Elmer Gibson - RSS Feed

News: In memory of...

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Click here www.jazzbridge.org for information about three unforgettable musicians: Charles Fambrough, Trudy Pitts and Sid Simmons

News: Classical Voice of North Carolina

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The online newsletter for CVNC is now featuring CD reviews written by Elmer Gibson. To read his review of John Salmon's "The Salmon is a Jumpin'" click here http://cvnc.org/reviews/cd_dvd_book/cd/Salmon.html

News: Show: Dec 16, 2010 @ Brasa

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 02:00:00 -0800

Beautifully tuned grand piano, excellent Brazilian menu, enjoy in comfy sofas by a nice warm fire.

News: Show: Dec 17, 2010 @ Quail Ridge Books & Music

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 02:00:00 -0800

Performing works from my latest release "All the Seasons," and selections from my previous holiday recordings (Comfort & Joy and Jazz Ornaments) at the best independent book store in the country.

News: Press: Rich Harmonies follow Gibson's recovery

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 03:00:00 -0800

"Raleigh pianist Elmer Gibson, a longtime catalyst for jazz in the Triangle on the bandstand and behind the scenes, offers a lovely solo recital of mostly ballads on "All the Seasons" (Kumekucha)." - The News & Observer

Press: Rich Harmonies follow Gibson's recovery

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0800

News: Linear versus circular thinking

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Linear thinking is generally viewed as a process that starts in one direction with "a" then moves to "b" then to "c" etc. It is a process we are all taught in school to learn our alphabet, our multiplication tables, important dates in history, English grammar, etc. It is a well worn and tested process of assimilating data and storing it in some retrievable form. There is the assumption in this process that the student is actually making a relationship between a, b, and c, which is not necessarily the case. In order for a relationship between steps a, and b to be made there has to be a meaningful motive beyond simple memorization, otherwise they are recorded as disconnected increments that may or may not have a connection.

Many believe that the Linear/Circular argument is between linear and non-linear thought, where linear is defined as logical and non-linear, illogical. Others believe that it represents right and left brain thinking, or again, logical or creative thinking. If we consider for a moment the notion of a public education system, then it is possible to see the value in this linear approach for the acquisition of data. Public education is the institutionalizing of rote learning, which is our primal and inherent learning process. But when we review the results of this institutionalized approach, we find that it is possible to process, and memorize more and more data without improving our ability to comprehend the import of the meaning or connection between the various bits of data. We also recognize the potential of the institution to skew the data towards a predicted outcome. I would like to offer another point of view from the position of a Jazz musician.

As a Jazz musician, I view linear thinking as a necessary first approach to acquiring the basic laws of melody, harmony, and rhythm that make up the Western European music system. Scales, chords, harmonic sequences, and song forms must all be entered into the student's database at some point by some method. But most of us who received our initial music education in public school viewed the learning process as nothing more than a task we were required perform. As with Geometry and Algebra, we learn the corollaries, equations, and formulas, well enough to pass the test, but after graduation never think of them as useful tools in solving everyday problems.

For most people, linear thinking is like following the bouncing ball in a video or movie placed over the words of a song that enable the viewer to sing along with the music. Band practice is another of those situations where the process does not require permanent memory of the music, but creates the illusion of unity of purpose, and a sense of accomplishment among the group. The numbers of band instruments that find their way into Pawn shops, dusty attics and basements gives silent testimony to the value of the experience to the student. Use of the bouncing ball in itself demonstrates how little people grasp about the concept of music through institutionalized education beyond the rote learning of simple melodies like, "Three Blind Mice," "The Farmer in the Dell," etc.

In Jazz, both linear and circular thinking are essential to the development of improvisational skill, which, it is generally agreed, separates jazz from classical music. As mentioned earlier you must acquire the basics, and in this case, the linear approach is perfectly adequate. However, we are taught to view this process as a never ending line that continues into infinity, and once passing the degree of the line you can focus on, the remainder at either side fades into insignificance. We seem only able to concentrate on what is in our immediate purview, and to this point I have not included the role of time signatures and rhythmic phrasing in the equation.

Using the 12 bar blues form as an example, it is necessary to see this form as cyclic, by turning the linear end of the string of information back on itself, as in a circle. In this way we recognize that the elements that make up the form will constantly repeat in the same order as the original. This, you would think, is obvious. But in reality it is not. In my experience, carrying the process as far as recognizing the song cycle does not ensure recognition of the similarities between one song cycle and another. While each new song requires the same attention as the other in arriving at the circle, it is not perceived as bearing any relationship to the others, even when the songs are referred to as "standards." Many see the changing of the key, for instance, as the creation of a new song, confusing the difficulty in the fingering of the scale key with the form of the song.

The rote-learned task-performing approach to music education rules out any appreciation of intervallic relationships as a valuable approach to understanding the music being played or heard. At the heart of the problem is the fact that generally speaking, music taught in our public schools is presented as a visual experience rather than an aural experience. It is not necessary that you hear and identify the notes you play, but rather that you play the right note written in the music at the right time. Given this environment it is amazing to witness the creative minds that find their way out of this abyss. The results say a lot about personal initiative!

News: Alton Kelley,Artist of the 1960’s Rock Counterculture

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0800

I met Kelley, as we called him, in 1959 when I entered the Philadelphia Museum College of Art. He was a kind of nerdy looking slightly built fellow, who, for some reason, kept talking to me about cars, and how he could custromize them. While he seemed pleasant and bright, he didn't appear particularly gifted in drawing class. But he changed all of that.

Over the Christmas holidays he grew a beard and let his hair grow long, and when he came back, re-tooled his persona to become one of the most recognizable figures in the school. He became such an icon that whenever anyone sneezed we would respond with, "Kelley bless you." I got to know Kelley much better when he became the roomate of my friend Paul Ellis. They were the prototypical "Odd Couple."

I last saw Kelley in 1974 -75 when I played Keystone Corners in San Francisco with the Norman Conners Band. He was in the throws of developing his Monster T Shirt Company at the time and showed me his new manufacturing plant. I met some of his Artist friends who were part of the Family Dog, a loose confederation of artists, and I was transformed by the depth of their passion for excellence, and there complete fearlessness. ( I have four not so great pictures from that visit I will upload if I can make them look like anything) I could go on but perhaps I'll save something for my memoires. RIP Kelley.

Written by: William Grimes, Published: June 4, 2008
Alton Kelley, whose psychedelic concert posters for artists like the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, and Big Brother and the Holding Company helped define the visual style of the 1960s counterculture, died on Sunday at his home in Petaluma, Calif. He was 67.

Courtesy Rhino Entertainment Company.
A Grateful Dead poster designed in 1966 by Mr. Kelley.

The cause was complications of osteoporosis, said his wife, Marguerite Trousdale Kelley.

Mr. Kelley and his longtime collaborator, Stanley Mouse, combined sinuous Art Nouveau lettering and outré images plucked from sources near and far to create the visual equivalent of an acid trip. A 19th-century engraving from "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" inspired a famous poster for a Grateful Dead concert at the Avalon Ballroom in 1966 that showed a skeleton wearing a garland of roses on its skull and holding a wreath of roses on its left arm.

The Grateful Dead later adopted this image as its emblem. Mr. Kelley and Mr. Mouse also designed several of the group's album covers, including "American Beauty" and "Workingman's Dead."

Mr. Kelley was born in Houlton, Me., and grew up in Connecticut, where his parents moved to work in defense plants during World War II. His mother, a former schoolteacher, encouraged him to study art, and for a time he attended art schools in Philadelphia and New York, but his real passion was racing motorcycles and hot rods. He applied his artistic training to painting pinstripes on motorcycle gas tanks.

After working as a welder at the Sikorsky helicopter plant in Stratford, Conn., he moved to San Francisco in 1964, settling into the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. With a group of friends he helped stage concerts at the Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City, Nev., by the Charlatans, a electric folk-rock band. On returning to San Francisco, he became a founding member of the Family Dog, a loose confederation of artists, poets, musicians and other free spirits who put on the some of the earliest psychedelic dance concerts, first at the Longshoremen's Hall and later at the Avalon Ballroom.

Mr. Kelley was in charge of promoting the concerts with posters and flyers, but his drafting ability was weak. That shortcoming became less of a problem in early 1966, when he teamed up with Stanley Miller, a hot-rod artist from Detroit who worked under the last name Mouse. The two formed Mouse Studios, with Mr. Kelley contributing layout and images and Mr. Mouse doing the distinctive lettering and drafting work. Often, they took trips to the public library in a search for images from books, magazines and photographs.

"Stanley and I had no idea what we were doing," Mr. Kelley told The San Francisco Chronicle last year. "But we went ahead and looked at American Indian stuff, Chinese stuff, Art Nouveau, Art Déco, Modern, Bauhaus, whatever."

One of their first posters, for a concert headlined by Big Brother and the Holding Company, reproduced the logo for Zig-Zag cigarette papers, used widely for rolling marijuana joints.

"We were paranoid that the police would bust us or that Zig-Zag would bust us," Mr. Mouse said.

From 1966 to 1969, Mr. Kelley worked on more than 150 posters for concerts at the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore, publicizing the most famous bands and artists of the era, among them Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Butterfield Blues Band and Moby Grape, as well as the Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jimi Hendrix, and Country Joe and the Fish. They created three posters for concerts headlined by Bo Diddley, who died on Monday.

With time, Mr. Kelley's drawing improved, and the partners virtually fused into a poster-generating unit.

"Kelley would work on the left side of the drawing table and Mouse on the right," said Paul Grushkin, the author of "The Art of Rock: Posters From Presley to Punk" and a longtime friend of both men. "They turned out a poster a week."

At the time, the posters were put up on telephone poles. Everyone who attended a concert at the Avalon received a free poster advertising the next show on the way out the door. Some were sold in head shops for a few dollars. Today, mint-condition posters by Mr. Kelley and Mr. Mouse can command prices of $5,000 or more.

With the waning of the 1960s, Mr. Kelley and Mr. Mouse diversified. They formed Monster, a T-shirt company, in the mid-1970s. They also designed the Pegasus-image cover for the Steve Miller album "Book of Dreams" and several albums for Journey in the 1980s.

In their final collaboration, in March of this year, they contributed the cover art for the program at the induction ceremony at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On his own, Mr. Kelley designed posters and created hot-rod paintings that he transferred to T-shirts.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Kelley is survived by three children, Patty Kelley of San Diego, Yossarian Kelley of Seattle and China Bacosa of Herald, Calif.; two grandchildren; and his mother, Annie Kelley, and a sister, Kathy Verespy, both of Trumbull, Conn.

"Kelley had the unique ability to translate the music being played into these amazing images that captured the spirit of who we were and what the music was all about," said the Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. "He was a visual alchemist — skulls and roses, skeletons in full flight, cryptic alphabets, nothing was too strange for his imagination to conjure."

News: A new resource for musicians

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0800

A new resource for musicians

taintradio.org. is a new resource for musicians. It is an international alliance of independent producers who jointly operate an Internet station providing music and music-related programming on a 24/7 basis. taintradio programs originate from New York, Philadelphia, London, Cambridge (MA), Augusta (GA) and Raleigh-Durham (NC).

Signed on in mid-June, taintradio provides a highly eclectic range of music that includes a lot of jazz. Each program producer is free to present whatever they wish to present, regardless of music genre or how widely known the musicians are who are presented. So it's the polar opposite of radio as most of us know it. It's also noncommercial and listener-supported. This doesn't mean that they're not very discriminating about what they play, but that they will play any music they like based solely on the appeal of the music itself. ..

They also are committed to establishing and supporting noncommercial "listening room" venues in each of their locations to host and help publicize concert series. Being a non-commercial entity, all of the door proceeds go directly to the musicians involved.

Their first presentation will be a concert by Dallas-based singer Lisa Markley on August 21st at Marsh Woodwinds in Raleigh, N.C. Several other presentations are planned for the Raleigh-Durham market; they are also actively working on a similar series for Philadelphia.

News: Jazz and apple pie....

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Jazz and apple pie....

A friend of mine recently sent me an article that appeared the New York Times ..June 29, 2008.., titled, "When Ambassadors Had Rhythm" written by Fred Kaplan. As it turned out, it brought to mind an article that I had written about 25 years ago: "Jazz and Apple Pie." I thought it might be interesting to read both articles in light of today's expanded culture in ....North Carolina..... First let me give you a little background.....

From 1976 through 1980-something, I ran a not-for-profit called Preservation Jazz Company in ....Raleigh.., ..North Carolina..... The goal of the organization was to create an interest in Jazz around the state. I lectured, performed, and conducted workshops, etc., for the purpose of promoting Jazz awareness. In the summer of 1982 I wrote an article, "Jazz and Apple Pie," for the PJC journal, Changes. As a recent transplant from ....Philadelphia...., the article was an attempt to address the disparity between ..North Carolinians..' attitude toward our uniquely American art form, and my own experience as a Jazz musician and composer.....

Generally, the local response was either mild acknowledgement, or dismissed as the psychotic spin of a northern liberal, and not good for public discussion. Actually, my source of information was my own experience in 1964 with the National Student Association and the U.S. State Department. It involved a fifteen-week tour of Jazz musicians to English-speaking countries in ..Africa... In addition to the numbers of musicians I have spoken with, such as, Princess Starletta Dupar. She was a dancer in the late forties and early fifties, who talked of a state department tour in ....Brazil.... with band director Stan Kenton. Realizing that this information was unavailable to the general public in ....North Carolina...., I felt it was my responsibility to bridge the gap, and so wrote the article. Let me know what you think!

Jazz and Apple Pie....
Copyright 1983 c Elmer H. Gibson....

For many Americans, Jazz is an enigma; too confusing to follow and too difficult to understand. It is not wonder then, that in this country, Jazz has lagged behind so-called commercial music in popularity. In other parts of the world, however, it is viewed as an art form, created in ....America.... by Americans, whose freedom of expression symbolizes the American Ideal, a view extensively promoted abroad by bothe the ....U.S..... government and private enterprise in a variety of forms. In terms of its recognition value Jazz ranks equally with baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie as a true Americanism. So, why are so few Americans "into Jazz," either as a music or as an element of our national image?....

Jazz music was conceived out of the union of West African rhythms and Western European harmonics. Much of the antipathy for Jazz, in this country stems from its connection with what might be termed ....America....'s Dark Ages. Unfortunately, there are those who still treat Jazz as an illegitimate stepchild of slavery, and apply to it a double standard that attempts to "liberate" the music from its African roots. As a result, at least half of its conceptual insight is submerged in a sea of rhetoric, public interest is diffused, and our educational system does not provide enough contact for us to become sufficiently oriented to its sound or significance. Most Americans would be shocked to learn that the discovery of Jazz played a significant role in securing our country's economic independence and that the marketing of Jazz around the world is no accident.....

From the beginning of our sojourn as a nation, in 1776, our country's architects, struggling to recover from European domination, discovered a new and peculiar problem. With or economic ties still linked to the continent, it was necessary that we achieve a position of equity with our European market if we were to maintain our economic independence. For all of our country's inherent wealth, our bargaining position was missing an important ingredient for success. Our peculiar problem was that we had no personality, no special birthmark, and our former owners regarded us as illegitimate stepchildren of the continent. Culturally speaking, our artisans were viewed as European expatriates, rooted in the tradition and techniques of their homeland, who merely produced copies of European originals. Because we lacked this cultural logos, or artifacts were appraised on a European cultural scale and we found ourselves subjected to a double standard that lessened our bargaining position.....

For 141 years prior to the discovery of Jazz in 1917, we struggled under the burden of this cultural deficiency, which proved to be no small thorn in the side of our national pride. While most Americans my not appreciate the effect of Jazz on our national image, the advent of Jazz did have a tremendous impact on our reception abroad. Having carried Jazz to the continent with our soldiers, who fought in Word War I, we found that the Europeans were captivated by the carefree, syncopated, jocular music. Realizing that we had finally found a uniquely American product that no one else could duplicate with, of course, our assistance, the jazz performance suddenly became a living testimony to American ingenuity. ....America.... was finally on par with ..Europe.. in the cultural marketplace.....

It is interesting to note, in this context, that the element of Jazz that many Americans find too distasteful, is the very element that Europeans perceived as its distinctive character. The African influence on, and alteration of, the traditional European music principles gave our music a new sound and feeling. Once we come to accept this fact, will all of its ramifications, we Americans might begin to act like the wonderful people our music advertises us to be.

NY TIMES Published: ..June 29, 2008......
When Ambassadors Had Rhythm....
Article Tools Sponsored By....
By FRED KAPLAN....

HALF a century ago, when ....America.... was having problems with its image during the cold war, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the ....United States.... representative from ..Harlem.., had an idea. Stop sending symphony orchestras and ballet companies on international tours, he told the State Department. Let the world experience what he called "real ....Americana....": send out jazz bands instead.....

A photography exhibition of those concert tours, titled "Jam Session: America's Jazz Ambassadors Embrace the World," is on display at the Meridian International Center in Washington through July 13 and then moves to the Community Council for the Arts in Kinston, N.C. There are nearly 100 photos in the show, many excavated from obscure files in dozens of libraries, then digitally retouched and enlarged by James Hershorn, an archivist at the ....Institute.. of ..Jazz Studies.... at ....Rutgers.. ..University..... There's Dizzy Gillespie in 1956, charming a snake with his trumpet in ....Karachi.., ..Pakistan..... Louis Armstrong in '61, surrounded by laughing children outside a hospital in ....Cairo..... Benny Goodman in '62, blowing his clarinet in ..Red Square... Duke Ellington in '63, smoking a hookah at ....Ctesiphon.... in ....Iraq.........

The idea behind the State Department tours was to counter Soviet propaganda portraying the ....United States.... as culturally barbaric. Powell's insight was that competing with the Bolshoi would be futile and in any case unimaginative. Better to show off a homegrown art form that the Soviets couldn't match — and that was livelier besides. Many jazz bands were also racially mixed, a potent symbol in the mid to late '50s, when segregation in the South was tarnishing the American image.....

Jazz was the country's "Secret Sonic Weapon" (as a 1955 headline in The New York Times put it) in another sense as well. The novelist Ralph Ellison called jazz an artistic counterpart to the American political system. The soloist can play anything he wants as long as he stays within the tempo and the chord changes — just as, in a democracy, the individual can say or do whatever he wants as long as he obeys the law. Willis Conover, whose jazz show on Voice of America radio went on the air in 1955 and soon attracted 100 million listeners, many of them behind the Iron Curtain, once said that people "love jazz because they love freedom."....

The Jazz Ambassador tours, as they were called, lasted weeks, sometimes months, and made an impact, attracting huge, enthusiastic crowds. A cartoon in a 1958 issue of The New Yorker showed some officials sitting around a table in Washington, one of them saying: "This is a diplomatic mission of the utmost delicacy. The question is, who's the best man for it — John Foster Dulles or Satchmo?"....

Powell arranged for Gillespie, his close friend, to make the State Department's first goodwill jazz tour, starting out in March 1956 with an 18-piece band and traveling all over southern ..Europe.., the ..Middle East.. and south ..Asia.......

The band's first stop was ....Athens...., where students had recently stoned the local headquarters of the United States Information Service in protest of ....Washington....'s support for ....Greece....'s right-wing dictatorship. Yet many of those same students greeted Gillespie with cheers, lifting him on their shoulders, throwing their jackets in the air and shouting: "Dizzy! Dizzy!"....

When Armstrong arrived in the ....Congo.... as part of a 1960 tour through ..Africa.., drummers and dancers paraded him through the streets on a throne, a scene captured by a photograph in the exhibition. As late as 1971, when Ellington came to ....Moscow...., an American diplomat wrote in his official report that crowds greeted the Duke as something akin to "a Second Coming." One young Russian yelled, "We've been waiting for you for centuries!"....

The stars were happy to play their parts in this pageant for hearts and minds, but not as puppets. After his ..Middle East.. tour Gillespie said with pride that it had been "powerfully effective against Red propaganda." But when the State Department tried to brief him beforehand on how to answer questions about American race relations, he said: "I've got 300 years of briefing. I know what they've done to us, and I'm not going to make any excuses."....

Armstrong canceled a 1957 trip to ....Moscow.... after President Dwight D. Eisenhower refused to send federal troops to ....Little Rock.., ..Ark....., to enforce school-integration laws. "The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell," he said. "It's getting so bad, a colored man hasn't got any country."....

Administration officials feared that this broadside, especially from someone so genial as "Ambassador Satchmo," would trigger a diplomatic disaster. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles told Attorney General Herbert Brownell that the situation in ....Arkansas.... was "ruining our foreign policy." Two weeks later, facing pressure from many quarters, Eisenhower sent the National Guard to ....Arkansas..... Armstrong praised the move and agreed to go on a concert tour of ..South America.......

The jazzmen's independence made some officials nervous. But the shrewder diplomats knew that on balance it helped the cause. The idea was to demonstrate the superiority of the ....United States.... over the ..Soviet Union.., freedom over Communism, and here was evidence that an American — even a black man — could criticize his government and not be punished.....

The photographs in the exhibition evoke this time when American culture and politics were so finely joined. Curtis Sandberg, the curator at Meridian International, said that during the three years it took to prepare the show his staff would frequently gaze at the photos and say, "Why aren't we doing something like this now?"....

But in today's world what would "something like this" be?....

Jazz was a natural for the cold war. Soviet citizens who hated their government found anything American alluring, especially jazz (and later rock), which was such a heady contrast to ....Moscow....'s stale official culture. The same was true, to a degree, in some of the nonaligned nations, which were under pressure from both superpowers to sway toward one side or the other.....

The pianist Dave Brubeck recalled in a phone interview that, when his quartet played in 12 Polish cities in 1958, several young musicians followed the band from town to town. When he went back to Warsaw just a few years ago, one of those followers came up to him — Mr. Brubeck recognized his face — and said, "What you brought to Poland wasn't just jazz. It was the ..Grand Canyon.., it was the ....Empire.. ..State.. ..Building...., it was ....America....."....

What aspect of American culture would present such an appealing face now — not to potential dissidents in ....Poland.... or ....Russia.... but, say, to moderate Muslims in ....Syria.... or ....Iran....? And in a multipolar world, what would make them turn to the ....United States.... as an alternative to their own regimes?....

Even in its heyday jazz diplomacy, like any sort of cultural diplomacy, was at best an adjunct to the more conventional brand. As Penny M. Von Eschen wrote in her 2004 book, "Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War" (Harvard University Press), the audiences abroad "never confused or conflated their love of jazz and American popular culture with an acceptance of American foreign policy." The biggest impact on hearts and minds comes, as always, from what the American government does.....

And yet the State Department has a program in jazz diplomacy now. It's called ....Rhythm Road...., it's run by Jazz at ....Lincoln.. ..Center.... (a three-year contract has just been renewed), and it sends 10 bands (mainly jazz, some hip-hop, all of which audition for the gig) to 56 countries in a year.....

It's scaled more modestly than the program of yore. For one thing, no jazz musicians — for that matter, few pop stars — are as famous as a Gillespie, Armstrong or Brubeck in his prime, and the jazz musicians in ....Rhythm Road.... are not well known even by today's standards. The program's goals are more modest too. There is no pretense of competing for geo-cultural primacy. But that is what gives this program its cogent post-cold-war spin.....

The State Department doesn't tell the musicians what to do, but some of them, either jointly or on their own, have decided to emphasize not their music's peculiarly American quality but rather its resonance with the countries they're visiting.....

When the saxophonist Chris Byars took a band to ....Saudi Arabia.... this year, he played the music of Gigi Gryce, a jazz composer of the 1940s and '50s who converted to Islam and changed his name to Basheer Qusim. "When I announce that I'm going to play compositions by the American jazz musician Basheer Qusim, that gets their attention," he said. "Afterward several people came up, very appreciative, saying very intensely, 'Thank you for coming to our country.' "....

Before the bass player Ari Roland went to ....Turkmenistan.... last year, he learned some Turkmen folk songs. His band played jazz improvisations of these songs with local musicians — the first time such mixing had been allowed — and a 15-minute news report about the concert ran on state television several times the next day.....

"They saw Americans paying homage to their cultural traditions," he said. "Several people at the concert came up and said, in effect, 'Wow, you're not all imperialists out to remake the world in your image.' "....

The Jazz Ambassadors of a half-century ago did some of this too. Gillespie played sambas in ..South America... Goodman played a Burmese oboe with local musicians in ....Rangoon..... But the intent was to showcase the unique — and superior — vitality of the ....United States..... The task today might be, once more, to highlight that vitality but to show that it — and, by implication, ....America.... itself — might fit in harmoniously with the rest of the world.....

Press: rip: uncle numa » Lewis Johnson Photography

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Moore plays regularly with pianist Elmer Gibson and in a trio with bassist Ed Moon and pianist Sistie Howie at the Irregardless, Wicked Smile and other local eateries. His bandmates relish every note played with Moore. ... - Google

Press: ORGY IN RHYTHM: "Why Do Gary Bartz, Eddie Henderson & Norman ...

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Fellow Philadelphians, Elmer Gibson and Norman Connors have recorded with a "who's who" of jazz & fusion giants. It was only a year later that Connors became the Buddah Records Company's musical director. This live set, "Live at Nemu ... - Google

News: The story behind "The Loner Hexilogy"

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0800

The Loner Hexilogy is a project that was the product of outrageous fortune for me. In 1983 I went into Soundtrax Studio, in Raleigh, NC, intending to make a solo demo to sell my songs and perhaps get some gigs. I thought that if a record company picked me up I would be able to expand their production. When I arrived, however, Perry Cheatham, the studio's engineer, told me very excitedly about a new Profit 5000 analogue synthesizer they had recently purchased and lobbied for me to use it for my session. I was skeptical because I knew nothing about the instrument but Perry insisted he could find any sound I wanted. The studio agreed to cut me some slack on the rates so I said okay.

Perry and I spent time experiencing some of the assets the keyboard offered, and as I learned of the seeming limitless possibilities with this instrument, I realized that the project had changed exponentially. As solo pieces I didn't have the pallet necessary to give them the depth I knew was there. We began the creative recording process: I recorded all of the piano parts first just to see what I was doing. I would listen to the playback and ask Perry to find a sound, which was a process itself. I had to describe with words a sound that I didn't know if the synthesizer could produce, and Perry would have to translate my intent into a sound. He'd ask me, what do you hear? And I might answer I dunno, let me think for a minute. Play it again. Everything was recorded as live performances, so I really didn't know how it sounded until we played it back.

During the sessions I couldn't find a drummer that I could afford, who could be expected to hang with the improvisational nature of the creative process. Because I wasn't using drums I rationalized that the piano was really a rhythm instrument, and so I would make the absence of drums part of the theme. Not a really good idea, as it turned out. None of the labels I approached could get past the lack of drums. They'd say I don't know what to label it! It would be great if you'd add some drums; comments that only strengthened my resolve not to use them.

The session never became an album and only existed as cassette tapes for twenty-five years. If not for advances in technology, they would have remained in that state. The original music was recorded on a 16-track tape and mixed down to a two-track stereo tape that has lain in repose somewhere in my storage locker. I recently ran across a cassette tape that sounded great so I decided to publish the session on my own Kumekucha Music label.

The story line was finding one's identity in a world of increasing conformity, an issue I was introduced to in Art School about stepping away from traditional beliefs. In order to step away, the seeker must be prepared to consider alternatives, and develop the willingness to be alone. The transition is part of a process that involves six major milestones: Struggle, Frustration, Confrontation, Realization, Redemption, and Hope. Each composition is its own story, and a metaphor for one of the six issues above.

Struggle: "Bobbin' and Weavin'"

I used to work for a firm whose plant was located in a very rough section of North Philadelphia. My walk from the car to the plant was always interesting. Almost daily as I walked towards the office, a figure in an overcoat and knitted ski hat would approach me while doing this rhythmic movement with his shoulders hunched over in a boxing position, feinting and jabbing with his fists. One day I finally spoke and asked, "How're ya doin" and he replied without looking up, "just bob and weave and keep movin," and continued his way down the street. I saw his simple statement as a metaphor for life's everyday struggle to keep from getting the knock-out blow. In 1983 "Gallaga" was a popular video game, and at my laundromat I used to watch young students playing the game. One day a brother reputed to be the highest scorer in town stopped by with his retinue of girlfriends and curious onlookers. I watched his intensity, bobbing and weaving, trying not to get knocked out, and noted the response of his friends and onlookers. Some called out encouragement, some mumbled "umph, umph," as he won his way into the outer reaches of the game. I decided to use some of those sounds and attitudes ..to introduce my boxer's philosophy.

Frustration: "Changes"

The process requires that we become frustrated with the status quo, and the changes we endure in order to survive. This frustration might be the result of our economic situation, social situation, and/or a host of other situations with which we become dissatisfied. We begin to realize that our circumstance requires a serious re-organization of our view point if anything is to change. This reorganization involves a great deal of self-analysis, positive criticism, and the fortitude to face weaknesses. Finally we have to decide to change, stop what we have been doing wrong, and pursue another objective.

Confrontation: "Peaches at the Disco"

During the late fifties and sixties one of the most significant, revolutionary black female vocalists was Nina Simone. In 1966, Nina wrote the song "Four Women," describing the plight and attitudes of four black women in American history. She recorded it on an album titled, "Wild is the Wind," (Phillips label). The fourth and most outspoken of these women was named Peaches. Her defiance became a symbol for change in the racial status quo for black Americans during the sixties and seventies.

"My skin is brown, my manner is tough.

I'll kill the first mutha I see.

My life was rough.

I'm awfully bitter these days…

because my parents were slaves.

What do they call me?

My name is Peaches"

As portrayed in the song, the black community felt that Peaches could never be co-opted by "The Man." For many, the arrival of "Disco" music constituted a serious breach with, and challenge to the goals of, the freedom movement. The dumbing-down of the message, and crass commercialism of the music and dances seemed to spell the end of the era.

Having been a Jazz musician during the sixties and seventies, and a witness to the high regard with which artists like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Nina Simone were held, the changing nature of the music scene constituted a threat to that status. By 1983, seventeen years later, the change had come to pass. In the context of "The Loner Hexilogy," the search for Peaches is a metaphor for the struggle each human being must face in order to break with traditional thinking … confronting the reality, and discovering the truth for yourself.

Realization: "The Loner"

After confronting very deeply held issues, and discarding some of the baggage you've carried around for years, you come to a new reality. Without the familiar crutches that both sustained you and held you back, the future appears before you like the artist's blank canvas. Here you realize that the picture you paint on that canvas is entirely up to you, and the prospect at first seems almost frightening. Your first steps are naturally timid as you test the waters. Next, you realize you must take that step into the unknown. Gradually as you proceed, you gain confidence and your stride becomes more purposeful. Soon, you realize you don't need the crutches you used to rely on so heavily. Finally realizing that you have made it, you stroll confidently into the future with a spring to your step, forever a changed person.

Redemption: "Spirit dance for Lewis Burton"

Realizing the debilitating effects of your past transgressions, you seek your roots in hopes of seeing for the first time the wisdom of all the life experience you overlooked. In my own case, after moving to North Carolina, my father, a native, asked me to look up the family history. The NC Museum of History was just a few blocks from my apartment, and I took my oldest son Oliver on this quest. We discovered many family documents, the plantation and the plantation house said to have been built circa 1795. I discovered that David, my great-grandfather born 1801, and Lewis Burton Gibson, my grandfather born in 1835, were slaves on the Andrew Gibson plantation in the town of Gibsonville.

We visited the plantation in 1983. On that visit, I saw an old tree close to the back of the house that overlooked a huge clearing that I concluded was where the slaves must have come in from the fields to drink water. I sat under the tree for awhile and surveyed the scene wondering if I could summon some words of wisdom out of this hallowed ground laden with the sweat of my forefathers and mothers. I put myself in a trance as I searched the atmosphere for a sign. It was my process in seeking redemption. The lyrics of the opening prayer are:

"I am trying to find out just where I belong.

I am trying to find out who I am.

There is something I need to know about my past

And I ask you to hear my plea and come to me…"

I felt a chill when I realized that the thoughts that came to mind that day may actually have been brought to me by my grand-parents.

Hope: "Ecstasy"

Reaching a new plateau in your existence, you feel the exhilaration of unlimited possibilities that afford you the opportunity to visualize a new, positive future. It is natural to feel the need to share this dream with someone, particularly of a like mind, who will walk with you into this future.

We live our lives each day and hope to be

The image in a dream we often see

Forever running from reality

Constantly

We search the faceless crowd and hope to see

The perfect object of our fantasy

We dare to dream the dream that it might be

Fervently

And in the dark of night the emptiness

Betrays the secret of our loneliness

We pray our lives outlive unhappiness

Endlessly

But in the great somewhere there has to be

A someone who has dreamed a dream like me

The moment when we meet must surely be

Ecstasy

Elmer Gibson

Press: Bartz - Henderson - Connors - "Live at Nemu Jazz Inn - 1" (1975)

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Press: Gibson Elmer Elmer Gibson Trio Live

Tue, 26 May 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Gillespie was just one of many marquee performers gibson elmer elmer gibson trio live that Moore played with, including Louis Jordan. Read the full article. - Google

Press: Norman Connors - "Dark of Light" 1973

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Welcome to a collection of LP's and some CD's that are out of print, and so therefore out of reach for the general public. It is not my intention to take away potential revenue from copyright holders, but rather to further extend the performances from these great musicians rather than to be lost into oblivion. If you are the copyright holder of any of these works, or if any of these works become commercially available, I will remove the Download link. Electric Piano - Elmer Gibson (tracks: B1) Electric Piano, Piano - Herbie Hancock. Flute - Art Webb Flute [Alto], Bassoon - Alfred Williams (tracks: B1) Percussion - Gerald Roberts (tracks: B1) , Henry Palmer (tracks: B1) , Warren Smith ... - Google

Press: The Short List | Baltimore City Paper

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Acclaimed jazz pianist Elmer Gibson brings his trio to An die Musik for two evening shows. SUNDAY: A large cadre of hair-emo bands look pretty downstairs at the Ottobar, including This Providence, the Audition, Anarbor, and the Bigger ... - Google

Press: New Bern Now - Blog: 5th Annual New Bern Jazz & Blues Festival

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Saturday night's Jazz will kick-off with the Raleigh-based Elmer Gibson Trio making its debut in New Bern but long-acclaimed from Philadelphia to Atlanta. Gibson started plunking the ivories at age three, in Philadelphia, and went on to ... - Google

Press: Jazz drummer Ron Free's journey leads him back to Charleston

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Now in his 70s and living in Hot Springs, Va., Free is healthy, happy, and back on the jazz scene (although very casually and selectively) with the Elmer Gibson Trio and other regional combos. It will be an honor and a privilege for the ... - Google

Press: Festival brings the blues to New Bern - ENC Today

Sat, 01 May 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Festival brings the blues to New BernENC TodayThe fifth annual Jazz & Blues Fest resumes tonight with headliner Jann Parker, a New Bern native. The Raleigh-based Elmer Gibson Trio will open the show ... - Google