Bandamonium

Last night Donna, Joey and I made a trip to Oakland to hear Bandemonium at 21 Grand, a small venue in gritty West Oakland. Greg has great musical talent and enthusiasm. He runs a brass band workshop every year at Lark in the Morning and turns out a powerful performance by the end of the week. For the past two years they have battled the Gaita (a loud Spanish bagpipe) band, and Greg's band won- not an easy feat.

Greg works with small community bands such as our own Hubbub Club to enrich their music. His focus these days is on world music done by brass bands across the globe. They are a legacy of the colonial military bands. The bands combine traditional music, brass arrangements and some modern improvisation. The sound is powerful.

How do I describe the power of this concert? A snare player and bass drummer carry the varied beats from Brazilian Chorro to Indian Brass- Macedonian, Siranim, Bolivia and Mexico. Greg's powerful slide trombone pushes the group with a confident bottom line. Soloist- sometimes in duets sour at improvisation- two trumpets, two clarinets, two slide trombones, two tenor saxes and a tuba. Imagine this line of instruments playing a world of rhythms and tunes. Then imagine the music at ear spitting volume.

He calls this group Bandimonium San Francisco. They had some pretty sophisticated recording equipment and expensive recording microphones. I expect that they were were recording for an upcoming CD. I will try to post some links here so you can get a feel for what I am writing about. Remember turn the volume way up to approach the live experience. I hope to see you all at Honk Fest in Seattle in March.

One band comes from Olinda, Brazil (pictured above)- a group of sanitary worker and the band is called something like Vaserine. Another band from Macedonia is very much like the band in the movie Gypsy Carvan. Here is a like to a trailer for the movie. The Moldovan band is much like Fanfare Ciocarlia.
Here are some sample I found on the web of this indigenous music: Peru, Macedonia, (There are lots of great samples here of the music of Kočani Orkestar.)