Living Encyclopedia of Global African Music
Events
Schedule:
April: 14-19: Global African Music Festival/Symposium
- Fall 2002 -
Guest Lecturers and Lecture/Demonstrations for Music 80E - History of "Jazz" (sponsored by the UCSC Music Department):
WED, October 09: Professor Paul Ortiz - Oral Histories and the Social Politics of Music
WED, October 23: Dror Sinai - African and World Percussion
WED, November 06: Renata Bratt - Jazz Strings
WED, November 20: Eddie Gale - Innovators and The History of Jazz Trumpet
WED, November 27: Avotcja Jiltonilro - Jazz and the Spoken Word
Biographies:
Assistant Professor of Community Studies
Paul Ortiz is a historian who specializes in U.S. social and political history with an emphasis on comparative social movements. His dissertation, "'Like Water Covered the Sea': The African American Freedom Struggle in Florida, 1877-1920," describes the widespread yet little-known efforts by African Americans in Florida to regain the vote and to organize around labor issues and economic issues. Ortiz earned his Ph.D. in history from Duke University and earned his B.A. from Evergreen State College, where he studied history and political economy. From 1982-86, Ortiz served in the U.S. Army in North Carolina and Central America, which he describes as the beginning of his "political education." He was a visiting assistant professor in history and documentary studies at Duke University before coming to UCSC.
More information:
http://www.ucsc.edu/currents/01-02/11-12/newfac.html
http://communitystudies.ucsc.edu/ortiz.html
Raised in Israel, where his passion for rhythms began as a child and continued as a member of his family's Yemenite Folk Troupe, Dror Sinai is the creator and director of Rhythm Fusion, Inc., which imports, exports and distributes percussion instruments from all over the world. He is also a percussionist in several bands, gives performances in schools and conducts workshops on percussion instruments from around the world. His travels around the world expanded his knowledge of many cultures as did growing up surrounded by the diverse and exotic Jewish cultures of Yemen, Kurdistan, Iraq, Iran, Morocco and Romania, among others.
More information:
http://www.rhythmfusion.com
Cellist and clinician Renata Bratt performs and teaches jazz and classical techniques to string players all over the country. Renata teaches cello, beginning orchestral playing, jazz, and chamber music to students in K-12th grades in her home studio, at the Pacific Elementary School in Davenport, CA, and through the Cabrillo College Suzuki Strings program. She represents string players for the International Association of Jazz Educators Resource Team and writes a column for the American Suzuki Journal titled "Improvisation for All". She has been an invited clinician at string workshops and national conferences for children, adults, and teachers.
In addition to frequent jazz concerts in the California region with the Gail Dobson Group, Renata has also played back-up with many pop groups, including Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, David Sanborn, Lyle Lovett, Mannheim Steamroller, and Dionne Warwick. Rolling Stone dubbed her an "ace performer" for her work recording and touring with alternative rocker Cindy Lee Berryhill's Garage Orchestra. Renata Bratt received her Ph.D. in Music from the University of California, San Diego.
In1974 then mayor of San Jose Norm Mineta (currently Secretary of Commerce and Secretary of Transportation-designee for the incoming administration) bestowed the honorary title of San Jose's Ambassador of Jazz upon Gale in recognition of his efforts to bring jazz and improvised music to the Bay Area. Eddie and I have since performed together and found that we share many stylistic and music business perspectives. Having been mentored by John Coltrane, and a member of the legendary Sun Ra Arkestra, as well as avant-garde pioneer Cecil Taylor's group, Gale is now able to share his experience with California musicians as Artist-in-resident at San Jose State University.
Recently, Gale was nominated by Bay Area City Flight News magazine as one of the four most influential Bay Area African Americans in the entertainment category. Four outstanding Bay Area residents have been selected for ten categories, the winner in each will ultimately comprise CityFlight's "Ten Most Influential African Americans in the Bay Area for 2000."
Gale has recorded as a leader for Blue Note Records and Mapleshade Records. His recording debut came on Cecil Taylor's classic Blue Note album Unit Structures. Enter Evening, a track from that album, was later included on the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz. Gale can also be heard on the Sun Ra album Lanquidity (reissued by Evidence Records), which he helped produce. Gale has also recorded Sun Ra tributes with John Tchicai and appeared as a sideman on Larry Young's Of Love and Peace. Musicians appearing on sessions he has led include: Elvin Jones, James Lyons, Roland Alexander, Larry Willis, and Ben Allison.
More information:
http://www.eddiegale.com
Poet/Musician/Playwright/Photographer/Teacher
Acotcja was born and raised in New York City surrounded and nourished by some of the finest music and artists in the world. She's played music and written poetry and short stories since she was a child. She moved to Los Angeles when she was a teenager where she worked as a farm worker, waitress, factory worker, and a barber by day, and a musician/poet every night (becoming one of Horace Tapscott's Underground Musician's Association's many alumni). After a year in Europe, she returned to the States and eventually made the San Francisco Bay Area home.
She has been published in English and Spanish in the U.S.A., Mexico and Europe, and in more anthologies than she remembers. Her close friends refer to her as sound junkie. She is a poet/playwright and multi-instrumentalist who has opened for Betty Carter in New York City and Peru's Susana Baca at San Francisco's Encuentro Popular, played with Rahsann Roland Kirk, Luis and Bobi Cespedes, John Handy, Sonido Afro Latina, Dimensions Dance Theater, Black Poets with Attitudes, Nikki Giovanni, Diamano Coura West African Dance Company, Terry Garthwaite, Caribeana Etc, and Lisa Cohen; shared stages with Son Sanchez, Piri Thomas, Janice Mirikitani, Diane DiPrima, Michael Franti, Jayne Cortez, and with Jose Montoya's Royal Chicano Air Force. Avotcja was the opening act for the legendary poet Pat Parker the last three years of her life and was a regular at the now defunct Artemis Society. She both composed and played the score for the Danish documentary MuNu. Her poetry has been recorded by Piri Thomas, and performed by Purple Moon Dance Project, Bobby Matos Heritage Ensemble in L.A., and hers was the first poetry used by New York's Dance Mobile. She's appeared at Lorraine Hansberry Theater in San Francisco, the Scottish Rite Temple and Yoshi's in Oakland, Jose Castellar's Man from San Huan in San Francisco, Club Le Monmartre in Copenhagen, Denmark, Stanford University, at San Francisco's Brava Theater for the Arts with Cine Accion, New York's Henry Street Settlement Theater and Afro Solo in San Francisco.
Avotcja is a popular Bay Area D.J. and the founder and co-director of "The Clean Scene Theater Project/Proyecto Teatral De La Escena Sobria." She teaches poetry, creative writing, music and drama in public schools and thanks to the California Arts Council she is also an artist in residence at Milestones Project and the Penal System. Avotcja is a proud and active member of DAMO (Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization) and the National Writers Union Local #3.
AVOTCJA is a sound
junkie
A Storyteller/Musician
A weaver of magical cloth
A gatherer of poetic wisdom
and musical medicine
and definitely
Somebody not to be missed.
(Rafaela Ocasio 2000)
"Avotcja finds music everywhere through a soundscape made up of everyday sounds, spoken word and music. She transforms the ordinary into the universal."
(Afro Solo: San Francisco 1999)
Living Encyclopedia
of Global African Music
Posted: 11/06/2002
Last Updated: 01/29/2002