To the Ladies, Gentlemen and Others of the Krantz Official, Occasional Mailing List:
Thank you for your interest in whatever of our music related goings-on are possible in these unforgiving times.
The waynekrantz.com-produced HUMANOME app has been released into the wilds of Apple and Google’s overbearing online monopolizations of electronic entertainment and learning, the App Store and Google Play. For information about what we believe is a unique take on what it is to be a metronome in a non-metronomic world, please see our blurb HERE and our highly lauded, sought-after, state-of-the-art, much-hyphenated promotional video, HERE. At $2.99, it’s almost cheaper to have HUMANOME than not, so if you’re looking for a fun, revolutionary way to work on your groove, practically and metaphorically, save yourself some money and buy it for your iPhone/Android or iPad, today! All the cool people are doing it.
waynekrantz.com’s de facto current HQ, the Patreon site, has been a welcome focal point for the staff both here and abroad since March. Currently filming video #133 and boasting an inspiring bunch of regular and irregular commentators and inquisitors of all stripes, the page continues to exceed expectations on many if not all fronts. The daily videos, ranging from 10-30 minutes in length, have provided something of a touchstone in the forbidding desert of pandemia we’ve all been wandering – if only in our imaginations – these many months. For all curious or interested, monthly members choose to pay either $10 or $20, both tiers receiving exactly the same content: interaction, community, artistic focus, lots of talking, some playing, recording posts, score posts and more. Anyone interested in such things is welcome, no instrument required. For a recent example, see HERE. It continues to be a good thing and we’re grateful for its existence, may it continue.
Some recent additions to WK’s BANDCAMP page, GREENWICH MEAN and the scores to LONG TO BE LOOSE, round out the archive of most of the officially released stuff WK has produced since 1991. Any remaining straggler works will be added there soon, so until further notice, Bandcamp is the best source for all desired WK merch. Thank you!
Due to an assessment of the cultural impact FB is currently having on the world, we’ve asked the kind people at abstractlogix.com to delete the page they were sponsoring for us on that platform. We regret the loss of the forum there, and also the convenience of announcement it afforded. But things being what they are, we felt we had no choice. Thank you for your understanding.
We hope that at some point in the not too, too distant future, this Official, Occasional mailer will include news of upcoming shows. Not performing has been a very odd and uncomfortable situation for us and many others. When this is “over,” we hope to party like it’s 2021.
Cheers!
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14 June, 2018
To the Ladies, Gentlemen and Others of the Krantz Official, Occasional Mailing List: The time has come – our periodic notice of music-related news follows. First, the trio thing has continued more or less unabated on Thursdays at 55Bar in NYC. We’re taking July and August off but will resume in September. Have had some great nights so far in ’18 with the likes of Almond, Carlock, Dion, Fig, Genus, Hawkins, Hoenig, League, Le Fleming, Marien, Perowsky, Scherr, Scott, Wollesen & Wood. May it all somehow continue. Second, people of MONTREAL, CANADA and its environs: we’re playing the Festival up there on Thursday, June 28th @ Upstairs (1254 Mackay). Yes, naturally there will be more popular, more famous people playing there at exactly the same time we are, in nicer venues. But consider this: you’ll be able to see all of them playing the festival every year, more or less, for the rest of your lives! Whereas we, on the other hand, will likely never be there again. Or at least not for a really long time. So you decide. 2 Shows: 7 & 9:45 tix: 514 931 6808 Third, people of BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA and its environs: we’re playing at BeBop on July 5th and July 12th, two Thursday nights in one of our favorite cities, w/ Mendez/Verdinelli y Varela/Sainz. Ven a escucharnos tocar y reírnos en mi español. Fourth, people of BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS and its environs: we’ll be at the BPC on Wednesday, August 15th. Haven’t played there in years. Saw Weather Report there once when we were in college; loved it, maybe you will too. And it’s cheap! Not sure when this will get to Boston again… 1 Show: 7:30PM tix: berklee.edu/bpc or box office … PLUS, in all likelihood there will be an ultra-secret (it’s on the website) show at the 55Bar in NYC the following night – the 16th – should you be in that hood.
Fifth, people of LONDON, ENGLAND and its environs: we’ll be at Ronnie’s on September 12&13 . . . what can we say? Our UK home away from home, our 55Bar East (with tablecloths). First time we played there we subbed for Woody Herman’s Thundering Herd; you can imagine how that went over. But it’s steadily improved and it’s always a lovely time, hope you can make this one. Tix: ronniescotts.co.uk
Sixth, for anyone interested, there’s a second edition of the Improviser’s OS coming out in the Fall. It was time to print more, we realized we had a bit more to say, so we figured – why not? Check waynekrantz.com or abstractlogix.com for updates. Seventh, doing some writing, finally. Recording in the Fall, looks like. THAT IS ALL! Thank you, |
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Date: 28 Sep, 2016
To the Ladies, Gentlemen and Others of the Krantz Official, Occasional Mailing List:
The time has come.
Typically, at the outset of any previous Krantz tour, you will have received a plaintive message from HQ. Whatever the guise, the content of that message is, unvaryingly, the same:
“Please show up.”
As we now send it again, know that we do not ask this of you lightly. We do not take your participation for granted in any way. We know what’s involved with getting to a show! It takes time. It takes energy. It takes money and in some cases, gasoline. Food, sometimes. Getting dressed. Standing up. Sitting down. Standing, again. Potentially being tired the next day. And perhaps most significantly: it requires subjecting oneself to another’s reality for a short period of time.
That can be a daunting prospect.
We also realize you may not know much about our music and what it offers. You might assume it’s just another one of those shows where people play their instruments really well, and missing that kind of show isn’t really a very big deal, is it?
No, honestly. These days? No. And we know that. So we wouldn’t even BOTHER touring if that were the case! We’d just continue packing the joint at 55 Bar in NYC every Thursday and call it a career.
“Art and Soul Music,” that’s our thing. We do happen to play our instruments pretty well, but only because we have to, to pull it off right – to get to the real stuff, the stuff underneath the day-to-day grinding accomplishments of familiarity and forgone conclusions; to get to the deep stuff, the rhythm-of-the-soul stuff, the states of particulate consciousness and re-estimation of identity, time and place – the stuff that actually matters: creation, unfolding in real-time right in front of you, raw, beautiful, funny, ugly, transcendant, organic, ALIVE!
We also play covers.
The other thing we’re aware of is that we’re not very famous! We know it’s more fun to show up to see and hear famous people. It makes sense. But know this: we didn’t even ask Paul McCartney or Ringo Starr to be involved in this. Why not? Because we actually do a better job of it ourselves. We’ve been developing our music in various incarnations for 20 years. We’re irreplaceable, even by those vastly more high-profile than we are.
So we beg your kind indulgence on that score.
Have you seen our tour video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egt-z9SCt-A
Have you seen our tour schedule (European dates still to come)?
http://www.waynekrantz.com/?page_id=820
Have you seen our most recent record?
http://www.waynekrantz.com/?albums=good-piranha-bad-piranha-2
WK & 2x(salvation): Zach Danziger / Nate Wood : Oct 4-9, Oct 25-Nov 28
WK & Star Truck: Zach Danziger / Kevin Scott : Oct 12-23
The likes of which won’t be seen again for some time.
Thank you,
Good Piranha / Bad Piranha
Wayne Krantz, Keith Carlock, Tim Lefebvre, Nate Wood, Gabriela Anders
Known globally for his uncompromising musical vision, staggering virtuosity and deep reserves of soul, Wayne Krantz is one of very few modern guitarists to venture beyond the instrument’s limitations and create an identifiably original style and sound. Good Piranha/Bad Piranha is his full-throttle double-take on four contemporary pop and hip-hop songs, from which he plunders the textural, rhythmic and harmonic intrigue that has come to define each of his unique projects.
Following 2012’s critically acclaimed Howie 61—a record packed with cleverly arranged, hard-hitting original songs and a small army of masterful sidemen—Krantz has scaled back the setting and material for his tenth outing as a leader. Good Piranha/Bad Piranha finds his trio in the studio revisiting a selection of cover tunes they performed during legendary recent appearances at the 55 Bar in Greenwich Village.
Presenting two distinct versions each of Pendulum’s “Comprachicos,” M.C. Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This,” Ice Cube’s “My Skin is My Sin” and Radiohead vocalist Thom Yorke’s “Black Swan,” Krantz extracts and serves up a surprising range of nuance by switching up musicians and applying his inimitable instrumental inventiveness. Each song’s multiple takes allow the group(s) to reimagine the material from unexpected angles, making use of subtle rhythmic and melodic shifts to frame a dazzling display of the guitarist’s revered melodic and chordal innovations; he intertwines his stark, elastic tones with the familiar tunes’ snaky rhythmic skeletons and insistent basslines to create wholly new works.
Joining Krantz on Good Piranha/Bad Piranha are his longtime trio mates Keith Carlock (Steely Dan, Sting) on drums and Tim Lefebvre (Tedeschi Trucks Band) on bass. Recent cohort Nate Wood (Kneebody) reprises his chameleonic role in Krantz’ touring band, appearing here on bass for the first versions of the four tunes and then on drums for the second. The material is enhanced by occasional vocal interjections courtesy Gabriela Anders.
Since the late ’80s Wayne Krantz has been revered as one of the world’s great guitarists, working alongside such rock legends as Steely Dan (both as a bandmember and later on solo projects by Donald Fagen), jazz saxophonists Michael Brecker, Chris Potter and David Binney, composer Carla Bley and drum icon Billy Cobham. In addition to his influential studio albums as a leader, Krantz has released several recordings of his celebrated live trio performances, which have become major concert draws worldwide for fans of powerfully adventurous improvised music.
