A celebration of African-American music, featuring works by William Grant Still, Duke Ellington and J Dilla and art by Gary Kelley. Read a concert preview by Melody Parker of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.
Gary Kelley – African Dancer from Three Black Kings
From Michael Morain’s Des Moines Register preview of tomorrow’s WCFSO concert:
Weinberger pointed out that the hip-hop tradition of borrowing, or ‘sampling,’ ideas from other artists isn’t so different from what happened in the era of Beethoven or Brahms, and that’s what he finds so interesting.
‘I’m totally fascinated with influence in the artistic process, with the concept of creating sound from other sounds.’
The following is an excerpt from my interview with Joy Yoon at The Sounds of VTech about tomorrow night’s WCFSO concert. Follow the link or click the photo below for the full article and a cool slideshow of us in rehearsal.
People are listening, and those who can try to the best of their ability to find a way to share. This is what this show represents to me, sharing something new that would have been overlooked. I emailed Jason Weinberger to find out how he first came to discover the music of Dilla.
I’ve been listening to Dilla since the beginning, before I even knew who he really was. I think I first became more directly aware of his story and persona through his work in the 90s with A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul and Pharcyde, and from there my interest just grew with each new project. If I had to pick my absolute favorite Dilla records I’d probably go with Donuts and Jaylib, though I could easily spend days on end listening to his beats from the Slum Village Fantastic albums and Common’s Like Water for Chocolate. J.Rocc’s Thank You Jay Dee mixes are always close at hand too.
When did you first discover Suite for Ma Dukes?
I heard Suite for Ma Dukes when it first came out a year ago, and my first thought was that I needed to find a way to perform Miguel’s stunning reinventions of Dilla’s music. I’m always looking for ways to open up the traditional orchestra experience to new things anyway, so this seemed very natural. I looked around for Miguel on the web, found him on Facebook, and sent him a message to see if we could talk about getting these pieces in front of one of the orchestras with which I work. A few months later we met up in LA (where I’m from and where my family still lives) and connected over Dilla, Flying Lotus and Lutoslawski. The rest is history.
And about this upcoming Saturday…
I think one of the most special things about this weekend’s performance at the WCFSO - aside from experiencing the sheer beauty of Miguel’s orchestrations - will be the opportunity to appreciate Dilla’s achievements alongside those of other prominent African American composers who preceded him. To me it seems totally organic to hear Dilla alongside Duke Ellington and William Grant Still, and I think it’s a great way for audiences who may not be familiar with his work to get to know him.
That’s what blues, jazz, hip hop and orchestral music do this weekend in Iowa.
Interview with Hollis Monroe – mp3
Iowa Public Radio, February 4, 2010
Miguel Atwood-Ferguson is a multi-talented instrumentalist and composer from Los Angeles and the man responsible for Suite for Ma Dukes, the orchestral arrangements of J Dilla’s music we’ll be performing this weekend at the WCFSO. Did I mention he tears it up on the viola, too?
This is Miguel’s own arrangement for the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble of Rene Costy’s Scrabble, a tune that was sampled by Dilla. The video is by Mochilla, about whom I’ve posted here before. B+ and Coleman of Mochilla will be in Iowa this weekend to document our performances of Miguel’s Dilla arrangements; more on that soon.
Here is my earlier post about Suite for Ma Dukes, with links to information about the studio recordings and a history of the project along with my own mix of Nag Champa.
This weekend the WCFSO will perform the 1920s theater orchestra version of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, on a special concert tracing the paths that African American musics have taken into the concert hall. But the influence of Gershwin’s own compositions on subsequent generations of musicians of all ethnic and aesthetic backgrounds is also striking to behold. If you have any doubt as to the composer’s massive influence in American musical culture, check out just how many artists trace their musical roots back to him:
Fascinatin’ Rhythm: A Tribute to George Gershwin, part 1 – mp3
APM American Routes, January 2, 2008
Fascinatin’ Rhythm: A Tribute to George Gershwin, part 2 – mp3
APM American Routes, January 2, 2008
Ever since I first came across the unforgettable clarinet wail that opens Rhapsody – and even more so after playing and conducting the piece a few times since then – I’ve been intoxicated by the uniquely American blend of infectious rhythm and multicultural reference that pervades Gershwin’s music. Clearly I’m not the only conductor who feels this way:
Marin Alsop’s Shared Musical Roots – mp3
NPR Weekend Edition, November 14, 2009
[American Routes program originally linked here the last time I performed Rhapsody.]
Who says orchestras don’t rock?
Tomorrow night I’ll lead the latest installment of the Louisville Orchestra’s most intriguing concert series, Strings Attached. Featured are two great bands, Calexico and The Airborne Toxic Event. Needless to say, I’m stoked to participate in yet another cross-genre concert and to collaborate with open-minded musicians from other quarters of the music business. [Poster by Madpixel]
LA TImes Go Mobile quotes BACH Technology Chief Executive Stefan Kohlmeyer explaining the company’s MusicDNA project:
What we are bringing back to the end user is the entire emotional experience of music… We think it got lost in the transition to the digital era. We think a beautiful piece of audio has been reduced to a number code. We want to enrich it again.
And how? Replacing the easy-to-share mp3 file format with a more proprietary one that can contain lyrics, images and even updatable news. The goal – whose transparency I find disturbing – is to curb piracy .
So do bells and whistles like this ‘enrich’ music? I think we need more people in the music business encouraging the creation of music that enriches listening. I’m afraid that MusicDNA’s approach encourages the opposite.
