David Hotep Middleton

From North America's west coast to the east, across Western and Eastern Europe, thru the Tuvan steppes of Siberian Mongolia to the Fuji Mountains of Japan, D.mHotep has traveled across the northern hemisphere [and into Brazil] for the past decade: observing, hearing, performing, and learning music of the human earth.

After picking up the guitar rather late in high school, and then leaving behind a career in architectural design, intense self- initiative and excellent private teachers such as Curtis Harmon Sr., Steve Giordano, Myrtle Young, Robert Kenyatta, Marshall Allen, and [Dennis Sandole students] Glenn Wallace and Pat Martino have helped to hone his jazz/music theory and guitar performance skills.

In his first professional experience, he functioned as an integral member of the legendary DJ Tat Money's Halfro Productions team – playing both bass and guitar, contracting musicians, and even appearing in an MTV/BET broadcasted video with the hip-hop group EBS — one of the acts produced by the company.

In the early 1990s, he co-founded the music ensemble JazGuardian with Philadelphia drummer Kimpedro. JazGuardian performed at innumerable public, private, corporate, and political events in and around the Philadelphia/tri-state area for nearly 20 years.

Also during the 1990s, he was a participating artist in the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts' workshops, retreats, and Artists in Residence Program, alongside Mr. Kenyatta; and he has performed many concerts for Artreach, Inc., as a member of an ensemble led by bassist Sharif Abdullah. He has performed and taught with the Philadelphia Jazz Composers' Forum, which was organized and led by Philadelphia vibraphonists Khan Jamal and the late Barry Schuck. Under that nonprofit organization’s supervision, he organized and ran the Program of Jazz for Seniors in conjunction with the Mayor's Commission on Services to the Aging. He has both performed with and written big band arrangements for the Community College of Phila. Big Band, as directed by Dr. George Allen.

Since 2000, he has been musically trained and mentored within the school of master musicians of the Sun Ra Arkestra — Marshall Allen, Charles Davis, Knoel Scott, Michael Ray & others. During that time, has internationally toured and recorded as a member of the Sun Ra Arkestra, under the direction of Marshall Allen. He was an integral member of the Afro-Caribbean percussion ensemble La Tumba, led by one of Philadelphia’s few master percussionists Robert Kenyatta, (with whom he's worked with since the early days of JazGuardian). For LA Tumba he arraigned, co- wrote, performed, recorded and mixed the CD Kenyatta’s Dance: A Tribute To Mom And Dad.

He has also written, recorded, and performed with the folkloric- percussion/avant garde ensemble Sonic Liberation Front (led by percussionist Kevin Diehl) — first appearing on their CD Jetpack #1. He has performed with South African multi-instrumental griot Mogauwane Mahloele’s trio collaboration Tharo, alongside Philadelphia saxophonist Bobby Zankel.

Internationally, he has played alongside many seminal Arkestra members and others such as guitarist Wayne Krantz of MC5, poet John Sinclair, Bernie Worrell, DJ Spooky, (Standing in the Shadow of Motown writer & producer) Alan Slutsky, violinist Billy Bang, multi-instrumentalist Kali Fasteau, Tuvan throat-singing ensemble Alash, and legendary Tuvan musician Kongar-ol Ondar – co-star of the award winning documentary Genghis Blues.

DmHotep has spent over 30 years growing as a sound artist in Philadelphia's fertile ground of world renown musicians, performing with many influential instrumentalists, as noted above, and also including: Byard Lancaster, Raymond King, the New African Griots, Tyrone Hill’s Deep Space Posse, and Elliott Levin.

During the last few years, he has ventured into experimental audio/video projects with German visual artists Goertz Rogge and Gabriele Worgitzki. In 2008, he was commissioned to transcribe and orchestrate an arrangement of Sun Ra's improvised freejazz performance "Outer Nothingness" for the Cologne,Germany based ensemble for contemporary music: musikFabrik Landesensemble NRW e.V. He has also written big band arraignments of Sun Ra material for Denver University’s jazz music program, under the direction of Dr. Ron Myles.

He continues to explore the possibilities of untempered and electronic/laptop music with his own Akimbo Research Projects, recently experimenting with through-composed and free-improvised performances based on the sonification of pitch-sets derived from elemental particles. Show less