Jim Pepper House: Master drummer Ra-Kalam Bob Moses to hold master class

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Master drummer Ra-Kalam Bob Moses to hold master class

Among the four members of the legendary, pioneering jazz-fusion band The Free Spirits coming to Portland in August to celebrate their friend and bandmate Jim Pepper is world-renowned master drummer and educator Rakalam Bob Moses.

“Drummer, composer, artist, poet, dancer, visionary, nature mystic (Rakalam) Bob Moses's life has been a continuous quest for vision, spirit, compassion, growth, and mastery in a multiplicity of art forms.”—New England Conservatory

Bob will arrive in Portland in time to conduct a master class in doing what he does (time and place and other details TBA) before taking the stage Friday and Saturday evenings August 9 & 10 for the historic reunion concert of The Free Spirits. And then he’s off to tour Australia and New Zealand.

This will give you a sense of what you don’t want to miss:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgQo4ADFGx0

Photo by Andrew Hurlbut

“I can see two major traditions or trains of thought colliding and merging in my music.

“One is the path of the nature visionary; one who can travel without moving, to and through various dimensions and planes of reality. In my life I have seen through the veils, kissed butterflies, envisioned animated three-dimensional scenes and stepped into those scenes, talked to and played with spirits of other worlds, past, present and future. I have been a flower, a mountain, a raging river, a stone….

“The other tradition or stream that I swim in is the Great River of African Music in all its manifestations: the importance of clave’, groove, swing, rhythm, dance, hip-shaking, rhythm and rhyme sublime, shadows and light by day, by night, Jazz, Funk, Rhythm and Blues, Hip Hop, Rap, Reggae, Calypso, Zouk, Soukous, Samba, Afro-Cuban, Salsa are all psychically if not geographically emanating from Africa….

“So the streams merge and become one vast, deep, infinite music:

“Music with groove but no walls

Music with soul but no boundaries

Music with roots but no ceilings

Music of hope and love and humor”

--Rakalam Bob Moses, from When Elephants Dream of Music

–on Bob Moses’ When Elephants Dream of Music:

 "Bob Moses has now emerged as the possessor of one of the grander imaginations in America's true classical music. No orchestral composer of this scope, mellow wit, and freshly distinctive range of colors has come along since Gil Evans."-Nat Hentoff, Modern Recording and Music

“Bob Moses, composer, drummer, poet, artist, conceptualizer, inspirer of people, has created a musical environment that is balanced between discipline and freedom, compositional design and spontaneous inspiration. A party with a purpose. This album is original, soulful, funny…and very special. I hope a lot of people get as much enjoyment from it as I have”. –Gil Evans

–on On Time Stood Still

"Leave it to Moses, a multi-directional shamanistic groovilator, to put all the pieces together. On Time Stood Still, another sprawling production of DeMille-ian scale, he seamlessly blends Monk, funk, tap, hip hop, bebop, big band, blues, Bahia, Tanzania, and the avant garde into one organic package while paying homage to the spirits of Gil Evans, Charles Mingus, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and Jaco Pastorius."-Bill Milkowski, Down Beat

Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JimPepperNativeArtsFestival

Website: www.jimpepperfest.net

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Oregon Senate Joint Resolution 31 (2005), Honoring Jim Pepper

Sponsored by Senator Avel Louise Gordly (at the request of Suzie Pepper Henry):

"Whereas the 2005 Portland Jazz Festival paid tribute to the musical legacy of Jim Pepper, a true son of Oregon, with a concert dedicated to the late Native American saxophonist and jazz legend; and

"Whereas workshops, panel discussions, performers and audiences at the festival recalled how Jim Pepper, born to Gilbert and Floy Pepper in Salem on June 18, 1941, blazed a unique trail across the musical horizon with his innovative synthesis of Native American song, the harmonic structures of modern jazz and the rhythms of Africa, South America and the Caribbean; and

"Whereas Jim Pepper performed throughout the United States, Europe and Africa, played with such jazz giants as Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Colin Wolcott, Larry Coryell and Mal Waldron; and

"Whereas Jim Pepper also collaborated with many Oregon musicians, including Gordon Lee, Tom Grant, Leroy Vinnegar, Nancy King, Caren Knight-Pepper, Obo Addy, David Friesen, Dan Balmer, Glenn Moore, Ron Steen, Sonny King, Dennis Springer, Mel Brown, Nick Gefroh, Marianne Mayfield, Ralph Black, Lee Reinoehl, Carlton Jackson and many others; and

"Whereas Jim Pepper's 1971 crossover hit 'Witchi Tai To, ' based on a Native American Church peyote chant taught to him by his grandfather, earned him a spot on both the jazz and Top 40 radio charts and continues to be widely popular among national and international performers and recording artists to this day; and

"Whereas Jim Pepper's remarkable career was marked by more than 50 recordings as bandleader, featured artist and composer, including 'Pepper's Pow Wow,' 'Comin' and Goin'' and ' Remembrance'; and

"Whereas Jim Pepper's symphony 'Four Winds' was performed by the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra in New York and by the Cologne Symphony Orchestra in Germany; and

"Whereas Jim Pepper served as musical director for 'Night of the First Americans,' a Native American self-awareness benefit concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. in 1980; and

"Whereas Jim Pepper toured Africa with Don Cherry as part of a United States-Africa cultural exchange program; and

"Whereas Jim Pepper succumbed to lymphoid cancer in February 1992 in Portland, Oregon, at age 50; and

"Whereas Jim Pepper was honored posthumously in 1999 with the Lifetime Musical Achievement Award by the First Americans in the Arts and was inducted into the Indian Hall of Fame in 1998 and the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame in 2000; and

"Whereas 'Pepper's Pow Wow,' the 1996 award-winning documentary of his life produced and directed by Sandra Osawa and Yasu Osawa, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, was broadcast on PBS in 1997 and 1999 and has since been presented to enthusiastic audiences at the Amiens Film Festival, the Margaret Mead Film Festival, the Native American Film and Video Festival, the Red Earth Film and Video Festival and the Portland Jazz Festival; and

"Whereas the Leroy Vinnegar Jazz Institute and the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission named Jim Pepper 'Jazz Artist of the Year' and presented the Bill McClendon Award for Excellence in Jazz to his mother at the 2005 Portland Jazz Festival; and

"Whereas Jim Pepper's music continues to be performed and recorded in countries throughout the world, including Germany, where a performance of 'Witchi Tai To' by the WDR Radio Orchestra and the Remembrance Band, arranged and conducted by Gunther Schuller, was recorded; and

"Whereas Jim Pepper's life and music harmonized distinct cultures and served as a poetic example for all indigenous people, ' walking in three worlds with one spirit'; and

"Whereas Jim Pepper is survived by his mother, Floy Pepper, his sister, Suzanne Henry of Portland, his nephews, Jim Pepper Henry and Jesse Laird Henry, and his grandnephew, Jackson Laird Henry; and

"Whereas Floy Pepper said during her acceptance of her son's First Americans in the Arts award in 1999, 'Jim Pepper was a member of the Kaw Indian Nation known as 'The Wind People' from his father. From me, his mother, he was a member of the Creek Indian Nation known as 'The People of the Waters.' It's no wonder his music was so strong and powerful--with the wind to carry his music to the four directions of the Earth. And as long as the grass shall grow and the waters flow--which is forever--may his spirit remain alive for time immemorial'; now, therefore,

"Be It Resolved by the Legislative Assembly of the State of Oregon:

"(1) The members of the Seventy-third Legislative Assembly honor the extraordinary accomplishments and musical legacy of Oregon native son Jim Pepper and direct that a copy of this resolution be delivered to the Oregon Historical Society for inclusion in its permanent collection.

"(2) The members of the Seventy-third Legislative Assembly direct that a copy of this resolution be delivered to the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., for inclusion in its permanent collection.

"(3) The members of the Seventy-third Legislative Assembly direct that a copy of this resolution be delivered to the Leroy Vinnegar Jazz Institute at Portland State University for inclusion in its permanent collection and encourage the creation and endowment of a Jim Pepper (hUnga-che-eda 'Flying Eagle') Chair at the university to further the study of Native American music and its relationship to jazz."

Adopted by Senate May 19, 2005
Adopted by House June 7, 2005

It was my honor and privilege to research and draft this resolution on behalf of Senator Gordly and the Pepper family--Sean Cruz