Soundpath, by Muhal Richard Abrams
It’s hard to describe the wide-ranging creative impact of Muhal Richard Abrams (1930-2017), one of the co-founders of the AACM and someone who mentored many of my own teachers. Shortly before he passed, Muhal was commissioned to compose a new work, Soundpath, by the Philadelphia-based group led by Bobby Zankel, the Warriors of the Wonderful Sound. In 2018, I was … Read more
Feed the Fire: A Cyber Symposium in Honor of Geri Allen
Geri Allen (1957-2017) inspired so many of us through her powerful music and presence, and her passing a few years was such a huge loss for the world. In this recent cyber-symposium, it was an honor to be included in a conversation about Geri’s telematic work with some of my mentors and heroes, including George E. Lewis, Nicole Mitchell, Frances … Read more
Intro to networked music performance
I’m excited to share a new article, Networked music performance: An introduction for musicians and educators, published in full on Medium.com and also in a shorter version as a guest blog post for SmartMusic.com. It covers the main practical considerations of playing music with people via internet, and ends with some broader ideas on how to use networks for teaching … Read more
The Stones Can Answer
I’m honored to be on this trio track (playing trombone/digibone) with the wonderfully creative improvisers G.E. Stinson (guitar/electronics) and Kaoru Mansour (voice/electronics/text), on a new album release (“35”) by various artists on Accretions Records to celebrate the label’s 35th anniversary! It was a pleasure making this collective track with them given their unique soundworlds. The album is available on Bandcamp … Read more
Wilfrido Terrazas panel en español
It was a pleasure to join flutist Wilfrido Terrazas, cultural producer Magali Palomar, and bassist Amanda Irarrazabal for an online discussion to celebrate the release of Wilfrido’s CD “Be Prepared.” It was hosted by Lupino Caballero and Multifónico. They were kind enough to put up with my grammar errors in Spanish, and we had an interesting and wide-ranging conversation about … Read more
Virtual Concert Hall trio concert
I recently enjoyed playing a telematic trio concert with my longtime telematic collaborators Mark Dresser and Matthias Ziegler, along with excellent video scenography and streaming by Joel de Giovanni and additional production by Johannes Schütt and Patrick Müller. This was sponsored by the University of Arts, Zurich on their Virtual Concert Hall series and everyone was located in their homes, … Read more
Panel: The History of Telematic Performance in Creative and Experimental Music
It was a pleasure to be on this panel at the New School’s festival with my longtime telematic collaborators and friends Mark Dresser, Nicole Mitchell and Sarah Weaver, moderated by Ross Karre of ICE. It was for a festival run by the New School’s COPA and it seems like they recorded the whole discussion on Facebook live.
Trio concert with Anthony Davis and Mark Dresser @ Arts for Art
I’m excited to perform a trio concert with two longtime friends/mentors, Mark Dresser and Anthony Davis, as part of the “Justice is Compassion On_Line Salon” series run by Arts for Art. The Arts for Art organization has been doing such important work for a long time, including the Vision Festival among many other projects, and I feel very fortunate for … Read more
NPR video on networked music performance
I appear briefly in a video by NPR’s “Jazz Night in America” called “Playing Music Together Online Is Not As Simple As It Seems,” and they did a great job of explaining the issues a lot musicians are facing now. They focused their story on the challenges of playing together in tight synchrony, which is possible up to around 500-600 … Read more
Pulitzer for Central Park 5!
I’m thrilled that my teacher, Anthony Davis, received the Pulitzer Prize for his opera The Central Park Five! I performed on the premieres last summer and wrote a post here about how powerful a work it was, as well as how Anthony had changed my understanding of Duke Ellington’s music and so much more when I studied with him 20 … Read more
Podcast interview on The Checkout
I recently enjoyed a conversation about networked music performance with Simon Rentner for his WBGO podcast, The Checkout. I appreciate him posting the whole conversation since it’s rare to get a chance to talk about this topic in the media in so much detail. Simon wanted some background because he and WBGO are hosting a networked concert tomorrow by four … Read more
New videos: Intro to networked music performance
In response to the recent surge of interest in how to play music with people via internet, I recently made a series of 5 intro videos on this topic, with examples of what is possible on home networks and an overview of what is required, focused specifically on the software program JackTrip. I also updated my googledoc with tech details … Read more
Full concert video, Changing Tides II
The video of our 2020 telematic Changing Tides II concert between California and Korea is now on YouTube. The playlist has all 6 compositions, with a total duration of about an hour. I am so grateful to our many wonderful collaborators on this project, in both Seoul and San Diego! (Full credits in the notes below each video.) <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9rgN0ig4hMSxXgjzzwxQW-9x0gC0uRIf>
Concerts with Anthony Davis and Mark Dresser
It was wonderful to play the music of my mentors and friends Anthony Davis and Mark Dresser in a couple recent trio concerts we recently did, one as part of the CSUF New Music Festival run by Pam Madsen, and another at UCSD. Among the pieces we played were some selections from Anthony’s incredible opera Central Park Five, arranged as … Read more
Changing Tides 2
After over a year of technological and creative collaboration, yesterday we finally enjoyed peforming Changing Tides 2, a telematic concert with musicians and audiences in both Seoul, Korea and San Diego, California. This concert built on our first Changing Tides project in 2016, and we included some new musicians as well as expanding the scenic and visual design to a … Read more
Winter wasteLAnd digibone set
I enjoyed being part of the “winter wasteLAnd” mini-festival in LA this December, playing a solo digibone set. It was a diverse two-night festival of contemporary music, part of the wasteLAnd series that is now in its 7th season. Here’s an excerpt from my set, with thanks to Matt Savitsky for capturing video:
Fall 2019 news
In early November I had 3 performances in the San Francisco Bay area with a ton of inspiring musicians, including a quintet with Beth Schenck, Tim Perkis, Lisa Mezzacappa, Kjell Nordeson; an opportunity to guest with Phillip Greenlief’s PGLRG, which included many super creative improvisers playing PG’s map scores (one pictured here); and a solo set on a double bill … Read more
Digibone Forest
My new solo trombone+computer album, Digibone Forest, is now out on Accretions! You can stream or purchase it in all the usual places (links below). Thanks for listening! Apple Music Spotify Bandcamp Google Play Amazon CD Baby