One more once for Mingus
If you thought last Sunday was your only chance to catch the Richmond Mingus Awareness Project, you thought wrong.
Archives: brian jones
Mingus Awareness Project: Return to Richmond
After a year off, Brian Jones’s Mingus Awareness Project is back. The event features the finest jazz around, including a big band directed by Doug Richards. All proceeds benefit research for ALS, making this an event truly worthy of your time and your ears.
Conduction at The Camel
On Tuesday night, Brian Jones will be conducting Fight the Big Bull through a series of improvisations. Sounds weird, and cool. We don’t normally think of improvised music being conducted. But if you saw him play with the group at Musicircus 2009 (conducting from the back line) or have ever seen him perform (especially with his percussion ensemble), you know it’s not completely farfetched. Jones is a fan of Lawrence “Butch” Morris and his technique of conducting large ensembles through improvised music called conduction. No, it doesn’t have to do with physics. Not really, anyway. Instead, Butch Morris’s conduction involves an array of hand gestures to direct an ensemble’s improvisations. Recalling themes, dynamics, mimicking another musician, changing tempi or keys. All of this and more is in the hands of the conductor. Jones — who appears on both of FTBB’s Clean Feed albums — knows the band inside and out, which will make Tuesday night under his direction doubly interesting.
The return of Musicircus
If you’re like me, you look forward all year to John Cage’s Musicircus presented by Brian Jones. It’s a celebration of cacophony, a nonsensical collision of opposing sounds in one space. But to the people who enjoy it, it’s an aural explosion that comes but once a year and an exploitation of what is considered unacceptable in music. And it’s tomorrow night.
Moving on with Kessler
The Richmond Jazz Festival is over, and so is our coverage of it. Back to our regularly scheduled programming…
Like this. It’s pianist Steve Kessler’s birthday, and on Tuesday night he’ll be celebrating with a CD pre-release party and a performance by his trio. His eccentric style is one of a kind, and it seems that his methods of releasing an album are just as unique. While there won’t be CDs for sale, you’ll be able to listen to the band that made it as well as Brian Jones Percussion Ensemble. Pianist and experimental musician Marty McCavitt will perform during set break.
Name that toon!
It’s been over a year since Brian Jones performed his original soundtracks to Tom and Jerry episodes, but on Tuesday, cartoons and jazz meet again.
Dream Come True
On the road celebrating the release of her new album, The Dream, Icelandic pianist Sunna Gunnlaugs stops in Richmond.
David Karsten Daniels & Fight the Big Bull: Thoreau-ly invested
I Mean To Live Here Still is the brand new album out next week that expands David Karsten Daniels’s horizons and is catapulting Richmond’s Fight the Big Bull into new limelights.
May: Recording In Our Clubs Month
With May flowers came a couple notable club gigs in Richmond this month, gigs that should stand the test of time.
Alan Parkertown Massacre
Tonight, there’ll be a rather interesting show at The Camel presented by Alan Parker: Trio of Justice and Brian Jones will be performing The Brian Jonestown Massacre tunes — as well as a few Brian Jones and ToJ originals. Regular ToJ drummer Devonne Harris will be playing vibraphone while Jones takes over the drums. Closing […]
