At the crossroads of African American rhythms, micro-tonal harmonies, and eastern melodic inflections and improvisation concepts new musical ideas are on the horizon.
Drawing on unique elements of western classical microtonality and ethnic folk melodies organized in a jazz/groove context, unheard of harmonies and counterpoint are possible. What sets this microJam apart from other microtonal music is its method of organization. Unlike the microtonal chromaticism of Julian Carrillo, the athematicism of Alois Haba and the post-Scriabin style of Ivan Wyschnagradsky (all venerable microtonal pioneers in western classical music), this MicroJam is not so much MICROtonal as microTONAL.
The emphasis is on MICROTONAL HARMONY THAT HAS A JAZZ-BASED MODAL ORIGIN. New harmonic colors can be expressed vertically through the stacking of, for example, an Arabic maqam (a type of Arabic mode) into chords based on 3rds or 4ths over a tonal center – in other words, harmony derived from a microtonal chord scale. This is not done in eastern music traditions or modern classical music. Music from the Middle East and Asia rarely has chordal harmony and in the modern western classical tradition, either tonal centers are avoided or harmony is produced from counterpoint. In our ever-shrinking global village could Global MicroJam be a shape of Jamz to come?
David Fiuczynski - fretless guitar, 1/4 tone guitar
Kenwood Dennard - drums
Evan Marien - fretless bass
Evgeny Lebedev - piano and microtonal keyboards
David Radley - violin
Takeru Yamazaki - additional microtonal keyboards
Part 1
Month
