CHAPTER BEEEE?—THEME 1

October 5th, 2021

To: Eric Blitz

  How is your recovery going? I have been thinking about our resolution back in 2010 that we would do an album together. Because I’m in Karl Berger’s extended circle, I can use a studio up in Woodstock for low price. It’s also possible through Karl’s Patreon program to work with him.

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When Pronoblem died, his hard drive of Urchestra music became inaccessible. Then, his Fluxmass Internet account went offline; links he’d posted to Pennsound’s Kurt Schwitters webpage no longer worked. As the years passed—with Eric’s health crises, my heart surgery, mom’s and dad’s deaths—to make a professional Urchestra recording was feeling more urgent.

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August 8th, 2022

Clubhouse Studio 

Rhinebeck, New York

“Fümms bö,” whisper, mutter, and chant Jenny Gonzalez-Blitz, Rebecca Migdal, and Creative Music Studio co-founder Ingrid Sertso—born 1934 in Mannheim, Germany—overlapping, disjunct, simultaneous. “Fümms bö wö,” they intone, garbling and tangling the syllables. “Fümms bö wö tääää?” It’s chaos at their mics.

“Fümms bö, fümms bö wö, Fümms bö wö tää zää Uuuu?” They’re the Three Fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, conjuring and invoking, furious and ecstatic, spinning, measuring, and cutting the thread of life—Wantee, Helma, and Henriette, ”Rattatata tattatata tattatata.”

Creative Improvisers Orchestra director Karl Berger—born 1935 in Heidelberg—ranges up and down the grand piano, Eric‘s percussion percolating, my shakuhachi all hiss, swish, chirp, and coo.

February eighth, after surgery, John Landino passed away. Last Sunday, in Montague Center, Eric, Jenny, Mitch, Bob Wilson and I played John’s memorial Ur Sonata.

“Rinnzekete bee bee nnz krr müüüü?” The voices collide, overlap, and merge.

“Fümms bö,” they mourn. Karl’s chords block and roll.

“Fümms böwö,” they pray. Eric’s cymbals tingle. My shakuhachi’s unsure.

“Fümms bö wö täää?????”