety of musical post-literacy, and about Imagining Barnett Newman While Playing Long Tones. He guides us through The Silver Age of Surrealism in Exile and those anonymous public spaces that he identifies as atopias. Barbiero looks where we often don’t, and his astute insights are continuously exhilarating and inventive.
“Daniel Barbiero affirms the value of much of the experimental work within twentieth century art, making it understood that there exist atopic situations, enigmatic residences toward which music, painting and art in general lead, and, as it turns out, that everything tends ultimately toward a universal dimensional duality of physical and artistic cosmoses: an evocative immersion in the “freedoms” lived both in the author’s direct experience as a musician and as a lover of pictorial and literary art." —Ettore Garzia, editor, Percorsi Musicali
“With each essay, even a long-time music head like myself always learns something. His writing not only enhances his subjects but also gives you additional food for thought as he walks you through complex ideas and concepts that you wouldn't have thought of otherwise. Feast on his work and you'll be glad that you did- it will fill up your mind and your soul." —Jason Gross, editor, Perfect Sound Forever
About Daniel Barbiero
Daniel Barbiero is a double bassist, composer and writer in the Washington DC area. He has been active in improvised and experimental music and dance in the Baltimore-Washington area as a performer, composer and ensemble leader since the early 2000s. His music is informed by his background in modal and free improvisation as well as the interpretation of indeterminate compositions; as a composer, he creates verbal, graphic and other scores using non-standard notation for soloists and small ensembles. Barbiero writes on contemporary works as well as the art, music and literature of the classic avant-gardes of the 20th century for both arts & music publications and served as an editor of the online arts journal Bourgeon.For more information contact All About Jazz.
