time changes by blood drum spirit

PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Time Changes double CD release by Blood Drum Spirit February 1, 2019
Contact: royal hartigan, 508.993.2580, royaljhartigan@gmail.com; www.blooddrumspirit.com Featuring: David Bindman, tenor and soprano saxophones, Wes Brown, contrabass, royal
hartigan, drums, Art Hirahara, piano
On February 1, 2019, the jazz quartet Blood Drum Spirit, led by drummer royal hartigan, unveils its double CD, Time Changes. The quartet’s third double CD – the previous, BDS Live in China, was released in 2008 – coincides with the debut of the group’s award-winning documentary film We Are One: Blood Drum Spirit.
Incorporating specific aspects of world music traditions, including Indian modes and time cycles, Chinese melodies, Native American song, and West African rhythms and melodies into original compositions, the group’s members have created a body of work and performance style that both draws on tradition and yet is on the exploratory edge of 21st century music.
Time Changes exemplifies the group’s dedication to live performance interactions. Several of the album’s tracks incorporate West African rhythms and instruments, while others include originals by the group’s members, free improvisations, and new interpretations of jazz classics. Multi-sectional suites highlight the soloists, with dramatic shifts in rhythm and harmonic movement; free improvisations create abstract textures; time and its many permutations are explored throughout.
Bassist Wes Brown, saxophonist David Bindman, and hartigan met at Wesleyan University in the early 1980s. Pianist Art Hirahara joined the group in 2003. Together and individually the quartet’s members have performed and conducted educational workshops around the world.
We Are One: Blood Drum Spirit, directed by Sara Pettinella, documents the group’s decades-long journey, beginning with royal, Wes, and David studying and working with Ghanaian teachers in the USA, continuing with royal’s studies in Ghana over many years, and finally the group traveling to the same villages where royal learned many of the rhythms and songs that he had brought home for the quartet to arrange and perform. The film shows the deep historical and aesthetic connections between jazz and West African music, and by extension, with the peoples of the world. In 2017, the US State Department brought the ensemble back to Ghana to screen the film at universities and performance venues throughout the country.
Blood Drum Spirit draws on the spirits of ancestors, on traditions passed along by teachers, and on members’ experiences across jazz’s eras and genres. The group’s name describes its mission: blood, the heart and connection we all share through the ancestors; drum, the metaphorical heartbeat/rhythm felt by all musicians, physical/psychological existence of the universe, and all people (‘if you can walk, you can dance...’ an African proverb); and spirit, transcendence toward something larger than ourselves.
Distribution: CDs and downloads will be available from CD Baby, Amazon, Bandcamp, and iTunes.

Blood Drum Spirit Bios
David Bindman is a saxophonist, composer, and bandleader living in Brooklyn, NY. He has performed and recorded with Wadada Leo Smith, Talking Drums, Kevin Norton, Ehran Elisha, Anthony Braxton, Adam Lane, blood drum spirit, and many others. He collaborated with poet Tyrone Henderson and visual artist Quimetta Perle on the multi-media pieces The Madman and Strawman Dance (Konnex CD 1994), and co-led the Brooklyn Sax Quartet with Fred Ho for a decade, recording The Way of the Saxophone (Innova, 2001) and Far Side of Here (Omnitone, 2005). His two self-released sextet recordings, Sunset Park Polyphony (2012) and Ten Billion Versions of Reality (2017) have received wide critical praise. He is currently collaborating with visual artist Malin Abrahamsson on “The Dream Space Continuum,” a work involving music and abstract animation.
Wes Brown is a bassist, flutist, pianist, composer, drummer, and dancer who has toured the world with many groups, including the legendary pianist Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines, Talking Drums, Anthony Braxton, and the Black Rebels reggae ensemble. His musical experience includes Jazz, Afro-pop, highlife, reggae, blues, and gospel styles. Wes has appeared on dozens of recordings with various artists, and for years taught contrabass and directed the Gospel Choir at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. A long-time member of blood drum spirit ensemble, in recent years Wes has traveled with the ensemble to Asia and West Africa presenting examples from his own musical background, learning about local traditions, and sharing human connections.
royal hartigan began tap dancing at 3 years old and then played piano and drums. An early meeting with Duke Ellington was inspirational. Returning from working in the Philippines in the Peace Corps, royal studied with Max Roach and Archie Shepp at UMass. At Wesleyan University he studied drum set with Ed Blackwell, and immersed himself in Javanese gamelan, Indian time cycles and rhythms, and West African drumming, dance and song. He travels to Ghana, West Africa, each year to learn and perform traditional drumming and dance, relating them to the African American jazz tradition. A Fulbright scholar to the Philippines (2006) and Ghana (2014- 15), his works include four books and DVD on African and world music for drum set, four double CDs with his blood drum spirit ensemble, and over forty CDs with Fred Ho's ensembles and other artists on the creative music scene.
Art Hirahara is a jazz pianist/composer, originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, now residing in New York City. He received his Master of Fine Arts degree in jazz piano performance at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA, and a Bachelor of Music degree in Electronic and Computer Music from the Oberlin College Conservatory in Oberlin, OH. In 1996 he was selected by the U.S. Information Agency to serve as a "Jazz Ambassador" on a seven-week tour in Qatar, Yemen, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, where he performed, lectured and conducted workshops with local musicians. Art performs across the globe with many leading jazz soloists and ensembles. His recent album Central Line has received excellent reviews in Downbeat Magazine and the New York Times.