KBCS

Flotation Device previews Seattle Opera's Northwest premiere of X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X with a look at its musical sources (including Anthony Davis’s contemporaneous Epistēmē band), its position in music theater history, and the composer's recent revision as captured in a new recording by Odyssey Opera (BMOP). We also celebrate the 75th birthday of Fred Frith with a Henry Cow recording supplied by our 50 years ago in the avant-garde department, which will also offer up contemporaneous tracks by soprano sax reviver Steve Lacy, scat singing liberator Jeanne Lee, and even Jethro Tull, via an oddity unveiled in 2002 after languishing in the vaults for three decades. Also consigned to oblivion for decades (by its cantankerous composer) was Opus Clavicembalisticum, the notorious 4½ hour piano tome by the English Parsi Kaikhosru Sorabji, released from a performance ban 46 years after its composition, and just recorded in its entirety by Daan Vandewalle. We’ve got 30 minutes of highlights queued up, enough for you to decide whether it’s the work of a visionary genius or a headstrong amateur.