By
Twelve Bean Groove Machine is a rhythmically driving, exuberantly busy piece that playfully explores processes of repetition and layering. The musical language draws heavily on minimalism, but with a free-wheeling spirit drawn from big band jazz, klezmer, and electronic dance music. The pairs of clarinets, trumpets, trombones, violins, and cellos tend to share material with their partner, either by playing the same or similar material in canon (one slightly after the other) or in parallel harmony (at the same time, but starting on different pitches). Throughout the piece, these pairs are layered on top of each other in different ways, and their material is developed and passed off to other pairs. Against these pairings, the single piano lays down steady grooves below and the single flute adds swirling filigree and wild improvisatory solos above. The title grew out of a suggestion made by one of the clarinet players who played the premiere that I should call it “Seven Layer Bean Dip” to reflect the layering techniques that underpin so much of the work. I combined this idea with its instrumentation for twelve players and the machine-like quality of its steady, propulsive rhythms to come up with “Twelve Bean Groove Machine.” It was premiered on April 3rd, 2011, on the Switchboard Music Festival in San Francisco.
