Daryl Fleming & The Public Domain

Daryl Fleming cut his teeth in the 1990s in the avant-jazz group Water Shed 5Tet, releasing records on the Rastascan and Tautology labels. Perhaps like many musicians, his musical focus changed after immersion in Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. Daryl Fleming & the Public Domain, formed in 2002, reflects this change in direction. Its music is syncretistic in nature and never devolves into anachronism. The Public Domain’s first recording, Better the Parcel than the Post, was named best local CD of 2002 by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The latest disc, The Fable of the Bees (2007), has a conceptual thread running through it. Much of the material was written and arranged for a multi-media stage show—presented at the Andy Warhol Museum and at Pittsburgh Filmmakers’ Media Tonic II festival—that deals with themes in the political economy of the early U.S. republic. Mr. Fleming has performed for nearly a decade in OPEK, a Sun Ra-inspired big band led by former Water Shed cohort Ben Opie. OPEK provides Mr. Fleming with a wide berth for improvisation and features solos on his musical invention—the electric fuel can. He also performs with Eden McNutt’s improv ensemble Dust and Feathers, which put on the Pittsburgh debut of Gino Robair’s experimental opera I, Norton, at the Andy Warhol Museum in October 2006. Mr. Fleming’s latest CD, The Blockhouse & Bloodhound Sessions, is an acoustic quartet that features Megan Williams on violin, Justin Brown on bass, and the workhorse of Sort Of Records, Dave Bernabo, on piano. This intimate setting proved to be ideal for his latest compositions, highlighting Fleming’s rather intricate guitar parts.