Orquesta GarDel, Thursday night. This is our very first performance of Andy’s new tune!
And The Beast, Saturday afternoon. Some GarDel horn players sitting in.
Thanks to Sylvia of Onda Carolina for recording and posting these videos. It was a fantastic weekend all around.
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.
Thanks to the Kennedy Center publicist, there is a blurb in Downbeat Magazine about the BCJA residents. Here, also, is a blog post in Raleigh’s News and Observer about me and Clif Wallace, the other participant from North Carolina.
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.
See you on the internets!
