High Noon: Double Bassist Damon Smith Performs Music Of Fluxus Composer Ben Patterson

Double Bassist Damon Smith performs Fluxus composer Ben Patteron’s Variations for Double Bass1961 & he will talk about the connections between art and sound using the Fluxus movement as a guide. Damon Smith studied double bass with Lisle Ellis and had lessons with Bertram Turezky, Joëlle Leandré, John Lindberg, and Mark Dresser. Damon’s explorations into the sonic palette of the double bass have resulted in a personal, flexible improvisational language based in the American jazz avant-garde movement and European non-idiomatic free improvisation. Visual art, film, and dance heavily influence his music, as evidenced by his CAMH performance of Ben Patterson’s Variations for Double Bass, collaborations with director Werner Herzog on soundtracks for Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of the World, and an early performance with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Damon has collaborated with a wide range of musicians, including: Cecil Taylor, Marshall Allen (of Sun Ra’s Arkestra), Henry Kaiser, Roscoe Mitchell, Michael Pisaro, Wadada Leo Smith, Marco Eneidi, Wolfgang Fuchs, Peter Brötzmann, and Peter Kowald. After many years in the San Francisco Bay Area, and six great years in Houston, Texas working regularly with Alvin Fielder, Sandy Ewen, David Dove & Chris Cogburn. Damon moved to the Boston area in the fall of 2016 and began working with Jeb Bishop, Joe McPhee, and Ra-Kalam Bob Moses. Damon has run Balance Point Acoustics record label since 2001, releasing music focusing on transatlantic collaborations between US and European musicians.