closeDC, Philly & New York updates are coming!
Hellooooooo OneBeat fans! We’re deep in the last legs of our tour, with bigger cities, busier schedules, and new songs. Give us a sec to get you more rich photos and videos of our adventures in DC, Philadelphia, and New York City…in the meantime, check out our feature on the New York Times!
Saturday, September 29, 2012: Taking the Town
Roanoke is a sleepy town. From personal experience, I can tell you that meandering downtown for an hour won’t get you a laundry mat. It is far from a metropolitan cityscape, but it doesn’t try to be one either. But Saturdays are different.
On the weekends, downtown comes alive with a farmer’s market, pony rides, and artisans selling their spoils to the locals. On this particular weekend, if you made your way past the chicken and waffles spot, you’d hear a curious noise peeking from the alleyway. It was Wael running his fingers along an accordion, with local musicians eagerly huddled around a microphone attached to the OneBeat mobile studio. The accordion isn’t native to Wael’s Tunisia, and neither is the Nord keyboard that’s his typical tool of choice. But today, in this small town, we had the opportunity to show the downtown locals (and later in the evening the audience at Jefferson Center) tastes of our represented countries beyond the usual newspaper headlines.
This weekend was all about waking sleeping giants.
Friday September 28, 2012: New Under Sun
They say there’s nothing new under the sun. Still, as artists we stubbornly insist on excavating the unheard, unseen, and unrealized. With the vastness of human creativity, what gives us the audacity to believe that we could land on something original? Perhaps we’re just blowing ourselves up. Even still, as we rolled into the small town of Floyd Virginia, we could feel it in the air – they’ve never seen anything like this before.
The truth is, we’ve never seen anything like Floyd before, either. Literally off the beaten path, our tour bus wandered slowly to our destination at the Sun Music Hall, where we played to a welcoming audience. Even in the rural depths of Virginia, music from all corners of the globe kept the night the town buzzing. Music from South Korea and Mozambique blended to start of the night, meandering through folk, jazz, hip-hop. The blend of this all is indescribable, and in many cases unrecognizable – yet it summons familiar tones of human fellowship around song and story. So maybe it’s true that there’s nothing that’s ever quite new. If that’s the case, then this is a hell of a reinvention.
Thursday September 27, 2012: Jam by the Water
Inside this tour bus is a wide range of experiences. There are those who are like Chance, homegrown in the Appalachians and who has stomped enough U.S. ground to have an opinion about each nook we land in. There are also those who are like Sayak, who had never boarded an airplane until last month. Within this group of forty-or-so, there is no standard bearer. There is no normal – just a perpetual series of first experiences cascading into each other into this thing we’ve decided to call OneBeat. As we wind up the East Coast, we witness the nuances in the ways that we order our food, cope with nervousness, and feel out new cities. Today, we migrated up to North Carolina.
After playing churches, divebars, schools, parks, and museums in Charleston, Asheville was our place to let it all go. In a porch by the lake, surrounded by wooden benches and waterfowl, we jammed deep into the night and filled our bellies with Vietnamese sandwiches. Thanks for a great show Bywater Bar, we hit Virginia tomorrow!
Wednesday September 26, 2012: Take ‘em to Church
Last night we played the Pour House, which mutated into a hot, sweaty southern funkfest. Tonight we played the Circular Church, a gorgeous chapel with raw echo and hardly the need for a mic. Yessir, OneBeat is a versatile bunch.
Hosted by Chicago’s own Aquil Charlton, the lineup was comprised of fellows from various faiths, all convening around the theme of spiritual upliftment. From Amir and Tareq’s Iraqi Maqam to Sri Joko’s Indonesian hymns to several fellows’ collaborations with Charleston’s Wesley Choir, we saw that even amidst these trying global times, our differing perspectives can join in beautiful fellowship.
Tomorrow we move on to Asheville, NC. Thanks for a beautiful week Charleston!
Tuesday September 25, 2012: Bringing Down the Pour House
Oh baby baby. Throughout the past couple of weeks with these artists, we’ve been knocked off our feet countless times over. But there’s a difference between a rehearsal and a real show. And as much practice as you try to get in, as real as you try to make the dress rehearsal, nothing compares to the energy exchanged between artist and audience when the spotlight’s on and the sound system’s bumping. Tonight, we saw some stars shine.
No need to waste more words describing the buzz after the night.
Visit the OneBeat Charleston Pour House channel for videos of the night.
Monday September 24, 2012: Touchdown in Charleston
First leg of the tour is on! We arrived in downtown Charleston Sunday night, and by the next morning OneBeat was taking the town by storm. Some of us spent the day at Mitchell Elementary School causing mind explosions among all the young’uns. By the end of the day, kindergarteners all the way to 6-graders were stomping with Usman, chanting with Helio, and making new toys out of Eva’s accordion and Vera’s looper. One look at the joyful expressions on these young peoples’ faces and you’ll be convinced that music and art certainly play key roles in any educational experience.
Night time was for the grown-ups. In the evening we followed our nose to the BBQ truck right outside of Redux, a beautiful warehouse-converted-artspace. Fellows collaborated with local musicians Joel T. Hamilton and Rachel Kate Gillon for some beautiful stuff that no one anywhere had ever experienced.
And guess what we’ve got for you! That’s right.
PS:
Here’s that footage of our long haul from Florida to Charleston that we owed you.
September 22-23, 2012: Passing Period
It’s been a crazy weekend!!!!! The past two days have been mad scramble to make sure that our cargo is packed with every keyboard, pedal, wire, and…oh yeah, person…involved with OneBeat. And while we were at it, we also did a show at the Timucua White House in Orlando.
However, six-hour bus rides aren’t so conducive to uploading video and photos, so I gots nothing for you! Oh wait, here’s some footage from Domenica, Edward & Gregg August’s performance at this past Wednesday’s Arts on Douglas show in New Smyrna Beach, as well as another segment of the Mark Stewart workshop. See? We don’t leave you empty-handed. See you in Charleston.
Friday September 21, 2012: Out with a Bang
The residency’s coming to a close, and though we’re only halfway through OneBeat, we’re sad to leave the nourishing oasis that is the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Soon the hearty meals courtesy of Chef Tom will be replaced by fast food pitstops. Late night jam sessions will make way for noise curfews at hotels. Strolls through the canopies will be traded for long bus rides up the coast.
But we don’t part with gifts! Tonight was the big showcase where we finally invited the general public to come en masse and hear what we’ve whipped up, and en masse they came…like 400 of them! It was the biggest turnout in ACA’s recent memory and perhaps the livest dance party most people there have ever witnessed. Surely, this isn’t grandma’s world music. Look out world, we hit Orlando tomorrow.
Thursday September 20, 2012: A Beautiful Ruckus
With two weeks of big shows coming up, inevitable pressure has emerged through the OneBeat ethos. Time for free-flowing jam sessions have been replaced with strict rehearsal schedules and taxing practices. For 32 musicians who are superb in their own rights, it can be easy to forget why we’re here in the first place…to play.
So today was all about the ruckus. Careful avoidance of thinking. In the afternoon a bunch of fellows hopped a van to the local Walmart for a flash mob-stylee stomp session choreographed by Usman. But someone leaked it on Facebook so by the time we arrived there was already a crowd waiting for it to happen. Alas, more mob than flash. But still…international artists all converging to put on a quick show for folks who were just around to pick up some toilet paper and dog food? You don’t find bargains like that everyday!
At night, we continued exorcising the stress away with our collaborating artist Gregg August, who summoned the musicians to grab their instruments, turn off the lights, and let what happens happen. In a place where we’ve grown to love each other’s sounds and methods, it was a refreshing switch of perspective.
Wednesday September 19, 2012: In the Lab
Alas, life of a musician. We’ve finally gotten all the kinks fixed in our recording studios, the buzzes out of the amps, and the groove going in our bones – and we’re leaving in a few days. All of the ACA’s different buildings have been converted to makeshift recording rooms. As the afternoon rainspell taps on the library windowsill, Sidse’s voice tickles the mic while strumming her ukelele. Over in the writer’s room, Ceasar drags the cursor across Pro Tools while Alesh spits French verses in the storage-turned-booth. This place is a musical Neverland, but the clock is ticking. Tick tock, tick tock.
Enough bad Peter Pan references. See us at work.
Kyungso (S. Korea) mic checks her gayageum in the library.
Usman (Pakistan) embraces a half rest in the theater.
Wael (Tunisia) invents chords on the cafeteria patio.
Sri Joko (Indonesia) and Aditi (India) share stories in the dance studio.
Ceasar (Lebanon) rethinks the beat in the writer’s room.
Anton (Russia) causes a KAOSS in the recording studio.
Parfum and Alesh (Congo) brainstorm with PPS (Senegal) in the theater.
Sayak (India) molds ideas in the sculpting room.
Weronika (Poland) and Aquil (USA) dream in the library.
OneBeat raids the kitchen.
Tuesday September 18, 2012: Deconstructing Sound
As the tour approaches, the honeymoon period of artists meeting in simple awe and wonder has elapsed into one of real creative dilemma. All of the fellows here sound different from each other for a reason. It would be difficult enough to curate a cohesive show among artists who share a genre. Try doing that with people who don’t even share continents. Many of these musicians are heroes in their hometowns, and when ego emerges it seems to have every right to. That’s why Mark Stewart is a blessing.
Mark demonstrated this morning that you can be a genius musician and still continue to wonder. You can make instruments from your bare hands. They don’t all have to sound like what people want them to sound like. Rules only matter when followed.
Tomorrow we venture outside of the Atlantic Center for the Arts and do our first public performance at the Douglas Arts Center down the street. That heat you feel? It’s just us warming up.
Monday September 17, 2012: Bring in the Team
A week has passed and all 32 of our over-talented fellows have strut their stuff. Artists have watched each other like children in a candy store, ideas for new music forming in their minds and pouring out over a track by the end of the night. Only one problem. The cipher was incomplete.
Artist-administrators are a peculiar form of creative. We were surely drawn into this world for our love of music and imagination, but bills must get paid. And grants must get got. And other artists need to be supported. Those with the greatest of talent sometimes compromise their rehearsals with spreadsheets, performances with logistics, tour dates with deadlines. Not at OneBeat.
Tonight the spotlight was pointed to the staff, and it brought us closer by creating space for everyone present to share their creative work. It ushered in a trust that can only be shared by those driven by imagination. Among others we are called idealists, dreamers, and irrationals. Together, we can convince them otherwise.
Sunday September 16, 2012: Catching Up
We play hard to play hard. Today we did our – shall we say, inspiration-acquisition. A boat ride and dinner. Aw shucks OneBeat, are you trying to court the WORLD? Here’s some sick footage from the first three nights’ showcase performances. Some people become friends around water coolers. We do it around drum machines.
Saturday September 15, 2012: The Downbeat
What to do when some of the world’s most amazing and sophisticated young musicians gather in one space?
Dance to Puffy & Ma$e circa 1998 of course!
It’s Saturday, and after a grueling week, we’re going to the beach. Happy weekend!
Friday September 14, 2012: Random Bag Ensembles
It’s starting to get funky here.
Tonight the first set of ensembles made their public debut, playing for the OneBeat collective and a small group of outsiders who found their way to our space. Like an inside joke, perhaps the cohesiveness we hear in the songs showcased is contextualized by our past five days together in these isolated mangroves. Grooves are being sought and found, and while the solo showcases that kicked off OneBeat were laced with the enchantment of strangers convening, it’s time to hear the music with a critical ear.
Even without a singular genre – or a singular direction for that matter – there are stereotypes we must fight. Audiences will be temped to dub this “world music,” but for each individual player there’s simply nothing closer to home.
With an ensemble comprised of such distinct voices, how to ensure that no one is marginalized, tokenized, or compromised? It’s a dilemma that could keep any individual artist wake through the nights, not to mention a global convergence like this.
Tour starts next week. We’ll be ready. Will you?
Thursday September 13, 2012: Improvising Innovation
It’s easy to get excited at a jam session. Musicians bang on their tools with no blueprint, each competing to impress. It’s a wonderful spectacle. But when you converge with this many instruments, this many traditions, and this many visions for sound, there’s a thin line between a symphony and a trainwreck. And despite some assumptions about this mix, we’re not going for Pier One Imports music here.
So after three nights of mind-blowing sonic myriads, overexcited drum circles, and chaotic (yet gorgeous) noisemaking, jazz great Dave Douglas arrived to tame the flame. Today was all about reinvention – taking the instrument you’ve grown to identify yourself with, and rethinking how sounds escape from them. This is the groundwork for the ensembles that we’ll be bringing up the East Coast.
The challenge of OneBeat is to demonstrate that we’re not here just to import “exotic sounds” or pull together clashing sounds for the sake of a sonic melting pot. Rather, we’re on a steady path to illustrate that music – like politics, economies, and beliefs – can excel with confronted by their distinctions.
Today we stop jamming and start gelling.
Wednesday September 12, 2012: Coming Together
Piotr Kurek from Poland rewires the audience’s concept of music.
When you gather young and opinionated people from across the globe for the first time, the word predictable gets thrown out the window. Mix in the passion of an artist, and it becomes even more elusive. It doesn’t matter how many agendas your print out, emergency contact sheets you fill in, or flight statuses you check. It’s inevitable chaos. OneBeat’s job is to turn that chaos into jazz.
And rock, and hip hop, and Korean pansori, for that matter. For these first few nights, the OneBeat fellows are introducing themselves through showcases. Some of the artists have left their home countries for the very first time, and their instruments aren’t much more well-traveled either. Some instruments seem like such obscure contraptions when first revealed – but once plucked, pushed, or struck, the root of the sound is familiar enough. It’s the sound of home.
Tuesday September 11, 2012: Gaining Ground
The OneBeat fellows make music from the ground up.
There are the days when you wake up and the world isn’t what you thought it was. Things that you thought were placed are misplaced, and rules are broken. Codes are hacked. Sounds are distorted. It’s only day two of OneBeat and this sort of phenomenon is revealing itself as daily morning ritual.
Today we created our first ensembles out of complete randomness. Numbers pulled from a bag, strangers thrown to play together. In a world where speaking across borders seems like walking on transcontinental eggshells, this might seem insane. Insane might be good.
Before they reached for their familiar instruments, each of the ensembles were asked to forage the ACA jungles and find natural noisemakers – sticks that screamed, stones that wailed, and animal sounds that inspired. 45 minutes later, the musicians returned with their inventions. Some were as simple as leaves brushing across the floor, while others looked more like archaic robots. Anton, the glitch-pop DJ from Russia, found a palette of dirt and dried plants, stuffing each into small bags and laying them out to slap on like an organic drum machine. Domenica, a flutist from Brooklyn, made the most complex kazoo ever out of folded leaves. Call it hippie stuff, but it’s hippie stuff that sounds damned good.
Everyone here is more than aware of the weight a day like today holds. We are aware that over a decade ago we questioned if we’d ever gather again as a human community, and with the events in today’s paper there’s controversy over whether we’re any closer. But here are OneBeat, we hope to carve a clear path, literally from the ground up. Artists from warring states not only getting along, but creating together.
There are the days when you wake up and the world isn’t what you thought it was. In these days, the only place to go is back to your roots.
Monday September 10, 2012: The Residency kicks off at ACA
Johnbern Thomas, OneBeat fellow from Haiti.
Somewhere deep in Florida’s wetlands, you’ll hear a sound that’s not quite critter, bug, or beast. It’s not the sound of wind through trees or the crashing of waves at the nearby beach. Yet, it’s unmistakably natural. In fact, it just might soundtrack the purpose of life on this planet.
Okay, maybe that was a bit too epic. So let’s just say the facts.
There are over 40 musicians gathered here.
They hail from 21 different countries.
And they’re all dope.
Today marked the official start of OneBeat, but over the past few days we’ve tirelessly shuttled musicians from throughout Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas between the Orlando airport and the Atlantic Center for the Arts where we’ll be spending our first two weeks. None of us has a proper sleep pattern right now.
But even before we blew the whistle for today’s start, these artists fought jetlag, lost baggage, late-night pickups, and long commutes to spontaneously break into song with people who were complete strangers – complete foreigners – to each other just last week.
This past Friday some of the early arrivers included PPS – an emcee from Senegal, and Kato Change – a guitarist from Kenya. They made acquaintance at breakfast, went into our library studio at lunch, and had two tracks cut by dinner.
This is diplomacy at its finest – and it’s what OneBeat is all about. As we grow this month, so will this site with rich photos, videos, and personal accounts from our amazingly talented fellows. We hope you join us for this exciting excursion through creativity and humanity. Much much more to come. Get excited.
2012 Fellows
