Act of Love - three poems written by Rita many years before she developed Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease. Message from ME - A voicemail left by our friend and bandmate Michael Evans. We miss them both.

If you listen to this album more than once, please call Charles.

If you want to buy the CDR please buy it from Downtown Music Gallery. We need to support our record stores. Show them some love.
The CDR's come in hand-drawn covers with a mini-zine.

Reviews:
ANDY HAAS / DAVID GROLLMAN - Act of Love (Self-produced; USA) Featuring Andy Haas on saxophone and David Grollman on voice, balloon and percussion. Both of these men are close friends of mine and DMG. Early Downtown saxist, Andy Haas has been playing sax in his own way since the mid-1980's when he moved here from Toronto. Haas has been lots of Downtown outfits, some known and some not so well known. Check out Radio I-Ching with the late Dee Pop & Don Fiorino or The Holy Ghost Spermic Brotherhood and see why the get that legendary tag. Although David Grollman came to our first store on East 5th Street in the 90's, we became good friends when he started to show up every week for gigs in the store when we were located on the Bowery (2003-2009). Mr. Grollman became close friends with an older (than me) guy that lived next door to the Bowery store, David Haefner, who I knew as well. Both Dave's showed up almost every week for the store's gigs, something that I appreciate after witnessing/running more than 1,250 nights of live music at DMG, weekly for the past 25 years. Long story short: the David's went to a gig at the previous Roulette on the wrong night, were disappointed, turned around to go home but when they got to subway, Mr. Heifner fell over when the subway door opened and passed away right then & there. Jeeeez! Later that night while Manny & me were doing the sales tax figures at the store after hours, Grollman shows up with two policemen in tow, tells us the terrible tale and we were all devastated since Haefner was a nice guy, friend & customer of the store and a serious old avant/jazz listener/gig junkie like myself. This tragedy bonded us all. There was a memorial party/event for David Heifner at his apartment, which an ex-girlfriend of his reorganized his collection & took it away. The memorial was organized by Dave Grollman, who gave a nice talk and play some percussion. This was in at the end of 2009 and we soon moved to Monroe St. in Chinatown. Mr. Grollman spoke eloquently about Mr. Haefner and play some percussion. It was a most moving memorial. Mr. Grollman continued to come to DMG in-stores after we moved and still come regularly now. He also performs here at times, once in a ridiculous duo set with Kenny Millions which will be talked about for years to come. What I like most about Grollman’s performances is that they are honest expressions what is going on inside him, often talking about things which many of us feel but have a hard time articulating.
This is definitely of labor of Love. All of the covers were hand made and inside is nice little pink page booklet designed by David Grollman. Earlier this year, Grollman’s longtime wife died from Alzheimer’s Disease, while she was just in her fifties, a sickness that usually affects folks much older than her. The past few years have been very difficult for David, first dealing with his mother’s death and then his wife’s death. This disc was made just a month after her passing, a sad loss that David is still and will be dealing with for a longtime to come. The disc begins with Mr. Haas’ sax squealing softly in the high register and using some effects to make it even more strange. Mr. Grollman has a gift as far as being a spoken word artist, he always sounds as if he were speaking directly to whomever is listening being forthright in his words. Grollman talks about not wanting to give his organs away when he dies since doctors and science have long failed him. I can see his point. Mr. Grollman often sounds like he is on the verge of tears, his words coming directly from his heart while Mr. Haas creates eerie background sounds with subtle feedback droning in the distance. Track 3 has layers of sax squeaks and electronic or effects produced sounds. The sounds here are somewhat disorienting at times. The words and music go well together, each providing a mirror for the other’s vibes/sounds/words. Tracks 4 and 5 are just breath-like sounds, the way some lower case (minimal) discs or performances just deal with odd breath-like sounds. On track 6, there is a voice-mail from Michael Evans, a great drummer and instrument-maker who has passed away in August of 2021 and with whom David, Andy & myself were good friends. So odd to hear his disembodied voice talking from the speakers in my kitchen. After all of the sad notes that I’ve written above about this disc, I find that the music itself is uplifting, only slightly weird and inspiring. Is this the real thing?!? It certainly is. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG

The experimental NYC percussionist-assemblage artist and knight of the Ghosts Of The Holy Ghost Spermic Brotherhood (alongside saxophonist Andy Haas and the late multi-tasking Michael Evans) David Grollman knows more than most about the cruelties of the Alzheimer’s Disease; losing his wife, the poet Rita Stein-Grollman to Early Onset Alzheimer’s in early 2023.

Funneled and channeled into this most recent album with Haas, Grollman and his sonic partner of avant-garde arts and evocations reflect the very essence of loss through an apparatus of Dadaist and Fluxus apparatus: namely in Grollman’s case the balloon, with the textured tactile touches and stretches of its latex surface wrinkling as it expels its air; in a manner, like the life force slowly leaving the deflated body and personality of what someone once was as they lose themselves to this incurable disease. Meanwhile on sax, Haas deals in exaggerated long, slowly drawn-out breathes and blows; sometimes appearing to lift the weight that sits on his lungs, and at other times making noises that resemble steam and the pressure of valves being released and squeezed. Together it sounds like La Monte Young, John Zorn, Anthony Braxton and Marshall Allen in remembrance.

But then there’s another dimension, the brilliant, often acerbic poetry of Rita (written before she succumbed to the disease), which is read out in both almost laconic and grumpy confrontational style by David. Another piece of text, ‘Message From ME’, which the title makes obvious, is a voicemail left by the already mentioned and late Michael Evans (who passed away back in 2021), another knock-about figure on the scene and much missed member of the Ghosts Of The Holy Ghost Spermic Brotherhood. Act Of Love is a challenging and strained but obviously emotional well of remembrance, with the harsh and more attentive abstractions of the performances somehow managing to convey that which can’t always be said or represented.
-Dominic Valvona, Monolith Cocktail