Hey everybody! It is cold outside and I am staying positive, ordering seeds and working on garden plans and schedules for this summer. As always we have a bunch of great music this week. Come out and join us.

Weds. Jan 23 Open Session Bluegrass Jam

Matt and Kalav do a really nice job playing and hosting this bluegrass session every 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month. Open Sessions on Wednesday nights are cover free and give you an opportunity to walk in and listen to some great music or join in and play.

Thurs. Jan 24th Barika Ensemble. http://www.myspace.com/barikaensemble

5$ suggested donation*

Craig played here a while back in the fall as part of the Rubblebucket Orchestra. He is back again this time with his Barika Ensemble. Funky West African folk-funk-jazz… Check it out!

Craig Myers: N'Goni
Matt Brand: Guitar
JP Candelier: bass
Set Eames: Sax
Jacob Deva Racusin: Sax
Lonnie Edwards: Calabash

Fri. Jan 25th Inner Fire District http://www.myspace.com/innerfiredistrictband

5$ suggested donation*

I will paste in a description of IFD but first want to say it is all true. This is a return engagement for IFD. Last time the band was here was a magical night. Great Musicians! Great music.

Inner Fire District was founded by accordionist/composer David Symons (also a founder of the influential Vermont band, Black Sea Quartet, and an original member of Berlin's The Painted Bird) and guitarist/accordionist/pianist Tim Lang. The most recent phase of IFD began in September of 2006, when David happened upon multi-instrumentalist and musical prodigy Zoe Christiansen playing clarinet on a bridge in Montpelier, Vermont. IFD attempts to walk a tightrope between arrangement and improvisation, despair and elation, savagery and sophistication, sobriety and inebriation, the gutter and the big lights.

ACCOLADES: "[David Symons is] the hottest and most obsessively intense accordion player in the neighborhood" -Seven Days.

"If Shostakovich, Hank Williams, and the Baal Shem Tov met in a bomb shelter stocked with a bottle of slivovitz and an accordion, with nothing to do but wait for the end of the world, it might sound ever so slightly like the Inner Fire District." -Ellen Kushner, host of NPR's Sound and Spirit.

Sat. Jan 26th Vorcza http://www.myspace.com/vorcza

5$ suggested donation*

Gabe has been playing at OTR on a regular basis now with a jazz trio (most often with bass player Giovanni Rovetto and Keyboard and trombone player Andrew Moroz). If you have not been out for Thursday night jazz with Gabe and friends I highly recommend it and know that you will not be disappointed. Now Gabe will be here this Saturday with the high-energy trio Vorcza. Don’t miss this opportunity to see the band in an intimate setting with great sound. We will be pulling out tables in order to leave room for dancing. Enjoy.

Bottom line...Vorcza is explosive; a musical evolution at high speed. Their sound marries jazz, funk and world-influenced rhythms into a layered, sultry, and at times lusty sound.

The band features Ray Paczkowski of Trey Anastasio's 70 VOLT PARADE on vocals and keys, Robinson Morse on acoustic and electric bass and Gabriel Jarrett (formerly of Jazz Mandolin Project) on drums.

Vorcza is a collaborative project interested primarily in improvisation. Contained in that word, however, is a great wealth of history, nuance, and potential. From the freely played cadenzas of the classical idiom through the realms of blues and jazz and onward into the age of the “ creative” D.J. and electronic musician, improvised music has woven itself into the collective conciousness. You may love to hear Charlie Parker improvise yet shudder to hear Albert Ayler hold forth; Jimi Hendrix’s sound may appeal while Jerry Garcia leaves you cold. Certainly all these artists, in part, found their expression through improvisation, yet the boundaries each pushed and the material they chose to explore seem wildly disparate. When you listen closely, you will hear in each a distinctive tension, that beautiful intangible created by instantaneous composition, unique, ephemeral, unforgettable. Improvisation encompasses a vast territory, unlimited in its potential for the creation of that beautiful sound; it is a geography that inspires and thrills this trio.

Vorcza's process is straightforward. Individually, they bring compositions, rhythmic ideas, and harmonic ideas to the group. Influences in this respect have ranged from Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra and other proponents of “free” music, to Stravinsky and Bach, to Balinese chants, to Fela Kuti’s sounds, and to traditional dance musics, tango, samba, etc. However, it is the process of arranging these pieces and ideas in a collaborative, “on the fly,” manner that is most interesting when listening to this band. Essentially, what the musicians do is take the core rhythmic/harmonic idea in a piece, discover it, and then shift it into another framework. All in the process of performing the piece. This is not improvisational arrangement by an individual conductor, but rather as a group discovery. It involves exploring the implications of aspects of a given piece to an “unknown” place. When thinking of Vorcza, use this metaphor:

Music as yourself, running full bore to the edge of a cliff and then balancing one foot out over the abyss. In itself an exciting thing but not unimagined. But to take the next step and leave the ground itself, stand on air over nothing takes imagining the unimaginable. Of course, the moment you might find yourself standing over nothing, well...the instinct is to either look down, or scramble back to solid ground. Try to resist!

This is going to be another great week for music in Richmond; we hope to see you soon. You can find out more about On the Rise day and night at out website (still under construction) ontherisebakery.net

*A word about the suggested donation. One of our main inspirations in creating our new space was to make On the Rise a comfortable venue for music, art, and film. We are in Richmond to contribute to a community that appreciates, creates, and enjoys art and music. We see the arts as an important tool to bring people together and to create social change in good and simple ways. We are a small venue appreciate your contributions to help us support the hard working and talented artists that play at On the Rise.

All the best,

Ben