Re: Concert Review: Terry Bozzio

[tEd ® KiLLiAn <tedkillian@charter.net>]

Thanks for sharing Greg.

Cool folks like that never come to Medford.

BTW, I continue to lisen to and enjoy your CD "Circle of Hidden 
Intentions."

It's in regular rotation on my iTunes at work.

I particularly dig the gamelan-like "Gilak Slendro" but the whole disc 
is great.

Cheers,

Ted (the voice of the bear) Killian

On Dec 3, 2007, at 10:20 AM, greg williams wrote:

> Hello folks,
>
> I had the great pleasure of attending an inspiring Terry Bozzio solo 
> drumset
> performance/clinic last night at CSU Sacramento as part of the schools
> annual "day of percussion" event.
>
> I assume most of you are aware who Terry is and some of the people he 
> has
> played with, including Zappa, Jeff Beck, etc.
>
> I watched his crew setting up his kit (which took three hours!), and 
> if you
> haven't seen it, this thing is a monstrous mutant alien creation 
> consisting
> of chromatically and diatonically tuned toms, 8 diatonically tuned bass
> drums (going down I believe to a low E three octaves below middle C), 
> gongs,
> various world percussion stuff, and tons of stacked cymbals, sorta 
> pitched,
> in layers from low in pitch to high in pitch. Oh, and a snare drum 
> thrown in
> for good measure.
>
> He played pitched solo compositions (with perhaps a little improv) 
> that were
> virtuosic and orchestral in nature, with thought to form, harmony, 
> melody,
> texture, drama and dynamics. At first I looked at the kit and thought, 
> "wow,
> this is overkill", but by the end of his first orchestration, I 
> changed that
> view completely.
>
> It was totally inspiring, and I got a lot of great ideas from both his
> performance and his "chat" with the audience. Something he does is 
> that when
> he wants a sustained note, he rolls the tom very fast. That sounds 
> like a
> normal human thing to do, but in addition, he also performs sustained 
> slurs
> between specific notes in a melody by overlapping his rolls on two 
> different
> toms when transitioning between those specific notes. He also performs
> harmony (four notes total, plus a hi-hat, as he has pedals set up which
> simultaneously play a bass drum AND hi-hat). He does all kinds of
> polyrhythmic stuff with ostinatos, and to boot he is a very dynamic,
> enthralling performer. I caught a couple of Stravinsky and Zappa 
> quotes, and
> he played an excellent orchestration of Ravel's main "Bolero" theme - 
> on a
> freaking drum set!
>
> The concert was totally packed and the buzz afterward was positive in 
> the
> extreme. Check his stuff out when you get a chance. Apparently, he has 
> an
> instructional DVD with the whole shebang included.
>
> Oh, by the way, I am not a drummer.
>
> ~Greg
>