David Fiuczynski

David Fiuczynski in 2006

David "Fuze" Fiuczynski (* 5. March 1964 in Newark , New Jersey ) is an American jazz - fusion - guitarist and musicologist , often influences mixed together the music of various genres and cultures. In addition to his work as a studio and live guitarist for various artists, he has also become known solo and as a member of various bands, such as the Screaming Headless Torsos and Hasidic New Wave . He has also been teaching guitar at Berklee College of Music in Boston since the 1990s . His teaching and research activities focus on: a. musical improvisation and creativity techniques , microtonal music and playing with the fretless guitar .

Fiuczynski's style of guitar playing is characterized by the use of double - necked guitars , which are usually equipped with a conventional and with a fretless six- or twelve-string neck. He often uses the latter to play quarter tones and other micro- intervals . He also experiments with pentatonic scales and tone systems and studies Arabic , Iranian , Indian , African and Eastern European music. As an important source of inspiration for his guitar playing, he names u. a. Jimi Hendrix , James Blood Ulmer and Sonny Sharrock .

biography

Childhood and youth

David Fiuczynski, born in 1964 in Newark, New Jersey, to a German father and an Afro-American mother, first grew up in neighboring Somerset , but then spent most of his youth, from the age of eight to nineteen, in Neuss and later in Mönchengladbach . Fiuczynski, who often tries to overcome musical style boundaries in his music, attributes this in part to the different influences in his youth, where, in addition to American culture, he also studied German painting and music, e.g. B. Nina Hagen , Kraftwerk and Neue Deutsche Welle , met. Other important influences were his parents' record collections; In addition to his father's classical records, he was mainly influenced by his mother's jazz records. After Fiuczynski started playing the piano at the age of seven, he switched to the electric guitar a few years later and took lessons from Düsseldorf's Markus Wienstroer . At that time Fiuczynski was mainly interested in the guitar playing of John McLaughlin and Allan Holdsworth , but also in punk rock and bands like Van Halen .

1983-1997

In 1983 he returned to the United States to study at Hampshire College in Amherst , Massachusetts . After taking music courses exclusively for the first three semesters, he decided to switch to music studies at the renowned New England Conservatory of Music in Boston , where he was taught by Mick Goodrick and George Russell and completed his studies in 1989 with a bachelor's degree graduated (in 2008 he obtained his master’s degree). He toured with Russell's band and also worked with Bernie Worrell , Bob Moses , Muhal Richard Abrams and Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society at the time .

In the same year he moved to New York City , where he founded the experimental fusion rock band Screaming Headless Torsos . At the same time he was busy with the music of India and pursued various other projects. In 1992 he traveled to Marrakech and played there with local Berber music groups, which he also accompanied to the 1992 World Exhibition in Seville . In 1993 he was the guitarist on Meshell Ndegeocello 's first solo album Plantation Lullabies . With his former fellow student, keyboardist John Medeski , who at that time had already become known with the jazz trio Medeski, Martin & Wood , Fiuczynski recorded his first, critically acclaimed album, Lunar Crush . The ten original compositions of the album produced by Jim Payne are characterized by a musical mixture of funk , hip-hop , jazz and rock.Fima Ephron (bass) and Jojo Mayer (drums), i.e. members at the time or - with Gene Lake ( also drums) - a future member of the Screaming Headless Torsos .

The following year Fiuczynski played with Reggie Washington , Marlon Browden and the saxophonist Avram Fefer in the free funk ensemble The Tone Poets . Fiuczynski also continued his musical crossover approach and founded other projects such as Black Cherry Acid Lab and KiF , with which he later released records. The music on Screaming Headless Torsos - the debut album of his band of the same name - from the same year reminded David R. Adler of the All Music Guide in part of a "angrier version of Living Color , with infinitely more funk". Around the same time he came into contact with Frank London and Greg Wall, who won him over for their avant-garde jazz group Hasidic New Wave , with whom he recorded five albums between 1997 and 2001. The band was part of the scene around John Zorn and the New York Knitting Factory .

David Fiuczynski was involved, especially in the 1990s, in the Black Rock Coalition , a non-profit organization to promote black rock musicians, which was founded in 1985 by Living Color member Vernon Reid , the music journalist Greg Tate and the music producer Konda Mason has been.

1998 until today

David Fiuczynski at the Moers Festival on May 28, 2007

In October 1998 Fiuczynski was nominated for a CalArts / Alpert Genius Award in the Arts for his musical work .

In the same year, out of dissatisfaction with the release policy of his previous record companies, he founded his own record label FuzeLicious Morsels , under which he has since released his own works. Eventually he even bought back the rights to the first two records of Screaming Headless Torsos in order to re-release them on his label. He was supported in running the label by his wife, jazz singer Lian Amber.

On his solo album JazzPunk from 2000 Fiuczynski interpreted - with the participation of Billy Hart , Santi Debriano , the e- cellist Rufus Cappadocia and the Torsos members Gene Lake and Daniel Sadownick - and. a. Pieces by Chopin , Jimi Hendrix , Chick Corea , John Philip Sousa and Duke Ellington .

On his albums KiF and KiF Express (2003 and 2008) he combined rock and funk music with elements of klezmer , North African music and the music of the Middle and Far East , mostly in his own compositions . On KiF Lake, Sadownick and Cappadocia were involved again. The latter, who otherwise plays in Matt Darriau's Paradox Trio , participated in several compositions on the album. Fiuczynski's wife Lian Amber, who also acted as producer, and Matt Darriau were guest musicians. In return, Fiuczynski stepped in several times for the guitarist of the Paradox Trio , Brad Shepik , at live concerts .

Fiuczynski performed at various jazz festivals ( Montreux , Newport , North Sea Jazz Festival , Montréal, etc.) and toured several times through Europe, North and South America, Japan and South Africa; partly with his own projects, but also with artists such as Stewart Copeland , Cuong Vu , Victor Bailey and the jazz pianist Hiromi Uehara (including Glastonbury 2007). In 2011 he tours a. a. with Jack DeJohnette and Rudresh Mahanthappa . On April 8, 2011, he was awarded a Guggenheim Scholarship for his services in the field of music composition.

Discography (selection)

David Fiuczynski has worked as a guitarist on almost 100 records by major artists, e. B. at Muhal Richard Abrams , Freak Power , Scritti Politti , Cindy Blackman , Charles & Eddie , Franz Koglmann , Ronald Shannon Jackson , Steve Coleman , Jazz Passengers , Jack Walrath , Frank London , Billy Hart , Don Pullen , Gongzilla , Bernie Worrell , with his Berklee colleague Terri Lyne Carrington , on the soundtrack of Batman & Robin and on the first two grammyn-nominated albums by Meshell Ndegeocello .

under his own name

• David Fiuczynski & John Medeski Lunar Crush ( Gramavision 1994)
• Jazzpunk (Fuzelicious Morsels 2000)
• Amandala (Fuzelicious Morsels 2001)
• Black Cherry Acid Lab (Fuzelicious Morsels 2002, recordings of the band project of the same name (with Ahmed Best and Mark Shim, among others ) from 1996-98)
• Kif (Fuzelicious Morsels 2003)
• Boston T Party (2006), with Dennis Chambers , Jeff Berlin and T Lavitz
• Kif Express (Fuzelicious Morsels 2008)
• David Fiuczynksi's Planet Microjam (RareNoiseRecords 2012)
• Flam! Blam! Pan-Asian MicroJam! - Homage to J Dilla et Olivier Messiaen (RareNoise 2016)
• Philipp Gerschlauer & David Fiuczynski Microjazz! (RareNoise 2017, with Jack DeJohnette , Matt Garrison , Giorgi Mikadze )

With the Screaming Headless Torsos

• Screaming Headless Torsos (1995, Warner / Discovery; re-released in 2002 as 1995 )
• Live!! (1996 VideoArtsMusic, re-released 2001)
• Amandala (2001), purely instrumental record (as David Fiuczynki's Headless Torsos )
• 2005 (2005, FuzeLicious Morsels)
• Choice Cuts (2006, FuzeLicious Morsels)

With Hasidic New Wave

• Jews and the Abstract Truth (1997, Knitting Factory Works 192)
• Psycho-Semitic (1998, Knitting Factory Records 203)
• Live in Krakow (1998, Not Two Records ), recorded at the Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow 1998
• Kabalogy (1999, Knitting Factory Records / JAM 239)
• From the Belly of Abraham (2001, Knitting Factory Records 294), in cooperation with Alioune Faye and the Senegalese percussion group Yakar Rhythms

Web links

• David Fiuczynski at Allmusic (English)
• Fiuczynski explains his style of guitar playing (fretless guitar, quarter tones) in a video on archive.org , in the Inner Jazz series (episode 1) , produced by David Carlos Valdez
• David Fiuczynski at Discogs (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Faculty Biography for David Fiuczynski on the Berklee College of Music website, accessed April 14, 2011
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Interview He Puts the Fuze in Fusion: An Interview with Dave "Fuze" Fiuczynski , conducted by Brian L. Knight for The Vermont Review , accessed April 14, 2011
3. ↑ ^{a b} Interview with David Fiuczynski - life as a jazz-punk? ( Memento of the original from October 12, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , managed by Carina Prange for jazzdimensions.de, published on May 22, 2000 
4. ↑ ^{a b} Portrait of Fiuczynski ( memento of the original from December 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on jazz.com  
5. ^ Interview David Fiuczynski - The Mind of a Headless Torso , conducted by Arturo Mora Rioja for tomajazz.com in 2006, accessed on April 14, 2011
6. ^ Entry for David Fiuczynski in: Ian Carr , Digby Fairweather , Brian Priestley : The Rough Guide to Jazz . Rough Guides Ltd., London 2004 (3rd edition), p. 263
7. ↑ Disc review of Lunar Crush , written by Richard S. Ginell in Allmusic
8. ↑ Disc review of the album Screaming Headless Torsos by the band of the same name , written by David R. Adler in the All Music Guide
9. ↑ Disc review for the album JazzPunk , written by David R. Adler in the All Music Guide
10. ↑ Disc review of the album KiF Express from November 21, 2008, written by Phil DiPietro for allaboutjazz.com
11. ↑ Disc review for the album KiF ( Memento of the original from June 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from May 16, 2003, written by Frank Bongers for jazzdimensions.de 
12. ↑ message Congrats to jazz Guggenheim fellows of 8 April 2011 at the website of the Jazz Journalists Association
13. ^ John Simon Guggenheim Foundation - David Fiuczynski. In: gf.org. Retrieved February 13, 2016 .