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schwartzegeist

SCHWARTZEGEIST LIVE!

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Live from Berlin. The Sun Ra Tribute project has been in the making for a good while. You can only imagine. This is not a history of Sun Ra page, nor is it set up to teach a course on the ancient one. It is merely the result of hearing a strange sound many years ago (when vinyl was all there was, unless you had a reel to reel set-up), such an invigorating and activating sound, it changed the way i thought about and even listened to music. Jimi had released Experience, Trane had released Om, Muddy Waters went electric, i mean ELECTRIC! with Herbert Harper's Freepress News, there was Captain Beefheart and, of course, Frank Zappa rompin and stompin and oddly enough, someone turned me on to Raymond Scott's Soothing Music For Babies. However, coming up in Detroit, in those days of free concerts, we were blessed with the presence of Funkadelic! I had been preped for The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra! I can still hear what sounded like Buddhist horns in the midst of chaos space, in the inner ear. That's where it all took place...inside. Needless to say, schwartzegeist is not playing Sun Ra covers. We are celebrating the poetry of Sun Ra with original music inspired by the Master Navigator of other realms. Even that sounds risky! Please take notice of a great collection of Sun Ra's verse and prose in the Immeasurable Equation, a book edited by James L. Wolf and Hartmut Geerken (Waitawhile Press) and you will have a necessary key to advance beyond Space Is the Place. In fact all but a couple of the pieces performed are poems penned by Le Sonye Ra. There is more inspiration available within (the trajectory of) these equations cum poem tones (not to mention the plain language) than one can imagine. In fact, his work took hold of my imagination and shook all the conformity into a nice little pile of ashes. I am saying Ra had the power to transform the listener's way of thinking. And he was so on the money with Freedom From Freedom or Cosmo Evolution and Magic City and my favorite...Astro Black!With schwartzegeist, the approach is through the electronic media with acoustic trio and voice. Gebhard Ullman (Berlin) is the reed scientist on these tracks, percussionist is Zam Johnson (from LA) and bassist pilot is Kevin Ellington Mingus (San Diego). I composed and arranged the sound files with additional live keyboard effects and talk-sing Ra's equational formulas. Subtle living equations! Our special guest is MFA Kera (Madagascar-Senegal) vibing up the Cosmos Train (Citing the Space Factor) with deep, resonant vocals reminiscent of Mahalia Jackson. Yo! Get on board. And please, by all means, take a quick look at the video edits from the live performance at the A Trane in Berlin (Sept. 14-06). Holla! (don't forget to check out my latest collaboration with DINAMITRI JAZZ FOLKLORE (www.axemusic.it) called CONGO EVIDENCE on Caligula Records)fire in zeroland

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Member Since: 4/14/2006
Band Website: under construction
Band Members: Gebhard Ullman: Tenor/ soprano saxophones and bass clarinet; Zam Johnson: Percussion; Kevin Ellington Mingus: Bass; Sadiq Bey electronics and vocals. Special guest vocalist on Citing the Space Factor is MFA Kera. Video credits are: Darnell Summers, Marie France Anglade and Tony Quantrelle, cameras and Robert Cauble, editor. Special thanks to Naima Forouzin.
Influences: This feels like a Downbeat blindfold test. The City of Detroit. All the Motown giants, especially the poets. Marie Church-Rogers, Marjorie Church, Dakota Staton, Nat King Cole, Billy Eckstein, Cal Tjader, Quartet Tre Bien, Bobby Hutcherson, Al Hajj Malik Shabazz, Mongo Santamaria, Armando Peraza, Fania All Stars, Bird, Dizzy, Olatunji, Andrew Hill, Lee Morgan, Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler, Bill Dixon, Ornette Coleman (the man!), Ravi Shankar, Jimi of course, John McLaughlin, Miles (all of it), Wayne Shorter, Stones, Beatles (Abbey Road), Arto Linsey and the No Wave community, Bach, Stravinsky, Puccini, Harry Partch, Cecil Taylor (especially when he dances), Henry Threadgill, Art Ensemble of Chicago (Detroit '67), early Braxton, Wifredo Lam, Aime Cesaire, Pablo Neruda, Amiri Baraka, Faruk Z. Bey, Abdul Jalil (Slick Campbell), Clas Oldenberg, McArthur Binion, Bob Kaufman (Golden Sardine), ESP Records, Patty Waters, Bad Brains, Bob Marley (and the entire skank/dub invasion), Ska antics, Lee Perry (a master of the unseen), William Burroughs, John Sinclair (brought Ra to Detroit), Herb Boyd, Nick Land, Reza Negarastani, Paul Virilio, Georges Bataille, Felix Guttari, Umberto Echo, Susan Buck-Morse, Avital Ronell, Dr. Cledie Taylor, Michel Foucault, Ishmael Reed, Arna Bontemps, Langston Hughes (Weary Blues), Larry Neal, Dudley Randall, Calvin Hernton, General Baker, Huey Newton, H. Rap Brown, Maya Angelou, Naima Fuller, Stokley Carmichael, Public Enemy, Stephen Hawkin, SUN RA, Muddy Waters, Lightnin Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, Howlin Wolf, Bukka White, Sun House. Of course there's more, but call me!
Sounds Like: My new book released!!!More info at www.holger-wendland.de.


Record Label: none
Type of Label: None