Grant Clarkson: Buy Products
Famous Cats In Literature - Itunes Download
Six New Compositions featuring fretless electric bass, Richard Sellers on drums, and different horns for each. Each based on different famous cats in literature.
Metamorphosis Acts 1 & 3
My first “triple album” - inspired by my first experience at the Opera - Richard Wagner’s ‘Tanhausser’. Metamorphosis’ three “acts” parallel those in Tanhausser. Wagner’s first act takes place in a kind of heaven (The Celestial Plane), the second in the royal palace (The Kings Court), and the third has Tanhausser on a pilgrimage to Rome (Into the Wood). Mine is titled Metamorphosis in the dramatic sense of transformation of character by epic events or rites of passage.
Act I has an “overture” with themes reprised at the end of Act III. The bass is kind of the central “character” with many solo “arias”. The featured character besides the bass is different for each act; flute for The Celestial Plane, french horn for The King’s Court, and oboe for Into the Wood, with all returning in harmony for the finale. I played all the instruments on this album in order that it might be true ‘composition’ in the sense that the whole thing has one author. The flute, organ, french horn, trumpet, oboe, and percussion are all from the MIDI bass.
Though I certainly did not write an “opera” with words and singing characters, I did use certain structural elements from that opera experience to become part of this project. I chose acts 1 and 3 in order to release this as a single CD.
Ever So Much Fun - DVD
Original Musical film based on Nietzsche's doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence and the television series, The Twilight Zone. Music composed in 2003, film completed in 2005, and released in 2008.
This is a musical film first and foremost, but telling a philosophical story with post-modern and black and white film noir style elements. It's narrative is exclusively subtitles from the classic writings and aphorisms from Frieidrich Nietzsche, and the drama is purely through pastiche of Twilight Zone film stock.
The original story, however is a contemporary depiction of the experience and sensibilities of a young artist, who in this generation knows how to incorporate and reappropriate elements of pop culture to express his personal experience, and give expression to the ambivalences of creative life in the 21st century. As voiced by the opening aphorism from Nietzsche:
"Original minds are not distinguished by being the first to see a new thing, but by seeing the old, well known thing, which is seen and overlooked by everyone, as something new. The first discoverer is usually that quite ordinary and unintellectual visionary - chance."
This film finds something new in the fusion of these old and well known elements, and the experience of finding how uncanny they fit together was as if by chance, giving the composer-director quite a first hand 'Twilight Zone' type experience. And for the audience, the film resolves with a positive message about how even the existential mysteries and ambivalences can be redeemed through art and expression.
This is a musical film first and foremost, but telling a philosophical story with post-modern and black and white film noir style elements. It's narrative is exclusively subtitles from the classic writings and aphorisms from Frieidrich Nietzsche, and the drama is purely through pastiche of Twilight Zone film stock.
The original story, however is a contemporary depiction of the experience and sensibilities of a young artist, who in this generation knows how to incorporate and reappropriate elements of pop culture to express his personal experience, and give expression to the ambivalences of creative life in the 21st century. As voiced by the opening aphorism from Nietzsche:
"Original minds are not distinguished by being the first to see a new thing, but by seeing the old, well known thing, which is seen and overlooked by everyone, as something new. The first discoverer is usually that quite ordinary and unintellectual visionary - chance."
This film finds something new in the fusion of these old and well known elements, and the experience of finding how uncanny they fit together was as if by chance, giving the composer-director quite a first hand 'Twilight Zone' type experience. And for the audience, the film resolves with a positive message about how even the existential mysteries and ambivalences can be redeemed through art and expression.
Babel - Itunes Download
Fifteen new compositions from Avant-Jazz composer Grant Clarkson - featuring Fender bass, organs, and horn sections. Too funky to be merely experimental and too conceptually deep to be mere acid jazz or soul jazz.
One For The Angels - CD
CD released December 2006 on Imaginary Records. Funky instrumental compositions featuring heavy fretless bass, jazz horns, electronic grooves, and sophisticated moods.