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Rhys Chatham
Starting with Guitar Trio in the 1970s and culminating with A Crimson Grail for 200 electric guitars in 2009, Chatham has been working for over 30 years to make use of armies of electric guitars in special tunings to merge the extended-time music of the sixties and seventies with serious hard rock.
Parallel with his rock-influenced pieces, Chatham has been working with various brass configurations since 1982, and recently has developed a completely new approach to collaborations, improvised and compositional pieces involving trumpet through performances and recordings that started in 2009. Chatham's trumpet work deploys extended playing techniques inherited from the glory days the early New York minimalist and 70s loft jazz period. Starting in 2014, Rhys has been touring a solo program featuring an electric guitar in a Pythagorean tuning, Bb trumpet, and bass, alto and C flutes.
Rhys was introduced to electronic music and composition by Morton Subotnick in the late 60s, and in the early seventies he studied composition with La Monte Young and played in Tony Conrad's early group. These composers are, along with Terry Riley, the founders of American minimalism and were a profound influence on Chatham's work.
Chatham's instrumentation ranges from the seminal composition composed in 1977 entitled Guitar Trio for 3 electric guitars, electric bass and drums, to the epoch evening-length work for 100 electric guitars, An Angel Moves Too Fast to See, composed in 1989... all the way to Chatham's recent composition for 200 electric guitars, Crimson Grail, which was commissioned by the City of Paris for La Nuit Blanche Festival in 2005. A completely new version of the piece was commissioned by the Lincoln Center Outdoor Summer Festival in 2009.
What does a composer do after mounting many performances with forces of 100-200 electric guitars? The composer gets back to basics, at least that's what Rhys does! Along with the G100 and G3 programs, Chatham is currently offering a solo program, an evening length work with the composer performing himself on electric guitar, trumpets and bass alto and C flutes.
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Jazz this week: Peter Martin, Bobby Watson & Angela Hagenbach, Rhys Chatham, and more
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
This week's lineup of jazz and creative music performances in St. Louis includes a rare nightclub appearance by a favorite hometown pianist, several noteworthy touring performers, and a rather eclectic selection of tribute shows. Let's go to the highlights.... Wednesday, May 18 Pianist Peter Martin will lead his trio for the first of two nights at Jazz at the Bistro, the first time he's played the room since it was expanded and renovated in 2014. Martin will be joined by ...
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StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: The music of Rhys Chatham
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
Today, let's look at some videos featuring the music of Rhys Chatham, who's coming to St. Louis to perform a solo show on Sunday, May 22 at The Luminary. Chatham, who's 63 years old, is a composer, guitarist, and multi-instrumentalist who's been a notable figure in American avant-garde and minimalist music for nearly five decades. Living in France since 1987, he tours only occasionally in the United States, lending his gig here next week an additional sense of importance. A ...
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From the Stacks 2011, Vol. 3: Michel Reis, Pitom, Rhys Chatham, Ken Peplowski, Others
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Something Else!
by S. Victor Aaron Rhys Chatham: The Man With The Horns. Many, many horns. It might be only the third Stacks so far this year, but it's a much overdue one. There's a whopping seven 2011 releases discussed here, with several other worthy ones being pushed back to a later fourth installment. Two of these albums are by veteran acts, but the remaining five capture five budding talents at or near the beginning of their recording careers as leaders. Some ...
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Interview | Rhys Chatham
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Ars Nova Workshop
Rhys Chatham has played trumpet since the early-1980s but it’s still appropriate to recognize his new Brass Trio as a significant sea change. Known for organizing terrifyingly large ensembles with up to 400 guitarists, the pioneering composer who has found a common thread running through punk fury, minimalism, and avant-garde jazz displayed the strongest trumpet work of his career on last year’s stunning record The Berne Project. On February 13, Ars Nova Workshop presents the Philadelphia debut of the Rhys ...
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