Work directly with Trey Gunn on a weekly basis in this group course.
King Crimson guitar legend Trey Gunn is presenting “Intro to Modes”; an 8-week music course that runs from October 15 to December 8, 2018.
For all instrumentalists and singers.
In this course we will break down one of the basic building blocks of music – the modes – into digestible parts, both sonically and theoretically, so they can be used with ease.
This course will:
Help you to immediately find your ground in a piece of music
Give you flexibility when improvising
Give you greater color choices when developing your own compositions
Help you grasp command of the core material of music
Give you a long-term pathway to hear deeper into the relationships of the notes
This course is designed to work for all players:
Beginning players – We’ll start with the basics.
Intermediate players – Hone the fundamentals in your hearing for improved playing and writing
Advanced players – Find the gaps in your melodic hearing. Apply practices to close the gaps and take your playing further
Learn to play confidently while capturing the unique quality of each mode in your improvisations and compositions. This ease only comes from the deep exploration based on how you hear, in your own particular way. This course breaks down that exploration into its core essence, step-by-step.
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When most musicians play by thinking in modes, or scales, they tend towards using all the tones equally and without their full meaning. This results in bland musical lines. Lines that come across like white light where, instead, there could be gorgeous color.
How a painter uses color is a useful analogy for working with the modes. Any musical idea can be tinted with one of the modes. The idea remains essentially the same; but the color of the music changes based on which mode you are using.
This course is designed to establish these “modal” differences in your ear so you can use them as you need to, much as a painter pulls from his or her palette of colors.
– – –
Learning about modes isn’t about the information. The information is easy. Learning this material, the way I think we should, is about getting to know each tone intimately within its context – the mode’s center of gravity, or tonal center.
This course will use a progression of practices to develop our sense of each note and how that note fits into its mode.
This is an oversimplification; but based on many years of practice, study and playing I have honed an approach to go directly into the sounds.
First, we learn the sounds. The information can come afterward, simply to help us organize.
– – –
This will be a type of correspondence course with info/practices being presented each week and all of us digesting it together via a Google Group. There is no real-time participation, so any time-zone or personal schedule will fit with our work together.
The course will adapt to the people participating and how things develop as we go along. But the general curriculum will be based on the following progression:
Week 1
General Concepts of Modes
Language And Method For The Course
Root, Fifth, Octave (+ listening/singing)
Week 2
Thirds (+ listening puzzles)
Week 3
Sevenths (+ extra singing)
Week 4
Sixths (+ playing)
Week 5
Seconds (+ composition)
Week 6
Fourths (+ audiation/memorization)
Week 7
Full Modes (+ pentatonics/hexatonics)
Week 8
Locrian/Pathway to Exotics (+wrap-up)
Cost: $299.00 50% discount for Early Registration before October 1, 2018
World-class musicians record intimate performance concert blending classical music, jazz, rock, and Indian fusion
During the first week of October 2017, world-class musicians from many genres came together in an ambitious project…to record and perform a full night of music…in a week. The Deep Energy Orchestra were brought together by local composer and fretless bassist, Jason Everett who had been named an “Artist in Residence” by the prestigious non-profit Jack Straw Cultural Center in Seattle, WA. The project captured high-quality audio and video performances of his compositions which are inspired by his love for classical, jazz and Indian Fusion music. The live recording took place at Jack Straw Cultural Center, located in the University District, over a two day period.
Says Jason, “I love instrumental music, and started as a classical musician at eight. I was playing jazz clubs professionally at sixteen and fell in love with Indian music at eighteen. This project is an exciting culmination of that history and my love for those musical styles.”
Another well-known musician in the project who plays an unusual instrument is Trey Gunn, who is best known for his work with King Crimson and the Security Project. “I was really excited to play with Trey…we are both bassists with extended range instruments who play melodically; so we were able to trade off roles as lead and rhythm players,” explained Jason. “Trey is really exciting to watch as he is performing on his Warr Guitar which is a 12-string instrument that he plays almost like a piano.”
“I was surprised how easily these pieces flowed out of us when rehearsing and recording. It is a clear testament to Jason’s writing that music this challenging felt so natural.” – Trey Gunn
Also featured on the album is Indian musician Selvaganesh, best known for his work with Shakti, John McLaughlin, and Jonas Helborg, who plays kanjira and his custom drum kit.
“It is my pleasure to be part of Deep Energy Orchestra, everyone was flying, especially Trey! I had a great time playing the music and was impressed with Jason’s pieces, especially those in odd meters. This is one of my favorite groups!” – Selvaganesh
More-strings-than-usual might be a theme for this group as lead violinist Radhika Iyer, from San Francisco, played her seven-string electric violin and Everett himself is known for his unique seven-string fretless bass. Other local musicians who rounded out the sound included tabla player Anil Prasad, and classical musicians, Rachel Nesvig on violin, Aleida Gehrels on viola, and Phil Hirschi on cello.
Jason Everett (aka Mister E) is a performer, composer, and producer who plays a variety of stringed and percussive instruments with his primary instruments being his seven-string fretless bass and acoustic six-string bass. Jason attended Northern Arizona University on a full scholarship for bassoon and started playing jazz professionally at sixteen years old.
Jason has played music outside of the mainstream for most of his career including with the avant-garde space-jazz ensemble, Little Green Men; Flamenco fusion groups, Machete’, Deseo Carmin, and Acoustic Fantasy; world fusion groups, Avaaza, Tarana, and Andre Feriante; and Kirtan artists, Gina Sala’ and Girish. Jason has also been recently performing and recording with Bay Area world jazz fusion groups, Facing East and Ancient Future. Jason has created his own groups including Taal Maya, a Shakti inspired Indian fusion project and Pandamonium, which is described as “Prog Rock Jazz Funk.”
“Jason Everett’s intonation on his signature 7-string fretless bass is exemplary, and he is a well-spring of melodies and musical ideas. Keep your eyes and ears out for Jason Everett aka Mister E!” – Stu Hamm
Jason’s recording work has recently included producing a four-movement, 20-minute composition called “Moksha: The Elimination of All Duality” that features world-class artists including Selvaganesh (Shakti, Masters of Percussion), Fareed Haque (director of Jazz Studies at Northern Illinois University), Suhail Yusuf Khan, Radhakrisna Neyvili, Vishal Nagar, and Ujwal Nagar.
Jason is also performing as a solo bass artist and has recently performed at NAMM (the National Association of Music Manufacturers) convention in LA, the International Solo Bass Competition hosted by bass amplifier manufacturer, Phil Jones Bass in NY, and as a headliner for Bass Bash in Denver, CO for the last several years.
Finally, Jason was name an Artist in Residence by Seattle non-profit, Jack Straw Cultural Center for 2017 and recorded his new album, “Playing With Fire” which is due for release October 2018 and has recently started a new collaboration with the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra who have commissioned Jason to arrange his music from the “Playing With Fire” album for their full chamber orchestra. Jason is an endorsed artist for Bartolini Pickups, Kalium Strings and Conklin Guitars, who have created a signature model instrument for Jason called, the “OM Bass.”
“Jason’s impressive bass work will dazzle, but his playing transcends the instrument to become a pure source of expression. His compositions are equally full of wonder and atmosphere for a sonic journey. A top-notch musician!” – Kevin Johnson No Treble Bass Magazine
In closing Jason has this to impart, “My music is a combination of the styles that move me. Classical, Jazz, Groove, Funk, Prog Rock, and World music (particularly Indian and Flamenco). Music is a language and it is always amazing when musicians from different genres and training can come together to create something new, unique and beautiful. My music is nearly always instrumental, and often in odd-meters.”
Three CDs featuring over three and a half hours of material performed during the band’s five nights residency at Teatro Metropolitan, Mexico City in July 2017 & audio extras!
King Crimson Mexico 2017 – photo by David Singleton
This 3CD/1Blu-Ray set features over three and a half hours of material performed during King Crimson’s five-night residency at Teatro Metropolitan, Mexico City in July 2017 plus audio extras. The Blu-Ray contains over two hours of multi-camera HD recorded footage, the audio soundtrack in 24/48 LPCM, hi-res stereo and 5.1 DTS HD-MA (with ‘picture off’ mode allowing the music to be heard independently in lossless audio).
Meltdown in Mexico includes, for the first time with this line-up, audio recordings of “Breathless,” “Discipline,” “Moonchild” and Tony and Jeremy’s nightly Cadenza improvs. Mixed by King Crimson member Bill Rieflin from full multi-track recordings
King Crimson is a band that continues to defy conventional expectations. As listeners to last year’s rush-released official bootleg from June 2017 recorded in Chicago discovered, this band gets better by the year. Given the amount of rehearsals, practicing, constantly expanding repertoire base (nearly six hours’ worth of material ready to select from on any given night), wealth of experience among musicians, technicians/sound crew, more comfortable traveling arrangements, better PA systems/mixing desks & the fact that the band is playing, for the most part, in purpose-built theatres rather than the more imaginatively named but sonically challenged venues that hosted rock gigs in previous decades, this should come as no surprise. But it does. Perhaps it’s still part of the Rock ‘n’ Roll myth – the “hope I die before I get old” thought process that seems forever associated with rock music that’s proved so difficult to alter. Whatever the reason, the concept of a band maturing, re-inventing itself and being able to present music from a lengthy history in recognizable but ever-changing ways, still with a same sense of wonder as if it were newly-written, remains, if not unique, certainly notable.
A few weeks after the Chicago concert, the first part of 2017’s tour reached its final destination – five nights of concerts in Mexico City. All of the concerts were recorded and filmed with a view to issuing a definitive document of Crimson live in 2017 and Meltdown is the result of that process. With over two hours of HD filmed performance and three hours of audio, Meltdown offers a comprehensive overview of a band at the very peak of its performing ability.
King Crimson’s Meltdown in Mexico will be released on September 28th and will be distributed by Amped Distribution.
Brazilian band DIALETO is releasing independently, under the auspices of MoonJune Records, their fifth album “Live with David Cross”, which was recorded in 2017 in São Paulo, Brazil, at the band’s second of two concerts held to promote their previous album, “Bartók in Rock”. The material of this album includes some live versions for the Béla Bartók pieces that were adapted by DIALETO, as well as renditions of a few King Crimson classics and one track by the David Cross Band.
Apart from David Cross (violin), the album features Nelson Coelho (guitars), Fred Barley (drums, vocals) and Gabriel Costa (bass, vocals) on full flight, delivering tight, powerful music to the people lucky enough to be in the audience at those concerts. From the climatic opening of “Roumanian Folk Dances 3” on through the other Bartók tunes, Dialeto exhibits a great variety of styles, from calm smoothness to hard tension, from delicate climates to sheer heavy rock, like “The Young Bride”. Among the Bartók renditions, “Mikrokosmos 78” is of special interest because it’s not on the “Bartók in Rock” album: it was arranged especially for this concert, by David Cross’ suggestion.
Four King Crimson songs are featured on the album: David Cross’ version of “Exiles”, from his homonymous record, which highlights Barley’s melodic vocals. “Talking Drum” and “Lark’s Tongues in Aspic part Two” feature furious impressive improvisations by the band, and the beautifully tense “Starless” closes the concert with great power and emotion.
“Tonk”, a song by the David Cross Band, with all its complex time signatures and heavy riffs, is also played by the group, completing the setlist.
Carefully mixed and mastered by Fabio Golfetti (GONG, Violeta de Outono), this music can now be appreciated by anybody, in all its energetic and crystal-clear sound.
Whether you are a King Crimson or David Cross fan, a Bartók enthusiast or an appreciator of DIALETO’s previous albums, this live album will certainly please and surprise you.
During the 1970s David Cross was a member of King Crimson and David Jackson was a member of Van der Graaf Generator. Now much to the excitement of music aficionados worldwide, the duo have teamed up for an amazing new album titled “Another Day”!
Released via Cherry Red Records, the 12 new tracks on this album showcase the talents of Cross & Jackson and will appeal to the fanbases of both artists and the bands they have been in. It’s an innovative meeting of minds. This new studio album also features Mick Paul on bass, Craig Blundell on drums and was produced by Jake Jackson.
“From the first notes we ever played together David Jackson and I realized that we were driving in the same direction, free to play anything from fierce avant-garde cadenzas to haunting melodies and rocking riffs. ‘Another Day’ is the culmination of our ambition to date and has been realized as a quartet album with extraordinary instinctive performances from our collaborators, Mick Paul and Craig Blundell. The icing on the cake was the incisive, original vision which emerged in the mixing stage from our producer Jake Jackson. I love it.” – David Cross March 2nd, 2018
“I am thrilled and very proud of this album with David Cross. It’s the best thing I’ve done in many years! We met at a Festival in Italy in 2010 and emergency improvised our way into a special kind of exciting harmony – and friendship too. Enjoying the space between two soloists, we soon discovered new ways of writing and arranging. Add in our legendary rhythm section of Mick Paul and Craig Blundell and I can guarantee you haven’t heard anything quite like this album before!” – David Jackson (26th February 2018)
Watch the new promotional video:
In support of the album David Cross & David Jackson plan to tour mid-2018!
Tracklist:
1. PREDATOR
2. BUSHIDO
3. LAST RIDE
4. GOING NOWHERE
5. TRANE TO KIEV
6. MILLENNIUM TOLL
7. ARRIVAL
8. COME AGAIN
9. BREAKING BAD
10. MR. MOROSE
11. ANTHEM FOR ANOTHER DAY
12. TIME GENTLEMEN, PLEASE
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