Sound
Seekers survey the spectrum of music for ideas and inspiration
to build on their musical skills and identities. This is done
not through appropriation, but by interpreting and linking new
musical concepts with the musician's own vision. At times, this
experimentation may appear random and nonsensical, but this
process of exploration often helps pave the way for altogether
new musical forms, which ultimately challenge listeners and
inspire other musicians.
Live
recordings from Jackin' the Ball are presented in a variety
of formats. Download either MediaPlayer,
or RealPlayer
for free.
Tom
Ze is one such pioneer. In the late 60's, Ze and several of
his fellow Tropicalistos began to graft characteristically native
Brazilian musical traditions with conspicuously foreign influences,
particularly Anglo-American rock and psychedelia. They often
substituted electric instruments -- and in the case of Tom Ze,
power tools -- for the traditional acoustic accompaniment to
Brazilian samba, bossa nova, and carnival music. The Tropicalist
aesthetic was a collage of contradictory rhythms and melodies,
at once rhythmic and dissonant. Tropicalist lyrics were suffused
with poetic contradictions, juxtaposing images of the primitive
and the modern, the rural and the urban, the folk and commercial.
Many
current musicians, including Beck, Sean Lennon, and the High
llamas, have given a knowing nod to Ze's music for fusing elements
of found sound and tape loops together with a pop sensibility
that we take for granted in much of today's modern music.
In
the spring of 1999, US audiences got a glimpse of Ze's raw genius
when the 62 year old played a series of concerts in support
of his recently released "Defeito 3 Politicar."
The tour also served as a preview
of the fishbowl-style experiment that will be featured in
Jackin the Ball. Ze arrived in the US four days before the
tour began to rehearse with his backup band, which he had
never met, and who weren't at all familiar with his brand
of Samba or Portuguese Fado. Ze was being backed by a eclectic
mix of jazz and rock musicians from Chicago known collectively
as Tortoise (Doug Macombs, Jeff Parker, John Herndon, Dan
Fliegel, and John McEntire).
At
first, Tortoise grappled with the unfamiliar rhythms and melodies
of what Ze calls, "Heretic Samba." But after a four-day crash
course in Tropicalia, the musicians were able integrate some
of their own instrumentation and melodic voicings into the arrangements,
creating a Tropicalista for the 90's that wowed audiences night
in, night out.
