11/28/07

Dave 'Fuze' Fiuczynski- Inner Jazz streaming video


I shot an interview with guitarist Dave 'Fuze' Fiuczynski at his Brooklyn apartment back in 1999. I've known Dave since we were both going to school back in Boston. He is one of the most disciplined, driven and innovative musicians on the scene today. I got the chance to play with him again when I was living in New York and was really impressed with what he was doing. He always about four of his own projects happening at any given time, as well as his sideman gigs.

In this show Dave talks about his involvement with micro-tonal, Middle Eastern and Indian music and gives demonstrations on his fret-less and his quarter-tone guitars. He also talks about how he has taken an indenpendant approach to marketing his music, his 'third-stream' approach, his recording projects, players he looks up to, his favorite painters, George Russell's Lydian Chromatic Concept, and his studys with George Garzone. You'll also get to hear Dave play some of his unconventional guitars. I posted a few minutes of this program a while back, but this is the entire 45 minute TV show. Scott Marshall's camera work here is fantastic.

Here is a biographical sketch from his website:

  • Fuze’s recordings are an experimental mix of tradition with modern sounds and rhythms, a melange of funk-rock jazz, ambient textural improvisations, world-music elements, metal, reggae, house, dub, drum&bass and other new grooves topped with Fuze's unique writing, extraordinary soundscapes and passionate soloing. In response to the less than supportive environment for his unusual and uncompromising music in the corporate recording industry, David started a record label, FuzeLicious Morsels, to release his own recordings, with a current catalog of nine CD’s and the live DVD. The first CD, “JazzPunk”, was released to great critical acclaim in 1999. A recording of standards and covers written by Fuze’s idols and mentors, each tune was reworked in Fuze’s distinctive musical combinations. His 2000 CD, “Amandala” by Headless Torsos, is an instrumental continuation of Screaming Headless Torsos. Other releases are “Black Cherry Acid Lab", a mixture of funk-rock, rap and punk with vocalist Ahmed Best and saxophonsist Mark Shim, and “KiF” a world-funk-jazz group featuring electric five-string cellist Rufus Cappadocia, both released in June 2003. Fuze will shortly be releasing another KiF CD, which will be a continuation of his interest in blending Eastern sounds with Western grooves; and a David Fiuczynski guitar instructional DVD. In addition to being a prolific writer, arranger and bandleader, David has recorded and performed with some of the highest profile jazz artists working today. Fuze has appeared on over 95 albums by other artists, toured extensively with many of them, and with his own and other groups, has been featured at most of the world’s major jazz festivals. A full list of David’s musical career highlights follows.
  • Fuze has been enthusiastically featured and/or reviewed by DownBeat, Jazz Times, JazzIz, Billboard, Musician, Guitar Player, Guitar World, GuitarShop, Guitar World, Guitar Magazine, Guitar One, allaboutjazz.com, Interview, Vibe, Pulse!, Bass Player, Modern Drummer, The New York Times,The Village Voice, Keyboard, Audio, College Music Journal and Audio Files in the US; Jazz Life, Guitar, Musee, Record Collectors, Jazz Times (Japan); Rytmi, Soundi (Finland); Muziq, Jazz Man, So What, Octopus, Vibrations (France); Gitarre&Bass, Jazzthetik, Jazz Thing (Germany); Chittare, Axe, Audio Review (Italy); Latin Pulse! (Latin America) Oor (Netherlands); Stage (Belgium); Jazz Quad (Belarus); Echoes, Jazz Wise, Top, Guitarist, Rhythm, "Q" Magazine (England) and over 100 other publications worldwide.
  • David was born in the United States and raised in Germany. He returned to the U. S. for college, and was awarded a Bachelor of Music degree from the New England Conservatory in 1989. He lives with his wife, vocalist and graphic artist Lian Amber, near Northampton, Massachusetts. In recognition of his unique artistry as an instrumentalist, writer and arranger, David is a past nominee for the Herb Alpert/Cal Arts "Genius" Award for outstanding musical achievement.
  • Fuze is an accomplished teacher, having taught for the past fifteen years, and is a full time faculty Professor at Berklee College of Music in Boston. David has developed his own teaching concept based on chord scale theory in jazz and especially non-jazz contexts. His emphasis is on improvised techniques and expanding creativity.


Photo: Sergio Cabanillas González


Dave 'Fuze' Fiucznski- Inner Jazz streaming video
Dave Fiuczynski's web site
Scott Marshall's (the cameraman for this shoot) Scene Media website

Black Cherry Acid Lab
Screaming Headless Torsos - Live!!! In New York & Paris

Choice Cuts of the Screaming Headless Torsos

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

David,
When I click on the link it says that the url is not found????....is this a problem on your end or my end?

David Carlos Valdez said...

Sorry, I thought I fixed that link already. Try it again.

I also added a lower quality video file for slower connections.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Dave. This will be great :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting this, it is great. You really have a lot of great stuff here man, it is very much appreciated. Thanks for the effort.

MonksDream said...

Hi David,

For some reason, I get a download, but no player coming up. Do you have to have a Mac to watch this movie?

MonksDream said...

I finally managed to watch it by "save target as..." I have to say that I always have trouble with these Quicktime movies, partly for lack of controls.

Enough whining from me. That was a fantastic video, in the way that Fuze explains and demonstrates a bunch of different concepts and approaches. I liked his breakdown of Dolphy's approach.

I also liked his idea of "pushing" melodies through the structure of a tune as a mode of escaping lick-based playing. I've tried this, but not with any regularity and have noticed that the tunes I've worked through this way tend to "open up," or reveal themselves to me.

I guess that any of us who watch this should probably send Fuze like $200n for the master class. It would certainly beat buying Kenny Werner's CD.

David Carlos Valdez said...

Install the Quick Time plug-in on your browser.

David Carlos Valdez said...

Look for more of these in the near future.

I shot quite a lot of these Inner Jazz programs before I left NYC in 2000. There are more performances, master classes and interviews to be edited.

Chris Mosley said...

awesome! can't wait to watch it.

Anonymous said...

excellent stuff david! thanks for posting this. i've been waiting for the full video!

thank you!

=)