Please consider signing the Buru Style (who also back Toussaint, Lady Lee and Ajani) mailing list:
Influences
This is the Myspace page of a blessed man. Blessed to live in a peaceful place without violence or natural disasters, blessed to be born to two loving parents who always supported (and continue to support) him, blessed to be married to a beautiful and brilliant woman and to be the father of a little guy who is clearly the best little crazy freaking toddler ever. Blessed yet again to (almost) make a living pursuing those things that interest him most: playing music, thinking and learning about music, writing music and writing about music, archiving music and teaching music, and moreover to do all this amongst other inspiring and beautiful musicians and teachers. Yes, I am one of the lucky ones. Give thanks.
So, influences... Well, Weird Al, Billy Idol (an early influence, I mean, he's named billy), Poison, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Paula Abdul. We actually listened to that stuff in fourth grade. Then there were my first drum teachers, both glam rock drummers that I worshipped and who both treated me like a king: Rob, whose last name I don't remember, and Jim Hanley. Now I'd have to admit that I'm a sucker for the Zappa drummers, Terry Bozzio (who has the eye of the beast when he plays!) Vinny Coliuta, and Chad Wackerman. Also, I really love the Jamaican drummers Style Scott, Santa Davis and Sly Dunbar. I love the boogaloo grooves of Idris Muhammad and Joe Dukes and I could listen to Billy Higgins play for ever, and Max Roach, well, he is clearly the best drummer ever, what else do I need to say?
Here's two videos of me playing with people who influenced me for real: Melvin Sparks and Mike Gordon from Phish. This was recorded by a kind soul (Matt Fisken I later found him out to be) at Nectar's in Burlington, VT in February 2008. Mike joined us for the whole 2nd set and it was a blast. Suffice to say had it happen 15 years ago I would have had a heart attack (and sounded pretty bad too). On "Thank You Falletine Me Be Mice Elf Again" you can only see my arm; on "Everything I Play Gonna Be Funky" I get a couple little breaks and a little face time taboot. Looking for my life story? It's below these videos.
Here's a great little video made by Dan Nocera of my local organ trio, which features Sammy Myers (organ) and Lance James (guitar), playing at the North End Action Team's annual Garden Party. NEAT is an amazing organization that strives to enrich the lives of the lower income families of Middletown's North End, and this party was fantastic. We're jammin' on "Alligator Boogaloo" in this one.
North End Action Team 8th Annual Community Garden Party from Dan Nocera on Vimeo.
Here's a collection of videos of Buru Style both alone and with Toussaint Liberator.
Here's some pictures of another one of my main influences: Taavi Tate Carbone, my little boy and my main source of joy. There's also a bunch of me playing music and assorted other things.
..
Me in a Nutshell:
I grew up in Madison, CT, not exactly a cultural mecca. Luckily a high school friend repeatedly popped out my Grateful Dead cassettes and put in Coltrane (I still love the Dead though). Right about this time the Best Buy, Lechmere, Circuit City wars started, and Impulse! CDs were going for about $8.99 each. I just bought all that stuff and got kickstarted on jazz there. Also at the same time, a local degenerate (now deported to Canada) gave me a Burning Spear tape, and I've never stopped listening to reggae since.
During college at New England Conservatory in Boston I co-founded the Miracle Orchestra with Geoff Scott, Garrett Sayers, and Jared Sims. We thought we were going to take over the world, and although we did make it to San Francisco, the drive across Nebraska really sucked, and after about 5 years we called it quits. It was a great time and a learning experience.
In the years following I played with anyone and everyone. I had a moment in organist Ron Levy's band, worked with MC Kabir, and started a project to play the music of Fela Kuti (before Antibalis too!). I spent a month in China as the house band for the Hennessey XO Jazz festival in Shanghai. It was life changing. When I got home I linked with Toussaint Liberator and never looked back. Toussaint and I did quite a lot together, from little one-nighters with thrown together bands doing reggae-improv, to arena concerts opening for Wyclef and John Legend. We've also played in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Hondoras, and the Bahamas.
In fall of 2005 I started the Masters program in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University in CT. I’ve since earned my MA and am about to start the final year of course work for my PhD. For my MA thesis I researched nyabingi drumming and it's impact on early reggae, particularly as seen in the work of the Skatalites' drummer Lloyd Knibb, who I have interviewed and hung with several times. Now I’m working on jazz. It’s hard to sum it up in a sentence, but I’m mostly thinking about the organ groups that play(ed) bars and mix up pop covers and standards; conceptualizing that jazz which is lived as a fun, community based experience rather than a rarified art moment. What I love about ethnomusicology is that it’s such a natural part of my life. I’ve always spent almost 100% of my time listen to, playing and thinking about music, and ethnomusicology is exactly that, except one just attempts to achieve different perspectives.
These days I do a fair amount of music journalism as well. I publish several short pieces a month in the New Haven and Hartford Advocates and the Fairfield Weekly - there are links to those papers to the right. I’m also quite excited to being working on my first piece for the fantastic music magazine Wax Poetics as we speak. I’m also contributing a handful of entries to the Jazz.com Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians (which also has a link to the right) and working on my third piece for Modern Drummer.
Lastly, if you take a look at my pictures you’ll notice that my family has a new addition. That’s Taavi Tate Carbone, a little fella that joined us in February 2007, and he’s undoubtedly the best gig I’ve ever had.
CLICK HERE TO BUY BURU STYLE'S DEBUT "THE CRAB" ON
CLICK HERE TO BUY TOUSSAINT and BURU STYLE's DEBUT on ITUNES
INFO ABOUT THE MUSIC ON THE SITE (there are 30 tunes so make sure to scroll down in the playlist player):
Buru Style was my personal pet-project until things got serious. It’s a large group that features my original dub/soul tunes and very often the great vocals of Toussaint Liberator. Our dedicated myspace page is here. When we first got it going, it was really indebted to dub and nyabingi, particularly the type of stuff Cedric IM Brooks recorded. (A little side note, I run Cedric’s myspace for him). But as time has gone on it’s really branched out and we’ve even learned all the classic riddims and backed a few vocalists (Dion Knibb, Ras Coley, Lady Lee, and Ajani). The recordings here feature a few different versions of the group. A couple tracks up that feature my dear friend Toussaint Yeshua/Liberator on vocals. The instrumentalists in this version of the group are all Wesleyan people who have really been killing it as of late (check out that horn section! And thank you Dave Malloy for the recording). The other tracks are live recordings from the older half-Boston version. Jared Sims takes a stankingly nasty bari solo on 400 Years! If you hear thumping drums and meditative bass wafting from a back yard or living room in Middletown, you can pretty much count on it being Buru Style
I first got the chance to play with Melvin Sparks when my good pal Paul Wolstencroft called me on a Thursday to see if I could headline a big festival with them the next day. I of course said yes and then proceeded directly to the kit in my basement to get my boogaloo in order. Melvin and I got along swimmingly, and happily I’m now the full time drummer in his band. There are two Melvin Sparks Band recordings here: 1) Funky Good Time, which features Paul W on organ and Mike Gordon from Phish on bass (there are also some videos of it on the left and more on Youtube – thanks for whipping out your camera Matt Fisken!), and 2) a whole buncha other jams all recorded live at the Blue Note in New York with good ‘ol Eliot Krimsky holding down the keyboard duties on his Nord.
Speaking of Eliot, Renegade Sounds was a project that he and I worked on for a couple of years. We spent months at Craig Welsch's Echobass Studio producing a CD, which came out incredibly, and then never did anything with it. "Shock and Awe Dub" is probably my favorite; I actually snipped a piece of it on the beginning of "Spy Drone" here. It starts with this drum thing. It's all me overdubbed over myself on drumset, congas, and talking drum, and then Rankin' just smashed it with the space echo pedal. On "Spy Drone" I duct taped bells to the front bass drum head and slung them over the ride cymbal to create that endless Santa-on-mushrooms vibe. Eliot played all the other parts. Love the ending... The recordings here are all about 5 years old. I’m a way better drummer than I was then, but I still love the tunes and what we did with them.
For a while there Toussaint and The China Band was the group I worked with most. We toured internationally, shared love, hate and hangovers, ate ribs in Honduras and sipped tequila at Guantanimo Bay (no, I'm actually not kidding about that). I think "Ooh Yeah" is one of the better recordings of my drumming. We actually played mostly reggae, but this tune just sort of happened on stage one night. I think I managed to channel a little Sunday morning spirit here. There’s more about us at myspace.com/toussaintandthechinaband.
West Cambridge All Stars is Miles Turner’s massive group of all Wesleyan folk. I take a nice big drum solo on the included MT original “Chicken for Life.” Nate Ash-Morgan’s Yak-Stars is also a Wesleyan group. Nate arranged a bunch of music influenced by his trip to Ghana for us. I play snare on the Ghanaian Marching Band piece and drumset on Alhaji, a song on which I take a fairly massive drum solo.
I’ve been in Dead Cat Bounce a whopping ten years! The recordings here are from our 2005 album “Home Speaks to the Wandering” and an unreleased album we recorded in the middle of the night in St. Louis in 2004. Matt Steckler, the group’s leader and the composer of all the music, does such a great job with the tunes; they’re inside and outside, serious and quirky, challenging yet fun to listen to: all the things music should be. The other full-timers in the group are all saxophonists: Matt, Charlie Kohlhase, Drew Sayers, and Jared Sims, each a seriously bad cat.
Carl Testa’s trio is another really great group in which I have the good fortune to take part. The tracks here are all from the soon to be released album “Uncertainty” which we recorded over two days at Firehouse 12 studios in New Haven, CT. Carl is has a brilliant ear for texture—I think the “A Little While” excerpt really speaks to that—and he does some great SuperCollider work on these tracks too. It’s pretty different stuff for me, and that’s great. You’d never guess by looking at this site, but at first I only wanted to play like Rashied Ali; I thought the free way was the only way! The tenorman is Jim Antonucci, another fine Southern CT Italian Yankee fan.
At Wesleyan I’ve been granted the distinct honor of leading the Wesleyan Steel Band for the past several years. I’m proud to say I’ve turned it from a ten person ensemble to a thirty person unit with chops and an attitude! Included here is the band performing my arrangement of the Sean Paul track We’ll Be Burning as well as Beethoven’s hit single Adagio Cantabile. Seriously though, the Beethoven piece represents some very hard work on the students’ part, as well as the first time I’ve ever conducted a group (and I’m delighted to say that I did it with a drumstick).
I was never a full member of the B3 Kings, but I subbed in quite often, and these tracks, which feature Paul Wolstencroft (organ), Johnny Trama (guitar), Timo Shanko (Tenor) and Sam Kinnenger (Alto) really have a great vibe.
Finally, back in the late 90s many of us were sure that The Miracle Orchestra was the band that was going to make us famous. Geoff Scott and I founded it together right out of high school, with the help of the ever able bassist Garrett Sayers. At first we had Colin Fisher and Jeremy Udden on trumpet and sax and Brian Sayers on percussion too, but within a year or so we were a quartet rounded out by Jared Sims on saxophones and electronics. There’s a hodge podge of MO here: Call it Nine and Bad Haircut are from the early years (recorded live at a basement party in Allston), and The Secret Life of Juan Valdez and Stonehendge are from our last tour, recorded live in Boulder, Colorado in 2001 (and released on the Lauan Records compilation “3 sets”). Though I left the group with a bitter taste, I’ve got to say that I love listening to these recordings. “Bad Haircut” has the indefatigable energy of 19 year old musicians and it sounds great too, and the two tracks from 2001 are so avant-garde and steeped in the drum n’ bass we were listening to that they make me proud as hell! I’ve come a LONG way on drums since then, but that stuff aint bad!
Haven't heard enough? Here's where there's more about me!
http://www.myspace.com/burustyle
http://www.myspace.com/miracleorchestra
http://www.myspace.com/themelvinsparksband
http://www.deadcatbounce.org
http://www.carltesta.com And I write for:
http://www.newhavenadvocate.com
http://www.hartfordadvocate.com
http://www.fairfieldweekly.com
http://www.jazz.com
and I'll have pieces coming out soon in:
Wax Poetics and Modern Drummer!
And, of course, I'm also on Facebook!
Hi, Bill. Always nice to find another CT musician. That Community Garden gig looked like a good time. I see that your MySpace player is blank . . . will you be posting any originals? Alan
Thank you very much for da Link Up & Sharing the Music
Nice to meet you through cyberlink!
Keep up da Great Work!
Wishes you All da Best in 2009!
Enjoy your Week
Greetings Massive…
Big Things Ah Gwaan this Saturday Night (August 1st) @ Harlow’s Pub in Peterborough, NH w/ Mighty Mystic, Stephen Thunder & Strings of Thunder Band, & Renegade Soundstation…
Mighty Mystic “Revolution”….
Stephen Thunder “The Law”….
www.myspace.com/mightymystic
<a href="http://www.myspace.com/stephenthunder
Founding member and former front man of John Brown’s Body Kevin Kinsella returns to Southern Cali August 1 to perform with Elijah Emmanuel and the Revelations. Come out and show some love!
A typical Kevin Kinsella set includes his new original reggae, 10 Ft. Ganja Plant music and classic JBB songs.
Dear myspace friend,
Here is our first spam message ever. We have released our first album!!
"Ouh La La!!" is the name and reggae is the game! Check us out!
The Ratz
Greetings Massive… People get ready to “Lift Up Your Head & Hold It Up High” this Saturday, May 9th …cause ya dun know the big man himself, EVERTON BLENDER, is gonna bless up the place straight from Clarendon, Jamaica….alongside Roots Legends Dis-N-Dat Band & special guests King-I (Trinidad & Tobago), Ras Indio (Belize) & Meru Matu (South Africa/California)…& conscious selections from OneSound…
Hey Bill! I'm looking to do the Ethno thang as well. Would love to chat a bit about your experience. Hit me up when you have a minute... wait do we ever get a minute as a parent???
Mighty Mystic “Revolution”….
Stephen Thunder “The Law”….
