I first got involved with music in 6th grade -- circa 1964, taking
violin lessons at Pine Tree Elementary School in Monroe, NY. I got my
first guitar two years later; a Gretsch Corvette (solid body). I
switched to drums briefly while in high school, but have mainly kept up
guitar, on and off, ever since. (I hasten to add that I would not
presume to say: "I've been playing guitar for 40+ years." Rather, I
would simply say that I have owned guitars, using them sporadically, for
over four decades.)
Over the years I've developed a deep interest in theory. Having picked up bits and pieces, I decided several years ago to sit down and organize what I know. The result was Exotic Scales, originally published by the now defunct Superior Books.
After completing
Exotic Scales,
I decided to experiment with the techniques propounded therein, and the
result was the CD Native Recipes (link in left menu bar). This
is an all instrumental album of original material written specifically
to utilize the various 'exotic' scales detailed in the book. Some of the
stuff is a bit rambling, but definitely interesting (IMHO).
A bit later, having concluded that my theoretical knowledge far
outflanked my performance skills, I set about to develop a methodology
for mastering some of these exotic scales in an improvisational setting.
The result of this effort was
Boxes
Beyond the Blues.
In 2006 I began volunteering at WJFF Radio Catskill (NPR), the award-winning Hydro-Powered community radio station in Jeffersonville, NY. Around the middle of 2007, they asked me to serve as Artistic Director, which basically entailed functioning as concert manager/coordinator for a series of live events funded by the Rockefeller Foundation's New York State Music Fund. In this capacity, I have had the good fortune to interact with some of the area's many talented musical acts, including They Might Be Giants, James Hunter, Roswell Rudd and Malicool, and a host of others (see WJFF's web site for a complete rundown of this exciting series).
Dealing with all these great performers, and catching their acts live, gave me the impetus to blow the dust off and get back into performing, which I hope to be doing again in early 2009. Just around the beginning of 2008, I began composing, arranging, and seriously getting my arthritic guitar chops back into shape.
Phase I entailed assembling sufficient material for a CD and a 90-minute live set, working up original arrangements, and so forth.
Phase II involved recording a demo of this material, the results of which are presented for your consideration in the link to the left, entitled "I'm The Guy". The strategy here is mainly to present a cognate picture of my musical sensibilities, tastes, vision, arranging and guitar skills, with which to hopefully engage the interest of some local musicians of similar tastes.
Phase III, which is ongoing, entails actually learning all those lead and rhythm guitar parts. In the interest of expedience, I recorded the guitar parts for the CD piecemeal, working out the parts "on paper", figuring out the positions and creating tablature, then recording them, often phrase by phrase, using Cakewalk Sonar 7 as a kind of teleprompter. I'm figuring it will take me another six months or so to reach the point where I could actually stand up in front of an audience and play these songs all the way through without the benefit of written cues.
Phase IV, which will hopefully run in parallel with Phase III, will consist of actually hooking up with live musicians in the area and getting the the point where we can actually perform this material live. (I'm very much hoping that at least one of these will be a competent vocalist, which I most assuredly am not!)
My aim is to put together a band consisting of myself (guitar), a piano, an organ, a bass, and a drummer, and all of the material I've developed has been arranged for this configuration. If need be, I'll also include a vocalist. So, if you're a musician in the Northeastern Pennsylvania or Catskill region, and think you might be interested, please drop me an email joe @ befumo.com (remove the spaces, which are inserted to prevent web crawlers from harvesting my address for use by insidious spammers.)
In developing my arrangements, I've taken my best shot at writing parts for piano, organ, drums, and bass, and fully expect that any musicians who might be interested in collaborating on this project will bring their own contributions to the table. That said, this assemblage of material definitely represents my vision, so it's unlikely that I would be interested in straying substantially from this vision, at least in the beginning. Where we go from there, well, who knows?