Herbert Deutsch

Episode 5 of Mondo Modular features some interesting footage of Herbert Deutsch.

Electronic music pioneer Herb Deutsch has released a new retrospective CD, From Moog To Mac, that includes historical gems such as Jazz Images, the first piece of music ever composed using a Moog synthesizer and The Abominatron, a tape recording from August, 1964 in which Bob Moog talks and plays as he describes his progress on the first prototype synthesizer prior to shipping it to Herb.

Here’s a track listing:

• A Christmas Carol – Composed in 1963 as a message to President Kennedy about the Birmingham church bombings. The night after Bob Moog heard this piece in concert, he and Herb discussed getting together to create a new electronic instrument.
• The Abominatron – The historic tape recording wherein Bob Moog discusses and plays the first prototype synthesizer. It’s worth the price just to hear this excerpt. Bob’s personality shows thru in this fascinating piece.
• Jazz Images, A Worksong and Blues – The first piece of music composed on a Moog!
• Prologue To King Richard III – 1971 piece for Minimoog, trumpet and voice.
• A Little Night Music, The Ithaca Journal, Aug 6, 1965 – Headlines, Comics News Articles and Moog. From the historic 1965 Moog Music Workshop in Trumansburg, NY.
• Longing – For Piano and Theremin.
• Circling (But You Did Not Know) – For Piano and Theremin.
• Abyss – Featuring Soprano and Piccolo, from the CD “WOMAN IN DARKNESS”
• Sleight Of Hand (Mister Magic Man) – 1989, from the CD “WOMAN IN DARKNESS”.
• Fantasy on “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child” – For saxophone and electronics. Moves from plaintive spiritual melody to jazz improvisation.

The CD is available at the Moog Music site.

Moogfest, in conjunction with The Bob Moog Foundation, has announced the first annual Moogfest Symposium.

On the evening of September 20th, 2007, luminaries in the field of electronic music will gather at the Music Department of Columbia University to discuss how the life and work of synthesizer maverick Dr. Robert Moog has affected their own work.

Members of the Moogfest panel will include:

• Herbert Deutsch – collaborator on the development of the first Moog synthesizer; composer, musician, and twice Chair of the Music Department at Hofstra University.
• Gershon Kingsley – musician and composer who led the first Moog Quartet, which performed around the country and at Carnegie Hall. Best known for his catchy melody “Popcorn”, which is part of his “Music to Moog By” album, Mr. Kinglsey has recorded many Moog Albums, including his most recent addition “God is a Moog”.
• Joel Chadabe – composer, performer and pioneer in the development of interactive music systems. Mr. Chadabe has had a lifelong career in academia and has lectured and recorded extensively. He is the President of the Electronic Music Foundation.
• John Eaton – Avant garde opera comoposer and McArthur Fellow who, over a 20 year collaboration with Dr. Moog, created the Eaton-Moog Multi-Touch Sensitive Keyboard. He currently serves as the composer andartistic director of the Pocket Opera Players.
• David Borden – Played and tested early Moog Modulars in Dr. Moog’s studio in Trumansburg, NY. Founder of Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece, the first Moog synthesizer ensemble. Retired Director of the Digital Music Program at Cornell Univerity.
• Trevor Pinch – Author of “Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Syntheziser” and professor and Chairperson of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University.

Here are the details:

Columbia University
Center Room
3rd Floor, Prentis Hall
632 West 125th Street
New York, NY 10027
Directions

via AllAboutJazz

The New York Times has an article today about Herb Deutsch, looking at his collaboration with Bob Moog in the creation of the Moog synthesizer:

One night in January 1964, Herb Deutsch, an experimental composer from Long Island, and Robert Moog, an electrical engineer from upstate, sat with their wives at a little Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village and excitedly discussed a new idea: What if they created an instrument, a kind of “portable electronic music studio,” on which musicians could compose and perform?

“We were thinking primarily of composers,” Mr. Deutsch, now professor emeritus of music at Hofstra University, recalled a few weeks ago at his home here. “That performance part was not that important to Bob and me.”

That conversation in 1964 begat the Moog synthesizer, which helped launch a music revolution that started with the psychedelic rock stars of the 60’s and — several seismic electronic upheavals later — reached suburbia’s kid-next-door, the one with the Japanese keyboard and the garage band.

The heady early days will be recalled June 29, when the Inter-Media Art Center in Huntington presents “Herb Deutsch: Celebrating the Music of the Moog Synthesizer.” The event will be part belated birthday party for Mr. Deutsch (who turned 75 in February), part performance festival with multiple guests and instruments and part recollection of the Moog era, with video segments and some personal reminiscing.

Hollywood Records has released Moog, the companion double album to the Plexifilm documentary about electronic music pioneer Bob Moog.

Moog, inventor of the modern synthesizer, has been building electronic musical instruments for nearly half a century. Along the way, he’s made prodigious contributions to modern culture and music, including today’s electronic dance music scene. The feature documentary film. by filmmaker/musician Hans Fjellestad and producer Ryan Page, explores Moog’s collaborations with musicians over the years, and his ideas about creativity, design, interactivity and spirituality.

Hollywood’s Moog captures the film’s aura with an eclectic mix of original music by artists such as Stereolab, Meat Beat Manifesto, Tortoise, Money Mark, Jean-Jacques Perrey & Luke Vibert, 33, The Moog Cookbook, Plastiq Phantom, Psilonaut, Roger O’Donnell (The Cure), Bernie Worrell & Bootsy Collins, The Album Leaf, Pete Devriese, Bostich, Charlie Clouser, Baiyon and Electric Skychurch’all produced on Moog instruments specifically for the soundtrack.

“This CD covers an amazing range of music,” says Moog. “To me, this CD is a tribute to all the musicians who have used Moog instruments to express their musical visions.”

The set comes complete with a bonus disc highlighting classics such as Emerson Lake & Palmer’s Lucky Man, Yes’ Close To The Edge, Gary Numan’s Cars and New Order’s Blue Monday.

The film was shot on location in Asheville, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tokyo and London and features appearances by Walter Sear, Gershon Kinsgley, Jean-Jacques Perrey, Rick Wakeman, DJ Spooky, Keith Emerson, Herb Deutsch, Bernie Worrell, Pamelia Kurstin, Charlie
Clouser, Money Mark, Mix Master Mike, and others.

“Synthesizers are different from other musical instruments,” explains Moog. “They don’t have fixed tone colors, like a guitar or a drum that we listeners can identify when we hear them. A synthesizer sound can be low or high pitched, or have no pitch at all.”

“It can be sustained or percussive, muted or bright, thin or fat, smooth or raucous, familiar or strange. It can evoke images of a symphony orchestra, a rising sun, a hoard of insects, an earth-moving chine, and much, much more. They enable a musician to shape sounds efficiently and intuitively, so that the synthesizer becomes a natural extension of the musician’s imagination.”

The track listing for MOOG is as follows:

• 33 – Abominatron
• Stereolab – Variation One
• The Moog Cookbook – Bob’s Funk
• Jean-Jacques Perrey & Luke Vibert – You Moog Me
• Psilonaut – The Sentinel
• Meat Beat Manifesto – Unavailable Memory
• Bernie Worrell & Bootsy Collins – When Bernie Speaks
• Electric Skychurch – Endless Horizon (I Love Bob Mix)
• The Album Leaf – Micro Melodies
• Charlie Clouser – I Am A Spaceman
• Plastiq Phantom – Sqeeble
• Bostich – Realistic Source
• Pete DeVriese – You Have Been Selected
• Money Mark – “Nanobot Highway”
• Baiyon – Mixed Waste 4.2
• Tortoise – Beautiful Love
• Roger O’Donnell – Another Year Away

Bonus Disc

• Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Lucky Man
• Gary Numan – Cars
• Jean-Jaques Perrey – E.V.A.
• Devo – Mongoloid
• New Order – Blue Monday
• They Might Be Giants – Baroque Hoedown
• Yes – Close To The Edge