Memoirs of a Dream [2 CD Set] by KALI Z. FASTEAU & Don RAFAEL GARRETT

FASTEAU plays piano harp & keys, cello, voice, ney & shakuhachi flutes, sol clarinet, cumbus tanbur, sheng, sanza, moursin, conch, and davul drum.

DONALD RAFAEL GARRETT was a brilliant artist, way ahead of his time. In addition to his total mastery of the mystery of music-making, his incredibly beautiful sound on his instruments, and his very warm, graceful, intense, spirited and high energy performance style, he had vast knowledge and expertise in the most advanced cultural developments. Bamboo flute-making, Tai-Chi Chuan, extended string techniques, the keys to woodwind vitality, macrobiotic health and cuisine, and Buddhism were some of these treasures. We shared an iconoclasm, an anarchism regarding many formal aspects of art and life. Rafael, while he was one of the very best walking (bebop) and avant-garde arco bassists of all time, enjoyed stretching the definitions of music to the utmost, and embued it all with tremendous emotion and feeling. His inclusive sense of music juxtaposed some of his favorite standards, the unexpected, music from around the world, and sounds of found-object instruments. He invented an entire musical language. He encouraged audience participation in many settings, and enjoyed blurring the line between audience and performer. He liked his bass bridge very high. This produces the biggest sound on the instrument, but requires great strength to get that beautiful tone. Whenever possible, he refused amplification, preferring the natural acoustics of the instruments. His clarinet sound is exquisite, as you hear on these discs, as is his amazing round tone on shakuhachi. Making, selling, and teaching thousands of people to play and make their own bamboo flutes, was not merely a mainstay of our economic survival during lean times. It was showing people a way to actively create their own culture. Our life was in harmony with our highest ideals...a double Piscean dreamtime, the itinerant gypsy musicians' life, leaping over boundaries of all kinds, and surprising people in many lands with our total immersion-dedication-delight in sound. A creative, conjugal symbiosis, we nourished each other's concepts of sound and futuristic humanism, making music at least nine hours every day for six years. We played at home, while walking the streets of whatever country we were in, while traveling to gigs, everywhere and anywhere. Rafael had a very fine and expressive face and body, which he used to wonderful effect in his highly personal and compelling performance style. He enjoyed extending and even demolishing the conventional bounds of performance, for instance, by playing on stage before and after the "performance" was "really on." His playing was so loved by other great musicians that he was always invited to sit in. Then he would take over the bass, stoke up the band with his superb and impassioned walking bass, and then add his enthusiastic and genial scatting (vocalese) and wreck the house every time. Although he didn't want to own a saxophone, backstage, he could blow away the best on any horn. He could make music on anything. And, he generously taught many musicians everything he could. Those lucky enough to have known him at his best will surely agree that he was a musical genius and an extraordinary person.

Rafael Garrett left his earthly form on August 17, 1989.

KALI Z. FASTEAU

COMPOSER and MULTI-INSTRUMENTALIST:

SOPRANO & ALTO SAXOPHONES, NEY & SHAKUHACHI FLUTES, VOICE, PIANO, SYTHESIZER, CELLO, SANZA, MIZMAR, MOURSIN, DRUMS

Publishing Company: ZENJIN Music (SESAC)

From a musical family, Kali Z. played piano, cello, flute, voice since early childhood in Paris and New York. She received degrees studying the music of Asia, Africa, 20th Century Europe and Jazz, and then traveled for fourteen years, living in sixteen countries: India (1981-83), Turkey (1976-77), Nepal, Morocco, Senegal, Zaire, Italy, Holland, France, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Germany, Greece, Haiti and America, performing in many music festivals and concerts, national radio and TV, film soundtracks, and university programs.

Kali's recording and performing associates include: Donald Rafael Garrett, Archie Shepp, Beaver Harris, Rashied Ali, William Parker, Oliver Lake, Joseph Jarman, Joe McPhee, Hamid Drake, Andrew Cyrille, Bobby Few, Noah Howard, Oscar Brown III, and a great many others.

Kali Z. led her ensemble playing her original compositions at New York's Town Hall, Lincoln Center and Guggenheim Museum, The Museum of Modern Art in Paris, The Museum Theatre in Madras, India, The Boston Center for the Arts and hundreds of other noted venues worldwide.

Selected Discography:

Kali Z. Fasteau: MAKING WAVES; Flying Note Records CD 9010

Kali Z. Fasteau: ONENESS; Flying Note Records CD 9009 Kali Z. Fasteau: VIVID; Flying Note CD 9007

Kali Z. Fasteau & Rafael Garrett: MEMOIRS OF A DREAM; Flying Note Double CD 9008

Kali Z. Fasteau: COMRADERIE; Flying Note CD 9006

Kali Z. Fasteau: SENSUAL HEARING; Flying Note CD 9005

Kali Z. Fasteau: EXPATRIATE KIN; CIMP #140

Kali Z. Fasteau: PROPHECY: The Whale & the Elephant Trade Notes on the State of the World; Flying Note CD 9003

Kali Z. Fasteau: WORLDS BEYOND WORDS; Flying Note CD 9001

Kali Z. Fasteau: AFFINITY; Flying Note Cass 6003

Kali Z. Fasteau: BEYOND WORDS; Flying Note Cass 7003

Kali Z. Fasteau: BLISS; Flying Note Cass 6001

Kali Z. Fasteau & Rafael Garrett: AFTER NATURE; Red Records

Kali Z. Fasteau & Rafael Garrett: MANZARA; Red Records

Kali Z. Fasteau & Rafael Garrett: WE MOVE TOGETHER; ESP-Disk (Licensed to ZYX; Abraxis - Get Back)

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