Super-funky, remarkably flexible and wide open to the moment, the aptly named Eclectica captures magic on the fly on Streaming Video Soul, its adventurous ArtistShare debut. Comprised of electric 6-string violinist-vocalist Tracy Silverman, promising young electric bassist Kyle Whalum (son of renowned jazz saxophonist Kirk Whalum) and 5–time Grammy Award winning drummer, inventor and visionary Roy “Futureman” Wooten (a charter member of Bela Fleck & The Flecktones), the rock-fueled Eclectica is the thinking man’s jam band.
Few other groups on the jam band scene have the chops and musical depth to quote so freely from Stravinsky one moment to John Coltrane the next, with sly references to the music of The Doobie Brothers, James Brown, Martha & The Vandellas, and Bobbie Gentry while name-dropping the likes of Jimmy Page, Gus Van Zant and Vincent Van Gogh along the way. And while groove is at the heart of this appealing collection, Eclectica walks a fine line between structure and wild, improvisational abandon on these six scintillating tracks. As Wooten puts it, “It's very organic, and the intuitive feeling is strong. We're creating on the spot so it's definitely in the jazz tradition, but it has a little bit of that Band of Gypsies feeling too. So I get to bring a little of that vibe to it. And what Tracy does with that kind of Jimi Hendrix sound on the violin is something else. You better watch out for that because you might not be ready for that kind of approach."
When gigging and recording with the Flecktones, Futureman primarily plays his Drumitar (an instrument of his own design that he uses to activate uncannily accurate drum kit samples by deftly tapping with all ten fingers on digital triggers). But Eclectica remains one of his rare outlets for playing the acoustic drum kit. “I'm teaching acoustic drums and I got a chance to record on acoustic drums with (fellow Flecktone) Jeff Coffin on his Mutet record," says Wooten. “But with Eclectica I'm really expanding my approach of looking at the drum set as an orchestra, which is something that was inspired by a lot of great drummers who came before me like Max Roach, Art Blakey and Elvin Jones."
Adds Silverman; “The original idea of the group was to be free enough to respond to each other in the moment, to take the music in any direction that you wanted to within the structure of a pop tune. So we might end up quoting an Isley Brothers tune and going into that for a while in the jam before coming back out and going into the song again. Or going into some contemporary classical kind of counterpoint and then coming back out. And that kind of freedom requires really good musicians.”
The three virtuosos follow the flow of the music throughout this organic session, which was cut in a single day in Nashville. Flecktone's saxophonist Jeff Coffin makes a guest appearance on the invigorating, African flavored closer, “If You Could Smile Forever,” and guitarist Gyan Riley, son of composer Terry Riley, appears on the mellow “Peace and Quiet.” Elsewhere, Eclectica stretches out on spirited jams like the Hendrix-inspired “Bi-Polar Disorder”(their answer to Jimi’s “Manic Depression”), the earthy second line groover “Nawlins (Stand Together),” the catchy “Sister Swag (Too Far To Follow)” and the infectious title track. “The idea was to write a song that might have the makings of a three-minute pop tune and instead of playing an eight-bar solo, stretching that into an eight-minute jam,” explains Silverman, a one-time member of the Turtle Island String Quartet who has also worked with contemporary classical composer John Adams and minimalist pioneer Terry Riley. “And within that solo, the tune could build way up to triple forte or get down to triple pianissimo, unplanned. The middle of any given tune is wide open to wherever you want to go with it. I hate the term ‘jam band’. I call it ‘long form’”
That kind of risk-taking, exploratory aesthetic immediately separates Eclectica from a vast majority of bands on the burgeoning jam band scene. As Silverman says, “We’re not your typical folk-based jam band with fiddle, mandolin and upright bass. We’re more like Medeski, Martin & Wood, a little more in the jazz-funk-rock area. One of our real influences as a band is ‘70s funk, particularly groups like Sly & The Family Stone. I love the way they share the lead vocals. And we’re doing things that are a little more harmonically and rhythmically sophisticated but we’re doing it within a kind of feel-good funkiness and delivering it with a sense of humor." Adds Wooten, “I think the name really fits this band. We can go anywhere and play anything at any time, which keeps both the musicians and the audience on their toes."
About Tracy Silverman
A child prodigy, Silverman began playing violin at age 4 and was in The Juilliard School pre-college by the time he was 8. He made his professional debut at age 13, appearing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and by age 16 had played the Sibelius, Bruch, Tschaikovsky and many other concertos with orchestras. By age 17, he went to New York to study at Juilliard. “I entered Juilliard wanting to be the next Jascha Heifetz, but I left wanting to be the next Jimi Hendrix," he recalls. “I wanted to be a violin rockstar."
Following graduation from Juilliard at age 20, Tracy innovated, designed and developed a 6-string electric violin (with low C and low F strings) which allows him to play below the viola range while also accompanying himself on bass lines in solo settings. He subsequently played in a string of progressive heavy metal bands like Stradivarius, Motherlode and Gutbucket. “I was moving further and further away from my classical roots," he recalls. “I was exclusively playing distorted violin at very loud volumes. We couldn’t get a record deal because no one thought an electric violin could lead a rock band. An A&R man from Warner Bros asked me, 'Can you just play guitar instead?' I was about as far away from classical music as I could get and my parents were despondent. I was wasting my talents, they told me."
In 1994, Silverman moved to the Bay Area to join the Turtle Island String Quartet, replacing charter member David Balakrishnan in the lineup. He recorded four CDs with them, including the acclaimed Who Do We Think We Are? (Windham Hill, 1994), which included inventive string quartet renditions of tunes by Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix. His association with Windham Hill led to a spate of session and production work, including guest appearances on recordings by guitarist Will Ackerman and others as well as his own debut for the label, 1999's Trip To The Sun. He also toured regularly in Brazil and Europe during this time.
It was during a three-night stand with Terry Riley at Yoshi's in Oakland that the violinist was spotted by the renowned contemporary classical composer John Adams. “He immediately came backstage after the show and asked if I’d be interested in playing a solo part in a commission he was composing for the LA Philharmonic," says Tracy. “The violin part soon expanded as we worked together on the piece and it became an electric violin concerto, 'The Dharma at Big Sur.' We premiered it in 2003 the LA Philharmonic for the gala opening of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. My parents were delighted. I had come full circle back to the classical world."
Upon relocating to Nashville, Silverman began collaborating with a group of creative kindred spirits and musical upstarts in the area, including Wooten and his fellow Flecktone saxophonist Jeff Coffin. “I first met Roy in 2000 and he immediately impressed me as being one of the most musical guys I had ever met. He just seemed to live and breathe music. I was still living in Oakland when he called me to come to Nashville to play a concert that he was organizing. He had put together an improvising chamber orchestra -- improvising string players, wind players and horn players--and his vision for this concert was just so expansive. He had some short films that local filmmakers had made. He had dancers--break dancers as well as ballet dancers. He had poets. It was this mixed discipline type of show and it just knocked me out. I subsequently moved to Nashville a year later and always had it in my mind that I would like to do something like that because it really inspired me."
That original creative impetus has led, several years later, to the formation of Eclectica, a powerhouse triumvirate that has Silverman returning to his rock roots. “I think of it as this sort of Odyssey that I’ve been on,” he says, “where I started out as a classical kid, took a detour into heavy metal and jazz and world music, joined the Turtle Island String Quartet, went to Brazil, then came all the way back full circle to the classical world which I had left behind years earlier in collaborating with John Adams, which is something I might never have gotten to do if I had stuck with classical violin. And now I’m playing in a rock band again, so I’m headed around the circle again.”
Bringing all of his varied influences from his chameleonic career to bear, Silverman and his talented and open-minded colleagues make a potent first statement on Streaming Video Soul. “It’s all the stuff that we love--world music influences from India, China, Africa and Brazil mixed with the American rock and pop that I grew up with,” he says. “It’s a combination of Hendrix, Salif Keita, Miles Davis, and Stravinsky all kind of jammed together--all that stuff that is just sort of rattling around in our brains and comes out in our playing.”
Few other groups on the jam band scene have the chops and musical depth to quote so freely from Stravinsky one moment to John Coltrane the next, with sly references to the music of The Doobie Brothers, James Brown, Martha & The Vandellas, and Bobbie Gentry while name-dropping the likes of Jimmy Page, Gus Van Zant and Vincent Van Gogh along the way. And while groove is at the heart of this appealing collection, Eclectica walks a fine line between structure and wild, improvisational abandon on these six scintillating tracks. As Wooten puts it, “It's very organic, and the intuitive feeling is strong. We're creating on the spot so it's definitely in the jazz tradition, but it has a little bit of that Band of Gypsies feeling too. So I get to bring a little of that vibe to it. And what Tracy does with that kind of Jimi Hendrix sound on the violin is something else. You better watch out for that because you might not be ready for that kind of approach."
When gigging and recording with the Flecktones, Futureman primarily plays his Drumitar (an instrument of his own design that he uses to activate uncannily accurate drum kit samples by deftly tapping with all ten fingers on digital triggers). But Eclectica remains one of his rare outlets for playing the acoustic drum kit. “I'm teaching acoustic drums and I got a chance to record on acoustic drums with (fellow Flecktone) Jeff Coffin on his Mutet record," says Wooten. “But with Eclectica I'm really expanding my approach of looking at the drum set as an orchestra, which is something that was inspired by a lot of great drummers who came before me like Max Roach, Art Blakey and Elvin Jones."
Adds Silverman; “The original idea of the group was to be free enough to respond to each other in the moment, to take the music in any direction that you wanted to within the structure of a pop tune. So we might end up quoting an Isley Brothers tune and going into that for a while in the jam before coming back out and going into the song again. Or going into some contemporary classical kind of counterpoint and then coming back out. And that kind of freedom requires really good musicians.”
The three virtuosos follow the flow of the music throughout this organic session, which was cut in a single day in Nashville. Flecktone's saxophonist Jeff Coffin makes a guest appearance on the invigorating, African flavored closer, “If You Could Smile Forever,” and guitarist Gyan Riley, son of composer Terry Riley, appears on the mellow “Peace and Quiet.” Elsewhere, Eclectica stretches out on spirited jams like the Hendrix-inspired “Bi-Polar Disorder”(their answer to Jimi’s “Manic Depression”), the earthy second line groover “Nawlins (Stand Together),” the catchy “Sister Swag (Too Far To Follow)” and the infectious title track. “The idea was to write a song that might have the makings of a three-minute pop tune and instead of playing an eight-bar solo, stretching that into an eight-minute jam,” explains Silverman, a one-time member of the Turtle Island String Quartet who has also worked with contemporary classical composer John Adams and minimalist pioneer Terry Riley. “And within that solo, the tune could build way up to triple forte or get down to triple pianissimo, unplanned. The middle of any given tune is wide open to wherever you want to go with it. I hate the term ‘jam band’. I call it ‘long form’”
That kind of risk-taking, exploratory aesthetic immediately separates Eclectica from a vast majority of bands on the burgeoning jam band scene. As Silverman says, “We’re not your typical folk-based jam band with fiddle, mandolin and upright bass. We’re more like Medeski, Martin & Wood, a little more in the jazz-funk-rock area. One of our real influences as a band is ‘70s funk, particularly groups like Sly & The Family Stone. I love the way they share the lead vocals. And we’re doing things that are a little more harmonically and rhythmically sophisticated but we’re doing it within a kind of feel-good funkiness and delivering it with a sense of humor." Adds Wooten, “I think the name really fits this band. We can go anywhere and play anything at any time, which keeps both the musicians and the audience on their toes."
About Tracy Silverman
A child prodigy, Silverman began playing violin at age 4 and was in The Juilliard School pre-college by the time he was 8. He made his professional debut at age 13, appearing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and by age 16 had played the Sibelius, Bruch, Tschaikovsky and many other concertos with orchestras. By age 17, he went to New York to study at Juilliard. “I entered Juilliard wanting to be the next Jascha Heifetz, but I left wanting to be the next Jimi Hendrix," he recalls. “I wanted to be a violin rockstar."
Following graduation from Juilliard at age 20, Tracy innovated, designed and developed a 6-string electric violin (with low C and low F strings) which allows him to play below the viola range while also accompanying himself on bass lines in solo settings. He subsequently played in a string of progressive heavy metal bands like Stradivarius, Motherlode and Gutbucket. “I was moving further and further away from my classical roots," he recalls. “I was exclusively playing distorted violin at very loud volumes. We couldn’t get a record deal because no one thought an electric violin could lead a rock band. An A&R man from Warner Bros asked me, 'Can you just play guitar instead?' I was about as far away from classical music as I could get and my parents were despondent. I was wasting my talents, they told me."
In 1994, Silverman moved to the Bay Area to join the Turtle Island String Quartet, replacing charter member David Balakrishnan in the lineup. He recorded four CDs with them, including the acclaimed Who Do We Think We Are? (Windham Hill, 1994), which included inventive string quartet renditions of tunes by Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix. His association with Windham Hill led to a spate of session and production work, including guest appearances on recordings by guitarist Will Ackerman and others as well as his own debut for the label, 1999's Trip To The Sun. He also toured regularly in Brazil and Europe during this time.
It was during a three-night stand with Terry Riley at Yoshi's in Oakland that the violinist was spotted by the renowned contemporary classical composer John Adams. “He immediately came backstage after the show and asked if I’d be interested in playing a solo part in a commission he was composing for the LA Philharmonic," says Tracy. “The violin part soon expanded as we worked together on the piece and it became an electric violin concerto, 'The Dharma at Big Sur.' We premiered it in 2003 the LA Philharmonic for the gala opening of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. My parents were delighted. I had come full circle back to the classical world."
Upon relocating to Nashville, Silverman began collaborating with a group of creative kindred spirits and musical upstarts in the area, including Wooten and his fellow Flecktone saxophonist Jeff Coffin. “I first met Roy in 2000 and he immediately impressed me as being one of the most musical guys I had ever met. He just seemed to live and breathe music. I was still living in Oakland when he called me to come to Nashville to play a concert that he was organizing. He had put together an improvising chamber orchestra -- improvising string players, wind players and horn players--and his vision for this concert was just so expansive. He had some short films that local filmmakers had made. He had dancers--break dancers as well as ballet dancers. He had poets. It was this mixed discipline type of show and it just knocked me out. I subsequently moved to Nashville a year later and always had it in my mind that I would like to do something like that because it really inspired me."
That original creative impetus has led, several years later, to the formation of Eclectica, a powerhouse triumvirate that has Silverman returning to his rock roots. “I think of it as this sort of Odyssey that I’ve been on,” he says, “where I started out as a classical kid, took a detour into heavy metal and jazz and world music, joined the Turtle Island String Quartet, went to Brazil, then came all the way back full circle to the classical world which I had left behind years earlier in collaborating with John Adams, which is something I might never have gotten to do if I had stuck with classical violin. And now I’m playing in a rock band again, so I’m headed around the circle again.”
Bringing all of his varied influences from his chameleonic career to bear, Silverman and his talented and open-minded colleagues make a potent first statement on Streaming Video Soul. “It’s all the stuff that we love--world music influences from India, China, Africa and Brazil mixed with the American rock and pop that I grew up with,” he says. “It’s a combination of Hendrix, Salif Keita, Miles Davis, and Stravinsky all kind of jammed together--all that stuff that is just sort of rattling around in our brains and comes out in our playing.”
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