Jeff Ball - The Shape Of Light

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Jeff Ball - The Shape Of Light

Jeff Ball -- one of the premier players of wooden American Indian flutes – and his band have always been on the cutting edge of contemporary native flute music. So it makes sense that on their seventh album, The Shape Of Light, they bring together one of the world's oldest melodic instruments with one of the newest (the space-age "hang" was unveiled in 2001).

Ball has always blended the ancient and the modern, both in the inspiration for his art and the music itself. On previous recordings he mixed in contemporary instruments such as electric guitars and electronic keyboards, but this time he turned in a different direction by adding the hang (pronounced like gong) and going all-acoustic with the exception of fretless electric bass. In addition, the band experiments more freely than ever before with improvisation, and brought in several special guests to join them on this CD.

Although The Shape Of Light continues the practice of having just Jeff's name on the cover, he considers all of their recent recordings and performances to be by The Jeff Ball Band. The core group features Jeff playing nearly a dozen different Native American wooden flutes, his brother Randy Ball on bass, longtime percussionist Ted Natale on hang, and John Natale on acoustic guitar. Making special appearances on the CD are musicians who are all solo recording artists in their own right -- bansuri bamboo flutist Peter Phippen, hang player Ron Kravitz (who has played with Pete Barnhardt, David Darling and the Group Motion Dance Workshop), cellist Dawn Avery of Mohawk descent (Sting, Joanne Shenandoah, Luciano Pavarotti, John Cale), pianist Ron Warren of the Western Band Cherokee (Joseph Firecrow, Coyote Oldman, Mary Youngblood), and violinist Arvel Bird of the Southern Paiute (Peter Kater, William Eaton, Glen Campbell, Loretta Lynn).

The Shape Of Light is more acoustic, improvisational and meditative than previous Jeff Ball albums, but the most stunning change is the absence of a drum kit and the addition of the hang, which is both a melodic and rhythmic instrument. Often described as looking like a flying saucer, a hang is two joined shells of steel with thumb-size indentations that represent seven to nine notes harmonically-tuned around a deep root note that emanates from a small dome in the top center. Very few hangs are manufactured and each one is unique. So far hangs have been designed with more than 45 different musical scales, not just from Western music, but also from other cultures. Played with both hands in a rhythmic fashion like a hand-drum, the hang makes bell-like sounds, somewhat like a steel drum from the Caribbean, with specific notes so that chords and melodies can be created.

Not only does the band bring modern sounds together with those from an American Indian culture thousands of years old, they also draw musical inspiration from the world around them as well as from ancient native images and traditions. For example, the inspiration for the tune "Escape of the Medicine Man" is about a contemporary man withdrawing from drug use, but it also contains the idea that an American Indian medicine man, through chanting, fasting or peyote, might search for tribal messages in a dream.

Other American Indian images are part of the music on the new album. "Drawing in Embers" conjures up a native road-man conducting a ceremony that includes using the fire's embers to draw enlightening images for the participants. "In Buffalo Skin" paints a portrait of Native Americans covering themselves and their homes in buffalo skin years ago, but now listeners of native music experience that same feeling of warmth and protectiveness when wrapped in these sounds. People in the Old West were captured in pictures taken by early photographers right at a time when the natural life and culture of American Indians was changing forever ("Ancestors in Daguerreotype").

Some of the album's messages are more universal. Since the beginning of humankind, there has always been the thrill of "Getting There" on any journey, hope for a better world ("Metta Prayer"), "Finding Promise" in a new day, and meeting someone special so that you are "Never Alone." According to Ted Natale, the idea behind the tune "The Shape of Light" is that "everything we see is because of light reflected off it, but we seldom realize that our perception of what we are looking at is strongly shaped by our moods and emotions."

Jeff was born and raised in Rockville, Maryland, and is still a resident of that state. He comes primarily from a Scotch-Irish heritage with "according to family legend, a few drops of Indian blood, just enough to help me play wood-flute." Jeff grew up listening to both pop music and smooth jazz, but after he went to a powwow and heard a Native American flute player, "I couldn't get enough of it." Ball got his first flute in 1992. "I knew some Indian groups in Virginia and they introduced me to a Choctaw flute player named Windtamer who gave me some valuable tips early on. I read everything I could get my hands on about the Native American culture and history. At Indian gatherings I listened to the stories; I joined them in sweat lodges; and I got some sage advice from a Chipewa medicine man."

Over the years Ball has become one of the genre's most influential flutists and is known for stretching wood-flute playing to new limits. Also spreading Ball's reputation is a book he wrote about playing this type of flute. First published in 1994, Trailhead Of The American Courting Flute remains the basic instructional primer (it comes with a CD).

Ball's first album was a solo flute recording, Dancing In The Wind. With his next album, Mixed Blood, he included his brother on bass and some other instruments. These albums were followed with mostly ensemble recordings: Reverence, Windtamer (solo flute), Cedar Moon (which won the Native Heart" category at the Native American Music Awards), Prairie Runner (the title track is about the American buffalo), Songs Of Winter, Touching Quiet and Return To Balance (the soundtrack for the DVD, Return To Balance: A Climber's Journey, starring world-class rock climber Ron Kauk).

At first Jeff performed solo shows, but after a few years his brother Randy showed up and began sitting in on bass and brought other musicians with him including Ted and John Natale (Randy, Ted and John had played together in a popular regional alternative rock band called Blue Yard Garden). It went so well that they began recording together. Randy Ball, who has been playing bass since 1988, draws inspiration from musical acts such as Bela Fleck and Victor Wooten as well as Martin, Medeski & Wood. Natale's influences range from the soul of James Brown to the alternative-rock of The Fray, Pete Yorn and Sparklehorse. John's latest inspiration comes from listening to singer-songwriters such as Van Morrison, Dwight Yoakam and David Gray along with rockers like White Stripes. Jeff has an affinity for Peter Gabriel, Sarah McLachlan, Sting, Jesse Cook and Bill Miller.

In the past few years The Jeff Ball Band has performed at many festivals and powwows, often large outdoor concerts. They regularly incorporate Native American dancers into their shows. In addition, the band has performed onstage with Mary Youngblood, Bill Miller, Arvel Bird, and Gilbert Levy and Suzanne Teng. Jeff also played live with R. Carlos Nakai.

"We don't play traditional American Indian songs", Jeff says. "When the Indians first started making flutes hundreds of years ago, they were only used by young men for courting. They would go out into the woods and listen to the wind in the trees or the birds singing; and each flute-player came up with his own music to play for the woman of his choice. That individuality is the tradition I am following. There is no point in copying what others are doing. We want to create a new path in our genre. This isn't our ancestor's flute music. This is American wood-flute music for the modern age."

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