Ucross Journal

Collection Contents

#		Title	Length
1		the big sky	1:02	Play
2		yellow fields, yellow hills	1:18	Play
3		the high plains landscapes	1:37	Play
4		road through the Ucross Ranch	2:30	Play
5		Piney Creek	1:29	Play
6		Sunday afternoon showers	1:38	Play
7		Wyoming grey skies	1:48	Play
8		East Alum	2:33	Play
9		16 to clearmont	3:24	Play
10		immense and mesmerizing blue	1:57	Play
11		allow the love to take shape	2:14	Play
12		the passing of the clouds	1:46	Play
13		Sheridan: 152: county	1:56	Play
14		vast field / ray of universal moment	1:29	Play
15		snow / feldmanesque	1:37	Play
16		untitled	2:10	Play
17		play through	2:16	Play
18		don't play harmony til end	2:21	Play
19		untitled	1:53	Play
20		roll harmonies	2:03	Play
21		retrograde	1:30	Play
22		break up notes / feldmanesque	1:52	Play
23		untitled	1:28	Play
24		untitled	1:31	Play
25		untitled	2:35	Play
26		Ucross Improvisation I	3:08	Play
27		Ucross Improvisation II	3:03	Play
28		Ucross Improvisation III	2:53	Play
29		Ucross Improvisation IV	3:07	Play
30		Ucross Improvisation V	3:57	Play

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Description

Ucross Journal is a collection of new improvisations for solo piano by San Francisco-based composer/improviser Ernesto Diaz-Infante.

The Ucross Journal is comprised of 25 short pieces, written one each day the composer was in residence on the Ucross Foundation Ranch. Each daily entry bears the composer's impressions of that particular day.

The Ucross Improvisations are a series of five free improvisations, based on the journal material.

This is Diaz-Infante's fourth recording in his ongoing exploration of solo piano improvisation. His other discs, Itz'at, Tepeu, and Solus, have received wide acclaim and airplay on radio stations around the world.

"...some of the most introspective and fascinating piano music I've heard in quite a while." Bill Binkelman, Wind and Wire.

Ernesto Diaz-Infante, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, composer and improviser is an active member of the vital San Francisco experimental music scene. Born in Salinas, California, Diaz-Infante's early musical life began with private piano lessons and in high school jazz, marching and concert bands, garage rock bands and Mexican conjunto/pop bands. In his teens, he became immersed in writing poetry, drawing, playing synthesizer and guitar, and lo-fi 4-track recording of songs. He received his formal musical education from the University of California Santa Barbara College of Creative Studies (1992-94) and California Institute of the Arts (1994-96), where he studied a variety of music, composition, electronic music, film music, Gamelan, modern dance, and performance art. Diaz-Infante has composed contemporary chamber music for solo, ensemble and orchestra. He has been awarded residencies at the Centre International de Recherche Musicale (CIRM), the Villa Arson (both in Nice, France), The Millay Colony for the Arts, Centrum, Villa Montalvo, The New York Mills Arts Retreat, The Ucross Foundation and Dorland Mountain Arts Colony. He has recorded more than 15 CDs of music, collaborated with numerous musicans, and he has had performances and radio broadcasts all over the world.

"Since the mid-'90s, Ernesto Diaz-Infante counts as one of the most prolific avant-garde composer and improviser the U.S. West Coast has seen. He has performed and recorded music on piano, prepared guitar, and electronics; composed chamber music; improvised with a very large number of musicians from California, New York, and Chicago; and released a pile of CDs on very small independent labels such as Pax Recordings, Sweetstuff Media, Zzaj Productions, and Public Eyesore. He also curates the Big Sur Experimental Music Festival (since 1999) and the creative music series at the Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco (since 2000). His multifaceted career gives him the look of an eclectic or maverick artist, but the persistence and commanding seriousness with which he pursues his career is gaining him a small but dedicated following." --Francois Couture, All Muisc Guide.

"He's a big talent." -- Walter Horn, Signal to Noise

"A composer and performer with an instinctive way of creating sound paintings" --Josef Woodard, The Los Angeles Times

"...Diaz-Infante breaks down the creative process into its most basic elements of man and instrument."--Scott Menhinick, Signal to Noise.

"a minimalist with an expanded sense of scale" -- Time Out NY