Madison Music Collective - Upcoming MMC Events

MMC Presents Joan Wildman’s Improvisations with Animations
With Joe Fonda, bass and Ben Karetnick, drums

Thursday, April 2, 2009, 7:30 p.m.
Capitol Lakes Grand Hall, 333 W Main St., Madison, WI
$12 Non-members/$8 MMC Members
Joan Wildman, emeritus professor of Jazz Studies at the UW School of Music, will present “Animated Music” for our April program. “Animated Music” consists of a series of Joan’s original animations projected on a large screen, some with soundtracks, which are presented along with composed and improvised music. The visual presentation is closely allied with the sounds, but not in a traditional way. Here, rather than relegating sounds to background music, the purpose is to “hear” and “see” on an equally important basis.

Joan has brought performances of this sort to such events as the Wisconsin Film Festival, the Isthmus Jazz Festival, and the opening festivities of the Overture Center. In 2002 she was invited to do a lecture/demonstration on “Animated Music” at the Guelph Jazz Festival in Canada and this past year she was a featured animator in Corinne Heath’s multimedia installation, “The Drawing of Ghosts” at the Overture Center.

The music will be performed by an ensemble consisting of Joan on keyboards, internationally acclaimed bassist Joe Fonda (from New York City), and Madison-based percussionist Benjamin Karetnick. This concert marks the reunion of Joan and Joe after 30 years of inactivity: Joan’s first Quartet during the 1970’s included Joe on bass. Karetnick has recorded with Fonda for the German label Konnex, and together have received critical acclaim for their CD “Heat Suite”.

Joan Wildman, Professor Emeritus of Jazz Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, taught courses in jazz improvisation, jazz piano, and synthesizer programming and performance from 1977-2002. Before coming to Wisconsin she received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Oregon and had previously taught at Central Michigan University and at the University of Maine, Fort Kent. She is involved with both acoustic and electronic composition and performance, and recently added computer animations as an integral part of her performance process.

As a pianist she has played concerts with such diverse groups as the Duke Ellington band and the Milwaukee Symphony. She has led her own trio for several decades resulting in many live performances and several recordings of her compositions. She has written scholarly articles, co-authored a book, Jazz Improvisation In Theory and Practice, and is a founder of the Madison Music Collective.

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. (Reviews and recordings available). Fonda was also a member of The Creative Musicians Improvisors Forum directed by Leo Smith, and was the bassist with the American Tap Dance Orchestra 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 Bim huis in Amsterdam, Holland, the Prague Jazz Festival, Czech Republic, the Jazz Halo Festival, Belgium, and Jazz Festival Thurinsen, Weimer, Germany.
Originally from Vermont, with a modest tenure in New York City, Benjamin Karetnick now resides in Medford, Oregon. Karetnick began studying percussion classically at age 10. His studies evolved into work on the drumset, and in his teenage years played in hard hitting rock bands, and was a key player in the Western Massachusettes underground rock scene. He began serious studies on the drumset in his later teen years while in New York City, and a few years after that he began his collaboration with multi-reedsman Sabir Mateen. His playing incorporates various elements into the drum set; heavily rooted in the jazz tradition, he adds elements inspired by the rhythms of Africa, Cuba, and around the globe, while maintaining his concept of “universal swing”. He has worked with multi-instrumentalists Sabir Mateen, Joe McPhee, Joe Fonda, Daniel Carter, and Richard McGhee, the late-great trumpeter Raphe Malik, pianist Joan Wildman, saxophonist Assif Tsahar, and many others. He has lead his own groups, including the Free Jazz Destroyers, Ben Karetnicks WOMAD (Weapons of Mass Destruction). He has toured the Northeast and the deep-South extensively. Karetnick has studied with such innovators as Barry Altschul, Andrew Cyrille, and Susie Ibarra. He has recorded with Sabir Mateen for JMZ records, and Joe McPhee, Joe Fonda, and Cliff White for the German Konnex label.

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