I’m happy to announce The Beast’s second release, entitled Catalyst. This came about through working with the Durham Arts Council and Sound Pure Studios to do a fundraiser concert. We wrote two songs for the occasion, with two great collaborators in mind: vocalist Nnenna Freelon and guitarist Chris Boerner (The Proclivities, Mosadi Music). The entire Catalyst project came together in just three weeks from songwriting to tracking to mixing to album art, a fantastic effort from everybody involved.
Please tell all your friends that you can download the album for free at our newly redesigned site: www.thebeastmusic.com. I hope you enjoy it!
From the press release:
Durham, NC – On May 21, 2009 visionary hip-hop quartet The Beast, and Grammy nominee Nnenna Freelon performed an intimate benefit show for the Durham Arts Council at Sound Pure Studios. Held entirely within the recording studio, Freelon performed one song which she, along with Sound Pure staff members, used as an opportunity to explain the recording process for the attendees. The Beast closed the show, performing two original songs: “Once Again,” featuring Nnenna Freelon, and “Come Up, Come Down,” featuring guitarist Chris Boerner. This intimate live performance, recorded and mixed at Sound Pure Studios, will be released Monday, June 15, 2009, as a free downloadable EP entitled Catalyst, exclusively at www.thebeastmusic.com.
The Durham Arts Council billed the show as “a unique evening of music, fabulous food, and an inside look at the artistic process in a recording studio.” With only 25 seats available, the event sold out quickly. All proceeds went towards the Durham Arts Council’s arts education program and grants. While Catalyst is available as a free downloadable EP, The Beast encourages a donation to the Durham Arts Council, with the hopes that their music will continue to support the arts in Durham beyond the May 21st performance.
I wonder if a histogram of bloggers and their usage habits might mimic a Gaussian distribution (remember the bell curve from high school?). On the low end is a chunk of people who set up a blog and forget about it the next day, leaving their two posts in the dust. On the other end are the entrepreneurs who are trying to make a living at it: posting meaningful content every day, linking the crap out of their peers, and Tweeting faster than they can breathe. But in the middle of the graph sits a giant hump of interesting, but inconsistent writers who sometimes have spurts of genius but otherwise never log in.
Color me some version of the middle variety: I want to write, but haven’t found the focus of this particular blog. Is it for me to announce achievements, shows, and new tracks? Is it to posit myself as an expert in my field (at least a dozen books for $15 on Amazon tell you to use your blog to do this)? Is it to post whimsical life observations? I suppose it is a mixture of all three, which represents the present state of my life. I am not yet a full-time “career artist”, I am not on the hustle 24/7. A large part of my creativity and energy goes into my role as a technologist and researcher at Zenph Studios (which I love). Another large part goes into directing or participating in The Beast and Orquesta GarDel. There’s my ever-maturing relationship with Lauren. And somewhere on the side is a guy who practices and composes and is just waiting to leap out and speak his true voice more often. A fractured life? Perhaps. But a disconnected one? Hardly. A thread of gratitude and experiential education weaves through everything.
I wanted to use this post to “press reset” and catch you up on some of the cool things I’ve done in the past few weeks. Each deserves its own well-written post, but a list will have to suffice instead.
1. Orquesta Gardel played its first out-of-town gig at a Cinco de Mayo festival in Charleston, South Carolina. Andy and I rehearsed the group, packed a cooler of killer sandwiches and ferried 13 people 300 miles away in 5 cars (couldn’t afford a van rental). It’s tough to play to a crowd of strangers, especially ones who are serious about their Latin music, but we made a lot of friends by the end of the night. The DJ even announced us in at the after party!
2. The Beast has been working hard on its full-length album. We are finally bringing to life the tracking session we did in January at Sound Pure studios. Songs are being rearranged, I’m writing a lot of horn charts and programming some clever synth stuff. This will be the biggest recording project I’ve worked on thus far. Our baby has a far way to go, but it promises to be a very unique album.
3. I got to hear and meet Moldover at Alliviah’s in Durham last weekend. This is the guy who coined the word “controllerism,”: a true instrument developer and sound-reimaginer. His original music is really cool, and his efforts to educate and build a community around controllerism are to be respected. I really look up to him for combining clever programming with meaningful musical results, one day I’d like to have more time to develop this side of my craft. Check out his videos here.
4. I have an intern at Zenph. Mangagement experience, y’all. This kid is brilliant. As an electronic artist, he goes by the name Hidden Cat, and his songs have been reviewed by Rolling Stone and charted in the U.K. Awesome! We’re working on a re-performance of rock legend, Jerry Lee Lewis.
That’s all I can think of for now, time to go buy some basil plants at the farmer’s market (how Saturday of you, Eric!). Stay tuned next week for a big announcement about a special Beast release (not the album, something sooner and sweeter)!
GarDel at Spring Shakori '08; photo credit Jeff Fowler
I feel like my life has been on fast forward with no pause to breathe over these past three weeks. Upon returning from the Kennedy Center residency and concerts, I dove into rehearsals for Orquesta GarDel and The Beast, founded and performed with a dream project of mine, a live electronica quartet (great first show, guys! let’s do it again soon!), as well as helped Zenph Studios finish up our third album (Rachmaninoff), annnnnd filed the dreaded income taxes.
But it is all worth it because this weekend is the Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance. Every time I come to this festival as a performer, I am energized by the positive, appreciative vibe of the attendees, campers, and volunteers. Being surrounded by woods with no internet is also invigorating, of course. This festival marks some firsts for me:
1. Orquesta GarDel will be unveiling an original song (one of many to come) as well as a re-vamped stage show (Thursday 10:45pm Dance Tent)
2. Not only will The Beast be playing (Saturday 5:20pm Meadow Stage), but also giving two workshops about harnessing the power of creativity through understanding the story of African-American music, as well as hosting a jam session for teenagers. I am really looking forward to seeing who shows up and contributes to these experiences.
3. This is the first Beast show to feature a live horn section (featuring my great friends, Andy Kleindienst and Tim Smith, both also in GarDel). I wrote the charts late last night, we rehearsed today, it really gives a new element to the show.
4. Lauren (my fiancée, I will do a separate post about how awesome and wonderful and amazing she is and how we are totally pumped that we’ve got a wedding date on the calendar) and I are camping overnight. So long taxes, hello vegan food, campfires, ponchos, and hula hoopers!
Day and weekend passes are still available at the Shakori website. Come find me and say hello!
Whew! I’ve been absent from blogging for two weeks because I come home absolutely exhausted and brain dead from eight-hour rehearsal days…what a treat! The Kennedy Center residency has brought me together with 28 peers, solid in their mastery of their instruments, strong in their improvisational and compositional voices. We’ve been making great music with each other under the tutelage of some true jazz veterans. This has also been a time to learn the good, the bad, and the ugly of arts administration and educational organization. I now have so many ideas for future workshops, performances, bands, collectives, and institutions that I would like to one day create. The program is named after underdog/profound jazz vocalist, Betty Carter, for whom I now have a deep appreciation (both for her artistry and her business philosophy) after watching a film and hearing a panel discuss her work.
As I mentioned in the original post, the residency is broken up into four ensembles which will give concerts each night at 6pm, Wednesday April 1st through Friday April 3rd, at the Kennedy Center Millenium Stage. Free, open to the public. Really cool. Each concert will also be broadcast live on the internet and then archived for you to view whenever you want. Here is the link to watch each concert: http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/millennium/. You will need to download and install the latest Real Player to view the video.
On Wednesday my own group hits around 6:45; Thursday and Friday we go on around 6:30. On Thursday we will be premiering my latest (and new favorite) composition entitled “somehow it seems to help.” Everyone here is really digging it, which makes me happy. You would too if the drummer in your combo was a 17 year old genius who could totally destroy your 7/8-time-signatured-craziness like it was a nursery rhyme.
After big success with our first two albums of Glenn Gould and Art Tatum re-performances, we here at Zenph are putting the finishing touches on our third major project, an album of originals and transcriptions by the Russian phenom, Sergei Rachmaninoff. He is the first artist which will be re-performed on our one-of-a-kind Steinway SE reproducing piano.
After doing a recording session with Sony BMG on Monday, we’ll be producing Rachmaninoff in recital (!!!) at a free concert event Tuesday, April 14th . You can come be the first public audience to hear this master play live in over 60 years. How cool is that?
I’m here in Washington DC having a blast at the 2009 Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead residency. On Monday night I saw Wynton Marsalis give a speech at Americans for the Arts’ 22nd Annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy. I was infuriated by what amounted to his condemnation of the artistry of hip hop so much so that I became a guest blogger at blackademics.org, which is moderated by Beast emcee, Pierce Freelon.
You can read my article and participate in the discussion here:
In a meeting this past Christmas, Andy and I decided to finally let loose from our high expectations and just start writing original tunes for Orquesta GarDel. We were intimidated by all of the Puerto Rican, Cuban, and American composers and bandleaders that have come before us, and worried if people would think our “podunk” North Carolina salsa was worthy. We realized that we should just try to write GarDel music, not other people’s salsa. We are a collection of 12 musicians of all ages and musical backgrounds; our influences are disparate but we have a common passion for the clave.
So far we have held two rehearsals on three (unfinished) pieces by Andy and one (unfinished) piece by me, and the process has been very fun. Andy and I bring in chunks of ideas and let the band play them through and make suggestions. Brevan comes up with great percussion breaks, Jamie starts to improvise possible coros. The collaborative spirit is right there.
And, as if the Salsa Muse was offering a guiding hand, NewMusicBox just published a fascinating interview with legendary arranger and trombonist, Willie Colón. He says something that speaks to what I love about music, and the understanding I have of salsa:
A lot of people like to characterize salsa as a pastiche of Cuban son. There’s no denying that there is a Cuban influence and a Cuban base to it, but it’s so much more. Salsa is not a rhythm, it’s a concept. It’s a way of making music. It’s an open concept and the reason that it became so popular is because it was able to evolve and accept all of these other musics. We put the bombas and plenas in it; we put calypso, samba, bossa, and cumbia in it. It’s definitely not even a Puerto Rican or a Cuban music. It’s a reconciliation of everything you can find. And I think it could have only happened here in New York, where you had so many different kinds of people living and playing together. We used to get a lot of the black jazz players. They wanted to come and play salsa so they can blow over the changes. Where are you going to find players like than other than in a big city like New York? This was not going to happen in Cuba or Puerto Rico; it had to be here.
I like that. “Salsa is an open concept.” It is exciting to watch GarDel’s interpretation of that concept finally start to blossom. You will be able to hear us unveil these new tunes Thursday night at the Shakori Hills Music Festival in April!
I just stumbled across this nifty video on the internets:
It feels so coincidentally tailored to my passions for a number of reasons:
1. I am generally interested in the wisdom that Kenny Werner offers to musicians.
2. Herein, Kenny tells a famous story about Art Tatum, whom I have made a deep study of through my work at Zenph Studios.
3. I had never connected the two together in such a telling way (Art Tatum as a good example of playing fearlessly, and as a bad example of something to think about before you give a solo piano recital…).
I am honored and excited to be chosen as a participant in the 2009 Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead residency which is presented by the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. I will get to attend two weeks of masterclasses and workshops in late March and give performances with other young jazz musicians from around the country.
Betty Carter founded Jazz Ahead as a vehicle to bring new life into jazz and teach the most promising fledgling artists what she knew. She originally developed the program in 1993 at 651, an arts center in Brooklyn, and the first concert was presented at the BAM Majestic Theater. In 1997, the Kennedy Center and Dr. Billy Taylor invited Carter to bring Jazz Ahead to Washington, D.C. On April 15, 1998, a delighted audience in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall heard the results of Carter’s intense week of work with a group of 20 young jazz artists. Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead had a new home and Carter was filled with hope for the future of the program. After Carter’s death in September 1998, Dr. Billy Taylor and the Kennedy Center decided to continue her legacy by making the Jazz Ahead program, with the principles Carter laid down as the foundation, an annual event. Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead alumni include Cyrus Chestnut, Jason Moran, Jacky Terrasson, Aaron Parks, Lage Lund, Andre Hayward, Marco Panascia, Ameen Saleem, Miri Ben-Ari, Daniela Schaechter, and more.
As the date of the residency approaches, I’ll post about my experiences there, as well as information about the concerts, which will be free, open to the public, and also broadcast live on the internet.
**UPDATE 03/23/09**
It seems this post is the fifth most popular result when you search for “betty carter jazz ahead 2009.” I’m here in DC on the first day of the residency and multiple participants have mentioned to me that they stumbled across this when looking for more information. Hi guys!
