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| Who Knows? With Special Guests At The Witches Brew Coffee House Master tabla player Badal Roy and world music drummer Muruga Booker will join Who Knows? at the Witches Brew Coffee House on Sunday, August 7th for an eclectic evening of music from 5:00-8:00PM. Admission is free, and the band will be passing the hat to raise funds for Darren Boerckel's public art project, "100 years in paint 100 yards of canvas". Who Knows? will perform alone, there will be a tabla set by Badal (Muruga and Richie Nagan will join in at some point), and the show will end with a very special set of percussion and horns. The Witches Brew is an inviting place with comfy velvet lounges and well-worn chairs grouped around candlelit tables that form room-like nooks all around the ground floor. The cafe offers dozens of coffee concoctions, espresso drinks, specialty teas and desserts. The music of Who Knows? surges and eddies, taking surprising and sometimes sudden turns that can soften the sound to a whisper or raise it to a roar. Guitarist/vocalist Richie Nagan's songs originate from his long-time study and love of the Grateful Dead and Pete Seeger, while his many performances with George Clinton's P- Funk and Detroit drummer Muruga's more free-form bands add other dimensions. Saxophonist, clarinetist and composer Mark Whitecage is a musician whose creativity, adventurous spirit and beautiful tone have led to a long career filled with fascinating people and projects. He has collaborated with just about every musician of note, including bassists Dominic Duval, Joe Fonda, Adam Lane and William Parker; pianist Michael Jefry Stevens, drummers John Betsch, Paul Motian, Ed Blackwell, Peter LeMaitre, Jay Rosen and Lou Grassi; multi-instrumentalists Anthony Braxton, Gunter Hampel and Sabir Mateen; trumpeters Dave Douglas and Roy Campbell, Jr.; trombonist Steve Swell, guitarist Dom Minasi, clarinetists Perry Robinson and Rozanne Levine; vocalists Nicki Mathis and Jeanne Lee; and choreographers Jean Erdman, Murray Louis and Nancy Allison. Along the way he has led and co-led an array of notable bands including Liquid Time, The Glass House Ensemble, No Respect, The Nu Band, the Bi-Coastal Orchestra, and Drunk Butterfly. He has recorded over 50 discs, many of them award winners, including BushWacked – A Spoken Opera, No Respect – Duval/Rosen/Whitecage, Fractured Standards & Fairy Tales, Moon Blue Boogie, Split Personality, and Mark Whitecage & Liquid Time. More information on Mark is at his web site: www.erjn.it/mus/whitecage.htm Clarinetist Perry Robinson is a master of the clarinet in jazz, folk and avant-garde music. He has worked with an incredible array of international musical artists, including the Brubeck Family, Gunter Hampel, Henry Grimes, Bill Dixon, Carla Bley, Archie Shepp, Charlie Haden, Badal Roy, John Carter, Anthony Braxton, Mark Whitecage, Dr. Michael White, Pete Seeger and George Clinton. He has been a mainstay of pianist Burton Greene's Klezmokum and of drummer Lou Grassi's Po Band. The Perry Robinson Quartets and Trios, featuring pianist Christoph Adams, bassist Ed Schuller and drummer Ernst Bier, have released six CDs and toured extensively in Europe. Recently Perry has been playing with Wynne Paris and Groovananda, the pianist Nobu Stowe, the Israeli clarinetist Harold Rubin, the Israeli composer-pianist Anat Fort, and in clarinetist Rozanne Levine's Chakra Tuning ensemble. Please go to myspace.com/perryrobinson for further information on Perry and his music. Badal Roy is tabla player, percussionist and recording artist known for his work in jazz, world and experimental music. Born in India, after coming to NY he began performing with Steve Gorn, eventually attracting the attention of Miles Davis. Davis invited Roy to join his group, and he recorded on Davis's albums On the Corner, Big Fun, and Get Up with It. Roy subsequently performed and recorded with many leading jazz musicians, including Dave Liebman, Pharoah Sanders, John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Herbie Mann, Pat Metheny, Lester Bowie, Airto Moreira, Charlie Haden, Perry Robinson, and Ornette Coleman (playing in Coleman's electric band Prime Time), as well as with Purna Das Baul and Yoko Ono. In the 1990's Roy began performing with the Brazilian guitar duo Duofel. He has also collaborated with Ken Wessel and Stomu Takeishi in a fusion trio named Alankar. He often plays with Muruga Booker in the Global Village Ceremonial Band, and with Michael Wolff & Impure Thoughts. Badal's web site is www.badalroy.com Drummer Muruga Booker has had a long and varied career that began in Detroit in the late 1960's. After making a name for himself in the Detroit area, Muruga (then known as Steve Booker) met Swami Satchidananda while performing at the first Woodstock Festival. After Woodstock Muruga studied under Swami Satchidananda (who gave him the name Muruga), and also recorded on a 1969 meditation record with him. Through the 1970's Muruga recorded with Darius Brubeck, Gunter Hampel, Al Kooper, Ursa Major, Weather Report, and David Peel while living in New York. In 1980 Muruga moved back to Detroit where he connected with funk legend George Clinton. Muruga's band, Muruga and the Soda Jerks, was produced by George Clinton and he also recorded with Clinton, Funkadelic, Bootsy Collins, and the P-Funk All Stars. Muruga continued his association with Clinton when he settled in California in 1985, and since moving back to Michigan in 2000, Muruga formed the band Muruga and The Global Village Ceremonial Band, which released the CD One Global Village featuring P-Funk vocalist Belita Woods and Perry Robinson. In 2004 Muruga formed the band Free Funk with most of the same musicians as The Global Village Ceremonial Band. Muruga invented the Nada Drum, a variation on the talking drum, which was sold through Latin Percussion. write your comments about the article :: © 2011 Jazz News :: home page |