Artist description Life at Night began with the idea of creating a short demonstration piece for a new business, Complete Theatrical Sound. The concept of a musicbook occurred to me. My sense was that a medium was possible that would afford the listener the usual enjoyment of a "book on tape" but that also could include the element of soundtrack music- a genre requiring (and allowing) high degrees of creativity from the musicians involved. The essential problem of this medium has been to create a narrative that is sparse, non- verbose. An early experiment with Graham Greene's "The Quiet American," (read by Simon Cadell) yielded a 12 minute audio piece that covered barely two pages of heavily edited text. The notion of scale became paramount. The musicbook is a hybrid of the book on tape and a soundtrack CD. The scale is roughly similar to that of a comic book to a novel: highly condensed text supported by a secondary medium that conveys elements that the text does not directly address (i.e.) atmosphere, environment, physical space and depth, emotional "information." I grew up in a Chicago area theatrical home environment and worked in various theater settings as a composer and performer. Anyone with big ears growing up in a large urban scene will probably relate to the environmental sound captured and developed here. I needed a brief set of pieces I could use to explore that urban soundscape and that would also make use of my own musical approaches to trumpeting, jazz and improvisation. After two years of experimentation the current state of Life at Night emerged as a casual exploration of the integration of narrative text, sound effects and creative music in a slowly evolving story line. Listening to Cadell read the Greene novel convinced me that unlike the book-on-tape business I was at work in a medium in which the narrator is in fact a musician, a vocalist in the auditory sense field. John Fuhr capably filled that void. As this concept is yet to be proven I want to thank all that have contributed to and been involved in the project both directly and indirectly. I see many ways now to improve upon the overall quality and ultimate value of such a production. The various techniques, processes and abilities that experienced creative musicians have developed since 1970 will contribute greatly toward realizing further efforts along these lines in the future. John O'Brien November 1999

Music Style The Future of Old Time Radio - Life at Night, a ten part "radio noir' first person chronicle of life in the slow lane; theater for the unemployed

Musical Influences Broderick Crawford, Mannix, Kojak, Miles, Bill Dixon and Milo Fine

Group Members John Fuhr- narrator John O達rien- trumpet, flugelhorn and horn electronics(wahs etc) synthesizer programming and music composition Pete Linman- electronic bass, electronic lap steel guitar Casey O達rien- double bass Graham O達rien- drums (tracks 7 & 10) Erich Hofmeister- drums and percussion Scott Newell- tenor saxophone John Choi- additional tenor saxophone (track 9 at 2:58) Story by John O達rien Live sessions co-produced by Casey O達rien (612) 245-5429 Album Cover Art by Jocelyn Bullock (612) 808-0209 Web Site Photos by Shannon Ryder

Instruments trumpet and orchestra

Albums life at night - see more at http://www.lifeatnight.com/

Press Reviews "a dramtic feast for the senses" - virtuallyamerican.com"A film-noir, Tarentino-esque, aural comic book, following the exploits of an ordinary man trapped in a really bad day. Immersed in a sixties jazz futuristic soundtrack that recalls the ghosts of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew and the straining notes of John Coltrane, 'Life at Night' is a dramatic feast for the senses." Review published March 17, 2001 by mpXreview.com Read complete review at http://www.mpxreview.com/reviews/984862073.shtml In Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan wrote, "All media are active metaphors in their power to translate experience into new forms." This is precisely what John O'Brien has affirmed with his stunning CD release Life at Night. From the old RCAR-28 in the living room to your Compaq H3650 PDA on the A-train, radio -- and its corollary streaming audio -- continues to be a deeply important element in our lives. From the time the Mercury Theatre upped the ante with radio play productions based on medium-appropriate dramatic scripts, innovative use of sound-effects and music (by CBS staff composer/conductor Bernard Herrmann - by the by), the way was paved for every human being within earshot of a radio receiver to experience the art of mature radio drama. The Mercury productions were so engaging that the listener was compelled into the listening zone that extends internally into their imagination to experience their own second staging of the play -- if you will. Here's to the wonderful medium of radio! We see a direct line from The Mercury to Life at Night - which has all the same components: the musical score, the sound effects, as well as the appropriate use of text that creates a seamless listening environment. Of course, in the years between The Mercury and Life At Night hundreds of other innovative radio dramatists have made their own extraordinary impact on the medium. One comes particularly to mind -- the late, great Jean Shepherd -- who McLuhan regarded as the "first to use radio as an essay and novel form for recording our common awareness of a totally new world of universal human participation in all human events, private or collective." O'Brien has advanced the form. To our ears, Life At Night seems like a synthesis of the arts of Shep and Welles. The result is what O'Brien intends: an alteration of the scale of a radio play to fit the medium of the Internet. O'Brien says that this scaling down "is roughly similar to that of a comic book to a novel -- highly condensed text supported by a secondary medium that conveys elements that the text does not directly address, i.e., atmosphere, environment, physical space and depth, emotional information." O'Brien accomplishes this through his evocative script (articulated with John Fuhr's dispassionate narration, reminiscent of Joe Frank) and an audio engineer's ear for high-qual sound of all things ordinary. There is no doubt that as you listen, you are firmly on set. The entire misenscene is infused with the soul of urban Chicago jazz by the soundtrack O'Brien scored and conducted. This beautiful score can stand on its own legs as an impeccable mirror of the narrative. And it reflects the expertise not only of the composer, but the band of extraordinary musicians O'Brien assembled for the project: Peter Linman, Casey O'Brien, Graham O'Brien, Erich Hofmeister, Scott Newel and John Choi. And when you link to O'Brien's Complete Theatrical Sound site you can even find a virtual set, based on a painting by Jocelyn Bullock, that has been deconstructed into animated .gifs and random typography that may or may not yield a word. If you are short on time, O'Brien has given us his equivalent of the sound bite - condensing the entire CD into three scenes - indeed very much like a storyboard, or a comic book -- narrative distilled to its absolute essentialness.

Location Lake Elmo, MN - USA

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