no.228 | Double Talk with Zuriel Waters
Guitar from the Texas Porch Meets Doubled Clarinet from Brooklyn
So excited to present a collaboration with Brooklyn-based artist and musician Zuriel Waters! Waters has a show of his amazing shaped and sewn paintings at Kathryn Markel Gallery in Manhattan up through June 15th! The show is called “Jitterbug Waltz,” inspired by the 1942 Fats Waller tune.
Waters plays all manner of woodwinds, and for this collaboration, he played a Buffet B12 Bb Clarinet under the overpass at Broadway Junction in Brooklyn. This is an above-ground subway stop; you can hear all manner of train brakes, trucks, and general 10 am Brooklyn ruckus. Waters is not only an experienced woodwind player but also holds an MFA in Painting from RISD and earned a BA in Painting and Electronic Music (Interdisciplinary) from San Diego State.
I sent Zuriel a mellow, spacious acoustic track recorded in the haze of the waning agricultural fires wafting up from Mexico. My improvisation was inspired by the musical interval jazz pianist Bill Evans employs in one of my favorite solo piano improvisations, Piece Peace.
Zuriel sent back 5 amazing takes that made me think of the Sonny Rollins’ quote from the PSO 225 Newsletter about playing under the Williamsburg Bridge. So many takes were great, but, on a lark, I put two clarinet tracks together. They were a bit busy at first but, with some finessing, Zuriel thought they might be adjacent to Evans’ 1963 album, Conversations with Myself, where Evans overdubbed 3 tracks for each tune.
To be fair to Zuriel, we didn’t set out with this intention, but there some moments that really feel like we did.
What an absolute joy this was!
The image combines a picture of the newly leafed canopy of our pecan, an image of Broadway Junction, and an image (reproduced below) of one of Zuriel’s unique constructions.
Harlequin
2024, acrylic on denim, thread, industrial felt, cotton duck, hardware
38 x 22 inches currently on view at Kathryn Markel Gallery through June 15.
You can see more of Zuriel’s work on his website and at his current show in NYC….
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
Zuriel Waters: Jitterbug Waltz
May 9th - June 15th, 2024
Kathryn Markel Fine Arts
179 10th Avenue
NY NY 10011
Go see Zuriels’s remarkable work!
Here he is speaking about the work:
“…the work has been referred to as ‘bugs’, borrowing from Starship Troopers vernacular for aliens (but also in the sense that anything can be a bug, a bugger, a cute term of endearment) or as butterflies suspended in a state of perpetual metamorphoses. But this is just a convenience, a way of hinting at their figurativeness, their “being-ness” because they are in fact aliens from the 2nd dimension, an invasive species of ‘flatlanders’ who occupy wall space and transform it into something more dynamic and spectral. It is my ambition to create an art which adds value to people’s lives, like a kind of Roomba-esque automaton, a “machine-for-living” designed to help rid a house of the despair caused by pallid, static walls.
PSO EVENT
LIVE PORCHCAST on INSTAGRAM
THIS SUNDAY, 10 AM CST
Virtually join me on the porch via Instagram live
I will play for 20 minutes or so.
I did this unannounced last week. Felt fun, so I thought I would try it again.
Maybe it will become a more regular thing??
Follow @porchswingorchestra on IG to get notified when the porchcast kicks off!
PSO PODCAST
Stay tuned for a conversation with Zuriel on an upcoming PSO PODCAST.
The PSO podcast features newly published works and pieces procured from the past along with conversations with collaborators and participants in PSO events.
Catch past episodes wherever you listen to podcasts:
PSO on YOUTUBE
Listen to a (nearly) endless stream of PSO sounds on the YOUTUBE GREATEST HIT playlist
PSO on SPOTIFY
Listen to a psychedelic, mind-expanding PSO collaboration with soundtrack fabulists THE REFORMERS
SUPPORT PSO
Listen, rate, and review on our platforms. Subscribe to this newsletter, upgrade to paid, buy some merch or recordings via Bandcamp or the gallery.
Thanks so much for LOOKING + LISTENING!!!