Cornelius Boots, Beth Custer & Stephen Kent - Shakuhachi, Clarinets & Didgeridoo- Trio Improvisation

Live at Old First Church in San Francisco, CA. September 21, 2018. In 2003, Beth Custer helped CB relocate to the Bay Area and establish Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet. She is an icon of the San Francisco Bay Area creative music scene, and a one-of-a-kind visionary performer, composer and bandleader. This is the first concert we have collaborated across clarinets and shakuhachi. As a performer on the Australian Aboriginal Didjeridu Stephen Kent has pioneered its use in contemporary music across the globe collaborating with a number of musicians, including Airto Moreira (Brasil), Zakir Hussain (India), Habib Koite (Mali), Omar Sosa (Cuba), Leonard Eto (Japan), Choi Jong Sil (Korea), Steve Roach (USA) and many more. Stephen also hosts Music of the World, a weekly show on Pacifica Radio’s KPFA. #bambooflute #improvisation #jinashishakuhachi Follow, Listen and Connect: Website: Spotify : iTunes: Bandcamp: Facebook (personal): YouTube: Twitter: Instagram: Facebook (shakuhachi): Shakuhachi Blues Master & Bamboo Gospel Preacher. From hymns to heavy metal, traditional and new music for standard & bass (Taimu) shakuhachi flute, the robust woodwind of Japan. Boldly evolving the deep roots of Zen Buddhist shakuhachi, rooted in aliveness, awareness and the natural world. Bass & Zen Shakuhachi Practitioner-Teacher, Reverend Boots is a lifelong professional in creative music. Founder-creator of Black Earth Shakuhachi School, Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet, Heavy Woodwind Theory and the robot bass clarinet. “I am committed to woodwind performance as a living art form in collaboration with the natural material, with plant consciousness. Because of this, I only play on jinashi or 100% bamboo, unlacquered shakuhachi, hotchiku and Taimu flutes.“ 深竹道 - 地無し尺八 LONG BIO: Founder/composer of Black Earth Shakuhachi School, Cornelius Boots has forged his own eclectic style as a professional woodwind performer since 1989. A licensed shakuhachi master, prize-winning composer and former bass clarinet performance innovator, he is actively merging the threads of Watazumido, Eric Dolphy and Son House on jinashi (all-natural) and Taimu (bass) shakuhachi. Boots has generated and released an entire body of new songs and compositions for these large, raw and rare bamboo flutes of Japanese Zen Buddhist origin: mukyoku (27 pieces for Taimu) and Shakuhachi Unleashed (48 virtuosic songs of rock, Zen, blues, metal and more). In 2018, he was a finalist in the World Shakuhachi Competition, a featured performer for Sony PlayStation’s E3 press conference (LA) and a featured performer/lecturer at both the World Bamboo Congress (Xalapa, Mexico) and the World Shakuhachi Festival (London). A three-time graduate of the renowned Jacobs School of Music (BM Classical Clarinet ’97, BS Audio Recording ’97, MM Jazz Studies ’99), Boots’ training and work experience is deep and diverse: jazz saxophonist, Dixieland clarinetist, symphony bass clarinetist, funk and progressive rock bandleader and founder/composer of the world’s only composing bass clarinet quartet, Edmund Welles. With his latest three albums, the Shakuhachi Unleashed series—Holy Flute (2017), Bamboo Rising (2018), and Sacred Root (2019)—Cornelius continues to develop “bamboo gospel,” a robust, cross-cultural solo style utilizing rare breath-defying techniques and maximum polystylistic prowess. A Performer’s Certificate Awardee from David N. Baker’s seminal Jazz Studies program at Indiana University, Cornelius is the first student of Grandmaster Michael Chikuzen Gould to have earned a Shihan (master teaching license) in 2013 and was given the shakuhachi name 深禅 “Shinzen“ (depth Zen or deep Zen). In addition to teaching, Cornelius has recorded and written, in shakuhachi calligraphic notation, a series of 27 etudes (mukyoku) for Taimu shakuhachi. First-prize winner of the 2013 International Clarinet Composition Competition, Boots has also received commissions and awards from Chamber Music America, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Areon Flutes, International Songwriting Competition and Meet the Composer. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Visit and sign up on the mailing list or contact Cornelius for online or in person lessons. You don’t need a flute or “basic sounds“ before you start learning: with shakuhachi, these are very important aspects of your first lessons. Avant Nature Music Video: