Alternative Guitar Summit 2017:
Guitars of Heaven, Guitars of Hell
Presented by Joel Harrison and Life Force Arts
Wednesday, March 15th @ 7pm
About the Show
Alternative Guitar Summit 2017: Guitars of Heaven, Guitars of Hell
Founded and produced by Joel Harrison and Life Force Arts, The “Summit” is a yearly gathering of some of the most creative guitarists on earth.
Each of these acts is a stand out, deliciously unique in the world of new music, improvisation, and guitar. Together, they make a formidable bill.
Steve Mackey is the foremost classical composer for electric guitar in classical settings worldwide. 30 years ago he took his roots in prog rock, got himself a phd, and began writing compositions that have subtly altered the 21st century music landscape. He is a fantastic player as well, and his “guitar opera” covers a huge amount of sonic, textural, and harmonic ground. Add one of the most celebrated percussionists of our day, Jason Treuting (from So Percussion Quartet) and you have a great duo.
Dither Quartet has, like Mackey, altered the landscape for electric guitar. Dither is the only group of its kind. With youthful enthusiasm they’ve commissioned numerous works that showcase the astonishing variety of sounds the guitar is capable of. For this concert, they are playing a seldom heard piece by the godfather of alternative guitar, Fred Frith, who helped pioneer the alternative guitar movement back in the early 70’s.
Steven Bernstein (trpt)- Steve Bernstein is one of the most vibrant, charismatic, and creative individuals in recent jazz history. Whenever he shows up, people begin to smile. in “Blue Campfire” Steve says that he wanted to create the feeling of a bunch of guitarists sitting around in a circle intimately jamming, and that he then would become the lead singer with the trumpet. With these guitar players it will be a heavenly tapestry. Tronzo and Cardenas are amongst the most respected players of their generation having played with countless acts such as Charlie Haden, Paul Motian, Paul Simon, and John Hiatt. We can’t name the third guitarist–PR restrictions–but let’s just say he spent a lot of time with Bob Dylan. Come sit by the “campfire” and be surprised.
Joel Harrison’s Resophonic Guitar Orchestra:
A resophonic guitar is most often made of steel, with a cone in the body that acts as a quasi amplifier. I fell in love with this unique brand of guitar years ago, listening to the old blues masters like Son House and Willie Johnson. I began to imagine the sound that a large number of them would make. They are soulful instruments, able to cry and wail, amazing creations, and we plan to conjure not only the ghosts of the past but create visions of the future. We’ll bang on them caress them, slide along them…Elliott Sharp will contribute with a composition and the other players are pure magic, the best there is- Dave Tronzo (greatest jazz slide master in America), Brandon Ross (from Harriet Tubman, Cassandra Wilson, Henry Threadgill), Gyan Riley, members of Dither and more.
Dither Guitar Quartet Plays Fred Frith
DITHER, a New York based electric guitar quartet, is dedicated to an eclectic mix of experimental repertoire which spans composed music, improvisation and electronic manipulation. Formed in 2007, the quartet has performed across the United States and abroad, presenting new commissions, original compositions, improvisations, multimedia works, and large guitar ensemble pieces. Dither’s members are Taylor Levine, Joshua Lopes, James Moore and Gyan Riley.
Dither has performed and collaborated with a wide range of artists including Eve Beglarian, Fred Frith, Mary Halvorson, David Lang, Ikue Mori, Phill Niblock, Lee Ranaldo, Lois V. Vierk, Yo La Tengo, and John Zorn. They have performed their live 13-guitar rendition of Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint at Lincoln Center Out of Doors, The Ellnora Guitar Festival and WNYC’s New Sounds Live. The quartet has also performed at the Whitney Museum, the Bang on a Can Marathon, The Performa Biennial, The Amsterdam Electric Guitar Heaven Festival, Hong Kong’s Fringe Theater, The Winter Jazz Festival and the Borealis Festival.
Dither produces an annual Extravaganza, a raucous festival of creative music and art, which has been called an “official concert on the edge” by the New Yorker and “the here and now of New York’s postclassical music scene” by Time Out New York. The quartet’s self-titled debut album was released on Henceforth Records in 2010 to critical acclaim. Their latest release Dither plays Zorn on Tzadik, featuring the premiere recordings of several of John Zorn’s improvisational game pieces, was named one of Rolling Stone’s “top avant albums of 2015.”
Steve Mackey (Gtr) and Jason Treuting (perc.): excerpts from the guitar opera "Orpheus Unsung."
Steven Mackey was born in 1956, to American parents stationed in Frankfurt, Germany. He is regarded as one of the leading composers of his generation and has composed for orchestra, chamber ensembles, dance and opera. He has received numerous awards including a Grammy in 2012. His first musical passion was playing the electric guitar in rock bands based in northern California. He blazed a trail in the 1980’s and 90’s by including the electric guitar and vernacular music influence in his concert music and he regularly performs his own work
The debut of The Resophonic Guitar Orchestra led by Joel Harrison, with Elliot Sharp, Brandon Ross, Dave Tronzo, Dither, and more. New music for multiple National Steel resophonic guitars in a piece entitled "Blind Willie Johnson Rising."
Named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2010, Washington D.C. native Joel Harrison has long been recognized as a highly gifted guitarist, composer, arranger, vocalist and songwriter. A survey of Harrison’s body of work would be a bit like spinning a globe and stumbling on regions with names like Duke Ellington, Hendrix, The Beatles, John Mclaughlin, and Charles Ives. Wielding a focused lens and an ever-increasing courage to take risks with his art, Harrison has quickly blossomed from mentorships with Joan Tower, Ali Akbar Khan and Charlie Banacos into one of the most respected artists of his generation.
Harrison is a two-time winner of the Jazz Composer’s Alliance Composition Competition, and has received support from Chamber Music America, Meet the Composer, the Flagler Cary Trust, NYSCA, New Music USA, and the Jerome Foundation. He has released 17 cds since 1995 as a leader, and has appeared high up on the “Rising Star” Downbeat Magazine poll for many years. His most recent efforts include Mother Stump (Cuneiform), where Harrison finally puts himself out front as a guitarist, leading a trio that catalyzes numerous American guitar styles, in a stunning display of raw sound and emotion that both soothes and rocks. And now the recently released Spirit House with a stellar quintet of Cuong Vu (trpt), Paul Hanson (bassoon), and Brian Blade (drums).
His 2013 release, Infinite Possibility, new music for a 19 piece jazz orchesta, received a four and a half star review from Downbeat. AllMusic called it “a stellar exercise in ambition and vision.” Past works include Harrison on Harrison (Highnote, 2005), exploring the music of George Harrison, (Dave Liebman, Uri Caine and David Binney), Free Country (Norah Jones, Binney, Gary Versace), and the septet Search (Donny McCaslin, Stephan Crump, Dana Leong). All display his affection for country, gospel, Indian, modern jazz, classical concepts, and of course his dry sense of humor dispatched with a Zen sensibility.
Harrison has composed several non-improvised works as well, including the PASIC award-winning marimba solo Fear of Silence, and a percussion quartet with piano entitled Faith in Nights. He is the founder and administrator of the Alternative Guitar Summit, a yearly festival devoted to new and unusual guitar music. The combination of formal Western classical notation with improvised music from jazz, African, and Eastern traditions may be perceived by some as experimental; however, Joel Harrison’s music directly challenges this philosophical model. In fact, Harrison proposes that in the very near future we may come to see many more musicians emerging with equal proficiency and fortitude on both ends of the equatorial and cultural divide, and in deference to a musical climate defined by a directive that averts any social or cultural barrier in its midst. A quote from the poken poetry of Oliver Lake, from a Joel Harrison project, touches on this astutely: “It’s best just to create it and play it. Put all my music on the same plate!”
Sharp is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer.
A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City for over 30 years, Elliott Sharp has released over eighty-five recordings ranging from orchestral music to blues, jazz, noise, no wave rock, and techno music. He leads the projects Carbon and Orchestra Carbon, Tectonics, and Terraplane and has pioneered ways of applying fractal geometry, chaos theory, and genetic metaphors to musical composition and interaction.
His collaborators have included Radio-Sinfonie Frankfurt; pop singer Debbie Harry; Ensemble Modern; Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; Kronos String Quartet; Ensemble Resonanz; cello innovator Frances Marie Uitti; blues legends Hubert Sumlin and Pops Staples; pipa virtuoso Min-Xiao Feng; jazz greats Jack deJohnette, Oliver Lake, and Sonny Sharrock; multimedia artists Christian Marclay and Pierre Huyghe; and Bachir Attar, leader of the Master Musicians Of Jajouka.
Sharp is a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2014 Fellow at Parson’s Center for Transformative Media. He received the 2015 Berlin Prize in Musical Composition from the American Academy in Berlin.
Steven Bernstein’s "Blue Campfire" w/ Dave Tronzo, Steve Cardenas and special guest guitarist
Steve Bernstein is one of the most vibrant, charismatic, and creative individuals in recent jazz history. Whenever he shows up, people begin to smile. Steve says that he wanted to create the feeling of a bunch of guitarists sitting around in a circle intimately jamming, and that he then would become the lead singer with the trumpet. With these guitar players it will be a heavenly tapestry. Tronzo and Cardenas are amongst the most respected players of their generation having played with countless acts such as Charlie Haden, Paul Motian, Paul Simon, and John Hiatt. We can’t name one of the guitarists due to pr restrictions but we can say he spent a lot of time with Bob Dylan. We hope that is enough to get you in the door!
This performance was sponsored in part by the Village Voice.
