The Melanchoholics

David Beck’s collaboration with Bill Noertker was an important part of his life in San Francisco. Taking up the baritone saxophone in his 50s brought Beck in community with a group of remarkable musicians, and most notably with Bill Noertker. Beck met Noertker in the late 90s, becoming fast friends. By the 2000s a collaboration had begun where Noertker was creating compositions for Beck’s sculptures that involved movement. In 2004 an animated film entitled Animatique, scored by Noertker, was included as part of a Beck exhibition entitled La Naturecanique. By 2009 Beck and Noertker began a weekly meet up playing mostly subdued jazz standards that developed over time into original compositions. Eventually they formed the band The Melanchoholics. The music used in scoring the documentary Curious Worlds: The Art & Imagination of David Beck is the result of this long friendship.