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| Paradox Trio |
New York based PARADOX TRIO
creates original music inspired by Eastern European, Balkan, Gypsy and downtown
traditions. In the last seven years the quartet has toured and played major
festivals throughout the U.S., Europe and Canada. The group’s dynamic performances
and approach cut across stylistic and geographic boundaries creating an unusual
and eclectic sound, redefining the concept “world beat”. The group features
Matt Darriau on two unique and lyrical Bulgarian instruments, the Kaval
(end-blown flute, like the Arabic ney) and the Gaida (bagpipe) as well as saxes
and clarinets. With Brad Shepik on guitars, Rufus Cappadocia on cello and Seido
Salifoski on dumbek. Matt Darriau was named one of the most influental jazz
musicians of thelast fifteen years by Jazziz Magazine for bringing balkan
rhythms and melodies into jazz. The quartet continued without a lineup change
throughout the '90s and well into the 2000s.
Along with Dave Douglas' Tiny
Bell Trio, Pachora, and Brad Shepik & the Commuters (all including Shepik),
during the '90s Paradox Trio were in the forefront of New York groups melding
an edgy downtown sensibility with Eastern European and Middle Eastern
influences. The group became known for its rousing shows at the Bell Café in
New York's Soho (Tiny Bell Trio derived its name from the same venue) and the
Knitting Factory, the well-known downtown club whose label released the
ensemble's eponymous first CD in 1995. The band was one of the first to give
traditional ethnic music a distinctly downtown flavor. Certainly, Darriau was
in the first wave of artists to introduce Eastern European and Middle Eastern
melodies, scales, and rhythms into the downtown mix. The third Paradox Trio CD
on the Knitting Factory label, Source, aptly summarized the multicultural
influences defining much of Darriau's recorded output; the 1999 album found the
group exploring music of the late-period Ottoman Empire, where the East and
West met and co-mingled, forever influencing art and culture throughout most of
the 20th century. Source and the band's other Knitting Factory discs have
unfortunately gone out of print, but Paradox was still going strong as of the
mid-2000s, with club and festival appearances and the release of 2005's Gambit
on the Enja label.
Paradox have also performed live
in accompaniment to classic silent films; an excerpt from the band's
performance of Darriau's score to the Salvador Dali/Luis Buñuel surrealist
landmark Un Chien Andalou can be heard on the What Is Jazz? 1996 CD, which
features live tracks from various artists who performed at the Knitting
Factory's creative jazz fest that year. While often considered primarily a
creative outlet for Darriau, Paradox Trio have served as an important working
group for all four of its members, with Shepik second to Darriau in
contributing arrangements for the band. As Shepik continued to increase his
involvement -- both as leader and sideman -- in other groups during the new
millennium, guitarist Dave Fiuczynski (Screaming Headless Torsos, Hasidic New
Wave) would sometimes replace him as Paradox Trio's guitarist in live
appearances.
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| Paradox Trio |
During the 2000s, after the
heyday of the downtown scene had passed, New York's "Gypsy punk"
bands began receiving considerable attention from Brooklyn live music
scenesters and music critics -- Paradox Trio could easily be seen as
forefathers of the Gypsy punkers, albeit with a stronger jazz sensibility. In
fact, in terms of direct connections, accordionist Yuri Lemeshev of Gogol
Bordello has been in the Paradox orbit, performing live with the band on
various occasions (and also touring in a duo with Darriau), and Slavic Soul
Party!, another band of the 2000s often included under the "Gypsy
punk" rubric, included Darriau in a touring lineup.
The journey of paradox trio is
unmatched by any other contempory group mixing traditional eastern European
sounds. The expected becomes the unexpected when Matt Darriau, the leader of
this talented ensemble, takes tradition into Jazz and Ambient and sometimes
what seems like hard rock. A extremely intelligent band with provocative and
energetic music through deep roots to keep its soaring heights connected to
something substantial.
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