Watch: Part One and Part Two

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Visit Dave’s site and see what has he been up to since.

Related:

• Interview with Evan Marien (Bassist) 
• Interview with Adam Balogh of ZänKoma
• Interview with Cold Stares [One] [Two]

Watch Part 1 here.

Part 3 will be live on Tuesday, April 3rd. Subscribe to Guitarkadia and never miss any story.

Visit Dave’s site and see what has he been up to since.

Related:

• Interview with Evan Marien (Bassist) 
• Interview with Adam Balogh of ZänKoma
• Interview with Cold Stares [One] [Two]

The connection with David “Fuze” Fiuczynski happened because of Dean Campbell. Dean made a few of David’s guitars – at play in this video – and thought he would be great to meet with for Guitarkadia. And so I did one summer morning in 2010. The result is a 3-part video series no self respecting guitar player should miss. My apologies for taking nearly two years to put them out. The perils of having many projects going in different phases while maintaining a freelance career. It takes a toll on your mental and physical strength and one should not make creative decisions while feeling burnt out. But that’s so 2011. This year brought a breath of fresh air into my life, work, and perspective. One needs to not wait but hunt for inspiration. It’s out there waiting for you!

Listening to Dave again while editing these videos reminded me of how inspiring this meeting had been. If I were to pick a theme that ties together all three videos, based on something Dave said, it would be, “Do your thing, follow your heart.”

Part 1 of 3: Influences, technique, melodic development, and musical language.

Watch Part 2  and Part 3.

Subscribe to Guitarkadia and never miss a story.

Visit Dave’s site and see what has he been up to since.

Related:

• Interview with Evan Marien (Bassist) 
• Interview with Adam Balogh of ZänKoma
• Interview with Cold Stares [One] [Two]

The following bio is provided by David Fiuczynski. You can watch the Guitarkadia Session with David here.

David “FuZe” Fiuczynski – Guitar

Born in the US, FuZe grew up in Germany where he was always interested in mixing and “fuzing” different music elements. Studying at New England Conservatory in the 3rd Stream Dept only furthered this interest. The 3rd Stream department, founded by Gunther Schuller, is an experimental improvisation and composition concept with an emphasis on ear training.  At NEC Fiuczynski met John Medeski with whom he’d go on to record the critically acclaimed Lunar Crush CD (Gramavision/RykoDisc), often described as a funky version of “Tony Williams Lifetime, in which Cecil Taylor has smuggled himself behind the keyboards”.

While at NEC, FuZe studied and/or performed with Dave Holland, George Russell, Bob Moses, Ran Blake but equally important was the New York school of hard knocks with MeShell Ndegeocello, Bernie Worrell, Billy Hart, Ronald Shannon Jackson and the Black Rock Coalition. This is where Fiuczynski’s signature underground cult band the Screaming Headless Torsos came into being (1995 Discovery/Warner): “A unique mix of Jazz, R&B, Fusion & Rock. A song oriented band that gave the rhythm section free reign instead strangling them like on the radio”.

Fiuczynski was always interested in Arabic, Turkish, Indian and East Asian music and eventually started “KiF” (and KiF Express on FuzeLicious Morsels 2003 and 2008). “This concept started on a gig in Morocco in 1992. The Moroccan players noted that Hendrix visited the country and this gave me an idea – hard grooves with eastern inflected melodies putting the listener into a very colorful trance, could this be the music that Jimi would play today?” KiF celebrates a living Hendrix who’s kickin it in Marrakesh and, on weekends, rocks the Casbah!

Returning to NEC, FuZe received a master’s degree (2008) studying microtonality with Joe Maneri, Indian melodic concepts with sitarist Peter Row, Turkish melodic concepts with Bob Labaree and music of the Chinese ghuzeng (Chinese zither) with Shin Yi Yang.  “Much of my musical inspiration comes from non-musical sources: paintings and East Asian and Arabic calligraphy and architecture. I love the colors of Matisse, Van Gogh, Gauguin, the Fauvists and German expressionists, the jagged explosions of Peter Voulkos’ pottery and the delicate restraint of Taoist poetry. I also really admire musicians with a unique and fiery sound like Eric Dolphy, Nina Hagen, Don Pullen and now Rudresh Mahanthappa!”

Fiuczynski has recorded, toured and/or performed with Jack DeJohnette, Stewart Copeland, Vernon Reid, Cindy Blackman, John Zorn, Dennis Chambers, Hiromi, Kenny Garrett, Hasidic New Wave and many more.  He has performed and/or headlined at major festivals in the US, Canada, Japan, Europe, Taiwan, Russia, South Africa and the Philippines, and appeared on TV shows like Jay Leno, Arsenio Hall and Top of the Pops in London, live radio broadcasts for the BBC and NPR’s Toast of the Nation. He has release 9 CDs of his own and has played on over 100 CDs.

FuZe is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow and teaches Berklee’s first ever microtonal groove Institute with his Planet MicroJamz® concept. This is based on a mix of western classical and non-western microtonal modes and harmonies over all the phat beatz you always wanted to hear! Planet MicroJam (Rarenoise) will be released June 2012.

David Spelman, co-founder of New York Guitar Festival, invited me to do a guest post at the NYGF blog. It’s up and you can see 3 video previews of upcoming docs I’ve shot during the festival in January.

Preview of the upcoming short documentary “Patrick Grant:Tilted Axes”

Subscribe to Guitarkadia and keep posted on all upcoming docs and stories.

We don’t often, if not at all, think about how blessed we are to be able to enjoy music.

At the World Financial Center waiting for “Apollo” to begin.

2011 was the “year of reboot” for me. I’ll tell you that story later. But this is shaping out to be a great year already with a ton of cool projects in the works. I’m blessed to have made connections with some great people in the past couple of months and can’t wait to bring their stories to you.

Over the next few weeks I’ll show you previews of what’s coming up on Guitarkadia. Hint: Lotsa short video docs. The response to the Mark Nilsen video has been amazing – a good story is a good story. Some of the musicians, among many, who appear in that roster of videos are: Jon Herington, Hank Aberle, Dave Fiuczynski, Ken Butler, Eric Strom, Jack Wilkins, and Patrick Grant.

What I will try not to bring more of is the use of “lots” in every other sentence.

Happy new year!

p.s As always, if you know of a great story about a guitar/guitarist, email & let me know.