Monday, December 4, 9pm, FREE | JACK ROSE (photo) & PETER WALKER | Guitarist Peter Walker came up in the Cambridge MA and Greenwich Village folk scenes of the 60’s. He recorded two albums for the Vanguard label in the late 60’s. Their style can best be described as American folk raga. He studied with Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, and was Dr. Timothy Leary’s musical director, organizing music for his “Celebrations”.
His debut album from 1967, Rainy Day Raga, features one of the first studio appearances by jazz flautist Jeremy Steig, as well as guitarist Bruce Langhorne, who recorded with Bob Dylan and many others. It is a gentle and beautiful fusion of Eastern and Western musical traditions, and one of the earliest examples of a style introduced by Sandy Bull several years earlier. The second album, “Second Poem to Karmela or Gypsies Are Important” (1969) found Walker going even deeper into Indian instrumentation, playing sarod and sitar. Walker settled in Upstate New York in the early 70’s. Over the past few years, he has developed an intense interest in flamenco guitar, and regularly visits Spain where he has been accepted into a very exclusive musical society.
Peter Walker’s first recordings in 37 years will appear on a new album released this fall by New York label Tompkins Square, Raga For Peter Walker, which will feature four new tracks from Peter and original unreleased compositions recorded specifically for this album by revered guitarists Steffen Junghans-Basho, Jack Rose, James Blackshaw, Greg Davis, Thurston Moore, and Shawn David McMillen. More a tip of the hat than a “tribute” album, these players all share an appreciation for a musician whose small yet amazing body of work still resonates.
JACK ROSE (photo) -Member of the legendary drone/noise/folk group Pelt since 1995. Pelt along with Tower Recordings, UN, Charalambides was one of the early groups who forged a new sound that combined free improv, drone, traditional folk music in the early to mid nineties, later coined “weird new america” by the Wire’s David Keenan in the early oughts. Since 2001 Rose has pursued his own path in the solo acoustic guitar solo genre as invented by John Fahey. Like Fahey Rose draws his inspiration from early rural American musicians like Charley Patton, Skip James and Blind Blake. In addition to those influences he gleans inspiration from Robbie Basho, Ry Cooder, Zia M. Dagar, La Monte Young, Terry Riley. Jack incorporates all of these elements into his own idiosyncratic style and it is his sound and his alone. Since 2002 he has released 3 critically acclaimed LP’s for the Eclipse label, 2 cd’s for VHF, a 14 min track alongside fellow travelers: Rick Bishop, Stiffen Basho-Junghans and Tetuzi Akiyama on the now influential “Wooden Guitar” anthology released by Locust and one LP side on the massive triple LP set “You Shall Know the Roots, by it’s Fruits” with Six Organs of Admittance, Ursa, Joshua, Dreaded Fooled, MV and EEC that was released and went out of print this year. This year his 4th LP/CD, “Kensigton Blues”, will be out in aug/sept on the VHF, Beautiful Happiness and Tequila Sunrise labels.
http://www.vhfrecords.com/jackrose/
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/21511/Jack_Rose_Kensington_Blues
http://narlus.zenfolio.com/p474864978/
photo by Scott Slimm
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