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Bob Ostertag (New Mexico, 1957) was raised in Colorado, studied at the
Conservatory, and in 1976 picked up the synthesizer and formed the improvisor
ensemble
Fall Mountain with Ned Rothenberg (reeds) and Jim Katzin (violin),
later documented on Early Fall (may 1978 - Parachute, 1979) and
extended pieces such as Ultima Thule and Small Life,
thus becoming one
of the first improvisors at the electronic keyboards.
In 1978 he joined Anthony Braxton, and in 1979 he relocated to New York, where
he became part of the "creative" scene.
His first album, Getting A Head (may 1980 - Rift, 1980), was a trio with guitarist Fred Frith and drummer Charles Noyes, and Ostertag playes all sorts of electronic and self-made instruments. More importantly, this was an improvised jam session, with Ostertag improvising at tape manipulation, a first in improvised music.
Voice Of America (january 1981 - Rift, 1983) documents live concerts with Fred Frith in which Ostertag displayed the same skills at electronic improvisation and add
a new technique to his bad of tricks: sampling (achieved with a stack of tapes because the sampler had not been invented yet).
Distracted by his political activities (supporting revolutionary movements in
Central America), Orstertag returned to recording only after a seven-year
hiatus but armed with a sampler:
Attention Span (december 1989 - Rift, 1990) featured Frith on guitars and John Zorn on
saxophone, while
Sooner or Later (june 1990 - RecRec, 1991), an ambitious work of soundsculpting, was based on the crying of a Salvadorean boy.
A protagonist of the gay-rights movement,
Ostertag payed tribute to the San Francisco gay riots with the
string quartet All The Rage (1992) and
Burns Like Fire (MVORL, 1992), that employ popular music as well as
sounds of the riots (and string instruments) as sources.
Say No More was a virtual quartet with drummer Joey Baron, bassist Mark Dresser, percussionist Gerry Hemingway (whose group music was actually composed by a computer and sampler from separate individual performances), that released Say No More (1993), the live In Person (1994), Verbatim (may 1996) and Verbatim Flesh & Blood (2000).
Fear No Love (1994) was unusual in that it mixed rock, soul and dance music.
In 1998 he embraced the laptop computer, but Like A Melody No Bitterness (Seeland, 1997) was notable mainly as a rare case of solo improvised music for sampler.
Ostertag also collaborated with
Otomo Yoshihide:
Asphodel
Twins (Sank-ohso Discs, 1996),
and House of Splendor, featuring drag-queen Justin Bond and rechristened as PantyChrist (Seeland, 1999).
Ostertag has also scored multimedia pieces such as
Spiral (1996) for self-made glass instruments, film and spoken-word,
Yugoslavia Suite (1999) for digital music, video and hand choreography,
Entre Basura y Ciencia (2000),
etc.
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