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Click
the above image to launch Zoid.
Zoid is a 50 minute soundscape or sound sculpture which
was created using over dubs, digital editing, digital synthesis
and sampling by Mike Ellis
and features Chicago trumpet player Jeff
Beer (who can also be heard on the AlphaPocket release
"Chicago
Spontaneous Combustion Suite"). This piece is in
tribute to late trumpet great Lester
Bowie and the Australian aboriginal culture. Quicktime
will be necessary to listen. Please be sure you have the latest
version.
Our records are now available for purchase as digital downloads
through MusicStem. Click here
for more information. |
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| The Speak in
Tones debut release “Subaro” is the result of
a three year collaboration between two New York based artists:
percussionist, composer, producer Daniel Moreno and saxophonist,
composer, producer Mike Ellis who along with the generous
participation of DJ/soundman Sharif, produced and co-lead
a two year series of Thursday night concert/ multi-media events
(2002-2004) at the New York underground haven “56 Walker
Street”* with top Modern Jazz, World, Urban-Afrobeat,
West African, and Latino musicians as well as a host of dancers,
action painters and video artists. |
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"Miles
meets the Art Ensemble in Bill Laswell's studio: adventurous,
yet accessible. Music is certainly the great unifier. You
should do well with this one!"
–Larry Dane - WHCJ, Savannah State
University
"Miles meets Art Ensemble is a pretty good description,
but it has a real African feel too."
–Dave Piszcz - WERU, "Talking
Furniture"
"I LOOOOOVE this stuff. Right up there with the Don
Cherry recordings."
–Maurice Hogue - CKUW, Winnipeg Shaw
University
"I loved it. This is a beautiful, yet complex album,
so full of different musical textures that it left me reeling,
yet wanting more. I will push this with our World, jazz, and
eclectic shows. This one could have legs if some of our new
DJs are as daring as I think they might be."
–Lester French - WMEB, University of
Maine
"This is such an impressive, adventurous & energetic
record, it's adventurous, yet accessible"
–Matthew Finch - KUNM Albuquerque/Santa
Fe
"SUBARO is next with SPEAK IN TONES. We have more
musical street language happening here.
May I digress...
Whenever I hear the death throws of corporate radio, I recall
the brief shining moments of very rusty beginnings of FM,
UNDERGROUND ROCK RADIO in the mid sixties when no one knew
what's up, or down, very early Beatles "I Wanna Hold
Your Hand," when Bill Drake pop music rigid radio was
king.. Radio in those days, like today, was into short repetitive
short play lists. Because you always control average quarter
maintenance.
It's all about order, presenting a smooth running, well oiled
operation to the advertisers. The importance of the 18 -24
demographic affirmation started here. The Lords of Madison
Avenue seized the day declaring the youth market, like the
Discovery Channel, Walter Cronkite, John Kerry, Dan Rather,
Vietnam, aided by statistics with a small(s) to manipulate
us and control our mass media mania. Pay THE WHO the money,
so we won't get fooled again! It's all about aura and manipulation.
Pavlov can tell us more about ourselves than we know we know...
Then there's jazz purity, inventive, improvisation, never
to be repeated again in quite the same way. Sounds like life.
That's the uniqueness. Always different, never the same. Hard
to control as a marketing life, although Miles was pretty
cool about it.
Back to the NY streets and those Thursday night multimedia
events at the New York Underground haven with SUBARO.
I fondly remember the smokey environs Detroit Artist Workshop
with John Sinclair and the music of John Coltrane and Albert
Ayler and remember the free poetry, euphoria and other mantra.
It was anti draft, anti war, anti establishment, anti top
40. If it was Anti, it was not cool.
Shed the Steve McQueen haircuts for hair electro mania, here
come the MC 5!
SUBARO is free form jazzy, exculpating forms of Latin, Afro
bop, bongos and blues into a elongated jams with some real
dedicated musicians, Jerry Gonzales, percussionist Dende and
Daniel Moreno from Northern California, saxophonist Mark Ellis,
coronetist Graham Haynes, son of Roy Haynes, tenor saxophonist
Antoine Roney , keyboards, Cheick Tideane Seck and assorted
other percussion is SUBARO. We played "Douson Foly"
and "Bahia By Night."
This is the kind of music, you get into, like tapping your
fingers on a table top while listening. Sometime you hear
the sound of utensils rubbing on corrugated glass, along with
marimba and those African wooden cylinders you tap with a
mallet. The kind of street music we can all participate. That's
SUBARO and SPEAK IN TONES."
–Dick Crockett, KXJZ - "The Voice"
Sacramento, CA |
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PERSONEL
Daniel Moreno: percussionist, composer,
visual artist
Mike Ellis: saxophonist, composer,
arranger, producer
Cheick Amadou Tidiane Seck: pianist,
keybordist, vocalist, composer
Graham Haynes: cornetist, composer
Antoine Roney: saxophonist, composer
Jerry Gonzalez: trumpet, flugelhorn,
congas
Bira Reis: flautist, saxophonist, composer
Dende: percussionist, composer
Lansine Kouyate: balafonist
Darryl Hall: bassist
Terreon Gully: Drums
Jean-Paul Bourelly: guitarist, composer
Reggie Washington: bass
Adam Rudolph: percussionist
Luizão Paiva: piano, keyboards,
voice
Anderson Souza: percussionist |
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