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KEYBOARD CONVERSATIONS WITH JKR

Benjamin Boretz

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Liner notes for Fantasy on an improvisation by Jim Randall - in memoriam JKR (2014):

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Jim on piano, me on Crumar (synthesizer keyboard). Real-time composition, Inter/playing on prearranged pitch collections. In the middle Jim let loose an endless tunestring of parallel two-pitch notes, startling echo of the big "Chopin" passage in my "chart" piano piece...and in the middle of that a four-note fragment went right to my head and lived there for years. Until Bill Anderson invited me to invent something for Cygnus - but asked that maybe instead of the “straight" winds (flute, oboe) and guitars to scramble in alto flute, english horn, banjo, mandolin. I started the piece as a gift to Jim and Cygnus, but Jim died before I even told him about it - and the four-note fragment became Jim's image on the face of my fantasy.

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