Text by Marco Lienhard/Taikoza
About this project
We are excited at the project of recording a new CD of Taikoza‘s new pieces. We have been performing our new repertoire but we do not have the songs recorded yet. We hope that, with your help, we will be able to finally make this new CD. We have the opportunity to use a 6-foot long Taiko drum but could not find a space to record it. We finally found the Studio in New York that has doors big enough to fit it in.
Text by Matt Lavelle
My journey to deliver an alto saxophone to Giuseppi Logan began on my lunch break. I caught my breath from the hazardous selling floor and quietly made my exit towards Herald Square. I waded through the river of tourist consumer zombies. Three of them blew smoke in my face with their usual haughty vibe. Do you addicts even know how pernicious you are? I made my way up to John Baltimore Music on 46th street. John is one of the last men standing from the purge of the fabled Music Row at 48th street. When I arrived at his showroom of hornucopia, I was immediately greeted with a hug. John and I have history. Somehow we ended up talking about Miles son Gregory, and John told me a quick story.
Miles bought a brand new Red Ferrari at one point, right before he hit Europe for a tour. He left with explicit orders to Gregory that he would not touch the car. After Miles had left, Gregory took the car all over Canada. Afterward, Gregory was at Rod Baltimore’s shop. Rod was John’s Dad, and the king of music row at the time. Miles called Rod and said he had a trumpet emergency and was flying back to New York to fix it. Gregory heard the call and ran home to clean up the car. He thought he was in the clear until Miles looked for two-quarters that he had taped to the top of the front right tire. When Miles saw the missing quarters, he knew that Gregory disobeyed him, and he threw him out of the house.
Text by Richard Bennett
George Barba Yiorgi first appeared on the New York music scene as co-leader of the wildly successful Greek-rock band Annabouboula. When the group disbanded in 1994, he mysteriously disappeared for around twenty years. Rumours abounded; the most credible being that he was working as a merchant marine based out of Piraeus Greece. Barba Yiorgi reappeared in NYC in 2014, leading two groups, The ByzanTones (surf-rock) and Dervisi, a rembetika trio in which he sings and plays the tzouras, which is a thin string instrument related to the bouzouki.
Dervisi on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/barba-yiorgi/sets/dervisi-live-2014-3-songs
Text by Constance Cooper
Amidst snowstorm forecasts last February, a friend of mine was driving off for the President’s Day Weekend amateur string-quartet-playing fest, which is an annual reunion of devotees of the summer Chamber Music Conference at Bennington College.
The only concern my friend expressed about snow conditions was whether the people responsible for bringing all the string-quartet parts would be able to get there.
I thought, fine if they don’t! How wonderful it would be to improvise all weekend, night and day!
Text by Matt Lavelle
Photo and video courtesy of Matt Lavelle and YouTube
The last we heard from Brother G he was still holding court in Tompkins Square Park with a tenor and a small batch of CD’s to sell. 9:30 every morning, like clockwork. Rain or shine, G was almost always at his post on the northwest corner. This last winter slowed him down though. Even the cockroaches, rats, and sky-rats were M.I.A. Despite my time crunch; I had lined up three concerts for him to play, two out of state, and one with bass player Eric Revis. Then G fell again and re-injured his hip. When he ended up back in the hospital, the state decided that G was no longer in control of his life, and they took over. G was dispatched out to Far Rockaway Queens, at the end of the A-train line. It took me a minute to track down Giuseppi Logan since I’m not a blood relative, but soon enough I learned he was on the fourth floor, and that he was in stable condition. Lawrence Nursing Home is a God-send, straight up. A place for folks who have reached the twilight alone, with no support system. Incredible stories and a few tragedies reside there. The folks at this home are all survivors. At some point, everybody has to come in from the cold.
