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James Kasper on Ancient Beginnings of Nraakors
In the mid-1990s I had composed about 20 pieces that I played on piano and shared at any gathering with a piano. Over the years these were whittled down to the eight “best”. Although these pieces were popular on piano, I had envisioned them as being for small groups of acoustic instruments. Not being sure how to “orchestrate” such, I was unable to proceed. And I failed to record the piano versions for my father before he passed away in 2001.
In the early 2000s I joined The Lovedogs as bassist and backing vocal singer. Playing with this popular eastern Iowa cover band rekindled my interest in composing, resulting in writing some 15 rock songs by about 2005. Calling these “pieces” is a stretch. While they had well written bass lines and “adequate” rhythm guitar parts, the lyrics existed as only odd lines, themes and short verses. And each song needed help developing the structure. But I had hit a wall.
James Kasper and 2019
Two significant things regarding my original music happened early that year. I turned 60. And, I developed a muscle issue the made playing musical instruments an increasing challenge. I decided it was now or never to find help to finish up all the best of the works.
Amy McBeth, a friend with some musician connections, was able to suggest I discuss things with Joseph Norman.
Joseph and I discussed art, music and creativity over a two-hour lunch in November. I was delighted to find someone who knew most of the obscure music I enjoyed and shared many views on art and creativity. He was interested in helping but wanted to know whether I wanted an architect or a carpenter before committing.
I said that as, “I had no idea how to complete the instrumental pieces and had hit writer’s block on the rock songs, there was no doubt I needed an architect.” A ‘really talented fun to hang with’ architect - and Joseph accepted.
Joseph was to have virtually unlimited freedom to do as he wanted with eight instrumentals and nine rock songs.
Joseph Norman on New Directions
The first step in my creative process involved familiarizing myself with Jim's music. I needed to listen closely to what was already there and determine what could/should be kept, cut, altered, and/or expanded. Although Jim was not married to the concretized song forms in his primordial conceptions, it was important to me, that I remain as faithful as possible to his aesthetic spirit and respect the concepts that had inspired his initial creations. With that spirit established, I felt liberated to apply my own fingerprints to the songs.
From there, I started playing through his songs with him. During this time, I could elaborate on individual parts, create additional textural layers and melodic lines, and find pathways into wholly new sections. These early stages featured a spontaneous organicism where parts and ideas emerged into existence, sprouting out of the foundation that Jim provided.
As the individual songs became fully realized, I passed them to my partner, Gigi Macabre, to work on vocal melodies. At the same time, Jim provided her with his partial lyrics and concepts for the songs.
Gigi Macabre and Lyrical Augmentation
When Joseph told me about his and Jim's project, my interest was piqued, because we had so much commonality in musical tastes. I have been waiting for a long time to find a collaboration like this. I love all things rock, and it was so fun to work with blending a few different genres. After meeting Jim, and spending some time with his ideas, I had a really distinct impression of the voice in which the songs were written. Jim had so many good ideas for lyrics and for some of the melodies, and I was excited to be included in the process of helping him complete them. Some songs were complete lyrically, or almost complete when presented to me. Other songs had a few lines, or an idea with suggestions about direction. Basically, the tapestry had begun to be woven, and I just added some extra threads here and there to complete. Jim wrote a sentence, I finished the sentence or added punctuation. The writing was just the beginning. At the time I wrote lyrics and melodies, I never expected to sing on the album. I was elated to also be included vocally. This project has been an incredible experience of creation and growth for me, and I will always remember working on this with Jim and Joseph fondly.
Joseph Norman and Instrumentality
Once the songs were completed I turned my attention to Jim's instrumentals. From the onset I intended for Jim's original themes to feature prominently. My starting goal was to expand the structural dimensions of the pieces while producing dramatic contrasts that would cohere with his primary themes. I sought to apply an individualized treatment to each piece, so that each one's formal elements and developmental trajectory would produce a unique listening experience.
A common feature linking several of these instrumentals was their orchestration, which involved either a trio consisting of saxophone, cello, and piano or a subset of that group. The exceptions to this instrumentation are North Side, South Side (a jazz quartet also featuring saxophone) and Rites (a purely electronic work). The sound color of this ensemble is one facet of a unifying identity to these instrumentals, which act as a thread that interleaves the rock songs of the album. While Jim has provided a sense of extra-musical connotation to connect the songs and instrumentals, there are motivic and structural connections to be drawn as well.
James Kasper and Gathering Musicians
As Joseph has mentioned, most of the instrumentals are mixes of piano, saxophone and cello. It might seem at first glance an odd grouping, but we wanted to have friends take on the instrumental parts. So first a small step back.
I played bass for a number of years with the eastern Iowa cover band The Lovedogs. That should have led me to play bass on the recording but I had developed Cramp Fasciculation Disease which made it impractical for me. My nephew, Joey Kramer, had taken over bass with The Lovedogs when I left. I had actually gotten him started on bass years ago and was very hopeful he would be willing to undertake bass lines that were not part of his usual styles. He enthusiastically accepted the offer.
With that, it seemed to make sense to ask Tony Vermeer, Lovedogs guitarist, and Steve Swyers, Lovedogs drummer, if they would be willing to join the recording group. Both were excited to help.
Joseph had written out most of the guitar parts that Tony would play. And like Joey, these were not in styles that Tony was used to. But he dove in and got going.
Although Joseph could have written drum parts, I thought Steve should have the opportunity to come up with his own drum lines despite the needed drum parts being – as it was for the others– not in his wheelhouse. My guidance for Steve was to think: Ringo, Ginger Baker, Keith Moon and lots of Steve Swyers.
We provided Joey and Tony midi audio, notation, and tablature. Steve only got midi audio. The audio was not recorded with voicing anywhere near the expected final sounds. And between Covid distancing and work schedules there were only a few rehearsals. But Gigi, Joseph, Joey, Tony and Steve were able to get enough familiarity and feel to head into the studio.
With the rock group in line, Joseph and I discussed who we knew that could take part in the instrumentals. Joey’s wife, Tracey Kramer, plays cello with the Muscatine Symphony as well as keyboards and singing in Hard Sevens (rock cover band) with Joey. She was very excited to join in the project. This was a double win as I felt we really needed two additional female voices and Tracey’s voice was very distinct and different from Gigi’s. She was able and willing to do backing vocals on the rock material.
Joseph has a long-term friendship and musical connection with saxophonist Jonathan Wilson. Joseph asked him and Jonathan joined. This was particularly wonderful as the two had worked together enough that they were able to finesse and develop the interplay of sax on the instrumentals. Jonathan also provided another set of trained ears in the recording studio.
We really needed a keyboardist, but Tracey’s hands weren’t large enough to take on the piano parts. So, I went back to Amy for suggestions. She connected us to Anastasia Scholze who was happy to take part and was used to playing from notation and able to play with minimal rehearsal time.
In the end, the various groupings of piano, sax and cello were recorded after a few run throughs in the recording studio to warm up and work things out between the musicians and Joseph.
The last person dragged into the project was Amy as the third female voice. In addition to singing lower than Gigi and Tracey, she surprised us all by coming up with the soaring operatic line in “Let’s Go (Hero Song).”
The only instrumental outlier was Rites which was performed by me on the synthesizer. Joseph applied live electronics to it and the result was transformative.
Joseph Norman on Recording
The studio experience was more than recording; it became an aspect of creation. It opened creative doorways and potentialities that hitherto had been unexplored. We had the good fortune of working with Luke and Dana at Flat Black Studios, and they brought with them simultaneous technical and aesthetic expertise.
The first series of recordings made involved Jim’s original set of songs. There was some spontaneity in the process, with some changes to parts made on the fly. During the act of recording we struck upon a new-found group chemistry and it was in the studio that our composite sound truly emerged. Tony, Steve, and Joey brought their own musical personalities and idiosyncrasies (maybe eccentricities) to the session, and it was here that the project came alive with everyone's distinctive voices.
The next session saw the instrumentals brought to life by our ensemble's performance interpretation. Anastasia, Jon, and Tracey all had at once open, curious, and strong personalities that brought diverse experiences which in turn enriched the music. I wanted to direct them according the vision Jim and I had for the pieces and that vision included permitting them the latitude to make decisions that would influence the listening experience in nuanced ways. Recording also allowed us to hear new details in the performances, which in turn provided us the prospect for new levels of refinement and revision that could better suit an ideal realization of the pieces.
James Kasper on Album Art
The odd band name and album title required thoughtful lettering for the logo. In the past I worked on several projects with the well-known calligrapher Cheryl Jacobsen. Cheryl cleaned up the rough design I provided her in both letter styling and proportions.
I also approached artist David Wallace to undertake the graphic work for the album and cd. Using a sky photograph I had taken, and an image of my retina, he created the haunting front image that leads to reflecting on the rear album image—Icarus’s skeleton merged with that of an archaeopteryx. An image of success and failure and the ultimate end of both.