John Mclaughlin & Jimmy Herring the Meeting of the Spirits
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Photo by Kim Allegrezza/Misty Grove Photography CAP UCLA presents John McLaughlin & Jimmy Herring The Meeting of the Spirits Sat, Dec 9, 2017 | Royce Hall East Side, West Side, All Around LA Welcome to the Center for the Art of Performance Photo by Ina McLaughlin The Center for the Art of Performance is not a place. It’s more Center for the Art of Performance presents of a state of mind that embraces experimentation, encourages John McLaughlin & a culture of the curious, champions disruptors and dreamers and supports the commitment and courage of artists. We promote Jimmy Herring rigor, craft and excellence in all facets of the performing arts. John McLaughlin Farewell U.S. Tour 2017–18 SEASON VENUES The Meeting of the Spirits— Royce Hall, UCLA Freud Playhouse, UCLA Mahavishnu Orchestra Music The Theatre at Ace Hotel Little Theater, UCLA Will Rogers State Historic Park Sat, Dec 9 at 8pm Royce Hall UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) is dedicated to the advancement Running time: Approx. 3 hours | With 2 intermissions of the contemporary performing arts in all disciplines—dance, music, spoken word and theater—as well as emerging digital, collaborative and cross-platforms utilized by John McLaughlin and the 4th Dimension today’s leading artists. Part of UCLA’s School of the Arts and Architecture, CAP UCLA John McLaughlin | Guitar curates and facilitates direct exposure to contemporary performance from around the Gary Husband | Keyboards & Drums globe, supporting artists who are creating extraordinary works of art and fostering a Etienne M’Bappé | Bass vibrant learning community both on and off the UCLA campus. The organization invests Ranjit Barot | Drums in the creative process by providing artists with financial backing and time to experiment and expand their practices through strategic partnerships, residencies and collaborations. Jimmy Herring and the Invisible Whip As an influential voice within the local, national, and global arts community, CAP UCLA Jimmy Herring | Guitar serves to connect audiences across generations in order to galvinize a living archive of Matt Slocum | B3 & Clavinet our culture. Jason Crosby | Fender Rhodes & Violin Kevin Scott | Bass cap.ucla.edu Jeff Sipe (Apt Q258) | Drums #CAPUCLA MESSAGES FROM THE ARTISTS ABOUT THE PROGRAM Dear friends and music lovers, John McLaughlin, in his final farewell U.S. tour, The Meeting Welcome to the final concert of my farewell U.S. tour at Royce Hall, where of the Spirits, will be joined I performed with Mahavishnu Orchestra on October 30, 1974. The music by Jimmy Herring in the of Mahavishnu is part of my personal and musical history, and as such it first extended collaboration is inseparable from me. To return to these pieces with the experience I’ve between two of world’s had for the past 45 years, since the majority of those pieces were played foremost guitarists. all those years ago, is very exciting. To play the music of Mahavishnu is not for the faint-hearted. In fact, among the only people I know who One of music’s most have succeeded in interpreting Mahavishnu music are my two all-time influential and prolific favorite guitarists: Jimmy Herring and Jeff Beck. Jimmy is simply a great guitarists, composers, and guitar player, and since we see so eye to eye in music, we have had some bandleaders, John McLaughlin extraordinary musical experiences touring together. will be backed by his current band, the 4th Dimension— For my farewell tour of the U.S., Paul Reed Smith built me the guitar of my Ranjit Barot (drums), dreams. It is handmade and integrates everything I need in a guitar. It is Gary Husband (keyboards, a magnificent instrument of great intrinsic value, and after my final and drums), and Etienne M’Bappé farewell tour of America, it will become priceless to me. It is for this reason I (bass)—each an established wish to auction it at the end of my tour, to raise money for the people who composer and recording are healing through music, traumatized children and adults, in Palestine. artist in his own right. In his first extensive U.S. tour Children are the future of our world, and those born in Palestine suffer for in seven years, McLaughlin no reason other than to have been born there. We can help to alleviate this will revisit the pioneering suffering. Speaking as an old hippy, “If I’m not part of the solution, I’m part music he introduced with his of the problem.” Mahavishnu Orchestra. Thank you for reading, peace and blessings to all. On the creative forefront of the American rock-jam —John McLaughlin movement for 25 years, Jimmy Herring is best known for his inspired contributions to John’s guitar will be for auction at the end of this U.S. tour. All proceeds the Aquarium Rescue Unit, from the sale go to Music Heals for Al-Mada, the first non-profit The Allman Brothers, Widespread Panic, The Dead, and others. He will co- organization in Palestine to design and implement a music therapy program headline with his Invisible Whip band: drummer Jeff Sipe (aka Apt Q258), for the children in Ramallah. Auction sale starts in December. Matt Slocum on B3 organ and clavinet, bassist Kevin Scott and multi- instrumentalist Jason Crosby on Fender Rhodes and violin. Repertoire will be John’s influence on me is far-reaching. When first hearing him, I was struck drawn from all phases of Herring’s rich career—including his widely acclaimed by the raw emotion and technical prowess he has. If you listen to John solo albums Lifeboat (2008, Abstract Logix) and Subject to Change Without long enough, the layers of all the things that make him unique will reveal Notice (2012, Abstract Logix)—and material that will likely surface on his next themselves. Inner Mounting Flame changed my life and the way I heard solo album. music. By the time I heard it in 1980, John had long since moved on and recreated himself, as he has done many times throughout his career. It is an Herring and McLaughlin will each perform separate sets and then join honor and a privilege to do this tour with John and the 4th Dimension. forces for an expansive closing jam based on classic Mahavishnu Orchestra material. The Meeting of the Spirits tour began on November 1 in Buffalo, —Jimmy Herring New York, and visited 22 cities before ending tonight in Los Angeles. Revered in the jazz-rock-fusion and jam band communities, Herring first honed his guitar at Berklee College of Music and the Guitar Institute of Technology. He emerged on the national scene as a founding member of the seminal outfit Col. Bruce Hampton and The Aquarium Rescue Unit along with Jeff Sipe (aka Apt Q258), Oteil Burbridge, Matt Mundy, and the late, much-missed Bruce. The original ARU toured endlessly in the late ‘80s and ‘90s. A lineup of ARU featuring Hampton, Herring, Sipe, Burbridge, and keyboardist Matt Slocum embarked on a triumphant reunion tour in the summer of 2015. In 1997, Herring joined Butch Trucks, Derek Trucks, John Popper, Kofi Burbridge, Oteil Burbridge, Marc Quinones to form Frogwings, after which he joined Jazz is Dead with Billy Cobham, Alphonso Johnson, and T Lavitz. Jimmy was asked to join the legendary Phil Lesh as a part of his band, which continued for a good part of the decade. During his tenure there, he was asked to join the The Other Ones, the project comprised of former Grateful Dead members. During this time Jimmy also founded Project Z, an experimental instrumental trio with Photo by Ina McLaughlin close friends Jeff Sipe and Ricky Keller. The band released two records, a self- titled album in 2000 and Lincoln Memorial (Abstract Logix) in 2006. ABOUT THE ARTISTS Following the death of beloved guitarist Mike Houser, Widespread Panic asked JOHN McLAUGHLIN Herring to join them in 2006 as their lead guitarist. In 2013, Herring joined In a career that spans more than five decades, John McLaughlin, who forces with veteran virtuoso Michael Landau (guitar), Wayne Krantz (guitar), celebrated his 75th birthday in 2017, has honed a personal vision that Etienne M’bappé (bass), and Gary Novak (drums) to form The Ringers, who transcends all boundaries, becoming one of improvised music’s most influential then undertook a series of short tours. guitarists, composers, and bandleaders. Herring’s longtime admiration for the music of John McLaughlin blossomed into With The Meeting of the Spirits tour, McLaughlin revealed that these will be a musical relationship, beginning with McLaughlin jamming with the ARU at his last American performances. He hoped that all of his friends who have one of their earliest reunion gigs in 2015. That in turn led to 2017’s Meeting of supported him over the years could come out to celebrate this tour with him. the Spirits Tour with Herring’s new band, The Invisible Whip. After all, it was in America that he met Miles Davis and Tony Williams and played on such trailblazing albums as In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. America was the true birthplace of his deeply influential, genre-defying Mahavishnu Orchestra. The Meeting of the Spirits is his first extended exploration of the Mahavishnu Orchestra material from seminal albums such as Inner Mounting Flame, Birds of Fire, Between Nothingness and Eternity, Visions of the Emerald Beyond and more since the band’s original heyday in the 1970s. McLaughlin has published more than 20 albums in the course of his career. With the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Shakti, he has influenced entire musical epochs and can be heard on numerous productions by other artists.