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Liner Notes by Kirk Imamura, Avatar
JOE FONDA is a composer, bassist, recording artist, interdisciplinary performer, and producer. An accomplished international Jazz artist, Fonda has performed with his own ensembles throughout the United States and Europe, and as a side man with Archie Shepp, Ken McIntyre, Lou Donaldson, Bill and Kenny Barron, Leo Smith, Perry Robinson, Dave Douglas, Curtis Fuller, Mark Whitecage, Marion Brown, and Bill Dixon. Fonda was the bassist with the renowned Anthony Braxton sextet, octet, tentet, from 1984 through 1999. Fonda also sat on the Board of Directors from 1994 to 1999, and was the President from 1997 to 1999 of the newly formed Tri-Centric Foundation. He has also performed with the 38-piece Tri-Centric orchestra under the direction of Anthony Braxton, and was the bassist for the premiere performance of Anthony Braxton's opera, Shalla Fears for the Poor, performed at the John Jay theater in New York, New York, October 1996. As a composer, Fonda has been the recipient of numerous grants and commissions and has released eight recordings under his own name. Fonda was also a member of The Creative Musicians Imprivisors Forum directed by Leo Smith, and was the bassist with the American Tap Dance Orechestra in New York City, directed by world renowned tap dancer, Brenda Bufalino. In 1989, Fonda performed with Fred Ho's Jazz and Peking Opera in its world premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. From 1982 to 1986 Fonda was the bassist and dancer with the Sonomama Dance Company. An independent producer since 1978, Fonda is the founding director of Kaleidoscope Arts and interdisciplinary performance ensemble. Currently Fonda has been recording and touring extensively with the Fonda/Stevens Group. They have released five CDs and have had seven European tours since 1997, with performances at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam, Holland, the Prague Jazz Festival, Czech Republic, the Jazz Halo Festival, Belgium, and Jazz Festival Thüringen, Weimar, Germany. Three of Fonda's most recent projects are From the Source, Conference Call and the FAB Trio. From the Source is a group that incorporates the tap dancing and poetry of Brenda Bufalino and the healing arts of Vicki Dodd, and four jazz musicians. The group has released their first CD entitled, Joe Fonda and From the Source, on Konnex Records. Conference Call is a quartet, featuring drummers, Han Bennink and Matt Wilson, with pianist Michael Jefry Stevens, and bassist Joe Fonda. [Kirk Imamura forgot to mention reedist Gebhard Ullmann who not only is the fourth member of the group (playing with one drummer only), but also is the reason for the name of the group as he mainly lives in Berlin, Germany whereas the other members live in the USA. —webmaster] Conference Call has released two CDs, one on Soul Note, Final Answer and one on Leo Records, Variations on a Master Plan. The FAB Trio, featuring Joe Fonda, Barry Altschul, and Billy Bang, has just released its first CD, Transforming the Space, on CIMP Records. "The FAB Trio serenades us with their maturity, their honesty and longevity found in their many years of individual performances," describes Kunle Mwanga, "they continue to be fresh and in the avant-garde of the music scene."
KATIE BULL is a jazz vocalist and multimedia performer living in New York City since birth. She has sung with her divine mentors — jazz vocalist/composer Jay Clayton, & Jay Clayton's Voices and jazz singer Sheila Jordan; pianist and composer Kirk Nurock in his Natural Sound; composer Julius Eastman; pianists Michael Jefry Stevens, Frank Kimbrough, and Joshua Wolf; percussionists Lou Grassi, Matt Wilson, Harvey Sorgen, George Schuller, and Jon Wilkan; and bass players Joe Fonda, Martin Wind, and Cameron Brown. Her premiere CD Conversations with the Jokers (with Michael Jefry Stevens/piano; Lou Grassi/percussion; Joe Fonda/bass) was released in March 2003. She recently released her second CD, Love Spook (Matt Wilson, Frank Kimbrough, Martin Wind, Michael Jefry Stevens, & Joe Fonda). Her albums are independently produced on the Corn Hill Indie Label; distributed by North Country Distributors; and in selected stores. Katie is also a writer, inter-arts performer, and founder of The Bull Family Orchestra, integrating dance, spoken text, and music. The most recent BFO project, The 29 Questions Project, (writers Hillary Rollins & Bull) was published in The 2005 Plays and Playwrights Anthology by Martin Denton, NYTE Inc. and is available at Barnes & Nobles and on Amazon.com. For the project Katie collaborated with jazz singer/composer Ayelete Rose Gottleib, and oud player/composer Yoel Ben Simhon.
DAVID BAKER (Engineer) was a Grammy Award winning audio engineer and producer of over 2,000 recordings. His credits, too numerous to mention in their entirety, include recordings for ECM, Enja, Blue Note, Atlantic, Sony, Verve, Black Saint/Soul Note, MaxJazz, Universal/Polygram among other record labels. Mr. Baker's long term working relationship with Shirley Horne earned him a Grammy in 1998 for recording I Remember Miles for Verve. He has also worked with a wide variety of artists including Will Boulware, Dave Liebman, Richie Beirach, Paul Bley, Al DiMeola, Art Farmer, Medeski, Martin & Wood, Maria Schneider, George Russell, Maceo Parker, Bruce Barth, John Scofield, John Zorn, Sun Ra and nunerous others. From 1973 to 1975 he was the Chief Engineer for Vanguard Records, during which time he established a relationship with many Japanese engineers and producers including Yoshihiro Suzuki (for Philips/Eastwind labe) and Yashohachi Itoh, of Sony records. His working relationship with Itoh remained strong right up to Mr. Baker's death. After 1975 Mr. Baker work primarily as a freelance engineer until 1986 when he began remastering the entire Vanguard Classics catalog for re-release on CD. Most recently, Mr. Baker applied his years of live recording experience to doing archival recordings for Jazz at Lincoln Center's 2003/04 Season, including performances by The Dave Brubeck Octet and Toots Thielemans. Record production quality at the source was Mr. Baker's recording principle. His discography spans 40 years covering all genres of msuic, which took him all over the world. Mr. Baker was one of the masters of the art of recording. He consistently demanded and always achieved an exceptional level of quality.
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Kenneth Egbert for Jazz Now Interactive September 2005 Vol 15 No. 5
Not as elegantly expansive as vocalist Katie Bull's recent Love Spook but still lots of fun, Cup of Joe, No Bull shifts its source of incandescence from the pianists on the former CD to Ms. Bull's voice alone.
But there's props, due the atmosphere in which it burns, and that's Joe Fonda, one of this generation's most highly accomplished bassists (largely due to a spell in the Anthony Braxton small groups of the late eighties and early nineties). He lands happily in an expanded support role, adding vocal backup on Bull's cheerily silly "Shortcut Blues." Not that he's underused; the odd outrage opens some of the tracks here to good effect, and he never intrudes.
Consider the tone fields of a female voice and an acoustic bass; you aren't going to get a lot of overlap! It's a safe choice for a duo (I'm thinking of a recent not-so duet between a trombonist and a sax player; busier in the center, echoing on the fringes), but as we know you will get music to fill the room just fine from the configuration.
It would be nice if the music filled the brain, too. And this does, in a way mildly similar to Barry Guy and Evan Parker's recent two-CD live and studio explorations on Intakt, Birds and Blades. Of course, on that recording the veritable monsoon of improvisational ideas from the players provided the attention-grabbing.
Here, it's the dance between the songs and the musicians. Some of this is very inspired, some of it not so, largely thanks to the selection of standards (I just don't think there's a lot one can do that hasn't been done already with the closing "What a Wonderful World," sweet as this reading is). But the jolly bits far outweigh those that don't achieve transcendence, so I'd say give this one a try.
After listening to Ms. Bull's voice some more since reviewing Love Spook in a previous Jazz Now, I'd say that besides a bit of Ella Fitzgerald's dexterity, she also has the biting humor of former 'Til Tuesday vocalist Aimee Mann (now a folkie with teeth of sorts à la Ani diFranco). Both singers have access to a delightful yelp of sorts, and we hear that in the take of Ms. Bull's fine "Love Spook," an imaginative blues.
Ms. B wisely takes up some more space with improvisational flutters and grace notes, but never more than seems necessary (Cleo Laine fans need not apply here). In Jobim's "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars" Fonda and Bull skirt wisely a major mistake committed by many interpreters of the bossa nova master: do a Jobim tune too fast or too slow and the magic withers.
A fleet take of "I'm Old-Fashioned" survives nicely elsewhere on this CD, but Fonda and Bull slow the tempo on "Quiet Nights" just enough so you can practically hear the stars drifting overhead. Very nice.
An example of a major tempo mistake would be a Kathleen Battle CD of some years back, in which "So Many Stars" turned from gold to lead under a largo cadence despite the lovely Ms. Battle's marvelous reading of the melody. Fonda and Bull are too smart for that, letting the tune, and by extension the listener, breathe.
"I Could have Danced All Night" has a pretty vocal reading (with a few words and beats dropped out here and there), but for my ears the true focus is Fonda's frog-hopping on the tune's interior tones: some implied, some not. Wonderful!
"Bluebird of Happiness" is a Bill Evans kind of choice in that we've pretty much forgotten about it so it's fresh again (we recall the late Evans revisiting "Emily" and "The Theme from M*A*S*H" decades ago and finding depths we'd once known were there); ditto for "When I Fall in Love" and Johnny Mercer's "Midnight Sun."
When these two are on, they simply can't miss, and that's the vast majority of the time here. Even the old children's nursery rhyme "Monkey Business" has some ear-popping bow action from Fonda.
Ms. Bull's own tracks ("When You Say You Will," "Shortcut Blues," "Speak Louder") essay blues structures but build on them by adding complications, melodic drop-outs, et al. "When You Say" takes the words "when you watch your watch" and runs them through an aural kaleidoscope; in comparison the chestnut "Since I Fell for You" emphasizes the sadness of the blues as opposed to its gospel-like release.
In my review of Love Spook I talked about the importance of standards as well as of their drawbacks; Ms. Bull and Mr. Fonda know these songs' areas of possibility and exploit them well.
Like I said before, give this a try
Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2006 Jazz Now and Kenneth Egbert.
Liner Notes | Engineer's Notes | Joe Fonda's Notes | Katie Bull's Notes | CD Reviews | Credits to David Baker
All reviews written by Kenneth Egbert:
- Joe Fonda / Katie Bull Duo: Cup Of Joe, No Bull
- Katie Bull: Love Spook
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August 21, 2005 by Terrell Kent Holmes for All About Jazz
On the heels of her release Love Spook, vocalist Katie Bull has hooked up again with bassist Joe Fonda on Cup of Joe, No Bull, a selection of standards and originals that the duo reduces to their bare essentials. Bull delivers a kind of relaxed, languid, yet lively kind of singing where the lyrics aren't sung so much as they burst from inside her. She sometimes wavers on the vocal high wire, but her verve is infectious.
Bull takes a two-pronged approach to the songs. She seems to presume that the listener knows the classics and will fill in the blanks as she scats along; she establishes her originals and the lesser known tunes a little more before stretching them out. Fonda's right with her on the bass, his pizzicato ranging from light love taps to solar plexus reverb. He even provides diffident background vocals on "Shortcut Blues," Bull's love/driving analogy.
This disc has its standout moments. Fonda's bass becomes something of a second vocalist on Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars," where Bull uses the title to whisper and drop some of the lyrics to underscore the meaning of the title. "Bluebird of Happiness" is bright and optimistic, and Fonda is relentless on "When You Say You Will," his dynamic playing augmenting Bull's passionate interpretation of the poignant lyrics.
The duo hits its stride on "Since I Fell For You," with Bull's vocals expressing resignation but not anguish. "Speak Louder" is an example of how Bull and Fonda fill in each other's spaces ably, and on "Wonderful World" and "When I Fall In Love" she's at her best, using her voice to shade the lyrics and take them just outside of their normal orbit while reining in the vocal calisthenics.
Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2006 All About Jazz and Terrell Kent Holmes.
Liner Notes | Engineer's Notes | Joe Fonda's Notes | Katie Bull's Notes | CD Reviews | Credits to David Baker
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July 20, 2005 by Michael P. Gladstone for All About Jazz
This is the third Katie Bull album that I've heard, and her work is very consistent. The New York-based singer divides her time between traditional jazz vocals and outside vocal excursions. This is the sparest of the sessions in that it is a duo recording of just voice and acoustic bass, without the added cushion of piano and drums. According to the liner notes, Katie Bull's partner, bassist Joe Fonda, is a like-minded soulmate who shares the same sense of improvisation and exploration. Fonda was present on the previous Bull albums and worked in the recent past with avant garde musicians like Anthony Braxton.
One could generalize by saying that the eight standards on the album are taken in a mainstream fashion while the five Bull originals are employed as free jazz vocals. Katie Bull's direct approach on such tunes as "I Could Have Danced All Night," "When I Fall in Love," and "Since I Fell For You" is really quite good. "Bluebird of Happiness," a favorite of Betty Carter, is given a similar reading. "Midnight Sun" is taken way uptempo much as a tenor sax player might perform it to close the first set.
I've noted in the past that Katie Bull seems most influenced by the style of Sheila Jordan, and that is indeed still present. On her originals, beginning with "Love Spook" (also the title of her last album), the quirky lyrics serve as a springboard for her imagination, which seems matched by Fonda's accompaniment and solos. "Monkey Business," styled as a children's song, offers an opportunity to take the music out a bit further.
Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2006 All About Jazz and Michael P. Gladstone.
Liner Notes | Engineer's Notes | Joe Fonda's Notes | Katie Bull's Notes | CD Reviews | Credits to David Baker
All reviews written by Michael P. Gladstone:
- Joe Fonda / Katie Bull Duo: Cup Of Joe, No Bull
- Katie Bull: Love Spook
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Sara Holtzschue for Jazz Review
From the moment Katie Bull starts singing, you are aware that she is a musician of prodigious talent. Her range is staggering, her vibrato fast and sure and her pitch accurate, yet expressive. Her duo recording with bassist Bull Fonda entitled Cup of Joe, No Bull demonstrates, particularly in light of performing without a chordal instrument, just how gifted a vocalist she is.
Bull uses unusual scat syllables that highlight her sense of humor and imagination (listen to the last few moments of "I'm Old Fashioned.") It's not clear how she manages to take the children's song "Five Little Monkeys" ("Monkey Business") and turn it into the equivalent of a vocal tabla solo or the call of the muezzin, but it happens. It's somehow creepy, funny, fascinating and beautiful.
Chris Conner appears in "The Blue Bird of Happiness." Betty Carter's around and, of course, Bull's mentor Sheila Jordon is everywhere without being imitated.
Although the original compositions such as "Love Spook," "Shortcut Blues," "When You Say You Will" and "Speak Louder" are worthy vehicles for Bull's vocal elasticity, as original works, they are not the strongest parts of the recording. It's just her singing. It's clear that she and Fonda have a deep connection that's present in every tune, regardless of the author. Their synergy is evident in the level of comfort that nearly hides how difficult duo performances are.
Other standards such as "I Could Have Danced All Night," "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars," "Bluebird of Happiness," "When I Fall in Love," "Midnight Sun," "Since I Fell for You" and "Wonderful World" are fresh and lovely in her hands. Here's an artist to pay attention to, learn from and deeply admire.
Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2006 Jazz Review and Sara Holtzschue.
Liner Notes | Engineer's Notes | Joe Fonda's Notes | Katie Bull's Notes | CD Reviews | Credits to David Baker
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