Mon Jun 15, 2009
atomic cantina videos up
I cleaned up the audio and video as best i could, though its still murky and very red...nonetheless, i thought id post three videos from the Atomic set. Here's the first, and they all can be found at the you tube site :
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Thu Jun 11, 2009
Adobe Bar rocked!
Adobe Bar gig was fantastic, much more musical and dynamic than the nerve-ridden Atomic gig.
People were very taken, bar manager happy (always a good thing). Pakawaj master Phil Hollenback sat in for the 2nd set, no less! very honored to have him -- thanks Phil!
No videos or photos, though -- sight lines are difficult due to bar layout. I have some flipcam footage from the Atomic but its pretty murky, we'll see if its worth clearing up.
With two under our belt, we're aggressively looking to book more. Stay tuned.
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Mon Jun 08, 2009
Sama Duo 2nd In Atomic Lineup Tonight
per note from the Atomic Cantina, tonight's order is
FULL SPEED VERONICA(opening)
SAMADUO
THE ANTLERS
ANTS HAVE VOICES(CLosing)
Show will start apx 9:30 , so if youre there 10 .15 ish, you should be able to catch us....
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Sun Jun 07, 2009
atomic cantina tomorrow! taos inn wednesday
according to http://www.atomiccantina.com/events.html , we are set for Monday! the calendar has us third on the list, but im not sure if that corresponds to actual band order.
Bands start at about 9, so if youre down there by 11 ish you should be in time to catch us. I'll let you know if i hear anything different.
It'll be a pretty aggressive set, so if you want to see us at our most unleashed, this is the chance... :)
also see us in Taos Wednesday, june 10 at the Adobe Bar for a slightly more restrained and a bit more varied set, but no less energetic...
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Thu May 21, 2009
new rehearsal videos
We've set up a new Rehearsals Video Playlist on our (newly redesigned) YouTube channel...music that's this interactive and improvised is often better seen as well as heard.
We're launching with 3 new videos (in our fretless electric/ drum set incarnation) in the new Sama Duo rehearsal playlist ... enjoy!
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Wed May 13, 2009
new tracks, new tunes, taos gig
Lately we've been we've been recording rehearsals with a view to capturing actual takes to get some of the material in a demo format and circulating about. They're available at
myspace or facebook, you pick!
Among the new ones:
New Song In 5
One is a new piece we've been developing, a hypnotic dark groove in 5/4. After the setup and a floating melody, it moves into an extended funk interplay/improv,then some wah work, a reprise of the melody , and a brief drum solo over a recurring chord pattern to take it out.
Improv Groove 0326
A simple groove jam with a bit of South Indian flavor.
Untitled Yaman Rock Funk Tune Update
I had an early draft of this up for a while -- here's an incarnation form March, with yet another update on the way. Has a bit of everything -- alap opening, backbeat tune, crazy abstract improv middle. Purposefully ragged and garage -rock-ish. We 'll take title suggestions!
There's yet more pieces on the playlists, and we'll be posting more in a few days.
We're also scheduled to perform at the adobe Bar at the Taos Inn on June 10; more details on that forthcoming, but hope to see everyone there.
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Sat Feb 21, 2009
two new tracks
two new tracks from recent rehearsals on our myspace playlist:
Bhangra Funk Jam, Extreme Fretless Version
Another take on the bhangra - inspired groove in development, this version uses the fretless and some interesting wah textures. All improvised in real time.
Compare to the fretted version...
Love
Simple and sweet, this has been in our repertoire for a long time in the sarod/tabla form (you can hear it on the 'Travel Bug' CD and there's a You Tube live clip of it as well), but it's starting to find a nice voice in the electric setting. Inspired by the feel of classic filmi ballads.
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Sun Feb 01, 2009
Sama Duo Rising: New Tracks at MySpace
Rehearsals have been going very well, with the electric material shaping up nicely. We did a couple of gigs last weekend, most notably at the Reptilian Lounge, which was a lot of fun. We also were the guest on the community access channel "WV" talk show. He hasnt posted the footage yet, I'll post an update when he does.
We've replaced all the music tracks on our MySpace page with new material from recent rehearsals. I'm not afraid to share works in progress and documenting the Duo as it evolves, so feel free to check out the current state of the group.
We're planning to record a new CD in the spring, and are in the process of stepping up the performance activity in the area over the next few months as part of honing the material for the recording project.
Stay tuned!
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Fri Dec 26, 2008
Solo At The Mall For Charity!
im doing a benefit solo set tomorrow at Bi Polar, a pretty cool little store at Coronado Mall dedicated to locally made stuff, indie designers, and local band merchandise!
At the gig, donations will be accepted to local food banks and warm clothing for the homeless, so it's for a good cause!
Bi Polar is just inside the mall entrance by Fuddrucker's. i'll be kicking off at 6:30 ish. So brave the weather, return all the crap you got that you didnt like , and come and support local music and local charities...
Looking forward to the solo performance Friday, Dec. 26th!
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Fri Oct 17, 2008
solo jefferson video
overdue, but we finally got this up on our You Tube channel -- two clips from Jefferson's solo set in August, on his custom instrument based on the African gome:
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Tue Oct 07, 2008
solo videos from NYC and Santa Fe...
Are up! Two pieces from the solo set in NYC and an extended version of one of those pieces ("For Tagore") , filmed in Santa Fe at luthier Rick Canton's space (see http://www.myspace.com/cantoncustomguitars , who is also posting some of these clips ).
I've been immersing myself in the impeccable emotion, beauty and compositional genius of robindrasongeet, and studying Bengali to help that process. The second piece came spontaneously out of that.
There is a Santa Fe version for the first NY piece ("The River Burns, Embraced By Night") as well, but i haven't looked at or edited that footage yet, so it will be a few days. While the NY version is ok (though there are some nervous edges), the piece was orignally conceived for a much longer arc. If it is a good take (and i think it is), it will go up in two or three segments due to length. If it's not a good take I may do it again -- or not:)
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Wed Sep 24, 2008
back from fretless fest
Well, it was quite an adventure -- sorry for those who may have tried to come out on Sunday: the venue that we were at on Saturday shut us out, claiming they didnt sell enough drinks at the bar :(
With nowhere to play at 5 pm and two hours before the event was to start, we split up, combing Manhattan and Brooklyn for a venue. We located one - Delancey's - and regrouped , kicking off at 10 pm with truncated sets.
At least the event went on, spirits were good, the energy high, and everyone's music great. Again, apologies for those who couldnt get to the new venue or didnt get word -- but i would love to come back to NY, and will plan to do so.
It was lovely to meet fretless colleagues from around the world -- many thanks to all for their great music and newly made friendships.
Helluva tribe we have going!
I should be posting video of the set in a day or two -- I'm having trouble getting it off the camera, but I did view it. Sound quality pretty poor, but its from a digital still camera in movie mode.
Using what I've outlined in a previous post, the work in preparation for NY was intense - 4 to 6 hours a night for several weeks - but in the end I think I had enough of a base to certainly go to NY with, although the stresses of Sunday's venue mash-up certainly took its toll against a completely optimum performance. Given those factors, it was what it was in its moment, and on that level, I'm reasonably happy with it.
I may try to do a better video under more controlled circumstances to showcase the instrument and current developments.
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Fri Sep 19, 2008
on the way to NY
leaving in a few hours for NYC but wanted to post pics of the new guitar -- so far so good, but ive really only had a few minutes to check it out... will premiere it on the fretless guitar festival gig Sunday.
the piece is going well, should be interesting...hope to see new yorkers there!
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Sat Sep 06, 2008
towards the vertical
I've been quite energized by preparing for the challenge of the upcoming solo fretless gig.
Last solo gig was about six years ago, and there has been a lot of absorption and intake of languages, experiences, musics, and instruments over that period.
The main impetus of course has been the re-immersion into Indian music.
Indian music is essentially linear -- which is beautiful and is what its instruments are geared to -- but a solo fretless guitar can be more, much more, than just an electric sarod (which might be cool as well, but that's another story).
Jefferson and I are still hammering out the subtleties of applying the fretless in the Duo setting, but as I've been developing the solo material for the fretless the past couple of weeks, it occurs to me that I'm still treating the fretless in an essentially linear, " electric sarod" fashion with the Duo. Ha ha, that may change significantly when we get together next as I go through this process.
In an earlier post I discussed some aspects of my previous solo work, applying very post modern improvisation concepts into an early flamenco medium:
Very, very disparate traditions, yet the lynchpins I heard connecting them were musical occurrences such as a certain dissonance in the harmonic voicings; the fluidity of tempo; the immense degree of subtle improvisational interplay between guitarist and singer. I was hearing a lot of connective tissue between the two, not parallel bundles but interesting, flexible hinges, joints, angles, sinews, tendons. I started working with that and then took that idea a bit further, trying to liberate the material from a metric confinement while still keeping rhythm and drive very much a part of it. That distinction between meter and time and rhythm -- all distinct elements in my book -- had been done a lot within the free jazz idiom itself, but hadn't really been applied in a flamenco context.
Conceptually, I'm trying to develop a similar methodology to working with Indian musical material; there's a lot of connective tissue I'm hearing here too.
While that post wasn't written that long ago, what's now apparent has been the impasse of treating the fretless in such a linear fashion.
But exploring the chordal and harmonic possibilities that a guitar can bring (and I mean both terms in the broad yet strict sense of any pitches sounding simultaneously, rather than implying any traditional sense of Western functional I-IV-V harmony or "standard" chord types) reveals the much larger challenge of applying some simultaneous pitch textures, filling the landscape with some vertical structures across the Indian music linear horizon.
Flamenco was easier in the sense that there was already prescribed harmonic procedures -- I just voiced them differently for added density and tension. Applying verticality to Indian music, so far I'm treating chords and tone clusters as more weighted, dense versions of any given melodic pitch, rather than any implied harmonic foundation or direction.
More to come.
More...
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solo set in new york sept 21!
I'll be performing a solo fretless guitar set at the NYC Fretless Guitar Festival 2008, Sept 21, 2008, at the Crash Mansion venue (199 Bowery, between Spring St. and Rivington).
If youre in NY please come, if you have friends in NY, please tell them!
I'll be posting some thoughts and ideas over the next day or two re the approach and language I'm developing for it. As some of you know, I did some solo CDs and festival work in Europe in the 90s in an avant-flamenco vein, but it's been years since ive done unaccompanied solo guitar.
It's an interesting medium to revisit after so many years, and I've been in a very active developing/preparing phase, getting ready.
Hope to see you there!
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Wed Aug 06, 2008
Jefferson Voorhees solo concert Thursday
Jefferson is back from a summer hiatus,and we're back at it, resuming rehearsals. Jefferson is also planning something rather interesting tomorrow: a solo percussion set.
He's bringing out the gongs, the drum set, the new custom quasi-gome, and who knows what else! should be a a great journey of rhythm and texture, and i'm looking forward to it.
second set is Bonnie Watts and City Reign.
Thursday , Aug 7, 7:30 p.m.
Summer Thursday Jazz Nights at The Outpost Performance Space
Sponsored by Southwest Gastroenterology Associates, PC
Outpost Performance Space 210 Yale SE • 2 blocks south of Central
$12/$7 Members & Students. Available in advance, by phone or in person, at the Outpost Performance Space (268-0044)
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Sun Jun 08, 2008
documentary done!
My sister's mini-doc on the duo is finally done. .. I think she did a fabulous job of condensing hours of interview and performance footage to encapsulate what we're about in less than 10 minutes. Very honored, sis, that you took this on. Thanks from all my my heart.
I may post some extended interview footage that didnt make it in over time, we'll see.
FYI, the footage from India I shot on a little point and shoot when i was there, trying to catch a snippet of Kolkata during a cab ride.
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Wed May 07, 2008
film shoot part of hookah gig this friday
We're back again for a late show at Hunab Hookah this Friday at 10 pm. this Friday at 10 pm...
We'll be filming also, as we're the subject of a documentary project being done, so come and be a part of it!
As mentioned in an earlier post, we also filmed some of the last HH performance. Clips are at http://www.youtube.com/norumba or http://www.myspace.com/norumba.
We have some new pieces -- and new tones to do them with, as well.
Hope to see everyone there!
Hunab Hookah
3400 Constitution NE
Friday May 9, 10 p.m., $5/3 members
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Wed Apr 30, 2008
Why Indian music?
I'm often asked, "why Indian music?" Sometimes the question is put in a more probing manner, such as "why do you think you can do this?"
I'll try to address some musical and philosophical aspects on those issues in this post.
In the late 90s I had some nice solo opportunities in Europe based on work using the most abstract modern free jazz and improv techniques within a springboard of *very* traditional flamenco ( pre-Paco, and really pre-soloist - my favorite flamenco players are the early cante accompanists). Very, very disparate traditions, yet the lynchpins I heard connecting them were musical occurrences such as a certain dissonance in the harmonic voicings; the fluidity of tempo; the immense degree of subtle improvisational interplay between guitarist and singer. I was hearing a lot of connective tissue between the two, not parallel bundles but interesting, flexible hinges, joints, angles, sinews, tendons. I started working with that and then took that idea a bit further, trying to liberate the material from a metric confinement while still keeping rhythm and drive very much a part of it. That distinction between meter and time and rhythm -- all distinct elements in my book -- had been done a lot within the free jazz idiom itself, but hadn't really been applied in a flamenco context.
Conceptually, I'm trying to develop a similar methodology to working with Indian musical material; there's a lot of connective tissue I'm hearing here too. On the sarod and tabla it's voiced in a much more subtle and melodic approach, though I think the electric instrumentation we're exploring will in some ways call for a return to some of my earlier rigour and more overt abstractness (but I think we'll maintain the lyricism of the acoustic setting as well).
Its very nice to be absorbed in the fretless electric, discovering what it can do as a tool to link the methodologies in avant free improv and Indian music.
Thats a long way of saying that I don't think musical fusions have to be terribly closely related to be successful; it may be helpful, but I think the exploration can be quite fertile by looking at where and how things *connect* (and how different musics approach their detail and methodology in developing improvisation -- that improvisational aspect, then as now, is key --), in addition to looking at what parallel streams of commonality there are. Anchor the connecting elements, celebrate the differences. Unity in diversity ( a parallel Sufi concept also).
For me, it's not about trying to be an Indian Classical Musician. I love it, respect it immensely, learn it, learn from it -- but I'm not an ICM, won't ever be, and in truth, it wouldn't interest me musically to completely go that path. I also respect it too much to pretend to do it.
What drives me, what interests me is how this music merges into what I already am.
Somehow, what I'm sensing just as a person and also what I'm hearing musically calls for a certain kind of cultural articulation to complete it. That cultural articulation isn't just limited to the music, either, as I'm driven to be engrossed in many aspects of it - learning the languages (Hindi and Bengali), cooking, absorbing dance, film, reading history and current trends, etc, etc. There's so much more I need to immerse in still, to make the music work, to better integrate myself as a being, I feel. But this is the life process.
And yet, while somehow I'm connected to that culture, that land in this very broad and deep way, Cecil Taylor, Bill Dixon, Albert Ayler, Peter Brotzmann, Led Zeppelin are all just as much a part of me and the music I make. To sell either tradition short is dishonest to myself and dishonest to both legacies.
Its my hope that I honor and respect the Indian musical tradition by being *internally* honest with it, folding aspects of it into myself while offering my own traditions to it in return.
I think people sense that, given the feedback we've gotten by people from India and other accomplishments such as the film project.
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Tue Apr 29, 2008
Three Videos From Hunab Hookah
While the sound quality is from the camera -- and the lighting dark -- we have three videos from the last gig at Hunab Hookah, including oud and fretless guitar/ drum set performances:
Viraha (electric version) - The introductory section of a performance of "Viraha", adapted to fretless electric and drum set (see a previous video for the tabla /sarod version).
This is a good example of the free jazz/modern improvisation element Jefferson and I also bring to the table ( to see more on where this idea is coming from, see "The Next Phase" post on this site.
In other words --this is not your auntie's alap :)
Her Words Bring Me To Life Again - Haven't posted an oud video , so here it is -- a meditative cover of a Sufi piece by the Ibn Arabi Ensemble of Morocco. Jefferson does a lovely subtle solo near the end featuring his multi-cajon (hard to see, but you can hear it).
Opening Improv - Todi Thaat - Completely unstructured,we opened the Hookah set with this brief improv, based on the Todi thaat but not any specific raga.
We will be back next Friday at Hunab Hookah May 9 - we look forward to seeing you there!
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