Album Notes

What is Swampdweller?
The best jazz-the best art- tells us a story about ourselves that we may feel intuitively but lack the words to articulate. Swampdweller has fashioned a new language that is rooted in the syntax and structure of jazz and draws on the vocabulary of soul, hip hop, and Indian music. Swampdweller brilliantly evokes the rhythm of the modern world, with all of its beauty and danger, its clarity and its ambiguity, and its possibilities for discovery and loss.

Marc Fendel:
Marc grew up in Portland Oregon, and received a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music where he studied with legendary teachers Joe Viola, George Garzone, and Ed Tomassi. After graduating in 1995 from Berklee, headed to Seattle where he helped form the critically acclaimed group Bebop and Destruction with fellow Berklee-ites John Wicks and Dan Heck. The group which has only had two personnel changes in its ten year history has produced four recording and appeared at numerous festivals, including the Earshot Jazz Festival and Bumbershoot. For the last six years, Bebop and Destruction has appeared at Seattle’s Owl n’ Thistle Pub.

A highly sought-after instructor, Marc teaches saxophone and leads jazz ensembles at the Seattle Drum School and works with students from nationally recognized Eckstein and Washington Middle Schools. In addition to Bebop and Destruction and Swampdweller, Marc has played in a number of other groups including Portland based funk-jazz group Rosewater. He has appeared in clubs and concerts with Leroy Vinnegar, Allan Broadbent, Diana Krall, Bernie Worrell, and many others.