ARTS AT ST. ANN'S

GREETINGS FROM TIM BUCKLEY - Part Three

JEFF SCOTT BUCKLEY (guitar/voice)

When I was six, I found my grandmother’s old six-string guitar in a closet. I loved the thing. My mother, who was a classically trained pianist/cellist, was married (at the time of the guitar-find) to an auto mechanic, Ron, with amazingly right-on taste in music. Our house was always jumping with sound: Bach, Chopin, Gershwin, Beatles, Zeppelin, Hendrix, Nat King Cole.

The auto-mechanic eventually found the woman he loved, and he and my Mom divorced. My Mom began to tell me more about my father, Tim, and when I was 8, she decided we should meet each other. The only other time I saw him was when I was two years old.

I got to see him play at The Golden Bear and met him face-to-face backstage. I spent Easter vacation with him, his wife and their adopted son. They had an apartment in Santa Monica and I stayed for a week, a really good time. Somehow, in between my visit and Tim’s death, we lost touch with him and Judy and I never saw Judy again until '88.

"This is not a springboard, this is something very personal..." Jeff Buckley - April 26th, 1991

I got my first electric guitar at 13. Left home for L.A. at 17, spent some time in a so-called music school, went on the road with some reggae acts. Escaped to NYC in '90 for about seven months; got into hardcore and Robert Johnson. Went back to L.A., did a demo of some of my songs. I got a call from Carole King after she heard my stuff through a mutual friend, very cool. We wrote a track together. More to come. Right now my band is almost complete. I'm showing up at club jams around town trying out new songs. My life is now complete and utter chaos.

GREG COHEN (bass) grew up on Beachwood Drive (Los Angeles) during the 50's and 60's. There he received his musical training playing chord organ for Charleston Grotto”. Being the youngest, eventually he was forced to play bass guitar. He has also worked with Tom Waits, Marty Grosz, David Sanborn, Alan Watts, Crystal Gayle, Harry Shearer, Teddy Edwards, Robert Wilson, Keith Richards, Woody Allen, Freddie Moore, Odetta, and the Burbank Symphony.

ANTHONY COLEMAN (keyboards) was born and raised in Brooklyn Heights. He is a pianist and general keyboardist and composer whose works have been performed by his own and other ensembles throughout the US, Canada and Europe. He has also performed and recorded with John Zorn, Glenn Branca, Elliott Sharp and Marc Ribot's Rootless Cosmopolitans, among others.

CHRIS CUNNINGHAM (guitar) Chris likes to play things with strings and has done so since he was young and carefree. He has written music for films, theatre and dance, and is always playing with some band or seven. A native New Yorker, his frequent escape attempts have often left him scrounging for adequate rations of cruelty and wit.

From the past to the present, his co-dependents have included James White and the Blacks/The Contortions, The Lounge Lizards, Saqqara Dogs, Radiante, Gavin Friday and the Man Seezer, Hubert Felix-Thiefane, Marianne Faithfull, Annabouboula, and his current group, The Sirens. Mr. Cunningham plays primarily for God, country and those who art down by law, but contributions are appreciated.

SHARON FREEMAN (piano, French horn) Miss Freeman has worked and recorded with many jazz greats: Gil Evans, Frank Foster, Charles Mingus, Don Cherry, Carla Bley, Richard Muhal Abrams, David Murray, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Haden and the Liberation Music Orchestra, of which she is the current Musical Director.

She has also been musical director for Don Pullen and Beaver Harris’ 360 Musical Experience. Her name was submitted for a Grammy nomination for her arrangement of Monk's Mood for five French horns and rhythm section for Hal Willner’s A&M release, That’s the Way I Feel Now: A Tribute to Thelonius Monk.

She has been commissioned by the Jazz Composers’ Orchestra, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the Harlem Piano Trio. She has been cited by Jazz Times as the top-rated established jazz French horn player. She is currently music director of both Nanette Bearden Contemporary Dance Theater and the Jazzmobile Workshop.

YUVAL GABAY (drums) is a founder of the band, Bosho. In the last five years, he has been composing music for choreographer Kumiko Kimoto; he will be performing his music for Kimoto at LaMama from May 21-24. Other recent collaborations have been with Paul Langland, David Zambrano and Sara Skaggs. Gabay is a member of David Linton's Owthaus and the Fast Forward Ensemble.

CHERYL HARDWICK (piano) is, with G.E. Smith, Musical Director of Saturday Night Live. She is also a founding member of the Saturday Night Live Band. She is the recipient of an Emmy for her work as a composer for Sesame Street, where her specialty is rhythm & blues.

RICHARD HELL (guitar/vocals) has recently published a new book, Artifact, on Hanuman Books, and is Editor of the literary magazine, Cuz. He has a new single with Thurston Moore, Steve Shelley and Don Fleming (The Dimstars) due out in May on Ecstatic Peace. An expanded CD of his album, Blank Generation is just out on Sire/Warners, and a new CD of Destiny Street is scheduled for May release on the same label.

JULIA HEYWARD (vocals) Julia Heyward’s work centers around the orchestration of music, words and images in the forms of performance art and music videos. In Heyward's early career, she toured Europe and America as a solo performance artist. For the past decade, Heyward has worked with music/performance ensembles, winning a Bessie Award in 1984 for No Local Stops, written in collaboration with musician Pat Irwin.

Other notable full-length productions include Mood Music, a cartoon opera written in collaboration with musician Robert FitzSimmons, presented at The Kitchen in 1988. These projects were partially financed by Heyward's commercial work as a music video director and producer. Heyward created The Visit, an Art Break for MTV in 1989, and in 1990 she designed and directed the Host segments for the TV series Buzz and for MTV. She has just recently signed a contract with guitarist/composer Gary Lucas on CBS/Sony Entertainment.

SHELLEY HIRSCH (vocals) is a vocalist, composer, and performer whose work has been seen worldwide from CBGB’s to the State Opera of Stuttgart. Her musical passions originate from a childhood fascination with The Reader's Digest Collection of Music of The World. Last year her multi-media storytelling piece, O Little Town of East New York, was produced by Dance Theater Workshop.

She has worked extensively in the downtown music community with musicians such as Fred Frith, Christian Marclay, Ikue Mori, Elliott Sharp, John Zorn, Butch Morris, Mark Dresser, Zeena Parkins and many others. Her main collaborator is electronic keyboardist David Weinstein, with whom she released the CD Haiku Lingo on No Man's land. She is widely known as the woman yodelling on a swing in an MTV clip.

GARY LUCAS (guitar) Dubbed 'Guitarist of 1000 Idea' by The New York Times and 'Guitarist Extraordinaire' by Ear Magazine, Gary Lucas first cut his teeth as featured guitar soloist with Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band in the early 80's. After producing albums for The Woodentops and Adrian Sherwood, Lucas began performing solo concerts at the Knitting Factory in NYC, and now tours frequently in Europe as a solo artist.

His debut solo album, Skeleton at the Feast, which includes his music for the 1921 German silent film, The Golem (performed at the 1989 New Music America/Next Wave Festival) will be released shortly on Enemy Records. He is currently working, on an album with singer/video artist Julia Heyward for Columbia Records.

LOREN MAZZACANE & SUZANNE LANGILLE (guitar/voice) In 1978, improvisational guitarist Loren Mazzacane released a series of albums which sparked continuing controversial discussion about the relationship between blues and “new” music. London's WIRE magazine has called him “the Eric Satie of blues guitar”; Guitar World named him the “Best Blues Guitarist” of 1990.

Canadian critic Jurgen Gothe describes Suzanne Langille as “a blending of Josephine Baker and Claudine Longet.” Sound Choice observes that her vocals “merge uncannily with the guitar in a way that is seamless in execution and deeply emotional.” A new CD entitled Never The Blues will be produced on the Aerial label. They perform at the Knitting Factory on May 11.

WILBUR PAULEY (vocal) Mr. Pauley's credits include Broadway, television, film, music/theater, opera/oratorio, and 12th century liturgical drama, to composers like Schickele, Schoenberg, Penderecki and Elliott Carter. Mr. Pauley returned yesterday from France, where he toured as Sarastro in The Magic Flute with the Bulgarian Radio orchestra.

Upcoming engagements include works by Harry Partch (directed by Tom O'Horgan) and Michael Gordon at the Bang-on-a-Can Festival, Meredith Monk's Atlas at the American Musical Theater Festival and at least six roles with the New York City Opera, the Utah Opera and the San Antonio Festival.

ROBERT QUINE (guitar) was born in 1942 in Akron, Ohio. He first became known in the late 70's with his appearance on Richard Hell & the Voidoids' “Blank Generation”. Between 1981 and'85 he played and recorded with Lou Reed (“The Blue Mask”, “Legendary Hearts”). He has also played and recorded with John Zorn, Marianne Faithfull, Tom Waits, Lloyd Cole, and others.

BARRY REYNOLDS (guitar/vocals) Born in Kearsley, Manchester, he was a member of Island Record's in-house band (Compass Point), backing Black Uhuru, Grace Jones, Joe Cocker, Robert Palmer, Sly & Robbie. He has been Marianne Faithfull's co-writer since the Broken English record. He just finished a world tour with Marianne, joined by Chris Cunningham.

HANK ROBERTS (cello) is an improvising cellist and composer who plays and records extensively with the groups Arcado, Miniature and the Bill Frisell Band, and his own group, Birds of Prey.

ELLIOTT SHARP (guitar) Composer/multi-instrumentalist Elliott Sharp leads the groups Carbon and Terraplane, as well as performing with the cooperative groups, The Sync and Semantics. He has been performing improvised music since 1969. Large ensemble pieces include Crowds and Power, Re/Iterations (commissioned by American Composers Orchestra), Sili/contemp/tations, Self-Squared Dragon and Larynx (for a thirteen-member version of Carbon, commissioned for the 1987 Next Wave Festival).

His string quartets have been performed by the Soldier String Quartet, Kronos, and Finland's Avanti String Quartet. Other recent activities include an appearance on the NBC-TV show Night-Music, and over thirty performances with Carbon throughout Europe. In addition, he has on-going collaborations with Korean komungo-player Jin Hi Kim and Rachir Attar, a leader of the Master Musicians of Jahjouka from Morocco. He performed in NY and Chicago with Czechoslovakia's Plastic People of the Universe/Pulnoc. Recent recordings include Datacide (with Carbon) on Germany's Enemy label, and K!L!A!V! (for keyboards) on Newport Classics.

G.E. SMITH (guitar/bass) is, with Cheryl Hardwick, Musical Director of Saturday Night Live. He first became widely known for his recordings and live appearances with Hall & Oates. More recently, he toured the world as lead guitarist for Bob Dylan. He is currently working on a record of his own music.

HAL WILLNER (Co-Producer) was Music Producer of NBC’s Night Music for two shows in the first year and the entire second season. He most recently released Dead City Radio with William Burroughs, and The Carl Stalling Project, music written for the classic Warner Brother cartoons.

His reputation was made with three “tribute” albums celebrating the music of some of his favorite composers – Nino Rota (Amarcord), Thelonius Monk (That’s the Way I Feel Now), and Kurt Weill (Lost in the Stars) featuring some of his favorite musicians.

He has also produced two records for Marianne Faithfull, Strange Weather and Blazing Away, the latter recorded live at St. Ann's in November, 1989; Stay Awake, music of the classic Disney films; Gavin Friday and the Man Seezer, and Alan Ginsberg's The Lion for Real. His new record of Charles Mingus’ music is soon to be released on CBS/Sony.