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Guitar Harvest benefits educational outreach
27 leading guitarists support unique music scholarship fund for NYC kids
T
he New York Guitar Festival has released Guitar Harvest, a new 2 CD set of performances by 27 leading guitarists from the worlds of jazz, rock, folk and classical music. Andy Summers, guitarist from The Police, Ralph Towner, solo guitarist and member of Oregon, Vernon Reid of Living Colour, and two dozen other guitar legends offer new or previously unreleased performances all to benefit the New York Guitar Festival’s scholarship funds for New York City school children at the Kaufman Center’s Lucy Moses School and the Manhattan School for Children.
Founded in 1999 by artistic director David Spelman and WNYC-FM radio host John Schaefer, the New York Guitar Festival has presented many of the world’s leading guitarists in an innovative series of concerts in New York City, celebrating the instrument’s universal appeal and raising funds for the festival’s educational endeavors. The first release in a planned series that will raise awareness of the festival and its scholarship programs, Guitar Harvest (SACD 2042) will be issued on September 23rd, 2003 by the California-based Solid Air Records label, and will be available in major retail stores as well as online at Amazon.com and through the Acoustic Music Resource (toll free at 1-800-649-4745 or online at: acousticmusicresource.com
“The idea behind Guitar Harvest,” said David Spelman, “is to put guitars into the hands of New York City public school students with no strings attached, and we’re proud to have begun that process at the Lucy Moses School and the Manhattan School for Children. Because the guitar is used in so many genres of music and so many cultures, it has a unique potential to bring together disparate communities. Proceeds from the sale of the Guitar Harvest CD will fund scholarships that provide guitars and musical training free of charge, encouraging inspiration through music-making at a time of starkly diminsihed budgets for arts.”
David Spelman, a conservatory-trained classical guitarist who heads a New York City public relations firm in New York City, created the New York Guitar Festival” because “music has enriched my life, and it’s time to give something back. Representing clients like the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the American Symphony Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonic is deeply gratifying, but I also wanted to make a contribution to society through my first passion—the guitar. As I began, a comment by the playwright August Wilson served as my mantra: “Art changes individuals, and individuals change society...’ These words continued to inspire me. While I am deeply indebted to the D’Addario Foundation for the Performing Arts for their support, I decided early on not to pursue only large foundations or government grants. I would, of course, welcome them if they came to us. What I really wanted to do was to ask artists to contribute what they do — and I am especially grateful to the wonderful guitarists who have contributed to this CD. And finally, the talented kids who benefit from this program are an inspiration to us all; our contribution to their education is a contribution to our own future.”
The artists who donated their music free of charge to Guitar Harvest span many genres and instrumental approaches. “The guitar is unique among the world’s instruments,” writes Schaefer in the set’s liner notes, “because it is the only instrument (apart from the human voice) to have genuinely and successfully crossed over to all of the world’s major musical traditions: classical, rock/pop, jazz and traditional musics.”
In their individual contributions, most of the guitarists chose to celebrate their own formative influences and educational background. Noted acoustic-music pioneer Alex De Grassi kicks off the first disc with a tribute to another iconic guitarist, Jimi Hendrix. Ralph Towner, equally at home in the worlds of jazz, classical and world music, plays both parts in a unique multitracked duo in homage to legendary Baroque lute player and composer Sylvius Leopold Weiss. Contemporary classical specialist Benjamin Verdery offers an original composition that honors the maverick American composer Lou Harrison. Folk-rock guitarist Arlen Roth supplies a rag inspired by folk tradition, while Tony McManus draws upon Jewish klezmer tradition as passed down by eclectic Irish folk band De Dannan.
The Newman & Oltman Guitar Duo, mainstays of the New York classical guitar scene, performs music by Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz in honor of their own Cuban-born mentors. Swing guitarist Frank Vignola celebrates the Gypsy-jazz legacy of Django Reinhardt, while the unclassifiable Bill Frisell and his teacher Dale Bruning join forces to pay homage to another swing legend, Charlie Christian. Composer-performer David Cullen drew inspiration from his early years as a working jazzman. The celebrated pop guitarist and former Paul McCartney sideman Laurence Juber recalls a very different kind of nightclub experience for his solo offering. Scottish classical virtuoso David Russell closes the first disc with a composition by one of his primary influences, Argentine composer-guitarist Jorge Morel.
The second disc begins with a performance by the California Guitar Trio (and special guest bassist Tony Levin) that reflects the influence of the group’s teacher and mentor, British guitar legend Robert Fripp. The eclectic Bay Area improviser Henry Kaiser teams up with bass virtuoso Michael Manring to offer a tribute to two Miles Davis sidemen, Pete Cosey and Michael Henderson. Rock innovator Vernon Reid found his inspiration in a friend’s visual art, while the astonishing acoustic virtuoso Richard Leo Johnson drew upon such far-flung influences as Hendrix, John Fahey and Igor Stravinsky. Classical guitarist and New World Guitar Trio founder David Patterson celebrates a very different kind of guitar hero, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page.
Another uniquely uncategorizable artist, Gary Lucas offers a moving tribute to a friend and collaborator, the late singer Jeff Buckley. Newly inducted Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Andy Summers, best known for his work with the Police, explores his passion for jazz with a rousing, large-scale rendition of a piece by jazz luminary Charles Mingus, while jazz guitarist and composer Joel Harrison pays homage to Grateful Dead founder Jerry Garcia. Russell Donnellon closes the set with a quiet, dignified rendition of the traditional hymn “Amazing Grace.”
ABOUT THE PRODUCERS:
DAVID SPELMAN is the founder and artistic director of the New York Guitar Festival,“a series that examines virtually every aspect of the guitar’s musical personality” (The New York Times). Since 1999, the festival’s goal has been to broaden the public’s appreciation for the guitar by fostering emerging talent, supporting innovative collaborations among outstanding artists, and commissioning new works. In addition to producing eclectic concerts and radio broadcasts, its Guitar Harvest series of recordings supports outreach programs in our public schools. For ten years, David Spelman & Company, a New York-based public relations firm, represented major players in the music industry such as PolyGram Classics & Jazz, RCA/BMG Classics, The New York Philharmonic, The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and Columbia University School of the Arts. He worked for a year with publicist/producer Jay Hoffman, and before that as an apprentice luthier, training in acoustic guitar design, construction, and repair. __Spelman currently serves on the Board of the D’Addario Foundation for the Performing Arts and served for five years on the Board of Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, Inc., a not-for-profit organization that, for 100 years, has been producing free concerts at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park. Spelman is an alumnus of the New England Conservatory of Music and the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.
JOHN SCHAEFER is the co-founder of the New York Guitar Festival, and has hosted and produced the popular new music radio program New Sounds since 1982. The program was called “The #1 radio show for the Global Village”by Billboard magazine. Schaefer is also executive producer and host of the nationally-syndicated series Chamber Music New York. Since 1986 he has produced and hosted New Sounds Live, an annual series of live broadcast concerts devoted to new, unusual and overlooked forms of music. He produces and hosts WNYC’s classical performances, both in the studio and in various concert halls. He has been heard regularly on the BBC, the ABC (Australia), Taipei Public Radio and Radio New Zealand. Schaefer’s writings include New Sounds: A Listener’s Guide to New Music; a biography of composer La Monte Young (in Sound and Light, Bucknell University Press, 1996); and “Songlines: The Voice in World Music” (in Cambridge Companion to Singing, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2000). He was contributing editor for Spin and Ear maazines, and has written numerous articles and reviews. His liner notes appear on more than 100 recordings, ranging from The Music of Cambodia to recordings by Yo-Yo Ma, Bobby McFerrin, and Terry Riley.
More about Guitar Harvest, Vol. 1
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