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Live Painting/Music Improvisation 12/23

I'm extremely excited to do this gig on 12/23/08 (tomorrow)! It's my first time to really collaborate with a painter. I started thinking about this project several months ago and kind of "like magic" at one of Jon Lynch's BIZ Nite networking events, I met Hiroaki. Hiroaki had some interesting questions for me at a public presentation of mine regarding improvisation. So, from that time we started planning a live painting/music improvisation session. I think Airegin is one of the perfect places in the Tokyo-Yokohama area to do this kind of event because of the really free and creative context that the owner has developed there over time.

As far as the music is concerned, I have tried to create a completely new vibe (for myself) to create in. Earlier this year, I bought a Tibetan singing bowl. I immediately started using it at home and loved it. The sound is so relaxing and deep. On a recent tour in Shikoku, I was able to use the bowl along with drums, bass, shakuhachi and trumpet (with electronic effects) in a completely "free" kind of musical setting. Since that tour, I've been doing some reading about the bowls and found to my surprise that they are tuned to the energy chakras in the body. Well, most people that know me in Japan, know that I'm very interested in energy work (chi, ki, prana). Having come from the USA 10 years ago, and dealing with the after-effects of radiation treatments from cancer, I was extremely happy to have met a couple of guys who had been in Japan for years studying taichi and aikido. They really opened my eyes to the world of chi or ki. It completely started to change my health condition. So, over these 10 years I've developed a fair amount of interest in how energy and vibrations affect my body and even my emotions. Even now 10 years later, I'm doing chikung (qigong) and yoga in the mornings and in the evenings. If I stop for just a couple of days, I can really feel it. It goes without saying that I highly recommend some type of internal energy work for anyone recovering from cancer. Actually, I recommend it for anyone who is interested in improving health.

For this gig, we'll be using guitar, alto sax, tenor sax, MAC laptop, and trumpet (w/effects). Since I'm not using drums or bass, we'll be using some tracks that I've put together of various samples. Of course the sound of the Tibetan bowls will be present throughout the music, I've also included various beats from hip-hop and Latin to even a sample of a real heartbeat. A few years ago, I was on Mt. Takao (about an hour west of Tokyo) and was able to see a community of Buddhist monks performing their ceremony. It was a cold, rainy and foggy afternoon on the mountain and it made the experience even more mysterious for me. I was able to capture a lot of audio from the ceremony and will be using some of those samples with samples of the bowls. I've also included some samples of Gregorian chants and some spoken word samples. The other musicians and myself will improvise and have "musical conversations" within this framework. Of course, my real hope is to provide an atmosphere that motivates Hiroaki to paint in a way that is inspiring for him and at the same time enables us to watch him paint and improvise musically in a way that inspires us and relates to his painting. Lastly, I just want people to come and relax...almost like a meditative kind of scene...therapeutic in a way.

I'm really looking forward to doing this project with Hibino, Sugiyama and guitarist Takayuki Kato. Many people will know Hibino from his famous compostions in the video game music world. He is also a beautiful tenor saxophonist. His ability to create "beats" on his MAC in the middle of a gig is amazing. Sugiyama is presently a student at Berklee College of Music. Over the past couple of years, she has come to sit-in at my gigs when she is home from school. I really like the way her sound is developing and thought this would be a good chance for her to be involved with some creative people in a very unusual setting. Kato is one of the most creative musicians on the Tokyo scene and is equally comfortable in straight-ahead or "free" settings. I can't wait to see what we can come up with as a group in response to Hiroaki's painting!