Loren Mazzacane Connors


Loren Mazzacane Connors is an American guitarist who has recorded and performed under several different names: Guitar Roberts, Loren Mazzacane, Loren Mattei, and currently Loren Connors. His music has touched on many genres, but often features an abstract or experimental version of blues and folk styles.

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 painting.
Best known as a composer and improviser on acoustic and electric guitar, Connors has released over 50 albums, on commercial record labels such as Family Vineyard, Table of the Elements, Recital and Father Yod as well as on his own Black Label, St. Joan and Daggett self-publishing imprints. They include spare solo and duo blues, ensemble experimental jazz, noise, drones, and avant garde rock.
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."
From 1978 to 1984, Connors recorded a series of mostly solo blues abstractions, releasing them in limited amounts on his Daggett label, later reissued in a joint effort by Byron Coley, Thurston Moore on the Ecstatic Peace label in 1999, mastered by Jim O’Rourke, in part to celebrate Connors's 50th birthday. Cadence Magazine noted at the time that he was “similar to others in the Advanced Guard of improvising guitarists in that he is trying to extend the boundaries of sound and pitch of acoustic guitar, but he is unique in the utilization of Blues in his work, one could almost say this is Avant Garde Blues.” From 1981 to 1984, Connors released six limited edition albums with folksinger Kath Bloom, including traditional songs and Bloom originals.
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. 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, later reissued by the Dexter's Cigar label in 1996. He moved to New York City in 1990, where he continued using the multi-track approach through the 1990s. Langille's vocals were featured on several recordings, and she also helped edit his suites. Many of these releases were on the RoadCone label, managed by Mike Hinds. During this period Connors introduced an abstracted undercurrent of Irish themes and melodic influences, while eschewing formal structure, with the Hell’s Kitchen Park CD being a hallmark of this added influence.
Such 1990s recordings were interspersed with recordings of 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, and with Thurston Moore and others.
In the mid-to-late 1990s he led the blues-rock group Haunted House with Langille, Andrew Burnes, 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," 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 and also with multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter.
From 1999 through the present, Connors has focused on extended solo improvisational recordings, including the Departing of a Dream series, his tribute to Miles Davis. His main record label for these recordings has been Family Vineyard, managed by Eric Weddle.
In 2003, he composed and recorded a score for the film Why Can’t I Stop This Uncontrollable Dancing?. In 2009, Connors's piece, “Airs No. 3,” appeared in the soundtrack for the French-language film, Le Premier Cercle, by director Laurent Tuel, featuring Jean Reno.
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.
In the mid-to-late 2010s, Connors took up painting again, while continuing his music composing and performing. An art show of a series of acrylic paintings on Belgium linen canvas was hosted at the Artists Space in Manhattan in the fall of 2018.
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.

Selected discography

1978–1984:  Avant garde blues abstractions

Source:
  • The Curse of Midnight Mary
  • Unaccompanied Acoustic Guitar Improvisations Vol. 1-8
  • Unaccompanied Acoustic Guitar Improvisations Vol. 10
  • ''Violets featuring Elizabeth Walker''

    1981–1988:  Folk or blues song accompaniment, including instrumental improvisations in Crotty and 1988 releases

Source:
  • Robert Crotty with Me with Robert Crotty
  • Round His Shoulders Gonna Be a Rainbow with Kath Bloom
  • Sand in My Shoe with Kath Bloom
  • Restless Faithful Desperate with Kath Bloom
  • Moonlight with Kath Bloom
  • Bluesmaster with Suzanne Langille
  • Bluesmaster 2: The Dome Room Concert with Suzanne Langille

    1989–2001: Thematic solo suites of airs and other pieces, usually recorded with two or more tracks; occasional vocals

Source:
  • In Pittsburgh featuring Suzanne Langille
  • The Dark Paintings of Mark Rothko
  • Hell's Kitchen Park featuring Suzanne Langille
  • Moonyean featuring Suzanne Langille
  • 9th Avenue
  • Long Nights
  • Crucible with Suzanne Langille
  • The Carmelites
  • Hell! Hell! Hell! Hell! Hell!
  • Calloden Harvest
  • The Carmelites
  • A Possible Dawn
  • Evangeline featuring Suzanne Langille
  • The Enchanted Forest with Suzanne Langille
  • St. Vincent's Newsboy Home
  • Airs
  • Portrait of a Soul
  • The Little Match Girl
  • Lullaby
  • ''In Twilight''

    1995–present: Collaborations with other instrumentalists

Source:
  • Live at Downtown Music Gallery with Keiji Haino
  • Live in NYC with Alan Licht
  • Hoffman Estates with Alan Licht, Jim O'Rourke, Darin Gray, Josh Abrams
  • The Lost Mariner with Darin Gray
  • In Bern with Jim O'Rourke
  • This Past Spring with Darin Gray
  • Arborvitae with David Grubbs
  • In France with Alan Licht
  • Meditations On the Ascension of Blind Joe Death Vol. 1 with Christina Carter
  • Two Nice Catholic Boys with Jim O'Rourke
  • Into the Night Sky with Alan Licht
  • The Only Way to Go Is Straight Through with Thurston Moore
  • Light with Clint Heidorn
  • Tom Carter/Loren Connors with Tom Carter
  • The Departing of a Dream Vol. VII with Daniel Carter
  • Loren Connors & Kim Gordon at Issue
  • At the Top of the Stairs with Alan Licht

    1999–present:  Extended blues or readings with improvisational composition

Source:
  • Let the Darkness Fall with Suzanne Langille, David Daniell and Andrew Burnes
  • Thin Air with poet Steve Dalachinsky
  • Cosmic Debris Vol. V with Haunted House band and My Cat Is an Alien
  • Blue Ghost Blues with Haunted House band
  • I Wish I Didn't Dream with Suzanne Langille
  • Blue Ghost Blues/Strong & Foolish Heart with Suzanne Langille
  • Frankie and Johnny with Haunted House band

    1998–present: Extended solo improvisational compositions

Source:
  • The Bridge
  • The Departing of a Dream
  • The Departing of a Dream Vol. II
  • The Murder of Joan of Arc
  • The Departing of a Dream Vol. III: Juliet
  • Sails featuring John Fahey
  • The Hymn of the North Star
  • Red Mars featuring bassist Margarida Garcia
  • A Fire
  • My Brooklyn
  • Loren Connors/Vapour Theories
  • Live in New York
  • The Departing of a Dream Vol. V
  • The Departing of a Dream Vol. VI
  • Angels That Fall
  • Beautiful Dreamer dedicated to Steve Dalachinsky
  • ''Domain of the Wind''