Please join us for a unique afternoon of creative music in the African American tradition.
Sunday, 27 March 2022
1 set at 3 pm
Michiko Studios – Stage 1
This performance will be a relaxed afternoon featuring playing and interactions among saxophonist David Bindman, pianist Richard Harper, bassist Fumi Tomita, and drums royal hartigan in an intimate environment. Please join us for the performance and discussion afterwards.
Discussions and demonstrations to follow the performance. For information please contact: [email protected]
Admission is free. Donate what you wish.
Please note from Michiko Studios: Due to citywide legislation we are required to ask for an ID from all guests 18+ and proof of vaccination from all guests 12+
Proof of vaccination includes but is not limited to: NYS Excelsior Pass, NYC COVID Safe App, Physical Vaccine cards, and Photos of Vaccine Cards
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royal hartigan invites everyone to join his blood drum spirit ensemble for a performance and talk/discussion. This is part of a series of periodic events in NYC.
Author of the books West African Rhythms for Drumset, Dancin’ on the Time, and West African Eve Rhythms for Drumset, royal has spent decades studying and adapting rhythms, songs, and structures from global music traditions. He has lived and worked in Ghana, the Philippines, and China, studying with master artists. He brings the music he has learned into the jazz tradition as a natural extension of the African Diaspora music he has dedicated his life to, first introduced to him by his mother and uncle (he began tap dancing at three years old). royal has met and been inspired by many great artists, including Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Randy Weston, Reggie Workman, Archie Shepp, and Sun Ra. He has studied with Lenny McBrowne, Clifford Jarvis, Max Roach, Ed Blackwell, Abraham Adzenyah, and Freeman Donkor, among others. In 1981 royal met Wes Brown and David Bindman, and they have been playing together ever since. Joined by pianist Art Hirahara in 2003, blood drum spirit has performed, given workshops, and collaborated with artists in Asia, West Africa, the Caribbean, and across the U.S.
Bios:
David Bindman, saxophonist and composer, leads his sextet and has performed and recorded with Kevin Norton, Ehran Elisha, Adam Lane, Anthony Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith, and Talking Drums, among others. He has collaborated on multi-media works with poet Tyrone Henderson and visual artists Quimetta Perle and Malin Abrahamsson. For a decade he co-led the Brooklyn Sax Quartet with Fred Ho, recording The Way of the Saxophone and Far Side of Here. David has self-released two CDs by his sextet, Sunset Park Polyphony (2012) and Ten Billion Versions of Reality (2017). He lives in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
Multi-instrumentalist Richard Harper has recorded on piano with Makanda Ken McIntyre, on trombone with James Jabbo Ware, on baritone horn with Bill Laswell, on both piano and trombone with Fred Ho and as a vocal tenor and on Anthony Braxton’s opus, Trillium E.. Currently he is a member of the Makanda Project and in addition performs with royal hartigan, Bill Lowe, and many other cutting-edge Jazz artists.
In addition to performing, Harper has been musical director for a number of original, off-Broadway, and LORT theater productions. His writing credits include arranging for saxophonist Chico Freeman, Off Broadway for the Late Great Ladies of Blues and Jazz, on television for City of A Cappella, as well as composing his own musical, Worksong, produced at the Harlem Stage. Possessing a Ph.D., Richard Harper has also had an extensive career as a college music professor, including the New School University’s famed Jazz and Contemporary Music Program and residencies throughout the world.
Bassist, composer, and educator Shigefumi Tomita was active in the New York jazz scene for over fifteen years. His 2019 recording, The Elephant Vanishes: Jazz Interpretations of the Short Stories of Haruki Murakami, was released to critical acclaim by Origin Arts records and was listed in the top ten jazz records of 2019 by Jazziz. He also appears as a member of HGTS on their debut release, And Then They Played… released in April 2020 by Summit Records. Celebrating Bird: A Tribute to Charlie Parker, a collaboration with saxophonist David Detweiler, was released in September 2020 by Next Level Music.
He has presented his research at the International Society of Bassists Conference, Issues in Contemporary Jazz, Jazz Education Network, International Society for Improvised Music, BassEurope, Massachusetts Music Educators Association, and the National Association for Music Education. His article “As Long As There’s Music: Spirituality in Charlie Haden’s Performance and Solo on “Irene”” was published in Jazz Perspectives in the fall of 2019. His first book, The Jazz Rhythm Section, was published by Rowman & Littlefield in conjunction with NAfME in 2019. Additionally, he has published articles in Bass world, Jazz Perspectives, and the Massachusetts Music Educators’ Journal and is preparing his second book, Introduction to Early Jazz, for State University of New York Press. He is currently the Assistant Professor of Jazz at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
royal hartigan is a drummer, pianist, teacher, and author who has studied, lived, and performed the music of Asia, Africa, Europe, West Asia, and the Americas, as well as African American traditions. He has made a life focusing on the sounds and meaning from world cultures, bringing new concepts to drumset and jazz ensemble interactions, including time cycles and rhythms from India, West Africa, and the gong cultures of the Philippines, China, Korea, and Java. He has adapted these rhythms to drumset in coordinated independence, layers of time, timbral shading, and tonal motion. royal has produced four CDs and appears on over 40 others, many with the late Fred Ho. His books and films have documented the connections among global traditions, West African music, and the African American tradition known as jazz.
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