Dear Listener, Robert Filliou is a person many people would have wanted to know.
Were it not for our beliefs of 'this and that', we could know him today.
That's the way Robert was. For as it is, we could meet him one to one
right now, if we were mentally open to it; emotionally and spiritually
prepared. Robert was an unusual human being in his lifetime. In his
death his character may be felt as we turn a corner, bump into and old
friend or wake up and realize "what a perfect rainy morning, why am I
being so hard on myself?," or deciding that instead of going for the
big 'deal' today, the career or social function tonight, maybe I should
just take a day off to walk in the forrest... Robert Filliou was
dedicated to life, to being human and to giving his best for those
around him. He was a life master and mastered among other talents, art,
simplicity, kindness and love, Yes, he did become successful in his
profession, but he was blessed by a self awareness as inquenchable as a
mountain spring. He disperaged fame. He was humble. Another accomplished artist, in his later years, told me that Filliou
saved his life one day. This artist told Filliou that he feared he was
loosing his mind. Filliou, already and expert in finding answers in
rocks said, "I lived my whole life as a madman and it's
beautiful....the only problem is not knowing that we're mad to begin
with, but once we realise that, then everything is ok". So it was. Here are some facts and maybe rumors about Robert's journey through the world: Born in poverty in the South of France, Filliou participated in the
French underground in WWII. Later, in the USA he was a laborer for
Coca-Cola, put himself through college, hosted a radio talk show. He
worked for the UN as an economist, and travelled around the world. In
Japan he came in contact with Buddhism. Returning to Europe, he
developed his work as a writer & artist, living within a community
of European artists whose careers and work are still powerful influences
today. Through his art connections, he was introduced to Tibetan
Buddhism and eventually died within the simple surroundings of a
monastery, in the French countryside to which he returned, after a very
rich and eventful journey through life. In the 1970's, Robert's friends in Dusseldorf all chipped in and
created a stipendium for he and his wife Marianne and their daughter,
Marcelline (then known as Marcel). It was like the community actually
helped them enter a new phase of life and a career was launched from
their help. The Fillious placed the values of being human ahead of 'getting
ahead' in the typical, social sense. It was this principal that inspired
Robert and his art is a reflection of this inner human activity. The
world responds to it. His art is a simple, universal language that we
all understand, when we become more simple, too. "Innocence &
Inspiration" two words that occur in one of Robert's works, can be
translated as: emptiness and form, or female and male, or death and
life.... Playful, profound, generous, affordable and simple. Filliou's
art is like our responses to life, purified and refined to philosophic
playthings, making our lives more precious and fantastic. Filliou's inner work maybe his greatest gift to us though. His
journey and discovery of spiritual well being and freedom reinforce a
mythic desire within each of us to embrace spirit and live in truth.
Thanks Robert, your success is ground for hope! And about this Gallio CD on Filliou...Christoph found fruit on the
tree and left a garden of its seeds. Enjoy Gallio's, Filliou inspired
tracks!! All the best, John Halpern in the USA.
1.
In the middle of the 80's Ekkehard Jost was still able to title
a book Europe's Jazz, which dealt with the emancipation of European
Jazz and the improvised music originating in the 70's. Since the 60's
and the American role models, from Ayler through Coltrane up to Shepp,
were still present (but as role models and not as untouchable icons), it
would seem that what Jost characterized as "Europe's Jazz" should be
understood as an adaptation of Afro-American Free Jazz and as a
concomitant demand to make something one's own. Today, 15 years
later, the history of improvised music in Europe--as a fragmentation and
adaptation--can no longer be simply told like this. Not only because
there is a European Jazz that refers to its own particular folk
traditions and understands exactly this as the "European" in its music,
but also because, nowadays, it's difficult or even impossible to still
dig up the roots in jazz among all the radical improvisers. These
roots don't exist any more. To a certain degree, Derek Bailey became
famous in the 50's and 60's as a British Jim Hall. Thus it may be
legitimate to attribute a jazz continuity to him, even though everything
he published after 1968 refers to an autonomous design. It is simply
impossible, however, to demonstrate an inner connection to (Free) Jazz
among the younger musicians who adopt their role model not from Django
Reinhardt, but from Bailey. Here, instead of "Europe's Jazz," one
must speak of "highly differentiated improvised musics that all
originated in Europe and of whom a few still refer to Free Jazz."
Sounds rather torturous. And unsuitable for a book title. One cannot,
however, capitulate in front of the (musically quite productive) chaos
emerging from the varied styles and stories; one needs, rather, to
expand the perspectives. Reasons to do this are present everywhere:
look at Peter Brötzmann, who was as much a visual artist as an angry
musician. He worked in Wuppertal with Nam June Paik and took part in
diverse fluxus manifestations, now legendary. Or check out the Dutch:
Willem Breuker, Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink also participated in
the fluxus happenings (Breuker's "Lunch Concert for Three Barrel Organs"
from 1969 is a direct expression of such an action). The
alternatively laconic (Mengelberg) or manic (Bennink) anarchism of their
music today shows how this involvement lives on. A little play of
thought isn't enough to empirically prove this thesis--that what was
Europe's Jazz and then very quickly mutated to this improvised chaos derived from the spirit of fluxus. Or perhaps it is? What then, if
next to Free Jazz (fading more and more, however, as a power of
imagination), fluxus were the decisive source of inspiration? Not as a
role model, of course, that one needs to imitate in order to overcome
it, since fluxus immanently presents its own questioning, destruction
and overcoming, and permanently prevents itself being understood as a
"role model." Rather fluxus as a realm of possibilities that one can
take as one's own.
In the middle of the 80's Ekkehard Jost was still able to title
a book Europe's Jazz, which dealt with the emancipation of European
Jazz and the improvised music originating in the 70's. Since the 60's
and the American role models, from Ayler through Coltrane up to Shepp,
were still present (but as role models and not as untouchable icons), it
would seem that what Jost characterized as "Europe's Jazz" should be
understood as an adaptation of Afro-American Free Jazz and as a
concomitant demand to make something one's own. Today, 15 years
later, the history of improvised music in Europe--as a fragmentation and
adaptation--can no longer be simply told like this. Not only because
there is a European Jazz that refers to its own particular folk
traditions and understands exactly this as the "European" in its music,
but also because, nowadays, it's difficult or even impossible to still
dig up the roots in jazz among all the radical improvisers. These
roots don't exist any more. To a certain degree, Derek Bailey became
famous in the 50's and 60's as a British Jim Hall. Thus it may be
legitimate to attribute a jazz continuity to him, even though everything
he published after 1968 refers to an autonomous design. It is simply
impossible, however, to demonstrate an inner connection to (Free) Jazz
among the younger musicians who adopt their role model not from Django
Reinhardt, but from Bailey. Here, instead of "Europe's Jazz," one
must speak of "highly differentiated improvised musics that all
originated in Europe and of whom a few still refer to Free Jazz."
Sounds rather torturous. And unsuitable for a book title. One cannot,
however, capitulate in front of the (musically quite productive) chaos
emerging from the varied styles and stories; one needs, rather, to
expand the perspectives. Reasons to do this are present everywhere:
look at Peter Brötzmann, who was as much a visual artist as an angry
musician. He worked in Wuppertal with Nam June Paik and took part in
diverse fluxus manifestations, now legendary. Or check out the Dutch:
Willem Breuker, Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink also participated in
the fluxus happenings (Breuker's "Lunch Concert for Three Barrel Organs"
from 1969 is a direct expression of such an action). The
alternatively laconic (Mengelberg) or manic (Bennink) anarchism of their
music today shows how this involvement lives on. A little play of
thought isn't enough to empirically prove this thesis--that what was
Europe's Jazz and then very quickly mutated to this improvised chaos derived from the spirit of fluxus. Or perhaps it is? What then, if
next to Free Jazz (fading more and more, however, as a power of
imagination), fluxus were the decisive source of inspiration? Not as a
role model, of course, that one needs to imitate in order to overcome
it, since fluxus immanently presents its own questioning, destruction
and overcoming, and permanently prevents itself being understood as a
"role model." Rather fluxus as a realm of possibilities that one can
take as one's own.
2."Mösiblö à Robert Filliou" is a suite composed and conceived by Christoph Gallio that exclusively uses the texts of the fluxus artist Robert Filliou and that is fundamentally inspired by them. This is quite unusual, since, as far as I know, there has hardly been any direct (reverse) connections to the heated phase of the fluxus movement within European improvised music. "Mösiblö" is both reconstruction and homage, continuation and an independent work. Nothing would be simpler than to offensively incorporate the process-oriented, extremely open, but never non-committal working methods of Filliou for improvised music. His legendary "Permanent Creation Tool Shed" could be a place where improvised music is made, a place that embodies that what Filliou was so occupied with: an art that makes its rules and processes of its changes distinct. Gallio, however, does not leave it at this short sighted idea. Then it would have been enough to simply bind "Mösiblö" to Filliou's work. But at the moment Gallio uses Filliou's texts, that is, concrete material, Gallio produces concrete references. Where references are produced, so is distance, which allows him, on the one hand, to compose around the texts and even more, to compose with the texts. On the other, he can integrate the resulting art songs in a larger frame, e.g. in a suite. This suite, which is closely related to fluxus works, deconstructs itself, since it fundamentally exists out of vignettes of improvised music that do not simply bridge the gaps between the likewise intimated, sketchy art songs, but rather provide a connection that goes far beyond the possible reason, the musical setting of Filliou's texts, and thus cancels the actual suite and transforms it into something all its own. The dialectic is about proximity and distance, so that the music approaches Filliou's intentions more than is a epigonous, "close" homage; hence this suite corresponds all the more to the fluxus spirit. Of course, a lot of the history of this music is found in these improvisations, e.g. doing without conventional instruments, the (outward) suggestions of chamber music (which, of course, does not mean that the musicians don't care anything about chamber music conventions), the expressive love of details (which stands out in the subtlety of guitar and voice), but also the reminiscences on Free Jazz, which one hears particularly well in the powerful, eruptive insertions of the woodwinds. But all this is made relative, or better, is recontextualized through the texts. Although both are fundamental elements of this music, the art song and improvisation, each perfectly worked out (not, however, formulated), they do not function in the, let's say, environment, as Gallio designed it, without each other; they support each other by questioning each other. This music becomes its own perpetuum mobile. We can begin again from the beginning. © Felix Klopotek
Reviews: 1, 2.
Ask for download link in comments.
Hello,it would be interessting to listen to this-a link please?
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