An intersection of performance, poetry, beats and progressive
improvisation, the UC Davis Department of Music will present
“Citizen X,” an avant-garde collaboration between poet, vocalist
and electronics performer Sadiq Bey and guitarist/composer
Jean-Paul Bourelly on March 8 in the Ann E. Pitzer Center.
Bey’s union with Bourelly, who is a lecturer in the College of
Letters and Science’s Department of Music, initially occurred
around the former “no man’s land” area of Cold War Berlin in
1999; the two met there and agreed on a collaboration.
“Citizen X” features David Boyce, saxophone,
and Kevin Carnes, drums, who frequently perform their own
form of progressive jazz under the name Broun Fellinis in the Bay
Area.
In the piece, the performers move through a landscape filled with
a sense of spirituality and atmospheric sound bites,
punctuated by waves of guitar motion and observant commentary on
today’s tumultuous world. Bourelly said, “Cadillac Eldorados, Sun
Ra’s Arkestra, and names like Amiri Baraka, Fred Hampton and Huey
P. Newton come to mind in a blend of black-a-delic consciousness,
bringing a sense of proximity to both endangerment and rarified
beauty.”
“The performance moves towards the cinematic sense of music and
the freedom to navigate beyond typical thematic and sonic
boundaries commonly found in jazz today,” continued Bourelly.
“Inspired by the revolutionary 1960s of Detroit, Chicago, Oakland
and Los Angeles, marinated over time, ‘Citizen X’ finds a new
voice in the theatre of today’s globalized one-world growing
political consciousness of 2019.”
Sadiq Bey began his social investigation with performance
and poetry in post-insurrection Detroit’s experimental music
scene with artists like Faruq Z. Bey, Kenny Cox, poet Dudley
Randall and drummer, Roy Brooks. Formerly the front man for Don
Byron’s NuBlaxploitation, Tuskegee Experiments, The Othello
Syndrome with pianist Uri Caine and his own project,
Fire in Zeroland (a tribute to Sun Ra),
Bey received the Berlin Studio Project Award for his
electronic/acoustic recording Slow the Ear (Allzeit
Musik) in 2008.
Jean-Paul Bourelly, an innovative guitarist composer, excels at
blending and bending various musical genres into fresh cohesive
expression. His music is informed by the migrant community of
Haiti and the blues and innovative movements he found himself
involved with in Chicago’s south side as a youth. His
musical output (18 albums as a leader) spawns diverse variations
of funky otherness.
“Citizen X” begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are $24 for general
admission, $12 for students/youth, and are available at the
Mondavi Center Ticket Office in person or by calling 530-754-2787
during 12-6 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Tickets are also
available online at mondaviarts.org.
Bey’s union with Bourelly, who is a lecturer
in the College of Letters and Science’s department of music,
initially occurred around the former “no man’s land” area of
Cold War Berlin in 1999; the two met there and agreed on a
collaboration. In the piece, the performers move through a
landscape filled with atmospheric sound bites, punctuated by
waves of guitar motion and commentary on today’s tumultuous
world.
