Rturah Jazz

“Los años”

arturo — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 05:51:33 +0000

Here’s an original song from the mid-eighties recorded over the winter break in Dave Iwinski’s home studio.

Barely touched-up. los-años-1

AJA Trio Big River rehearsal.

arturo — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 02:31:21 +0000

Very much looking forward to Sunday’s show with Alan Gleason on bass, and Jim Ediger

on fiddle. Trying to upload a track from our rehearsal. A new flavor for Art.

On hearing Amano-san’s guitar duo

arturo — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 20:40:28 +0000

Music is a lot of things–melody, dance rhythm, community, story-telling, good-time party drive—and I’ve often bristled at descriptions of Jazz as “too intellectual”. “Listen to Billie Holiday or Coltrane’s A Love Supreme.” However, I have to admit that much of what I enjoyed at the jazz-guitar duo performance the other night was this jaw-dropping display of brain power. One thing music is, is an opportunity to watch/hear intelligence in action. Sound shapes sculpted on the spot. Narrative improvised in poetic lines, reined in by time, dual rhyme of rhythm displayed to amaze. Yet sweet, like a bee over a flower, sharing the powder (poder joder) of generation and stinging at the stop. We want more. No, go home; leave the flower for another day. What does it take to learn to play that way? Sound asleep on the train going home, now I’m awake at four, in a zone, with my love on my right and my guitar on my left, a pain in my breast; the same old fear of failure to learn … to … be …

Jazz Bar “Intro” Saturday night session Takadanobaba

arturo — Sun, 08 May 2011 04:38:03 +0000

Heard the best music I’ve heard so far at a jam session in Tokyo. Everyone was good, with bassists laying down really swinging lines and playing good solos. I also liked the feel of the guitar player, Shimaoka-san, who accompanied with the most natural swing I’ve heard from a guitarist in Japan. Good stuff.

Muy buena música anoche en un club pequeñísimo cerca de donde ahora vivo.

皆旨かった。　特に島岡さんのギターに印象された。又行きます。

My Shining Hour

arturo — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 13:38:40 +0000

Sunday evening on the outskirts of Tokyo. One week before going home to Milwaukee for the winter holidays. my-shining-hour-12-12-10

Art and Noriko

arturo — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 11:18:43 +0000

These are very rough first cuts of the duo project we are getting going.

all-of-me-12-11-102 and oh-darlin-12-11-102

Raw voice; raw steel-string guitar. Getting to know the portable TASCAM.

Valencia w/Carlos Denia and César Lebarthé

arturo — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:50:38 +0000

Evil Ways

All the time its you

These recordings bring back some great memories. When I lived in Valencia, my main band was with vocalist Eva Denia, but I did some solo shows. This one is from the winter of 1992, maybe. Recorded on cassette recorder and recently transfered to digital. Worth a listen, I think. My friend César plays lead guitar on the original and on the cover. Eva Denia’s brother Carlos Denia joined us on Evil Ways.

Art Fowler and the shamisen

arturo — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:44:30 +0000

There were some good moments the other night at Django. Before I played my solo set, a guest performer played a short set on his shamisen, which could be described as a Japanese banjo. Earlier I mentioned that I feel an affinity with the “stringy” sounds of a lot of traditional music from around the world. What I mean by “stringy” is music that highlights, on instruments ranging from the shamisen, to the citar, to the oud, exactly what strings have to offer: bends, slurs, hammers, and percussive rhythmic effects in the midst of melodic improvisation. (Be mindful that these are effects very rarely recurred to in jazz guitar, but are part and parcel of blues guitar and flamenco guitar …) Jimi Hendrix may be my favorite American practitioner of these effects. The shamisen has only three strings (right?), and it is played with a very large flat pick. I think the instrument has some sympathetic drone strings–I don’t know–because the player sometimes hit the instrument from a different angle to get some very high metallic notes. I was so pleased to hear him play, in part because he was inspiring me to include in my set some of the riffs I often use that carry the inflection of these Asian or North African string improvisational musics.

I opened my solo set, commenting to the audience that students often ask me what Japanese music I like, but are disappointed when I tell them I like the traditional Japanese musics (though I don’t know anything about them) and have some CDs that I listen to. (The students expect me to know and value the J-pop artists they listen to.) Then I played my version of Norwegian Wood which always includes an interlude of improvisation where, droning on the A and D strings, I slide and wander around the neck playing in what is mostly the “Lydian Mode”, I suppose. But I hit it strongly enough that at more than one point in the solo, people laughed out loud, recognizing how I was quoting or referencing the shamisen improvisation they had just heard. Then I rolled back into Norwegian Wood.

My solo set was satisfying, and playing with the Django jazz musicians is always a treat. We closed the night with me singing “Heavan’s Door” with some of the rock musicians in the house.

Read This Post in Three Languages

arturo — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 04:47:48 +0000

I go by a few different names, depending on where I am and who is talking to me. I introduce myself as Arthur Fowler (in English, that is), but many of my old friends call me Arty. The guitarists that I love start in the rock vein: Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, Jerry Garcia. Then there’s Wes, of course, and Kenny Burrell. I think then my teachers would be my biggest influences: Jack Grassel and Joan Soler. I have some John Scofield overtones, and here in Kagoshima I saw a wonderful show by Kohichi Hiroki, and I have two of his records on my play list now. Most of my listening is jazz, the peak years of the 50s and early 60, though a couple of recent albums by Jeff Tain Watts, Matt Wilson, and Ravi Coltrane have made their mark. As for singers, well, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, and Diana Krall, …

I love the blues, especially, these days, Lurrie Bell, and I have a sense of affinity for the stringy acoustic music of North Africa and Asia, though I don’t know the names of what I listen to.

Art (Arthur, Arturo…)

arturo — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 21:06:03 +0000

… アーサー、朝、or Arty) I live in three different places, in a way. That provides food for thought and no small amount of confusion. Hope to have more on music soon.