Richmond Magazine's Eighth Annual Theresa Pollock Prizes for Excellence in the Arts
Ensemble Catagory
Hotel X
Finding for X
by Harry Kollatz
The selectors said: Hotel X, Richmond, Va.'s 10-member World Jazz Collective, makes an irresistibly joyful African-based sound. Featuring the lyrical trombone of Dave Brogan and the tenor saxophone stylings of "Instrument Of Mass Instruction" Danny Finney (supported by a cast of drums, congas, bass, dual guitars, keyboards, alto sax and bass clarinet), this multigenerational ensemble lays down a foot-stomping rhythmic groove, and their rich melodies dance all over it. This is music for the mind, booty and spirit, and the enthusiasm of its presentation is truly contagious.
The film-noir-style name of this Afro -jazz world music organization is derived from the nickname given to 809 Idlewood Ave. For more than 20 years, musicians lived and bands formed there.
Co-founder Ron Curry remarks, "Its been a remarkably prophetic name-some have stayed [with the band] for a night, others for years."
With a laugh, co-founder Tim Harding adds, "Two checked in and didn't check out."
They estimate that since its 1992 inception in 809's basement, there have been about 60 members of Hotel X. The current roster of 10 includes, Harding says, "the two known genders, all shapes and sizes and colors and hues."
Two weeks after its formation, the ad hoc band (with a name borrowed from another band that had stopped gigging) sent a tape of improvised tunes recorded on a cheap boombox to Greg Ginn of SST Records. Harding remembers, "A few days later, he called us back and said, 'I want to record you guys.'"
Hotel X made six recordings between 1992 and 1996 for SST, a label founded by members of punk icons Black Flag, which was expanding its offerings. A seventh record was almost completed before SST folded; thus the band has tapes in the vault.
Curry, from Front Royal, Va., and Harding, from Williamsburg arrived in Richmond to attend VCU during the 1980's, Curry to study art, Harding as a physics and music double major. They instead graduated into music making.
Over the years the band has played with a diverse group of performers ranging from "free jazz" flutist and saxophonist Byard Lancaster to former Ornette Coleman guitarist Bern Nix. Their music is influenced by African by way of Africa, via the Caribbean, and through the interpretations of the members, including some 60 original compositions by Harding.
"Much of the great material that goes back to Africa is amazing because it is embracing the joy of life," he says. "Despite what horrible things may be happening politlcally, this is endlessly rich music because it doesnt deny the struggle it is to live in some of these countries, and because it embraces the complicated beauty in life, and in music."
| Article from Richmond Magazine September 2005 |
Article from Style Weekly 8-10-05 Richmond Va.
Free-form world-beat jazz group Hotel X has aged well.
by Peter McElhinney
At 9:30 p.m. a quorum of Hotel X members are stuffed onto the shoebox stage at Bogart’s Back Room. While they wait for a couple of key players, they burn time with an anarchic, propulsive jam. Flights of impassioned soloing are swept along with a thundering cascade of percussion. This early in the evening, the room is more than half empty and the big beat a bit repetitive, but the group’s joy in unified creativity is completely disarming. This latest 10-member incarnation of the venerable Richmond band is perhaps its most accessible. Longtime advocates of the difficult-listening school of jazz, they haven’t abandoned their spiky avant-garde affinities. They’ve merely set them in a more engaging rhythmic context.
“It’s such an incredibly diverse group of people; there’s a 40-year age difference between the oldest and youngest,” band co-founder Tim Harding says. “Finding that middle ground that offers individuality and opportunity for everyone is wonderfully fun and a neat challenge.”
Hotel X came together in 1992, crystallizing around bass duets between Harding and co-founder Ron Curry. Drummer Jim Thompson joined in the first day. Since then, more than 50 players have moved through the ever-evolving lineup. The band has released seven CDs. And this month it will receive a Theresa Pollak Prize by Richmond Magazine for excellence in the arts.
Harding speaks as he plays, in a cheerful torrent of eclectic knowledge and free association. “It’s the bane of the Eurocentric experience to explain everything away,” he says, proceeding to triangulate his band’s approach with references to everyone from Satchmo to Schopenhauer, from Nigerian Fela Kuti to ’70s Scottish soul rockers The Average White Band.
Six of the band’s recordings were on the seminal punk label SST, but whereas “punk/jazz” bands like the Lounge Lizards tended toward wiseass irony, Hotel X was a true believer. Its hero was the controversial innovator Ornette Coleman, whose “harmolodic” approach rejected established musical convention and whose ’70s-’90s band, Prime Time, was the gold standard in free-funk improvisation.
Curry sees his band’s late-’90s movement into world music as a logical progression. “A lot of the sensibility, the naturalness, is the same as Prime Time,” he says. “Of course we used to have more complex arrangements. Now we are more focused on the groove.”
Simplicity is not simple-mindedness. Hotel X’s central inspiration is African music, a virtually bottomless well of polyrhythmic sophistication and folk universality. If earlier incarnations of the band reveled in raw intensity, disdaining bourgeois notions of technique and tone, the new music, while retaining the churning undercurrents, has a less jagged surface.
Onstage at Bogart’s — the room now full and the full band assembled — the appeal is obvious. The arrangements are tight but not constricting. And the occasional tart bits of abstract expressionism are blended with an almost conventional sweetness.
People are even starting to dance. “This big band has gained a momentum of its own,” Curry says. “It speaks to people in a way that a quartet cannot.”
“As we get older, we appreciate age more,” Harding says. “Our culture loves the explosive nature of youthful vibrancy, the dazzle, glimmer and glitz. But youth is fleeting and ill-informed. When you are 20, it is all gut — action and reaction. When you’re 70, the subtlest gesture can speak worlds.”
Hotel X’s movement from soaring, youthful iconoclasm to seasoned respect for the depths of traditions isn’t really a new story. Then again, the best stories are seldom really new.
African Excursions In A Sleepy Town
February 2006
Both players have been fixtures on the Richmond music scene since the early 80s. Harding has played in several other bands, including Always August, the Office Ladies, New Loft, and the 4 Story Sax Quartet (the latter two also including original Hotel X sax player Jimmy Ghaphery), while Curry has been in a multitude of bands, including the Snakehandlers (with original Hotel X drummer Jim Thomson), GWAR, and the High Tone String Ticklers. Curry's most recent project was producing last year's critically acclaimed anthology VIRGINIA ROOTS. Hotel X has recorded and collaborated with Greg Ginn (Black Flag), Joe Baiza (Saccharine Trust), and Bern Nix (Ornette Coleman). HYMNS FOR CHILDREN, their first CD in seven years, was just released in June. The album is an upbeat collection of soul-jazz flavored by African, Caribbean, and Brazilian rhythms and melodic elements. I got together with Tim and Ron over beer and Chinese food to talk about their new release.
9x: So HYMNS FOR CHILDREN is your second release on Respite Records. Why that title?
RC: On the wall of our drummer's home studio is an album cover. It looks like it's maybe a 60s or 70s Christian record, with this sad-looking illustration of a little girl praying, and the title of the record is HYMNS FOR CHILDREN. It struck us as a good one.
TH: The title resonates very well with [our current music]. A lot of it is simplified. That's really an essential part of, at least currently, where the compositions come from. It's often a single place which serves as an easy common ground to launch improvisations from, just to set a tone, to set a mood.
RC: The hallmark of our later SST records was really some of this insane, over-the-top, harmolodic-sounding, very electric, busy, busy interplay. And this record has none of that going on.
9x: This is a new direction for you, more blatantly African, not just in the choice of cover tunes but in the whole feel.
TH: Yeah. In many respects, it's reflective of a lot that's gone on in for the last five years for us. Some of the stripping down to essentials feels very right, and now that this group has taken on a fairly large number of folks...
RC: It's the biggest regular band we've ever had.
TH: ...it's more about simplicity: fleshing out ideas, trying to be creative, to make something happen. When you've got seven people (at least), then having simple melodic ideas and having at least some people on the same page has served us well and has still stayed the course of the notion of avant-groove that was the thing at the beginning with two basses.
RC: It's still very bass-driven music. I sent one of the rough mixes to a guy in Hawaii I've corresponded with, and he's like, why does every song start with the bass? And I hadn't thought about that, but he's right. Even on one tune, "Bare Feet," it starts with a guitar but it sounds like a bass line being played. That's sort of the core of a lot of this stuff. No matter what plays the melody, it's still bass-driven music. But I don't play electric bass any more. This is my debut on acoustic bass, and that gives it a real different feel.
TH: So many of the songs are even conceived from the bass. I think understanding the role of the bass, (where it is this lynchpin between rhythm and melody--it defines harmony, it creates groove out of rhythm) is so essential to what we like about what we do musically.
9x: Why don't you run through all the other current members of the band?
RC: This lineup began as a trio. Jeff Morris, on percussion and hand drums, has really hung with the program for a long time. He brought in his friend Javier Ramos to play guitar and keyboards, although he's only on guitar on this record, and we played as a quartet for ages. When we met Lance [Koehler, drums] it was a match made in heaven, and Lance has been with us ever since.
RC: This guy Kelly Strawbridge came into one of our rehearsals, and he played keyboards. There was a Fender Rhodes there, and that was just magic.
TH: We didn't find out until recently that he's basically just a drummer! He says he's just an offhand keyboard player, but all you gotta do is listen to him to see there's nothing offhand about him; he's really a dynamite player.
RC: The sound of the Fender Rhodes harkens to some of my favorite recordings.
TH: The way he used it is percussive, because he is a drummer. He's got great sense of time, and works the grooves really hard. Our friend Dave Brogan [trombone] came in after a gig with the Joyful Noise Big Band. This group in general has left freedom for everybody to bring whatever they wish to the situation, and if they continue to find something fun and nourishing, they keep coming back.
9x: Is it safe to say you're more well-known outside of Richmond than in Richmond?
TH: Uh-huh. Our shows in California, and even in New York City, were always better attended, with a larger sort of buzz, but also a better understanding...
RC: We'd even go somewhere like Cleveland, and these folks were right on the same page with us.
9x: Do you think that's not true here? What is it about Richmond?
RC: This is a very strange town, musically.
9x: It's not like there hasn't been exposure.
RC: It's not much of a jazz town; it's not much of a town for really adventurous music to be nurtured.
TH: You can nurture it, but people won't necessarily care!
9x: You can nurture it until it grows up and goes away...
TH: ...enough to sow seeds elsewhere.
RC: The town is sleepy enough that you can make stuff happen despite the scene.
TH: Part of it, it's a funny town, it's certainly shot itself in the foot a lot. There are people here who will be appreciative, but you have to go to extraordinary extents to try to illuminate them.
RC: There's some amazing, totally world-class stuff that's happened here, but most folks have missed it.
TH: One thing that's important to us is that we continue to try to allow for [the music being] unrefined, and you allow for that, you're comfortable with it. To let it be flawed, to let it be very genuine and real, may be as important an element to allow for these days as anything. It's sad to say, but you almost have to inject genuineness! But instead of feeling like it's been though a million hands, and that's it all been burnished and polished into this fine crystal, it's letting it be whatever it was, and letting you get the sense of being in a room with people trying to make something happen that feels good to them, and therefore will feel good to you.
RC: The New York downtown scene that a lot of players we love came out of, spearheaded by John Zorn and that whole school--all I gotta do is hear a few seconds of it, and I know where it's from, it has a signature sound, and it's wonderful. But it's a real blessing that we're out here in the little villa of Richmond, away from that mess, because we've been able to make something so completely unique that's independent of everything else happening. I mean, we're influenced by all this other stuff, but not so directed by it.
9x: Hotel X has always been known for an eclectic choice of cover tunes. The cover tunes on HYMNS FOR CHILDREN seem to be mostly African-based things, except for the Talking Heads song ["Naive Melody"]. Why do you do cover tunes, and what do you look for in covers?
TH: We've never done them to mimic anybody.
RC: No, but it's been a great way to express where we're at through these tunes.
TH: It's like a travelogue, in a way. The song "Jaliya" is 800 or 900 years old. It takes you to a time and place that we're not of, but we find we're part of this larger continuum, and it feels still vital and wonderful and essential.
RC: "Mandjou" is the same way.
TH: "Mandjou" is a real touchstone for this version of the band. That was a song that I brought in. I'd seen Salif Keita perform it, and it was breathtaking. It's a beautiful epic piece.
RC: There's a narrative quality about it.
TH: Very much so, and I think that's a good point: a lot of the melodies here are in that vein. The saxophone lines and the melodies, even the saxophone solos, are vocal lines almost. You could about put words to them. That's the way I like to play. I don't ever spend time playing working on all these wild loops and techniques on the horn. I basically want to be able to express myself, and a lot of these tunes offer that opportunity, where there's really a simple but communicative melody that allows for a vocal narrative reading, and that's really essential to everything on the CD.
9x: On several tunes you added some horn players to thicken the sound a bit.
RC: Gordon Jones [tenor/baritone sax] of the Oregon Hill Funk All-Stars is all over this record.
TH: He's a terrific saxophonist, and I think he likes our approach. The whole 4 Story Sax Quartet, basically, is here...
9x: ...with Jimmy Ghaphery returning from the first lineup...
TH: Absolutely. There have been elements of [old band members returning to make guest appearances] all along, and that's been really great.
RC: Having Danny Finney [tenor sax/Orthotonics, Ululating Mummies] come aboard has really been thrilling, because he's somebody we've known for years. We've seen him perform a million times. He's been really inspirational to all of us. It's just flattering to think that he would want to play with us.
TH: He seems to find a home in it. It's not unlike Richmond that way: if you've got your own motivation, you can get some things done here. You've kind of gotta find what you wish to do, and you can do it here, and it's a very pleasant place to do it--and that's not unlike the band. It's a ridiculously pleasant environment within which to make music. Hopefully, it's also exciting and stimulating. When we recorded with Bern Nix [guitar], he called a few days later and said it was the most enjoyable recording session he'd ever been a part of.
RC: That experience was just incredible for us. We had been in the studio the night before, set up everything, played a few minutes, and thought, "hey, this sounds great." Bern comes in the next day, and in five seconds our band is 200% better than we'd ever been. Being in the presence of somebody that has that experience and sensibility and technical ability, all combined, brought us all up instantly. We're going to have him back. We're talking about having him down this fall, and also bringing Balla Kouyate, who plays with Papa Susso, on balafon. He used to be in the Super Rail Band, as a bass player.
TH: He's a ridiculously good bassist and a great traditional West African musician, but being steeped in the traditions hasn't closed him at all. He's completely open to what's great about music, and he can hear that.
RC: So if you can imagine what'll happen with Bern and Balla and us in the same room...I think it'll turn out pretty cool.
HYMNS FOR CHILDREN is available at all Plan 9 locations, and also through their website at www.hotelxmusic.com. Hotel X will be performing at Plan 9's 22nd anniversary party in July.
Article from 9x Magazine
Thomas Mapfumo "Rise Up"
Thomas Mapfumo "Rise Up" (Calabash)
by Tim Harding, sax and guitar player for world/funk group Hotel X
"Thomas Mapfumo, voted 'most important Zimbabwean of the 20th century' by his fellow countrymen, continues to make some of the most sublime music on the planet. Now 60 and exiled from his homeland for his opposition to the growing political corruption, he entices us to 'Rise Up.' Percolating rhythms, a sublime distillation of musical notions from America and the Caribbean, married with the ubiquitous m'bira [thumb piano] and its guitar adaptations; this is music of great dignity. Thomas' wise, soothing voice, enchanting [Shona] vocal arrangements and deep social and political commentary are a great tonic for a world that could surely use one."
From "What's on Their iPod?" on 12/28/2005