Loren Mazzacane Connors

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Loren Mazzacane Connors (born October 22, 1949) is an American experimental musician who has recorded and performed under several different names: Guitar Roberts, Loren Mazzacane, Loren Mattei, and currently Loren Connors.^[1] He has worked with Alan Licht, Jim O'Rourke, bassist Darin Gray, Thurston Moore, John Fahey, Keiji Haino, Jandek, Suzanne Langille, poet Steve Dalachinsky, Chan Marshall, Margarida Garcia, Kath Bloom and Robert Crotty.

Biography[]

Connors was born in New Haven, Connecticut, United States, and studied art at Southern Connecticut State University and the University of Cincinnati in the early 1970s, before deciding to pursue music rather than visual art. An early champion of his music was Dr. William Ferris, noted blues historian who served as head of the National Endowment for the Arts under the Clinton Administration. Connors made contact with him in the late 1970s, while Dr. Ferris was teaching at Yale University. Although Ferris did not know it at the time, Connors was the janitor who cleaned his office. Many years later, Ferris wrote the liner notes for a sweeping compilation CD set of Connors's seven-inch recordings, called "Night Through."^[2]

Best known as a composer and improviser on acoustic and electric guitar, Connors has released over 50 albums, on commercial record labels such as Table of the Elements and Father Yod as well as on his own Black Label, St. Joan and Daggett self publishing imprints.^[3] They include spare solo and duo blues, ensemble experimental jazz, noise, drones, and folk music. From 1981-1984, Connors released six limited edition albums with singer-guitarist Kath Bloom. In the mid-1980s, Connors took a partial break from music and honed his compositional skills by focusing on the art of haiku. He received the 1987 Lafcadio Hearn Award, and he and life partner Suzanne Langille also co-wrote an article on blues and haiku, "The Dancing Ear," published in the Haiku Society of America's journal. (A book of Connors's work from this period, Autumn Sun, was re-released by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley a couple decades later.) He wrote under the name Loren Mattei, and a music recording from this period, Ribbon o' Blues, was also released under that name.

Soon after returning to music, Connors began working with layered tracks. The first of this period was the In Pittsburgh album, released in 1989 (reissued by the Dexter's Cigar label in 1996). This approach to recording continued through the 1990s. Langille's vocals were featured on several recordings, and she also helped edit the music. Many of these releases were on the RoadCone label, managed by Mike Hinds. Such recordings were interspersed with live performances of guitar duets. The first of those recordings was with Japanese guitarist Keiji Haino, introduced to Connors by WFMU DJ David Newgarten, who then produced the recording, released in 1995. This was followed by the first of several recordings with guitarist Alan Licht in 1996.

In the mid-to-late 1990s he led the blues-rock group Haunted House with Langille, Andrew Burnes (of the band San Agustin), and percussionist Neel Murgai. Connors and Langille also joined with San Agustin's David Daniell and Burnes for a recording on the Secretly Canadian label. In the late 1990s, Connors and John Fahey met at a Chicago event, introduced by guitarist Jim O'Rourke. Fahey, who died in 2001, included on his last CD, released posthumously in 2003, a piece called, "Red Cross, Disciple of Christ Today (for Guitar Roberts)," referring to Connors's nickname. In the mid-2000s, Connors met and performed with Jandek, a long-time improviser whose unique independence and originality had often been compared to Connors's. He worked very closely with poet Steve Dalachinsky (who died in 2019)^[4] and also with multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter. Since the 1990s, Connors's main label has been Family Vineyard, managed by Eric Weddle.

Connors was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1992. He continues to perform and record. Some of Connors' works are archived at the Blues Archive of the University of Mississippi. The University of South Carolina has a comprehensive archive of Connors' recordings and materials.

In 2003, he composed and recorded a score for the film Why Can’t I Stop This Uncontrollable Dancing?.^[5]

In 2012, his composition, "The Murder of Joan of Arc," was used as one of two alternative soundtracks for a reissue by Criterion Collection and Eureka Entertainment of Carl Dreyer's silent film, The Passion of Joan of Arc.^[6]

Discography[]

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• Acoustic Guitar/Gifts (Daggett, 1978)
• Unaccompanied Acoustic Guitar Improvisations Vol. 1-8 (Daggett, 1979-1980)
• Hanford, Bloom and Mazzacane with Kath Bloom (Daggett, 1981)
• Round His Shoulders Gonna Be a Rainbow with Kath Bloom (Daggett, 1982)
• Sing the Children Over with Kath Bloom (Ambiguous, 1982)
• Sand in My Shoe with Kath Bloom (St. Joan, 1983)
• Restless Faithful Desperate with Kath Bloom (St. Joan, 1984)
• Moonlight with Kath Bloom (St. Joan, 1984)
• Violets (St. Joan, 1984)
• Bluesmaster with Suzanne Langille (St. Joan, 1988)
• Bluesmaster 2: The Dome Room Concert with Suzanne Langille (St. Joan, 1988)
• In Pittsburgh featuring Suzanne Langille (St. Joan, 1989)
• Fallen Son (St. Joan, 1990)
• Midnight (St. Joan, 1990)
• Rooms featuring Suzanne Langille (St. Joan, 1990)
• Come Night with Suzanne Langille (What Next?, 1991)
• Hell's Kitchen Park featuring Suzanne Langille (Black Label, 1993)
• Moonyean featuring Suzanne Langille (Road Cone, 1994)
• Live at Downtown Music Gallery with Keiji Haino (Persona Non Grata/Father Yod, 1995)
• 9th Avenue (Black Label, 1995)
• Long Nights (Table of the Elements, 1995)
• In Pittsburgh reissue(Dexter's Cigar, 1996)
• Crucible with Suzanne Langille (Black Label, 1996)
• Long Nights (Table of the Elements, 1996)
• Two Nights with Alan Licht (Road Cone, 1996)
• Live in NYC with Alan Licht (New World of Sound, 1996)
• MMMR with Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo and Jean-Marc Montera (Numero Zero Audio/Xeric Records, 1997)
• The Carmelites (P-Vine Records, 1997)
• Keiji Haino/Loren MazzaCane Connors Vol. II" with Keiji Haino (Menlo Park, 1997)
• Hell! Hell! Hell! Hell! Hell! (Lotus Sound, 1997)
• Calloden Harvest (Road Cone, 1997)
• Mercury with Alan Licht (Road Cone, 1997)
• MMMR with Thurston Moore (Xeric/Numero Zero, 1997)
• The Carmelites (P-Vine, 1997)
• A Possible Dawn (hatNOIR, 1998)
• The Bridge (Megalon, 1998)
• Evangeline featuring Suzanne Langille (Road Cone, 1998)
• The Enchanted Forest with Suzanne Langille (Secretly Canadian, 1998)
• Hoffman Estates with Alan Licht, Jim O'Rourke, Darin Gray, Josh Abrams (Drag City, 1998)
• St. Vincent's Newsboy Home (Item, 1999)
• Let the Darkness Fall with Suzanne Langille, David Daniell and Andrew Burnes (Secretly Canadian, 1999)
• Up in Flames with Haunted House band (Erstwhile Records, 1999)
• Airs (Road Cone, 1999)
• The Lost Mariner with Darin Gray (Family Vineyard, 1999)
• In Bern with Jim O'Rourke (hatNOIR, 1999)
• Portrait of a Soul (FBWL, 2000)
• The Little Match Girl (Road Cone, 2001)
• This Past Spring with Darin Gray (Family Vineyard, 2001)
• Lullaby (Carbon, 2001)
• In Twilight (Alien8, 2001)
• The Departing of a Dream (Family Vineyard, 2002)
• The Departing of a Dream Vol. II (Family Vineyard, 2003)
• Arborvitae with David Grubbs (Hapna, 2003)
• The Murder of Joan of Arc (Table of the Elements, 2003)
• In France with Alan Licht (FBWL, 2003)
• The Departing of a Dream Vol. III: Juliet (Family Vineyard, 2004)
• Meditations On the Ascension of Blind Joe Death Vol. 1 with Christina Carter (Ecstatic Yod, 2005)
• Sails (Table of the Elements, 2006)
• Thin Air with Steve Dalachinsky (Silver Wonder, 2007)
• The Hymn of the North Star (Family Vineyard, 2007)
• Cosmic Debris Vol. V with Haunted House band and My Cat Is an Alien (Opax, 2008)
• Two Nice Catholic Boys with Jim O'Rourke (Family Vineyard, 2009)
• The Curse of Midnight Mary (Family Vineyard, 2009)
• Into the Night Sky with Alan Licht(Family Vineyard, 2010)
• Red Mars featuring Margarida Garcia(Family Vineyard, 2011)
• Blue Ghost Blues with Haunted House band (Northern Spy, 2011)
• I Wish I Didn't Dream with Suzanne Langille (Northern Spy, 2012)
• A Fire (Family Vineyard, 2013)
• The Only Way to Go Is Straight Through with Thurston Moore (Northern Spy, 2013)
• My Brooklyn (Analogpath, 2014)
• Loren Connors/Vapour Theories (Carbon, 2014)
• Lost City with Alan Licht and Aki Onda(AudioMER, 2015)
• Live in New York (Family Vineyard, 2015)
• Light with Clint Heidorn (Family Vineyard, 2016)
• The Departing of a Dream Vol. V (Family Vineyard, 2016)
• Tom Carter/Loren Connors with Tom carter (Family Vineyard, 2016)
• The Departing of a Dream Vol. VI (Family Vineyard, 2016)
• Angels That Fall (Family Vineyard, 2017)
• Robert Crotty with Me with Robert Crotty (Family Vineyard, 2017)
• Unaccompanied Acoustic Guitar Improvisations Vol. 10 (Blank Forms, 2018)
• The Departing of a Dream Vol. VII with Daniel Carter (Family Vineyard, 2019)
• Beautiful Dreamer dedicated to Steve Dalachinsky (Family Vineyard, 2020)

References[]

External links[]

• Official website
• Official English page for "Gestures", a film about Loren Connors