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BL Lacerta is being reborn with David Anderson. He left the stage almost 20 years ago and has recently approached me about playing together again. He wants to focus on grand piano and I'll add mostly electronic textures and whatever toys seem appropriate. Kevin Hanlon has joined us on electric guitar who's sounding great.
we've been working quite a bit with dancers, including Lauren Thompson and Tawanda Chabekwa from the smu dance division.
We've done one show with Tawanda and our Spring Concert is April 15th.
for a nice Lacerta send up, see charter member David Anderson's site: http://www.geology.smu.edu/~dpa-www/music/
jampact is the smu faculty jazz quintet, trumpet, trombone, piano, bass and drums. sounds pretty straight ahead till you take a closer look. it's neither purely jazz or smu. however, it IS a quintet, playing improv based on original tunes. I love playing in bands full of composers. it makes the free improv so much more flavorful.
so, there's Akira Sato, trumpet, who conducts the smu jazz ensemble while teaching jazz arranging at the University of North Texas.
the pianist is the new meadow's art dean, Jose Bowen, who plays what I think of as NYC jazz piano. lots of chops and ears.
bass and drums are the fabulously famous Mohammed Brothers, Jamal and Buddy, legendary for their longtime middle eastern jazz group, Beledi. though in recent years, Buddy's been involved in Cirque du Soliel and Jamal has been trotting about the planet doing conference and pro show work.
I play trombone and synth primarily, with melodica, various percussion and toys at the ready.
so, what we have here is a japanese trumpeter from vancouver, 2 lebanese americans from chicago, a jewish hispanic pianist from the english outback and a cracker trombonist from arkansas.
see the calendar for whatever's coming up.
a jewish academy in north dallas. in the spring of 2005, tim cloward asked me to help him start a music program there. comprised of high school students, we have a very different approach...letting the students create small groups of their own choosing,
working on music they like and performing for the school at various functions throughout the year. we're not there to play pep rallies or learn to read music from music stands. we learn today's music and perform it in contemporary settings. it's cool.
Our next concert is Apr. 1st. seriously.
the new bath house series has its debut season under its belt. thanks to all who were a part of it...lauren camp, jenn gooch, kenda north, dana rose and fred curchack...and a special thanks to graeme bice who made it look so good.
this was the promotional blurb before the season began:
I've been producing music events for the bath house cultural center (city of dallas) since 2003. now it's time to shake it up. let's put on some multimedia shows featuring veteran performers and their young counterparts.
however, I'm kicking off the series with a personal collaboration with santa fe poet and visual artist, lauren camp. we'll be mixing poetry, music and theatrical fun.
also, this fall, jenn gooch from pittsburg and her one time mentor photographer, kenda north. images and original (funny and poignant) southern hills folk songs.
the fall season concludes with dallas legend fred curchack and an old friend/student of mine, dana rose, weaving music and world debut theatre magic.
see the calendar for the schedule.
at the turn of the century, director Liz Ware asked me to help her do sound design for her core performance manufactory theatre troupe. I was thrilled.
theatre and film are the top of the heap in terms of ultimate potential, combining all art forms into one micro macro look at humanity. from simple story telling to elaborate dives into the subconscious.
luckily for me, Liz loves balancing the two and it's a joy to work with her whenever wherever.
the process is easy enough. I improvise during rehearsals, playing the words and characters...constantly shifting between the right and left brain...when it works, there's nothing more liberating. it's the most sensuous musical activity I do. thanks, liz.
the show we're doing in the next several weeks is "FREAKSHOW" and that's exactly what it is literally and figuratively. as the musical element, liz is dressing me as an aging opium addict in my pre-mao den bed where I play a haze of native flutes, melodica, uke, baritone uke and various hazy sound makers.
Covering the waterfront, white rock rhythms is a music series at the bath house cultural center. I've been working on bath house asylum since the summer and may do another music series at the bath house in the spring.
in the spring of 2006, we had the first white rock jazz festival. acts included jamal mohamed, the inner city all-stars, a jazz brunch w/ the herbie johnson quartet and a bath house band frankensteined from 5 local jazz groups.
this June will be the 4th bath house music festival. yes, the name is changing to reflect more stylistic diversity. details TBA. thanks to Dallas for continuing and building the tradition.
fo mo info on all things bath house: http://www.bathhousecultural.com/
The trailer dog TIDBITS is a trio with jazz drummer Gerard Bendiks and the guitarist formerly known as Kenny Withrow, of New Bohemian fame. I bring out any and all toys for this one. keyboards, 3 loopers, whammy bone, fripp bass. colors and layers, vast clouds of sound and rhythms from our collective inner sanctums. all's fair that ends together.
the TIDBITS from HELL began with a fun night at the Red Blood Club in Dallas in 2000, had one gig a year till 2003, then made up for lost time. we played about 30 gigs in 2004 including a monthly series at dan's silverleaf in denton. thanks, dan.
in 2006, we had some good times, including a busy ramp up into the Richardson Wildflower Festival, collaborating with vocalist Dana Rose. we opened for The Neville Bros and Dirty Dozen Brass Band. we also closed the White Rock Rhythm season with a concert on White Rock Lake in June.
this year, we've played a number of nights at a new Dallas venue, Pearl, in the kidney of downtown dallas, where gerard books a coupla nights a week with his astro jazz quartet.
see the calendar for our next disturbing gig in the name of musical freedom and crowd control. if asked, we could clean up social unrest around the world, either through sheer confusion or at least enough distraction to allow the put upon to find a back door..
http://faculty.smu.edu/kcorbet/tidbits/index.html
home studio always ready to supply audio needs, large and small, from samples and loops for live performance to film scores. the studio loves xmas and summer breaks when projects can stretch into cd length flurries of activity.
Vent Eleven is available at $10 each. request through the eddress below.
established in 1996, comatheatre began as a collaborative residency at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary (the MAC). 7 musicians, dancers, videographers and stage crafters came together to break down the barriers between art forms in a saturday night series finding critical success and some truly satisfying art. the series had 2 cool seasons and, in 1997, we moth balled the project.
where are they now? the dancers, michele hanlon and amy seltzer, went on to form elle danceworks, a very active troop who perform in various series around town.
projection artist david darnell is still very much around, contributing to the fall of western civiility and civilizaition wherever whenever.
lighting designer Deb Reitman, at last report, was in Houston doing what she does.
the musicians are all still around here somewhere. they included Bruce Richardson on keyboards and trumpet as well as Chad Evans on electronic percussion. I generally played synths and processed trombone, told a few stories, drank beer.
tex, stymie, zippy, wailin dave and me, I'm uncle butt. texas swamp music. we take the blues and turn it into rock and roll, just for the drunkin helluvit. leave your thinkin shoes at the door and let it go.
my sole role in this ship wreck is what I call whammy bone, a trombone through various processors and loops. the whammy part is a digitech whammy II pedal, a pitch shifting/harmonizing device that allows me to be a trumpet, trombone, tuba or horn section. add chorus, delay and a boomerang looper and the sound is fat and lively.
improvising new parts to each song everytime keeps the music fresh and evolving, especially the duet backgrounds and fills with guitarist Mikee "Tin Itch" Nelson, aka mr. zippy pong. what's your blues name?
after, I dont know, has to be 2+ years of monthly gigs at Lota's Goat, we're finally taking a rest. watch the calendar for the next adventure awaiting these Trinity River pirates, much like the treasure hidden inside the fifty foot catfish who plies the river bottoms just west of Dallas.
THE CHEESE was a comet that blew through dallas in the early 1990s, but left a long tail. though most of the group has scattered to distant star systems, 3 members, andy dean, brad young and myself, reunited to "compete" in the 1st Annual Video Association of Dallas "24 Hour Video Race" in the spring of 2002. teams were challenged to produce a five minute video in one day, from midnight to midnight. our piece, Daddy's Dead, was a helluva ride and continues to circle the planet as andy has relocated in new zealand.
brad, andy and I are also percolating on a 3D video inspired by Art Bell, the once and future king of overnight conspiracy theories, ufology and the ghosts who live among us. stay tuned.
as for the rest of the court annointed blown clear cubes...sara hickman, amy seltzer, chuckie cheese, sir steveaux and larry, the hairy hairless bastard who couldnt leave his privates well enough alone.
and so, to the cheese, forever forsaken in the anals of history...a one gun salute from the mother ship and it's over the side with ye. avast, mates. see ya in hell. dont be late.
where's all this pirate crap coming from? arrr...
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