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Multi-instrumentalist/composer Joe Giardullo released
Gravity - Music for Creative Chamber Group (Breeze Records) in 1979. It
disappeared into obscurity almost immediately, but not before Downbeat's Francis Davis
called it the most "intensely democratic music" he'd heard, comparing it to
Braxton's Paris ensembles and using concepts and vocabularies from mathematics and geology
to describe the creative elements of the music. He gave it 4 stars. Joe has
continued to work in that same democratic vein since then. After a short period based in Amsterdam, Holland, Joe returned to live and work 100 miles north of New York where he was "under the radar" and all but invisible until he met up with the legendary Joe McPhee. Although McPhee had long been a near-neighbor, both men were private people and Giardullo never considered contacting him. That meeting in 1991, however, marked the beginning of a collaboration that endures till this day. At the same time as his meeting with McPhee, Giardullo became involved with Pauline Oliveros and the Deep Listening Band. The influence of Oliveros contributed mightily to Giardullo's conceptions and The Oliveros Foundation commissioned a number of pieces from him (Elemental Ode for the Deep Listening Band and Thomas Buckner, and Autumn Rhythm, dedicated to Jackson Pollack) In 1996, Joe brought his quartet to the Albert Ayler Festival in New York. He has performed regularly with luminary Joe McPhee, in duo and larger ensembles. He teamed with McPhee, Cecil Taylor bassist Dominic Duval and drummer Jay Rosen at the John Coltrane Festival at NY's Knitting Factory in 1997, and performed in Poland in collaboration with Russian choral conductor Leon Zaborowski and the Cappella Musica Antique Orientalis choir in 1998. In 1997, Joe presented his Heart of Udu, commissioned by the Latin Percussion Corporation's Udu Drums, at LA's Percussive Arts Society. Joe has performed with most of the leading improvisors including McPhee, Roy Campbell, Jay Rosen, Mike Bisio, Dominic Duval, Marilyn Crispell, John Heward, David Prentice, Tani Tabbal, Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, Thomas Buckner and Butch Morris, as well as emerging artists such as Rosi Hertlein, Neil Feather, Makato Sato, Jerome Bourdellon, Polish players Bart Qzniak and Dawid Kosiarkiewicz, Luciano Pagliarini, Andre Mergenthaler and the Dutch trio OBAO. |
