The VaporBeat Café

Hosted by The AMorphic

Saturdays 10AM – 12 Noon

Program’s Purpose

The VaporBeat Café is a musical exploration of culture, instrumentation, education, and collaboration with a Nu Jazz, Downtempo, and Modern Beat focus.

Content

Nu Jazz, Downtempo, and Modern Beat can be loosely defined as umbrella music styles exploring jazz textures, instrumentation, and free improvisation with electronic elements.  Typically this music style can be characterized by syncopated rhythm in 4/4 meter and grabs its roots from 70’s style jazz fusion projects maintaining its experimental nature.   Exemplified by the works of Fila Brazilia, the French St. Germain, the Italian Nicola Conte, and The Cinematic Orchestra who drive a more traditional jazz band approach to their sound.   The VaporBeat Café seeks to provide active discussion around the Nu Jazz and Downtempo genres and sub-genres of music including geographic origins of the musicians, producers, engineers, and collaborators of each project aired. Further delving into the engineering elements of song composition and craftsmanship including instrument use, recording styles, equipment preferences, and signal processing will be discussed.  The desire to merge studio production techniques with live sound production styles is the mission of VaporBeats.  This fusion of musician and engineer is a direct parallel to the instrumentation and electronic element paradigm found in Nu Jazz and Downtempo music.

Directly interfacing real time studio sound in a live broad cast environment is a long range goal of the Vaporbeat project.  Technological advancements in studio engineering equipment have opened new pathways for today’s engineers to continue challenging their abilities and exploring new terrain.  Ultimately, the VaporBeat Café seeks to invite local musicians to perform solo or collaborative pieces of music in a real time broadcast setting.  The idea of featuring a local or visiting musician’s work in the last quarter of the program including interview and discussion each week is a core objective of the VaporBeat Café.  In the near term, pre-recorded segments will provide uniqueness for KHOL listeners tuned into the VaporBeat Café.  Each week a different musical theme will be explored in discussions with performing musicians.  For example, if a percussionist were invited on the show we would plan our discussions around various drums, rhythmic patterns, history, and the cultural evolution of rhythmic structure.  Such themes will be reflected in our music selections and our featured guest performances.  The approach of carrying a central thread in each week’s program will keep to the originality and cohesiveness present in the VaporBeat message.  The long range outlook will include deeper research into ethnomusicology and it’s relation to modern trends in today’s music.

Key Music and Labels

Mr. Scruff, Jazzanova, Quantic Soul Orchestra, Koop, Thievery Corporation, Soulstance, Bugz in the Attic, Jazztronic, Herbie Hancock, Groove Collective, Truby Trio, The Philadelphia, Detroit, and Harlem Experiments, Deep Concentration series, The Tao of Groove, The New Master Sounds, Dissent, MMW, Tommy Guerrero, Bonobo, the RZA, Blockhead, Alchemist, RJD2, Kenny Dope, DJ’s Krush, Cam, Shadow, Greyboy, Spinna, Cut Chemist, Kevin Yost.  The Ninja Tune and Ubiquity labels.

Format

The VaporBeat Music Collection consists mostly of Vinyl and CD’s.  A growing digital library is brewing. Over 75% of this programs content will come from the VaporBeat Music Collection.  The ideal Program slot would be once a week for about 2 hours, potentially mid mornings on the weekends.  Each week the VaporBeat Café plans to open with a quote from a musician that will attempt to capture the week’s common theme.  The content will ideally include a Nu jazz/Downtempo set on Vinyl or CD culminating each week with live musicianship in the last quarter of the show.  A real time turntable blend is the preferred manner of getting into the groove providing a jazzy lounge style atmosphere.

As discussed in the content section above, the dynamic live portion of the show will ideally fall in the last quarter of the program.   This would initially be prerecorded interviews and performance segments as we educate and grow into the live studio broadcast environment.  The live musical segment would be fully influenced by the visiting musician, producer, or collector on each weeks show.

Audience

The content provided by the VaporBeat Café will potential fuse today’s progressive beat junkies with the skilled theoretical minds of musicians, collectors, and passionate seekers of rare grooves, jazzy lounge, and educational ambience.

Biographical Sketch

In just shy of 10 years in the Jackson Community I have had two places of employment.  My first 7 years in the valley were with Phenogenex/Stratagene – a Genomics and DNA research facility exploring medical diagnostic assay development.  The last two years of my scientific career have been spent with Alces Technology, Inc. also here in Jackson.  We are a small Quantum physics outfit exploring the wave properties of Light, Nanofabrication, and Atomic structure.  With an entrepreneurial spirit, grant writing, human resources, and scientific engineering have been aspects I’ve explored with Alces Technology, Inc.  The similarity of working with light waves and sound waves has stimulated a recent interest in technical wave form thinking, including frequency modulation, effects, and experimental sound capture.

As a native of upstate New York, my passion for music began at the early age following the footsteps of my mother who taught dance composition and produced live concerts of Jazz band fused with Tap, Ballet, and Jazz Dance. Drum Lessons were my first introduction to music structure and theory which sparked the mind into an avid music collector, saving my miniscule weekly allowance to fulfill my latest CD craving.  With a vinyl collection inherited from my mother, and days of watching reel to reel recording sessions for live compositions, my childhood was rooted with music production, live performance, and an analog feel.  My passion for vinyl continues today as my main music collecting platform.  At Wesleyan University in the late 90’s I was exposed to more experimental and abstract angles of music interpretation through a handful of music studies classes while pursuing a Neuroscience degree.  These classes included semesters in Worlds of Music as well as Experimental Music and production.   My passion to work in the analog domain while exploring new technological equipment advances and engineering avenues remains the current area of desire and growth.  Today I remain an active piano student and turntablist with a passion for music exploration, engineering, production, and live performance.

Experience/Endeavors

Proficient with Apple Logic Pro Production software, Propellarhead Reason, MPC Rhythm Drum Programming and Sequencing, over a decade on the Technics 1200 turntable decks, Co-Founder of Fusion Music Workshop, Open Mic Night at Planet Palate, The OutFit live music project which has played at the Teton County Library, The Museum of Wildlife Art, JH Center for the Arts, various Art Openings and nightlife events and seeks to continue exploring original outlets for music expression and spoken word.  The OutFit is comprised of six local musicians and explores all original compositions in the Nu Jazz, Downtempo, and Modern beat genre and began over six years ago and continues to progress into new territory.  Visit us online at www.vaporbeats.com.

Conclusion

I would like to thank those involved with KHOL who started such an amazing endeavor back in 1996.  Many of the ground floor members I have yet to meet, but truly look forward to the opportunity to do so.  I believe that community involvement and contributions to education, news, current events, history, and lifestyle are best communicated in a broadcast environment.  I am enthusiastic to learn, contribute, and grow with the people of our Jackson community and spread the volunteer vibe. Thank you for the opportunity to be involved.