Racer Session #359 | James Falzone | January 29, 2017

Greetings, seekers of the avant! Haley here. This Sunday, we are incredibly fortunate to host clarinetist and composer James Falzone on our stage.

A recent transplant from Chicago, James has taken the reins of Music Department Chair at Cornish College of the Arts. There is a vibration in the air there, a feeling of the changes taking place, that excites me as an alumna and a member of this intimate musical scene. To be candid, he's a perfect fit: an artist who is pourous and adaptable, willing to say yes and also no, and brimming with passion for craft. It's what we strive for as improvisers, is it not?

James will be joined by wonderful peers, Neil Welch (tenor saxophone) and Greg Campbell (drums/percussion). Some words from James, his own as well as borrowed, follow below:

"if not too obtuse, I'd love to share this poem. It's truly what's been on my mind: politically, socially, and in relation to my new role in Seattle.

In Silence, by Thomas Merton

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your

name.
Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.

Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”

all my very best - James