Steve Norton: soprano, alto and baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, percussion, tapes

Recorded March 4th, 2009 at The Outpost, 186 Hampshire St., Inman Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Special thanks to Lou Cohen and Walter Wright for sharing the bill with me, and to Dave Curry for listening and for making the photograph.

Mute was written to probe and process my anxiety around solo performance, particularly talking to the audience from the stage. I had done only one or two solo sets previously, and many years before this occasion. They remained negative experiences in my mind, mainly due to what I felt were dumb or awkward things I had said between pieces.

Like Road Trip ’09, Mute is a long, multi-section piece; its form is laid out below:

1. shakuhachi / ludus microtonalis (alto saxophone) (5:52)

2. Mute, pt. 1 (tape sound, percussion) (1:25)

3. hollow (baritone saxophone) (6:30)

4. Mute, pt. 2 (0:46)

5. Dreaming of something bigger, and lower (bass clarinet) (7:56)

6. Mute, pt. 3 (0:36)

7. Super Zero Beatdown / Waking and dreaming (soprano saxophone) (7:14)

Listen to Mute here:

The program for Mute with the spoken texts follows: