Realistic (1998-2005 - and more!)
You loop, I loop, Everybody loop-loop
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I go to a little club in San Francisco and see a trombonist with a bass slung behind his back, a drummer with 3 sticks, a saxophonist playing 4 part harmonies in real time and a DJ who can scratch in 7/4. Samples were flying everywhere and MC's kept hitting the stage. Needles to say I was intrigued. Within 2 months I was in the band, vibes running through a Kaoss PAd and various loopers, laptop on the grand piano, I was in in heaven.
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Genisis and Evolution
The original concept of Realistic was to try and recreate what the Drum and Bass Dj's were doing with real musicans with Fx's and loopers and in free-form improvised setting. We had tunes and structures, but a non-stop set could run over 3 hours, with various combinations of DJ, musicans, as well as my first attempts at solo laptop creations (Using REASON at that time, Abelton Live was still too unstable to do anything crazy on).
Over time the band evolved, Hip-hop beats, Radiohead covers, and dead space were all incoporated. We recorded 1 Quintet album, and 2 big band versions. There are countless live mixtapes floating around from our years of weekly gigs at the Black Kat and Bruno's, some of which are on the Jazz Mafia website. We played 100's of shows, opened for Brad Meldau and Roy Ayers, and even played a couple wedding gigs (who were these crazy newlyweds ? :) I am happy to report that the many offshoots of the original quintet still exist today. Shotgun Wedding Quintet, Realistic Orchestra and the monster ensemble Jazz Mafia Symphony There is talk of a reunion show in SF in 2016 while I'm playing at the Opera House.... let's see. |
Recordings
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