The root-end of our big bamboo flutes is a prominent feature: visually, physically, energetically -- and practically as the harvesting process becomes much more serious when the bamboo culm has to be freed from the intricate rhizomial network while still leaving the root ball intact. Therefore, the individual personality of each flute is bound up -- rooted, we might say -- within this root area of the bamboo. As our saga begins, the voice of resonant big bamboo (a 3.2 Taimu, made the same year that this ensemble was conceived and created, 2019) itself is making the announcement, heralding in a unique instrumentation, a new chamber music creature -- a fresh, breath-powered, animistic polyphony that, in truth, extends a very old lineage. The Heavy Root Speaks, and brings forth a deeply ancient yet entirely new musical paradigm.
Flutes
- 3.2 Taimu
- 2 x 2.74 Taimu
- 2 x 2.4 Taimu
- 5.2 non-root Mujitsu Special
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wood Prophecy: A Woodwind Animism Saga
Authentic Nature Music in an Age of Vanishing Soul
The Main Idea:
To transmit the feeling philosophy of the forest; Nature’s quintessence, in sound.
To transmit through direct experience the flavor of the peace, majesty and aliveness of the ancient days of the Earth.
Actualizing an earthy and authentic nature-based woodwind musicianship, and returning to reverence.
Earth’s deep history shows us three vital stages in this Wood Prophecy:
1 - Blue-Green Algae Makes Oxygen
2 - Wood Makes Verticality
3 - Awareness Grows
This is happening on the couple-of-billion years ago time scale, and we tend to have a hard time processing deep time. Humans do enter the scene here in the 11th hour as (potential) magic wands of Awareness. What my (primarily non-verbal yet with a philosophical backbone) Wood Prophecy is revealing is that we have clues: we have strong clues that Symbiosis is the path of Living Life. Chloroplasts, cyanobacteria, photosynthesis, oxygen, growing upwards into the atmosphere, material that is both solid and empty -- these are all intertwined and implicated in each other. Competition and domination do not obtain beyond a certain narrow scope within living systems; when these seem to appear, they are a zoomed in, semi-distorted view of the whole.
My experience as a demi-noetic woodwinder has provided me with direct experience of wood elementals. Communication through breath, sound/vibration, shared intention/consciousness and, yes, even “time.” About 40 years, maybe slightly more if we take the ingestion of peanuts-in-the-shell as the origin point of my personal tale -- but that’s a story for another album perhaps. To be motivated in this life by a symbiotic connection to wood as an element is not something that I intend to defend or even make a case for right now, but I am stating it here as a fact for me in order to contextualize the liner notes for Wood Prophecy, which, in turn, helps to contextualize the actual music for you, the listener. Or so I hope.
We need to merge all three of these vital clues together and taste the full, up-close flavor in absolute presence: our own vital awareness. Return to the Root, and re-engage reverence. We are not now, nor ever have we been, alone.
The Music
Beginning with An Apicultural Excursion, the nature-centric, multi-movement, same-instrument chamber quartet has been a primary mode for me to express and illuminate key musical, ethical and emotional impulses and insights. Over time it has become clear that a deeper spiritual grounding is at the root of these projects, these compositions.
Among other labels and lineages -- some to be explored in a completely separate book -- animism suits and summarizes these ongoing musical offerings. These are non-verbal, breath-powered narratives and timbral explorations.
As we proceed through the five movements of Wood Prophecy, it becomes clear that there is a “U-” or even “V-”shape to this journey, with movement III being the furthest from our human-centered, linear-time, so-called “secular” world.
Cornelius Boots - Bass Shakuhachi, Nature Blues 尺八Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Woodwind Nature & Rustic Flute Spirituals: from hymns to heavy metal. New music/compositions for jinashi & bass shakuhachi
(Taimu), the robust woodwind of Japan.
Cornelius Boots is a leading creative shakuhachi composer-performer, active internationally in woodwinds since 1990. A grandmaster (Dai Shihan) in the Zen lineage of Watazumido. Ex-orchestral/rock bass clarinetist, jazz/funk bandleader....more
Former member of Fela Kuti’s Egypt 80 unveils a rich, swinging new record that pulls from jazz and soul in its high-wattage songs. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 24, 2024
