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HARVEY: Good evening, everybody.

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I'd like to welcome you to MIT.

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My name's Mark Harvey,
and I'm teaching here

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in the music program.

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And this semester
we have a course

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called Musical Improvisation.

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And thanks to our music section
as well as the alumni class

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funds program, we were able
to bring in some distinguished

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improvisers.

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We've had two of these,
a series of four.

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We've had two of these.

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We have tonight, and then we
have one more in early May.

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Let me just say a couple
words about our visitors

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this evening.

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We have Neil Leonard, who's
been a long time friend,

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and Robin Eubanks over here.

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Neil came to our
class on Monday,

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and we had a great time.

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And so this is a
furthering, an enrichment

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of what we're studying.

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And now it's a chance for
all of you to engage in this.

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So you can see by
their bios, they're

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very distinguished world
travelers, master improvisers.

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So without further
ado, Neil Leonard.

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Robin Eubanks.

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[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]

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LEONARD: Thank you, Mark.

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It's wonderful to be
here at MIT this evening.

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I'm very pleased to
have the opportunity

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to play again with the
great Robin Eubanks.

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I'm going to play three
pieces, [INAUDIBLE] pieces,

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and the first two were created
under very peculiar or unique

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circumstances.

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One was at the invitation of
a conference on sonification

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in Washington, DC a
couple of years ago.

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And I did a piece with
a couple of my students

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that involved data that
was collected from the sun.

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And so we made a piece of
music out of celestial data.

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And that's the first piece
called Nocturnal Remix.

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The second piece
is a piece which

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I created at the invitation
of an art collector

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in Italy, Gianni
Bolongaro who asked me

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if I would record the
sounds of a sculpture

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by an artist named
Jannis Kounellis

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And I began a piece, which went
through several renditions.

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And what you'll hear
are the sounds recorded

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in his sculpture park,
an Italian vocalist

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from Mount Vesuvius in
Naples, and the third piece

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is an improvisation on a song
that you'll probably recognize.

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I won't announce that right now.

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Thank you.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]

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LEONARD: Thank you very much.

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00:30:19,005 --> 00:30:28,486
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]

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LEONARD: Now I would like
to welcome the great Robin

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Eubanks.

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[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]

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EUBANKS: First I want
to definitely thank

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Neil for inviting me up here
because you probably did not

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know it, but Neil and
I have known each other

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for-- Don't say.

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Many, many, many,
many, many years.

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Both grew up in Philadelphia.

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Actually I grew up playing in
a lot of funk and rock bands.

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And the first jazz
band I ever played in

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was with Neil in Philadelphia.

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So it's great to see
how he's developed.

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I found out he was teaching
up here at Berklee.

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And we're both teaching.

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I teach at Oberlin Conservatory.

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And I was just
really happy that he

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invited me to come
do this because I

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don't get to do it too often.

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There's still relatively
few horn players

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that are using all these
electronics and things.

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And I don't get to do too often.

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So I just came off of a tour,
a month-long tour last night,

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or the day before maybe.

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I forget now.

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And actually played at the
Berklee performance center

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a month ago.

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And I got in yesterday,
and I was up all night

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trying to read the
manuals to find out,

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remember how to work this stuff.

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Because basically
what I'm saying is I

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don't know what I'm doping.

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There's a little bit spun for
me because you kind of fly

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by the seat of your pants with
no net, and sometimes you fall.

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And it's cool.

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You just get up
and try to make it

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so you don't notice when I fall.

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But I'm just going
to try some stuff

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and see what happens
and hope you enjoy it.

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Thank you.

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00:32:27,032 --> 00:32:29,016
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]

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00:32:47,390 --> 00:32:51,630
EUBANKS: The first piece is just
going to be complete improv.

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00:32:51,630 --> 00:32:53,340
I don't know what
I'm going to do.

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We'll call it MIT April 4th.

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00:33:03,330 --> 00:33:03,930
MIT April 3rd.

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00:33:14,622 --> 00:33:16,530
[EUBANKS PLAYING]

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[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]

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00:41:23,646 --> 00:41:26,141
[EUBANKS PLAYING]

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00:55:06,194 --> 00:55:08,684
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]

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EUBANKS: That was fun.

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Little bumps along the
way, but it's cool.

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But that's what I enjoy about it
is just that it is what it is.

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Just live with it.

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[EUBANKS PLAYING MUSIC]

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01:04:21,270 --> 01:04:23,266
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]

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LEONARD: We are going to
finish with a piece together.

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Does anybody know
what a pregonero is?

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EUBANKS: A what?

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01:04:45,030 --> 01:04:46,755
LEONARD: A pregonero.

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ROBIN: Spanish

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LEONARD: A pregonero is a street
vendor, who lives in Cuba.

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01:04:53,291 --> 01:04:54,790
Actually they're
all over the world.

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01:04:54,790 --> 01:05:00,420
But the ones that I
know live in Cuba.

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01:05:00,420 --> 01:05:06,510
And for the past maybe 50 years,
their practice was not allowed.

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01:05:06,510 --> 01:05:08,940
And as of a couple years
ago, if you found yourself

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01:05:08,940 --> 01:05:15,500
in Cuba sitting in
your in-laws patio,

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01:05:15,500 --> 01:05:22,630
you would begin to hear these
people selling ajo, garlic,

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01:05:22,630 --> 01:05:27,900
soja, onions, exterminators
who could kill

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01:05:27,900 --> 01:05:37,880
bed bugs, mice, mothers-in-law--
I didn't try them-- car alarms.

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01:05:37,880 --> 01:05:39,170
The whole deal.

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01:05:39,170 --> 01:05:43,520
This was everything you ever
needed sold door-to-door.

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01:05:43,520 --> 01:05:47,030
There was no advertising,
no Internet, no billboards,

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01:05:47,030 --> 01:05:49,570
no what advertisers,
no handbills.

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01:05:49,570 --> 01:05:54,100
Just people roaming the
streets selling their stuff.

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And in the last year as
they came back instantly,

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I invited them to
do some pieces.

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And some of them
were installations,

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and some were performances.

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01:06:10,630 --> 01:06:12,920
Probably the most
notable performance

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01:06:12,920 --> 01:06:17,709
was I decided that I don't
have an interest in going

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01:06:17,709 --> 01:06:20,000
to somebody else's country
and telling them what to do.

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01:06:20,000 --> 01:06:23,520
But I thought in Cuba they
needed an American Idol

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for the pregoneros.

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01:06:25,580 --> 01:06:32,437
And so I staged an American
Idol for the pregoneros,

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01:06:32,437 --> 01:06:36,930
an Idol of the Americas,
and invited the pregoneros

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01:06:36,930 --> 01:06:40,915
and gave prizes for the most
musical pregon, the most poetic

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01:06:40,915 --> 01:06:48,060
pregon, the pregonero who was
the most gifted and innovative

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01:06:48,060 --> 01:06:49,900
for promoting contemporary art.

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01:06:49,900 --> 01:06:51,980
We made that category.

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01:06:51,980 --> 01:06:56,895
And national television picked
it up and had the pregoneros

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01:06:56,895 --> 01:07:00,860
on national television with
a jury that I selected.

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01:07:00,860 --> 01:07:02,670
This project keeps on going.

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And the next stop is
the Venice biennial,

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where my wife and
I have been invited

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01:07:08,775 --> 01:07:12,302
to participate in the Cuban
pavilion of the Venice biennial

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01:07:12,302 --> 01:07:13,230
in May.

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But when I thought of what I
could write for Robin that he

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and I could play, well I still
couldn't get these pregoneros

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out of my mind.

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So we're going to perform
a short suite of pieces

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and in this you'll
hear the voice of one

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01:07:30,380 --> 01:07:38,260
of these pregoneros and
a lot play with the song

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01:07:38,260 --> 01:07:39,610
that this person sings.

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01:07:39,610 --> 01:07:43,175
So this piece is
called Pregones that I

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01:07:43,175 --> 01:07:44,660
wrote for Robin and myself.

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01:07:44,660 --> 01:07:46,145
Thank you.

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01:07:46,145 --> 01:07:48,125
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]

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01:08:01,507 --> 01:08:02,340
EUBANKS: [INAUDIBLE]

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[LEONARD AND EUBANKS PLAYING]

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01:22:23,880 --> 01:22:26,930
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]