Notes for Distant Saxophones CD – updated 3rd April 2022 1. All Day…(I hear the noise of waters) (Jan Steele/John Cage) 2. Distant Saxophones (Jan Steele) 3. Rhapsody Spaniel (Jan Steele) 4a/b. Deathward (Jan Steele/John Lyle Donaghy) segued into Burnt Time (Jan Steele) 5. Temporary Farewell (Jan Steele) 6. City Night Music (Jan Steele) 7. Ivory (Jan Steele/Dorothy Steele) 8. Nobody But You (Janet Sherbourne) 9. Slowly (Janet Sherbourne) 10. Still (Janet Sherbourne) 11. Everyday (Janet Sherbourne) 1. All Day…………… (I hear the noise of waters) (Music: Jan Steele, Summer 1972; Lyric: James Joyce) All day I hear the noise of waters Making moan Sad as the seabird is when going Forth alone He hears the winds cry to the waters’ Monotone. The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing Where I go. I hear the noise of many waters Far below. All day, all night, I hear them flowing To and fro. From “Chamber Music” by James Joyce, 1907 No XXXV Personnel Janet Sherbourne Vocal Stuart Jones Solo guitar Fred Frith Guitar Kevin Edwards Vibraphone Steve Beresford Bass Guitar Phil Buckle Percussion Jan Steele Conductor Recorded around July 1974 at Basing St Studios, London, Engineered by Rhett Davies & Guy Bidmead. Produced by Brian Eno. Originally released in 1976 on the Obscure Series, being the first track on “Jan Steele/John Cage: Voices & Instruments”, Obs 5 (1975 Obscure Records Ltd). It proved impossible to locate the tapes of this album. They are believed to be owned by Virgin, but they have no paperwork relating to it - so for them it doesn’t exist. This track has been transcribed from a copy of the original vinyl pressing by Jonathan Cowley of Audio Reunited. There always seemed to be a certain amount of distortion on the original recording during the guitar solos - which we believe we have now eliminated by evening up the balance between the two stereo channels. I wrote this piece during the summer vacation of 1972 whilst an undergraduate student at York University Music Dept, UK, where I had just finished my first year. A project was planned for the autumn term called The Pop Music Project. The music department was one of the few in the UK at that time to have what has now become ubiquitous in University Music Depts & Music Colleges – a recording/electronic music facility. It was very basic back then - consisting of Revox, Studer & Nagra stereo tape-recorders,a Calrec Sound Field microphone, a VCS3 synthesizer, tape editing facilities, and various outboards. Most of the pieces produced in the studio at that time relied on “classic” tape editing techniques.