David Rothenberg John Wieczorek Robert Jürjendal
Soo-Roo
the new trio CD blending clarinets, Indian percussion, Estonian guitar, electronic rhythms, and bird song. Driving tabla and udu rhythms mix with atmospheric guitar and swirling clarinet through subtle digital effects. The sounds of birds flit in and out
The marsh warbler (or Soo-roolind in Estonian) does something no other bird is known to do. On its winter travels, it learns the songs of African birds and takes them back to its summer breeding grounds in Northern Europe and sings them one after another, with relentless complexity, for all to hear. These songs are the basis for the rhythms in our final piece. In the same way, we hope our pancultural improvisatory traveling grooves, from Estonia to America, from West to East, from acoustic to electronic, may celebrate the full world of sound one trio can produce, in various meetings of twos and threes.
David Rothenberg is a composer and a jazz clarinetist known for his integration of improvisation with electronics and natural sounds. His second record, On the Cliffs of the Heart, with percussionist Glen Velez and banjo player Graeme Boone, was released by New Tone Records in the autumn of 1995. John Cage praised their "sense of virtuosity traveling all over the world." Jazziz named it one of the top ten releases of 1995. In 1999 he released Bangalore Wild, a collaboration with the Karnataka College of Percussion in Bangalore, India. In 2000 Before the War was released, a collaboration with natural sound artist Douglas Quin. The Guardian in Britain praised it as "genuine 21st century music." Rothenberg is also co-editor of The Book of Music and Nature (2001), and he produced the accompaning compilation CD which includes the music of Pauline Oliveros, Brian Eno, Tuvan throatsingers and Australian butcherbirds. His book/CD project Sudden Music: Improvisation, Art, Nature, came out in January, 2002. It is a book not about music, but somehow inspired by a life playing music and thinking about how music can help us listen to and fit into the natural world around us. Rothenberg has performed in England, Poland, Norway, Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, India, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, and all across the United States. His collaborators include Barry Guy, Hamid Drake, Glen Velez, Ray Phiri, and the Weekend Guitar Trio. www.davidrothenberg.net
John Wieczorek has played contemporary, ethnic and electronic percussion for the last 25 years. He has performed w/ the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, bassists Gary Peacock, Mark Dresser and Mark Deutsch, bansuri flutist Steve Gorn, frame drum virtuoso Glen Velez, Layne Redmond's "Mob of Angels", as well as saxophonists Joe McPhee, trumpeter Roy Campbell Jr., the avant-ambient ensemble Straylight, and the Epiphany Project, whom he recently accompanied on a European tour. Wieczorek and Rothenberg recently played at the Nyyd Festival in Estonia with the Weekend Guitar Trio, including Robert Jürjendal. www.soundgate.org
Robert Jürjendal is Estonia's finest guitarist working in a variety of genres, from classical to improvisation to progressive rock. He has played with most of the best Estonian musicians, including Erkki-Sven Tüür, Tõnis Magi, and Riho Sibul. He has been a part of Robert Fripp's guitar craft course in Germany, and with the Weekend Guitar Trio he won first prize at the Lausanne International Guitar Festival in 1995. Their music is a mix of jazz, ethno, soundscapes, rock and country, and they have toured in Russia, Lithuania, Moldova, Finland, France, Germany and Sweden. www.weekendguitartrio.com
Avant Garde: Sound Art