Everyone who has ever worked around printing presses knows that each press sings its own song.

What everyone may not realize is that each press actually sings several songs. That is one of the fascinating things that composer Bill Walker found out when he was creating these unusual pieces which are derived from the rhythms of printing presses.

“My first step,” Walker explained, “was to tape the presses running at different speeds. We recorded them working from 1800 impressions an hour up to 8000 impressions, moving our microphones around each press to get different effects in stereo. Sometimes I heard the rhythm that would control the composition as soon as I heard the press. That’s what happened on Blue Line - the rhythmic feeling came out immediately. The rhythm for Color Me Waltz was also apparent, except that I changed the stress to the second beat of the bar instead of placing it on the down beat. But in most cases, as I listened over and over to the tape recordings of the presses, I could hear the rhythm in two or three different ways.”

This possible choice of rhythms is one of the provocative elements in the compositions that Bill Walker has built on the sounds of working presses. Each piece begins with the functioning sound of a press. You, the listener, sense a rhythm. When the musicians come in, they may be playing your rhythm - or, to your surprise, they may be marching to a slightly different beat. That different beat may throw you at first. But go back and listen again. You’ll find it’s just Bill Walker hearing something a little deeper in the rhythm than you did.

That’s because Walker has had a broader experience in this kind of compositional challenge than most musicians ever run into. He has created musical settings for subjects as far apart as Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Duncan Hines Early American Date-Nut Mix. His Gettysburg Address was performed by the Milwaukee Symphony. His Date-Nut Mix won one of 15 awards that have been bestowed on him at the Chicago Conservatory of Music and practical experience as a dance band musician with Wayne King and Ted Weems and as a leader of his own band at the famous Pump Room in Chicago’s Ambassador East.

Blue Line is based on a heavy 4/4 rhythm overlaid by an eighth note pattern which suggests that rock ‘n’ roll may really have been derived from a Harris Offset LTV 17x22 press. There is strong emphasis on “bottom” sound produced by a combination of bass trombone, bass harmonica, string bass and bass guitar. As striking contrast, Walker has also used the high, sharp sounds of the harp, piccolo, vibraphone and piano. The blend almost seems to be a natural part of the heart beat of the Harris press.

Press Party is Bill Walker’s musical interpretation of a hazily cloudy day - a day on which the sun is trying to break through the clouds and occasionally does, although the effect of haziness remains. The battle between the sun and the clouds appears in the shift between passages by piano (played by Bill Walker) with rhythm accompaniment and passages by the voices. Despite the seemingly free and easy swing of this piece, the musical elements involved were “mixed” over and over again to get the voices at precisely the right level in relation ot the instruments - which is something like getting color registration absolutely perfect in printing.

Harpanova which is a pressman’s bossa nova, proved to be fraught with problems. At the very start, in recording the sound of the press, Bill Walker had to experiment with numerous recording angles before he found one that produced the precise rhythm he wanted. Then he wrote a piece so complex - even though it sounds simple - that the featured harpist, Eddie Druzinsky of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, practiced his part at home for two weeks with a tape recording of the rhythm section before he felt prepared to make this record.

Opus In Offset is built around the astounding bass harmonica work of Johnny Thompson. It is an exercise in counterpoint in which two dissimilar melodies complement each other both rhythmically and harmonically. Like many contemporary recordings made on tape, this is a carefully edited combination of parts of two recording sessions. Because the middle section at the first session swung so well, it was used, while the full richness of the bass harmonica and the trombone in the opening and closing parts at the second session were so impressive that they could not be neglected. So - presto-slice-o! - all the best elements are fused into one.

Color Me Waltz is not just a waltz. It is a jazz waltz which means that it swings and one of the most delightfully swinging aspects of Bill Walker’s soaring piano. To intensify the rhythmic feeling, Walker used two string basses along with two guitars, harp, piano and drums and made the voices a contrapuntal force that adds one more element to the strong rhythmic flow.

Printer’s Devil is an example of the varied rhythmic possibilities that can be heard in a press. This Heidelberg Letterpress produces a definite 3/4 rhythm but, if you listen closely, you also hear a 4/4 beat. The combination of four on three led Bill Walker to a lively samba with four drummers contributing exotic sounds from a Tahitian wood block, timbales, a jawbone and snare drum. Over this, the string bass, bass harmonica and bass guitar combine on one melodic patter while the brass section with clarinet lead follows another pattern. A third line is built by the regular guitar with the bass trombone lending strength to the whole mixture.

On the second side of the record, Bill Walker plays six of his non-press compositions. Two of them - the smooth and slinky "Serendipitous You" and the exuberant "Yes, Yes, Nannette!" - feature bass trombonist Edward Kleinhammer of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony trombone section. "Yes, Yes, Nannette!" first combines three top voices with three top trombones while the bass voice sings with Kleinhammer’s bass trombone, then switches ot counterpoint between voices and trombones - all done at a tempo challenging to voices, to the top trombonists and especially to the bass trombone. Kleinhammer is again called on for a display of unusual virtuosity in his solo on Serendipitous You when he drops from a low B to an incredibly deep pedal note B. "Who Knows," "All At Sea," and "Beyond My Wildest Dreams" show Walker’s flair for creating melodic ballads while "Bongolow," going to an opposite extreme, is a fusion of rhythmic excitements laced with hints and suggestions of soaring lyricism.

- John S Wilson