"X"

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o
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C a d a v r e X q u i s E n s e m b l e

[duration 01:00:42] all rights reserved

Official Site
otaciliomelgaco.wixsite.com/cadavrexquisensemble (in Portuguese) & Facebook page www.facebook.com/cadavreexquissensemble

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The artist Otacílio Melgaço has two official curators in the virtual world. A curator (from Latin: ´curare´, meaning ´to take care´) is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, keeper of a cultural heritage institution (e.g., gallery, museum, library or, as the present case: sound archive) is a content specialist charged with an institution's collections and, highlighting the context in force here, involved with the interpretation of personal (heritage) material. Both, Mr. Paz and Mr. Campbell, are, therefore, reviewers of the Melgacian works. To learn more about their missions, tasks, assignments and responsibilities by means of valuable informations regarding the compositional process, the performative rhizomes and other special features, just click the following link: otaciliomelgaco.wixsite.com/preamblebypsp
(O.M.Team; P r e l u d e)

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"´The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.´ (Miles Davis)

The three Suites that sequenced the first phonographic album belonging to the Otacílio Melgaço Jazz Ensemble (CadravreXquis) are exciting and cryptic sound treasures! The members and the formation may vary. The prism is kaleidoscopic. O.M. is a sui generis artist, is fact. However or precisely because of it, two of its most significant predicates: ´projection´ and ´ideas´.

In ´X´, we´re witnessing a consecrated combination (piano, double bass and drums) ...

[>> plus some fragments of previous works as the last movement of the ´Akhenaton Symphony´
melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/akhenaton-symphony-otac-lio-melga-o-duration-36-18
or sitar fragrances coming from ´Ok Ragas Por La Komenco De Tempoj´
melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/ok-ragas-por-la-komenco-de-tempoj-otac-lio-melga-o-duracion-50-25 <<]

... expanding the Melgacian rhizomes (with its tentacles in the 21st-Century Classical Music) towards the magnetic jazzistic universe.

Again there´s the primacy of intriguing timbristic experiments (sometimes sounding vintage, sometimes ´futuristically´ - between this and that: nothing, ladies and gentlemen, more presentified) and, in synchronicity, the compositional complexion perpetuates an astonishing geometry. As once said the British mathematician Arthur Cayley: ´Projective geometry is all geometry.´ This also seems to be an idea belonging to O.M. here; prism that, the second time in my review, proves - heterodoxly - the epigraph which has Miles Davis as a source.

If contemporary jazz has a compass rose (noting the radical nature of the etymology of the term ´contemporary´ - including dialects, I highlight, derived from the avant-garde serious niche); ... a north worthy of deep curiosity and interest on our part, surely (and this is the c-r-u-X of the matter) it goes through here." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

"In mathematics, 'x' is commonly used as the name for an independent variable or unknown value. The modern tradition of using 'x' to represent an unknown was started by René Descartes in La Géométrie (1637).

It may also be used to signify the multiplication operation when a more appropriate glyph is unavailable. In mathematical typesetting, 'x' meaning an algebraic variable is normally in italic type (x\!), partly to avoid confusion with the multiplication symbol. In fonts containing both 'x' (the letter) and '×' (the multiplication sign), the two glyphs are dissimilar.

More:

Abbreviation for 'between' in the context of historical dating; e.g., '1483 x 1485.';

As a result of its use in algebra, X is often used to represent unknowns in other circumstances (e.g. Person X, Place X, etc.);

In the Cartesian coordinate system x is used to refer to the horizontal axis;

X-rays are so called because their discoverer did not know what they were;

X has been used as a namesake for a generation of humans: Generation X, commonly abbreviated to Gen X. It is the generation born after the baby boom ended, ranging from 1961 to 1981;

An X-shaped mark has traditionally been used by the illiterate in lieu of a signature, and is also used to indicate a signature line on forms;

X is commonly used as a generic mark (selecting an item on a form, indicating a location on a map, etc.);

The common custom of placing Xs on envelopes, notes and at the bottom of letters to mean kisses dates back to the Middle Ages, when a Christian cross was drawn on documents or letters to mean sincerity, faith, and honesty;

Usually in art or fashion, the use of X indicates a collaboration with two or more artists. The application extends to any other kinds of collaboration outside the art world. Originally started in Japan;

In cartoons, a dead character's eyes are often drawn as Xs;

In mapping by the standards of the USGS, an x-type mark is used to denote the point referred to by an elevation marking on topographical maps;

Maps leading to hidden treasure often denote the treasure with an X. The expression ´X marks the spot´ is related to these treasure maps;

X, and its Greek counterpart Chi, play roles in the Kingdom Hearts series. X is used in the names of the members of Organization XIII to change it around into an anagram. For example, Ansem with a X turns into Xemnas and Sora turns into Roxas, whereas Chi is used in the name of the ultimate weapon, the X-Blade, pronounced Chi-Blade. The series primary antagonist, Xehanort, whose name is also an anagram for No Heart or Another, even provides a quick explanation in the prequel Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep;

The Man from Planet X, 1951 American science-fiction movie;

X: The Unknown, 1956 British science-fiction movie;

X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes, 1963 American science-fiction movie;

Malcolm X, 1992 American biopic of Malcolm X;

The X-Files, 1993-2002 American science-fiction television series;

Song X is a collaborative studio album by American jazz recording artists Ornette Coleman and Pat Metheny.

(...)

CadavreXquis. A new ´X´ to be added. And maybe, in fascinating sonic complexity, bring us a bit of each of the above meanings." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

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I - Exquisite corpse, also known as exquisite cadaver (from the original French term cadavre exquis) or rotating corpse, is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g. "The adjective noun adverb verb the adjective noun", as in "The green duck sweetly sang the dreadful dirge") or by being allowed to see only the end of what the previous person contributed.

The technique was invented by surrealists and is similar to an old parlour game called Consequences in which players write in turn on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part of the writing, and then pass it to the next player for a further contribution. Surrealism principal founder André Breton reported that it started in fun, but became playful and eventually enriching. Breton said the diversion started about 1925, but Pierre Reverdy wrote that it started much earlier, at least before 1918.

In a variant now known as picture consequences, instead of sentences, portions of a person were drawn.

Later the game was adapted to drawing and collage, producing a result similar to children's books in which the pages were cut into thirds, the top third pages showing the head of a person or animal, the middle third the torso, and the bottom third the legs, with children having the ability to "mix and match" by turning pages. The game has also been played with the usual orientation of foldings and four or fewer people, and there have been examples with the game played with only two people and the paper being folded widthwise and breadthwise, resulting in quarters. It has been played by mailing a drawing or collage—in progressive stages of completion—to the players, and this variation is known as "Exquisite Corpse by airmail", apparently regardless of whether the game fares by airmail or not.

The name is derived from a phrase that resulted when Surrealists first played the game, "Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau." ("The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine.") André Breton writes that the game developed at the residence of friends in an old house at 54 rue du Chateau (no longer existing). In the beginning were Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Prévert, Benjamin Péret, Pierre Reverdy, and André Breton. Other participants probably included Max Morise, Joan Miró, Man Ray, Simone Collinet, Tristan Tzara, Georges Hugnet, René Char, Paul, and Nusch Éluard.

Henry Miller often partook of the game to pass time in French cafés during the 1930s;

II - A suite, in music, is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral/concert band pieces. It originated in the late 14th century as a pairing of dance tunes and grew in scope to comprise up to five dances, sometimes with a prelude, by the early 1600s. The separate movements were often thematically and tonally linked.

In the Baroque era the suite was an important musical form, also known as Suite de danses, Ordre (the term favored by François Couperin), Partita or Ouverture (after the theatrical "overture" which often included a series of dances) as with the orchestral suites of J.S. Bach.

During the 18th century the suite fell out of favour as a cyclical form, giving way to the symphony, sonata and concerto. It was revived in the later 19th century, but in a different form, often presenting extracts from a ballet (Nutcracker Suite), the incidental music to a play (L'Arlésienne Suites), opera, film (Lieutenant Kije Suite) or video game (Motoaki Takenouchi's 1994 suite to the Shining series), or entirely original movements (Holberg Suite, The Planets);

III - Below, other records released by CadavreXquis:

melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/o-c-rculo-imperfeito-otac-lio-melga-o-cadavrexquis-ensemble-otac-lio-melga-o-duration-41-39

melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/tree-house-otac-lio-melga-o-cadavrexquis-ensemble-otac-lio-melga-o-duration-40-49

...for purposes of pragmatism and clear exegesis,
Wikipedia was the main source...

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Between two parentheses...
(Atonalism, Twelve-Tone, Serialism, Musique Concrète... Acousmatic. Eletroacoustic. Magnetic Tape. Expressionism, New Objectivity, Hyperrealism, Abstractionism, Neoclassicism, Neobarbarism, Futurism, Mythic Method. Electronic...Computer Music, Spectral, Polystylism, Neoromanticism, Minimalism and Post-Minimalism...are addressed by Melgaço. Paradoxically New Simplicity and New Complexity also.
Art Rock, Free Jazz, Ethnic Dialects, Street Sounds are occasional syntax elements.
All the possibilities mentioned above and others that were not mentioned are the usual accoutrements of the composer/instrumentalist to establish his ´babelic´ glossary. We can prove this in a short passage of a single composition up along the entirety of a conceptual phonograph album. All distributed over a career and idiosyncratic records. Have we a universe before us and I propose to see it through a telescope, not a microscope.
I propose not handle very specialized topics here. Otherwise would be, with the exception of musicians and scholars, all hostages of a hermetic jargon. Because more important is to present Otacílio Melgaço to the general public and not to a segment of specialists. Faction of experts not need presentations, depart for the enjoyment beforehand. For this reason there is no niche here for intellectual onanism and encrypted musical terminology. The reason for these parentheses is to establish such elucidation. The non-adoption of technicalities leads to more panoramic, amplifier reviews. Are You always welcome. Those who do not dominate contemporary music and are introduced to the world of ubiquitous O.M. [autodidact and independent artist who, being more specific, does not belong to schools or doctrines; artist who makes Music and that´s enough; music devoid of labels or stylistic, chronological, historical paradigms or trends] and Those who belong to the métier and turn to enjoy propositions they know and also delving into advanced Melgacian sound cosmogonies...
I conclude poetically. ´Certeza/Certainty´ by Octavio Paz. ´Si es real la luz blanca De esta lámpara, real La mano que escribe, ¿son reales
Los ojos que miran lo escrito? De una palabra a la otra Lo que digo se desvanece. Yo sé que estoy vivo Entre dos paréntesis.´ If it is real the white light from this lamp, real the writing hand, are they real, the eyes looking at what I write? From one word to the other what I say vanishes. I know that I am alive between two parentheses.
We´re all more and more a-l-i-v-e now.)
- P.S.P.