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Home , Carl Hancock Rux, Chris Whitley, DJ Logic, Foxy Lady, Hiram Bullock, John Medeski

October 2000 BAMcinematek 2000 Next Wave Festival Brooklyn Philharmonic

Robert Frank. Laura. 1998

BAM Next Wave Festival sponsor:

PHILIP MORRIS ~lAGf8lU COMPANIES INC. Brooklyn Academy of Music Bruce C. Ratner Alan H. Fishman Chairman of the Board Chairman of the Campaign for BAM

Karen Brooks Hopkins Joseph V. Melillo President Executive Prod ucer

presents A Magic Science: Celebrating Running time: BAM Howard Gilman Opera House approximately October 20, 2000, at 8pm (gala performance) two hours with no October 21, 2000, at 7:30pm intermission With Medeski Martin & Wood The Orchestra under the direction of Miles Evans

Featuring Chris Whitley Marc Anthony Thompson Sandra St. Victor OJ Logic

and

Glenn McKay's Light Show

Jonathan "Futz" Cappel stage Iighti ng

Danny Kapilian producer

The Next Wave Festival Gala is sponsored by Philip Morris Companies Inc. and Ql04.3, with support from Dan Klores Associates and Pine Ridge Wineries.

Next Wave Music supported by The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc.

29 Original artwork by Glenn McKay·

A Magic Science: Celebrating Jimi Hendrix

Medeski Martin & Wood Vernon Reid keyboards Chris Whitley guitars Billy Martin drums and percussion Marc Anthony Thompson lead Yocals Chris Wood basses Sandra St. Victor lead Yocals DJ Logic turntables The Gil Evans Orchestra Gil Evans and Miles Evans horn arrangements Miles Evans band leader, trumpet David Bargeron trombone Glenn McKay projected light images Kenny Berger baritone , Patricia Fox stage manager bass clarinet Philip Harvey sound mix Hiram Bullock Chris Hunter alto saxophone David Mann soprano and tenor , flute Badal Roy tablas

30 Producer's Note

A Magic Science Experience

'~ny claim to know where Jimi Hendrix might have taken his talents and interests had he lived is absurd. We live our lives in order to know these things, and when such a passionate and important life is cut so short, simple humility should require us to pause before engaging in any such guesswork. Certainly one of the things that made Jimi Hendrix so great and what helps him remain so fascinating is that he was unpredictable. But one thing we can know about the future ofJimi Hendrix. As long as Jimi was alive, he would have made music and it would have been the greatest music he knew how to make." Dave Marsh

There are people who come to understand enough about the mysteries of this life on Earth to comfortably take certain risks. There are a handful of exceptional risk-takers who possess remark­ able gifts of expression. One of those rarest of individuals was James Marshall Hendrix.

Jimi Hendrix. Close your eyes right now in your seat, and repeat the name to yourself again in your mind's voice ...go ahead, right now ...close your eyes and think for a moment about Jimi Hendrix. Has there been a name in music so exquisitely evocative for so many? What an incredible package of talent and personality he was. What does his name make you think about right now? Where is Jimi Hendrix in your life these days alongside your D'Angelo, Lauryn Hill, Wynton Marsalis, Moby, Emmylou Harris, Radiohead, Steve Reich, Macy Gray, Bjork, or Beck? Do you own the recently released First Rays of the New Rising Sun~the double album Jimi had virtually com­ pleted at the time he died? Or the magnificent new four-CD Hendrix box of previously unreleased studio and live recordings? (They are revelations bordering on an epiphany...get them and listen with fresh ears.)

Any creative endeavor professing to a certain level of intelligence and inspiration possesses a mea­ sure of artistic risk-taking. Last year's multi-artist performance of 's album 1999 here at BAM felt so right and straightforward from the very outset. This time, turning my sights to Jimi, I knew the risks were incalculably greater going in. What could be weightier than to tackle the music and legacy of the greatest risk-taker of them all in a completely fresh way? This had to be an absolutely new and contemporary spin, albeit one with a respectful eye and ear picking up whisperings from the magical past.

Vernon Reid~the brilliant renaissance man of the present-day ~was key from the start, and he and I went around and around, trading numerous great ideas about the program. We discussed many facts and theories about what directions Jimi appeared to be heading at the time of his death. (After "Paul is Dead" was there ever a headier or more hotly contested topic in popular music?)

One evening I called AI Kooper for his insight. He had played organ with Jimi on . AI listened and said, "I've got ten words for you: 'The Gil Evans Orchestra Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix.' I think it came out in '74. Check that out and see what you come up with." I located the LP and felt as if I'd found the Holy Grail. Because it turned out to be a small but real-life part of the answer to that most debated question of all: what might Jimi have done had he lived.

One indisputable fact is that when Jimi died on September 18, 1970, it was one week prior to a planned meeting with the legendary arranger Gil Evans (of fame). Ian Dove wrote in 31 his liner notes on that 1974 Gil Evans album, "Denied the opportunity [to record with Hendrix] when the died in London a week before the preliminary meetings were set, Gil jumped at the chance to present a whole concert of Hendrix compositions at Carnegie Hall, part of the presti­ gious New York Repertory Company's 1974 program."

So there it was ... but while that album's music was adventurous, I had to make sure that it would still be exciting in the context of today's music audience. Following a talk with Gil's son Miles Evans (who leads the terrific present-day Gil Evans Band), Medeski Martin & Wood jumped in wholeheartedly. Who better than they? MMW are the most inventive instrumental ensemble in all of music today, and perhaps the most talented, as well. Plus they're BAM alumni (they co-billed with Don Byron in the 1997 Next Wave). What a perfect match ...two distinct generations of the jazz avant-garde laying the foundation for a new look at Jimi. Vernon was soon sharing guitar chores with the utterly unique master Chris Whitley, and the Gil Evans band's own great Hiram Bullock. Marc Anthony Thompson (of Chocolate Genius) and Sandra St. Victor (of The Family Stand) came aboard to share the lead vocals ...each bringing a distinctive angle on Jimi's soulful sexuality. And there's definitely some magic science in the extraordinary minds and hands of OJ Logic, who spins this all smack into the hip-hop nation-and of Badal Roy, Ornette Coleman's tabla master who played on Jimi's "Rainbow Bridge" soundtrack and afterwards with Miles Davis.

BAM suggested the possibility of including a "light show," and I jumped at it. Many here in New York remember the legendary Joshua Light Show of Fillmore East fame. Joshua White is not involved in that kind of creative work now, but I located his San Francisco counterpart. Glenn McKay was the other coast's high priest of projected light art. He did the light show for the leg­ endary Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and worked extensively with Jefferson Airplane for some years afterwards. He'd hung with Jimi! And most importantly, he was the one guy from that time and place who had done that kind of creative work who was still doing it today-upgraded to incorporate the benefits of modern computer and projection technology. When Glenn excitedly said that he knew all about BAM, and that he'd be thrilled to be a part of this, I knew we were heading right into Jimi's lap.

No claim can be made here that we're going to bust apart all notions of what a live concert is capable of. But you will be witness to something utterly original in its conception and its direction. Who is this for, but you, the audience? Couple of months ago I attended an extraordinary concert by Neil Young, and the first of his encores was an unbelievable, fire-breathing performance of Hendrix's arrangement of Dylan's "." When I got home, I didn't know whether to reach first for Neil or Jimi, but Jimi's "Burning of the Midnight Lamp" was on when my head hit the pillow ...

I want to thank BAM, and all of the performers taking part in this program. I am deeply grateful for everyone's dedication, belief, and patience and for the opportunity to produce and present this. I hope that you all enjoy tonight's unique Jimi Hendrix experience. And, as if a 6 turned out to be 9, "A Magic Science" will be presented in its entirety on November 26th, the eve of Jimi's birthday, by the Experience Music Project in Seattle. A touch more magic...

"Let me live my life the way I want to ... "

Play on, Danny Kapilian October 2000

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Jimi Hendrix, born Johnny Allen Hendrix on Juma Sultan, and Jerry Velez, during which they November 27, 1942, in Seattle, was later performed the now-famous machine-gun renamed James Marshall Hendrix by his father interpretation of the national anthem. That same James "AI" Hendrix. A self-taught musician, year Hendrix began a new collaboration called Hendrix got his start playing in local R&B bands with bassist and while in high school before enlisting in the U.S. Electric Flag drummer , which per­ Army. After his honorable discharge, he began formed four times during the New Year's holiday working as a session guitarist, using the name week. Highlights were later released on the Band Jimmy James with such well-known musicians, of Gypsys album in 1970. as Ike and Tina Turner, Sam Cooke, the Isley Brothers, and Little Richard before forming his In 1970 Hendrix re-formed The Jimi Hendrix own band-Jimmy James and the Blue Flames. Experience and the band began recording a new LR tentatively titled First Rays of the New Jimmy played small clubs in New York's Rising Sun, which was never finished due to Greenwich Village in the mid-'60s, where he met Hendrix's tragic death on September 18. In a Animals bassist , who recognized mere four years as a superstar, Hendrix expand­ Jimmy's talent and brought him to London to ed the rock guitar's vocabulary more than any­ form a new band. It was Chandler who suggested one before or since. His style-which included the young guitarist change the spelling of his dazzling showmanship and tricks like playing name to Jimi. The new band, The Jimi Hendrix guitar with his teeth or behind his back-con­ Experience, included drummer and tinues to influence of all genres, from bassist . The band's first full-length Prince to Vernon Reid to Chris Whitley. album, the psychedelic ­ which featured such classics as "," Gil Evans, a self-taught pianist, composer, and "," "," "Fire," and arranger, formed his first band in 1933. In the "Are You Experienced?"-was an astonishing 1940s he worked as an arranger for Claude debut. His virtuosic guitar playing included much­ Thornhill, exploring unusual sounds and textures. imitated devices such as wah-wah pedals, Gerry Mulligan, another member of Thornhill's buzzing feedback pedals, crunching distorted riffs, band, shared his fascination with the radical new and rapid, smooth runs up and down the scales. beboppers Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, and in 1948 Evans and Mulligan began arranging mate­ In June 1967 Hendrix instantly became as rial for Davis' band, which was later recorded famous in the U.S. as he had become in England and released as Birth of the Cool. Evans worked with a rousing performance of "Wild Thing" at with Davis again in the late 1950s on the the Monterey International Pop Festival, and with albums Miles Ahead and Sketches of Spain, cre­ that The Jimi Hendrix Experience became one of ating a highly distinctive sound that included the most popular and highest grossing touring acts in use of atypical jazz instruments such as the tuba the world. Hendrix's next two alb.ums, Axis: Bold and bass trombone. In the 1970s Evans formed as Love and Electric Ladyland, were more experi­ the Gil Evans Orchestra, which incorporated mental, drawing from different influences and ideas from the day's current popular music style. utilizing new methods, particularly various Musicians who played with Evans' band include electronic manipulation techniques. Hendrix built Steve Lacy, Elvin Jones, , George and used his own recording studio, Electric Lady Adams, Ron Carter, and . The Studios, in (from which the third band toured internationally, gaining popularity. By album took its name). The demands of touring the end of the 1970s Evans' music was develop­ and studio work soon took their toll on the group ing a harder edge and he began using electronic and in 1969 the Experience disbanded. instruments and ideas gleaned again from the In August 1969 Hendrix closed the Woodstock pop scene. During this period the orchestra Festival with the funky ensemble Gypsy Sun & recorded The Gil Evans Orchestra Plays the Rainbows, featuring Mitch Mitchell, Billy Cox, Music ofJimi Hendrix, which featured the music 32A \ALbo'c: \AIbo _

Evans and Hendrix had been planning to record The band's first live recording, this limited­ together before the rock legend's death. The band edition acoustic album features MMW stripped continued touring and performing into the down to its original configuration as a piano 1980s; one of Evans' final arrangements was of trio; the album's eight tracks were culled from Hendrix's "" for . MMW's nine-night run at the New York club of the same name in March 1999. MMW's next Miles Evans, trumpet player, is the son of Gil electric recording will be released and Anita Evans, and is named after his father's by Blue Note on October 24. famous collaborator, Miles Davis. In addition to studies with his father, Evans also was taught by Vernon Reid returns to BAM following three Miles Davis, Lew Soloff, Jon Faddis, Edward recent hugely popular performances, including Treutel, Vincent Penzarella, and . two sold-out shows of the Prince tribute Party at He has led the orchestra since the death of his the End of Time: 1999 Live; Bring Your Beats, father in 1988, touring throughout the world to commissioned by BAM Education & Humanities; such venues as Avery Fisher Hall and the and a Sly and the Family Stone tribute at the Hollywood Bowl, as well as major jazz clubs in 2000 BAM MetroTech Rhythm & Blues Festival New York City, Japan, Brazil, and Europe. Evans with the Black Rock Coalition. The guitarist is also regularly performed with the band prior to probably best known for his years leading the his father's passing, including a performance on rock group Living Colour, which he founded in the Grammy Award-winning CD Bud & Bird, on New York City circa 1985 and piloted through a a Miles Davis/Gil Evans tour in 1983, and on a remarkable ten-year career. Among the band's Japanese tour with The Gil Evans Orchestra that highlights are a double platinum-selling 1988 featured , Herbie Hancock's debut album Vivid, its gold-certified 1990 suc­ Rocket Band, and Black Uhuru. cessor Time's Up, and two consecutive Grammy Awards in the category of Best Hard Rock Medeski Martin & Wood (MMW), after begin­ Performance. Reid also opened the Rolling ning in the early 1990s as a piano-led ensemble Stones' 1989 stadium tour and appeared on the on the downtown New York music scene, devel­ first Lollapalooza tour in the summer of 1991. oped into an organ-based trio. Drawing on inspi­ ration from such jazz artists as Duke Ellington, Reid's most recent album for Sony/550 Music Albert Ayler, and Sun Ra, as well as world was the primarily instrumental Mistaken musicians from Brazil and Cuba, MMW forged a Identity (1996), a combination of rock, jazz, distinctive style of music infused with , hip­ hip-hop, and soul. It was recorded with his hop, blues, rock, and avant-garde sensibilities. group Masque, which included BAM artist and clarinetist Don Byron, turntable wizard OJ MMW followed its first release, 1992's Notes Logic, bassist Hank Schroy, drummer Curtis from the Underground, with three Gramavision Watts, and Leon Gruenbaum. CDs: It's a Jungle in There (1993), Friday Afternoon in the Universe (1994), and Shack­ Since the release of Mistaken Identity, Reid has man (1996). In 1997 Gramavision also issued toured with his other instrumental group, My Bubblehouse, an EP of dance remixes. MMW Science Project, and has collaborated with choreo­ recently recorded Farmer's Reserve, an inde­ graphers Bill T. Jones on Still/Here during BAM's pendent release the band has been selling 1994 Next Wave Festival and Donald Byrd on exclusively on its web site. In addition to its Jazztrain at 651, An Arts Center (currently 651 own recordings, the trio was chosen by gui­ Arts) in 1998. He has produced records by tarist John Scofield to back him on his latest ResortE§ (a Mexican hard-rock group) and the album A Go Go issued by Verve. African singer Salif Keita. Reid also performed at BAM with Don Byron during the 1995 Next Wave MMW's most recent recording Tonic was Festival show Alternative Jazz. In addition to being released in April 2000 by Blue Note Records. a composer and musician, Reid has written 32B '1/\/OO'c:. \/\/00 _

articles for publications, including the Village Voice Paul, Wu-Tang Clan, MMW) to create the ultimate and Bomb magazine, and is an accomplished mix of live performances and studio wizardry. The photographer whose images will be included in a end result crosses all musical boundaries­ Brooklyn Museum exhibition in 2001. creating an unparalleled testament to the DJ as a musician-and was recently released on Glenn McKay was born into a Kansas City min­ Ropeadope Records. ister's household in 1936, attended Kansas City Junior College and the Kansas City Art Institute, Sandra St. Victor was born and raised in . and then went to live and paint in San Miguel Her earliest musical ambition was to become a de Allende, Mexico, in the early 1960s. He later mezzo-soprano. In pursuit of her dream she stud­ went to San Francisco, where after experiment­ ied opera on full scholarship at the University of ing extensively with psychoactive drugs, he Kansas, and then discovered the music of Ella went to one of Ken Kesey's famous Acid Tests at Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Her ensuing musi­ the Fillmore Auditorium and saw his first light cal odyssey landed her back in Dallas, where she show. He has "painted" with projected light as fronted a jazz/pop ensemble called Laissez-Faire. his means of expression ever since. The group moved to New York, where St. Victor joined Ubiquity, the funky jazz/fusion band head­ Highlights of McKay's prolific 35-year career ed by renowned vibraphonist Roy Ayers. Through include an installation at the Whitney Museum that collaboration St. Victor met and of American Art, touring with Jefferson the two forged a lasting professional and personal Airplane, and a performance at Woodstock in bond. That connection was underscored by a 1969. McKay's Light Show 2000 is currently series of short-term gigs with the likes of Glenn featured at Seattle's new Experience Music Jones, Freddie Jackson, and others. St. Victor Project, and his Altered States-Light Projections teamed with two innovative producers/performers, 1966-1999 was seen last year at the San V. Jeffrey Smith and Peter Lord, to form The Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Family Stand. She followed up her stint with The Family Stand by recording her solo album Mack OJ Logic, the unofficial fourth member of Medeski Diva Saves the World and is currently recording Martin & Wood, has been playing "live turntables" her second solo record. with working bands since 1990 when, at age 16, he became a founding member of the Black Rock Marc Anthony Thompson, Fort Greene resident, Coalition. Logic's long resume includes tours and regular BAMcafe Live performer, and front man for recordings with jazz, rock, and experimental Chocolate Genius, returns to BAM's Next Wave groups, including Living Colour, Don Byron, Ice­ Festival after his unforgettable heavy metal/honky­ Ts Body Count, Graham Haynes, John Scofield, tonk rendition of Prince's "Irresistible Bitch" during , and the Psychedelic Furs. Project Party at the End of Time: 1999 Live. Thompson's Logic is Logic's first gig as a band leader and music defies categorization, embracing the sounds reunites original Eye and I members of punk rock, pop, R&B, and blues, as well as (Rollins Band) on bass, Skoota Warner (Arrested other genres. Thompson's recordings include two Development) on drums, and DJ Logic on turnta­ albums for Warner Brothers Records, a self-titled bles. For its debut recording, the group was in debut and Watts and Paris, as well as two residency at Bill Laswell's Orange Bear studios for albums for V2: 1998's Black Music and God's one week in March, where it held an improvised Music (to be released in February 2001). He has jam session every day with downtown scene collaborated with jazz drummer , artists such as John Medeski, Billy Martin, Chris guitarist , and Rickie Lee Jones and Wood, Vernon Reid, Marc Ribot, , created a music score for the film Spark. Graham Haynes, and Sex Mob. The many hours of tape were edited down and then taken back to Chris Whitley's first recording, Living with the 's Greene Street Studios where Logic Law, garnered him praise from , teamed up with producer Scotty Hard (Prince which called him "a visionary...a bonafide poet." 32C ~A/bo'c: ~A/bo:...---- __

Born Ch ristopher Becker Wh itley on August 31 , Lee Jones and Friends featuring Joe Jackson, for 1960, in , Texas, to parents with restless the opening of the Experience Music Project in souls, the family's travels around the Southwest Seattle. In 1999 Kapilian produced two other would later influence Whitley's songwriting. His prominent multi-artist concert events. One was second album Din of Ecstasy was a super­ the JVC Jazz Festival's Kind Of Blue at 40, an all­ charged barrage of electric chords and distortion star first-time performance of the complete Miles wrapped around the socio-spiritual lyrics that Davis album on its 40th anniversary, which Whitley was well known for. His most recent toured Europe and Japan this summer. On July 1, album, Dirt Floor, is an intimate solo recording 1999, he presented Joni's Jazz, a benefit concert (in which Whitley plays and sings everything). It for Central Park SummerStage. That event fea­ was recorded last December in just one day (with tured interpretive performances of music by Joni a single stereo ribbon microphone, live to a two­ Mitchell, including her 1976 album Hejira in its track deck). Most of the nine tracks feature entirety. Bandleader Vernon Reid led an ensemble Whitley with just his guitar, while the is featuring Ravi Coltrane, Joe Jackson, Don Byron, prominently displayed on a few tracks and the and Graham Haynes along with guest singers Eric ever-popular foot-stomp is the only rhythm sec­ Andersen, Dean Bowman and Carl Hancock Rux, tion. People says lIWhitley has tapped into some PM Dawn, Erin Hamilton, Jon Hendricks and deep emotional reserves; in his voice and in his Annie Ross, Chaka Khan, , Duncan guitar playing are ghostly echoes both of black Sheik, and Jane Siberry, with Joni Mitchell herself southern blues and ancient Celtic hill music." in attendance.

Danny Kapilian speciaIizes in prod ucing Kapilian was associate producer on Don Byron's one-of-a-kind live music events and recordings. albums Nu Blaxploitation (Blue Note) and Bug He is an independent music consultant, program­ Music (Nonesuch); co-produced the two-volume mer, and producer for BAM and for various other Benny Carter Songbook (featuring Joe Williams, performing arts centers, festivals, and presenters. Diana Krall, Jon Hendricks, Dianne Reeves, In addition to the hugely successful Party at the Peggy Lee, Shirley Horn, and other vocalists End of Time: 1999 Live (last year's concert cele­ interpreting Carter tunes); and was executive bration of Prince's album 1999, featuring The producer of For the Love of Harry: Everybody Roots, Vernon Reid, , and others), Sings Nilsson (featuring new recordings by his programs and concerts for BAM include the Randy Newman, Aimee Mann, Brian Wilson, annual BAM Festival at Jimmy Webb, Ringo Starr, Ron Sexsmith, and MetroTech, the annual Martin Luther King Day others performing Nilsson's ). concert, and a variety of other music events. In 1989 he was line producer for the New Music Kapilian has worked as a sound engineer and America Festival and for BAM's presentation of tour manager on tours with Ornette Coleman, and John Cale's Songs for 'Orella. From Shonen Knife, Tony Bennett, Roberta Flack, the 1995-98 he produced Don Byron's Jazz: Jim Carroll Band, Steve Forbert, and George The Next Wave series. Benson with The Count Basie Orchestra. He was a production manager and line producer for On June 22nd of this year Kapilian produced the Festival for three years, talent From Spirituals to Swing at Carnegie Hall for the coordinator for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame JVC Jazz Festival. His update of the legendary Awards from 1986-98, and in 1992 and 1993 1938 and 1939 Carnegie concerts (originally pro­ producer of The Bottom Line's In Their Own duced by John Hammond) featured Angelique Words series on tours in North Kidjo, Dr. John, Houndog, Joan Osborne with America and Europe. He was the sound engi­ Wendell Holmes, Don Byron, Dianne Reeves, neer at the Apollo Theater in the early '80s, and Bilal Oliver, and the Count Basie Orchestra all per­ taught and lectured on music for six years at the forming music from the original groundbreaking New School For Social Research. concerts. The following night he presented Rickie

320 (continued on page 33) (continued from page 320) HrookJyn Ar~dArqy oLlVLy,ir

A Magic Science: Celebrating Jimi Hendrix

BAM Next Wave October 20, 2000 FestivaI Ga la Gala Chair Bob Buchmann

Gala Hosts Bruce C. Ratner President & CEO, Forest City Ratner Companies Chairman of the Board, Brooklyn Academy of Music

Karen Brooks Hopkins President, Brooklyn Academy of Music

Joseph V. Melillo Executive Producer, Brooklyn Academy of Music

Gala Honorary Chairs The Honorable Governor of the State of New York & Mrs. George E. Pataki The Honorable U.S. Senator Charles Schumer The Honorable Howard Golden, President of the Borough of Brooklyn & Mrs. Aileen R. Golden The Honorable Councilman Herbert E. Berman & Frances Berman The Honorable Congressman Edolphus Towns

Gala Vice Chairs Dan Klores Stephanie French Steven C. Parrish Jonathan F. P. Rose & Diana Calthorpe Rose Joseph & Diane Steinberg

Next Wave Artist Committee Laurie Anderson Richard Avedon David Bowie Harvey Keitel Spike Lee Jessye Norman Lou Reed Isabella Rossellini Tom Waits Sam Waterston William Wegman

The Next Wave Festival Gala is sponsored by Philip Morris Companies Inc. Support is provided by Q104.3, Pine Ridge Wineries, and Junior's.

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