Announcing the
Afro Asian Ensemble North American Tour
The late Fred Ho, founder and bandleader of the Afro Asian Music Ensemble, was a one-of-a-kind revolutionary Chinese American baritone saxophonist, composer, writer, producer, political activist and leader of several music ensembles. For three decades, he had innovated a new American Multicultural Music embedded in the swingingest, most soulful and transgressive forms of African American music with the influences of Asia and the Pacific Rim. As Larry Birnbaum writes in Down Beat “Fred Ho’s style is a genre unto itself, a pioneering fusion of free-jazz and traditional Chinese music that manages to combine truculence and delicacy with such natural ease that it sounds positively organic.”
From April 19th-April 26th, the musicians of his band for over three decades, the Afro Asian Music Ensemble, will take Fred Ho’s Afro Asian music and radical politics to venues in Western Massachusetts, New York City, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Vermont. Throughout their performances, they will be joined by special guests and longtime collaborators of Mr. Ho, including singer and theatre artist Youn Jung Kim; in Chicago, by dancer and professor Peggy Choy, and theatre artist Marina Celander; and in Hampshire College in Massachusetts, Magdalena Gómez, life-long cultural organizer; author of Shameless Woman (Red Sugarcane Press), poet, playwright and co-founder of Teatro V!da. The Afro Asian Music Ensemble includes royal hartigan on Drums, Wes Brown on Bass, Matan Rubinstein on piano, Masaru Koga on the Alto Saxophone, David Bindman on the Tenor Saxophone, and Ben Barson on Fred Ho’s Baritone Saxophone.
Performances:
April 19th: Hampshire College Music and Dance Building | 7pm | Free
893 West St, Amherst, MA 01002
April 20th: Fred Ho Revival at the Commons | 7pm | $10 |
388 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, NY | http://ecosocialisthorizons.com/2015/03/fred-ho-revival/
April 22nd: An Die Musik | 7:30pm and 9pm sets | $18 advance / $21 door / $10 students
409 N Charles St, Baltimore, MD | (410) 385-2638 | www.andiemusiklive.com/
April 23rd: First Unitarian Church | 7:30pm | $16 advance / $20 door
605 Morewood Ave, Pittsburgh, PA | (412) 621-8008 | http://www.silkscreenfestival.org/news/afro-asian-music-ensemble-april-23rd/
April 24th: Association of Asian American Studies Conference | 3pm | Open to Conference
Hilton Orrington Hotel, 1710 Orrington Ave, Evanston, IL | http://aaastudies.org/2015-aaas-conference/
April 24th: We Refuse to be Used and Abused: Anti-Colonialism, Gentrification and the Struggle for a New World |7pm | $10 donation
United Electrical Hall at 37 S Ashland Ave, Chicago, IL | discoverfredho.org
April 26th: ArtisTree Community Arts Center and Gallery | 3pm | $20 |
South Pomfret, Vermont | 802 457-3500 | http://www.artistreevt.org/
Afro Asian Music Ensemble
The Afro Asian Music Ensemble is the product of over three decades of Fred Ho’s revolutionary and multicultural musical and theatrical productions. Consisting of royal hartigan (drums), Masaru Koga (alto sax), and Ben Barson (who wields Fred Ho’s own Mark VI Baritone Sax), and other notable alumni from Fred Ho’s bands including Wes Brown (bass), David Bhindman (Tenor Sax), and Bhinda Kiedel (soprano sax), the ensemble represents the core of Fred’s compositional legacy. Fred wrote for this 6 piece ensemble for the majority of his career, combining groovy mixed meters bass lines with Chinese percussion, Korean operatic tuning systems, and infectious funk — all set to agitprop titles with uplifting references to the people’s struggle for liberation and dignity!
The Afro-Asian Music Ensemble will be performing and presenting in Chicago in the April of 2015 as part of the Asian American Studies Conference, and is available for educational and performance purposes upon request.
We Refuse to be Used and Abused!
Composed by Fred Ho
Performed by the Afro Asian Music Ensemble
Oct 5 at El Taller Latino Americano in New York, NY
Masaru Koga – Alto Saxophone
Benjamin Barson – Baritone Saxophone
Bhinda Keidel – Soprano Saxophone
David Bindman – Tenor Saxophone
royal haritgan – Drum Set, African and Asian percussion
Wes Brown – Bass
Matan Rubenstien – Piano
Camera, Sound: Steven De Castro
Camera, Edit: Youn Jung Kim
Underground Rail Road to My Heart composed by Fred Ho
Performed by the Afro Asian Music Ensemble
September 6th at Freedom Archives, San Fransisco, CA
Masaru Koga – Alto Saxophone
Hafez Modirzadeh — Tenor Saxophone
Benjamin Barson – Baritone Saxophone
Winston Byrd — Trumpet
Ken Okada — Bass
royal hartigan — drums
Video by Jason Jem
Serve the People, Organize the People, All Power to the People!
composed by Fred Ho
Performed by the Afro Asian Music Ensemble
Fred Ho Memorial, September 7th at The Oakland Asian Cultural Center, Oakland, CA
Masaru Koga – Alto Saxophone
Hafez Modirzadeh — Tenor Saxophone
Benjamin Barson – Baritone Saxophone
Winston Byrd — Trumpet
Marty Wehner — Trombone
Dahveed Behroozi — Piano
Mark Izu — Bass
royal hartigan — drums
Video by Jason Jem