Embodiments

ALBUM NOTES:

INTRODUCTION:

It would be tempting to say that on the evening October 10, 2019, something unique and inimitable took place at WTMD studios in Towson Maryland, and in a way, that would be true, but it also doesn’t tell the full story.

It was indeed a unique event, in that it was the first and only time in history that this unique group of artists gathered together to create a studio recording in front of a live audience. All of these artists - vocalists, DJs, rappers, banjo pickers, trumpeters, beatboxers, keyboardists, and more, were pulled into orbit for this one night by the two musicians at the center of the project, two men from two vastly different places, with a single vision - Bady-Dorzhu Ondar and Shodekeh.

And yet the event was not really so surprising or unique, in that it represented a culmination of nearly a decade of collaboration between Bady, Shodekeh, and very frequently the rest of the musicians from that evening. Since 2011, Bady, as a member of Alash, one of the foremost groups of traditional Tuvan musicians, and Shodekeh, as the founder of the Embody series, a series of all-vocal performances taking place regularly in Baltimore, had been searching artistically for ways to combine their disparate and yet copasetic musical traditions.

In that capacity, not only had Bady already appeared on stage with Shodekeh and all of the other participating musicians over various performances, but Shodekeh had become a regular visitor to Tuva over this time. Each of them, following the impetus of a restless artistic search and desire to learn more about the other, provided the energy to create the unique fusion that occurred on this night to produce a spectacular collaboration, an evening of truly original Tuvan music viewed through the lens of Baltimore’s premier artists.

That evening only lasted for a few hours, and seems very long ago indeed, but we are truly happy to invite you to now enjoy the fruits of those long labors.

SONGS:

1. Kargyraa - A very traditional performance of Kargyraa, the lowest style of Tuvan Throat Singing, by Bady, featuring words about his home area of Iyme.

2. Traveler - A Bady Original, both words and melody. For those who don’t speak Tuvan, Eze Jackon’s verses sum up the meaning of this song about life on the road nicely.

3. Charash Karaa - A classic, old, Tuvan song about the beautiful eyes of the singer’s beloved.

4. Reindeer Girl’s Song - Another Tuvan classic, from the very special northeastern area of Tozhu, where people traditionally herd reindeer rather than sheep, goats, and cows. The song tells the somewhat humorous tale of a Tozhan girl on a reindeer who easily outpaces her horse-riding would-be suitor from the west of Tuva.

5. I’m a Shepherd - A traditional Tuvan song about a young fellow who fully intends to become an excellent shepherd, just like his father. Affectionately known by the guest artists as “Beep-Beep,” for obvious reasons.

6. Kozhamyktar - A traditional Tuvan lyrical form of quatrains, perfect for combination with Eze and Jasmine’s verses. The melody is a re-imagining of a traditional one, and the Tuvan lyrics come from Bady’s long-time friend and colleague Andrei Mongush.

7. Igil Solo - another very classic Tuvan performance on the two-stringed horse-head fiddle “Igil,” gently supported by Wendel’s sensitive keys. Tuvan lyrics by Igor Köshkendey.

8. Mother (Avai) - A song by the late Alexander Sarzhat-ool, a Tuvan music legend who is unfortunately little known outside his homeland. Joyce J. Scott’s spoken word effectively crystallizes the song’s meaning, the pained heartsong of a son to his mother, the only one who truly knows him, about his troubled past.

9. My Father’s Winter Camp - A nostalgic song by Boris Dygynday, Bady’s uncle, about his father’s Kyshtag, or nomadic winter camp. Melody composed by Bady.

10. My Kargyraa - If you’ve listened to the album up to this point, you can probably tell that Kargyraa is Bady’s favorite style. Words and Music by Möngün-ool Dambashtai.

11. Iyme - a little village tucked away on the edge of the mountains, within sight of mighty sand dunes - the only such dunes for many, many miles in any direction, Iyme is not only the home of this songs lyricist, Boris Dygynday, and its composer, Bady-Dorzhu Ondar, but also of many, many famous Tuvan musicians, including Kongar-ool Ondar, Maksim Dakpai, Choduraa Tumat, Ertine Tumat, Khüler Ondar, and many others.

12. Oidupaa Style - There will always be debate over the exact taxonomy of the styles and techniques of Tuvan vocal music, but it is a certain fact that this manner of performing Kargyraa accompanied by the Bayan accordion was first introduced and popularized by the unique and trobled genius of Tuvan music, Vladimir Oidupaa.

13. Est’ Tolk’o Mig - There’s Only a Moment - words by Leonid Derbentyev, Music by Alexander Zatsepin, composed in 1973 for the Soviet film “Sannikov’s Land.” The song’s unusually (for Soviet times) Buddhist philosophy is summed up in its first verse - “There’s only a moment, between the past and the future, and that moment, is called ‘life.’”

14. Diingchigesh - Lil’ Squirrel - Is there any better way to wrap up an album then a rocking song about squirrels, featuring the evening’s two stars at their finest?

MUSICIANS:

Bady-Dorzhu Ondar

Bady-Dorzhu Ondar is the founder of this musical feast. Bady has been representing Tuva on stage since 1993, when he was nine years old and toured the US with his mentor, Kongar-ool Ondar. He is a founding member and artistic leader of Alash, has played in the Tuvan National Orchestra since its inception in 2003, was named People’s Khöömeizhi of the Republic of Tuva in 2008 and Distinguished Artist in 2019. He is currently the Director of the International Khöömei Academy in Kyzyl.

As early as 2015 he began exploration collaboration with Shodekeh and other Baltimore musicians as a way of showcasing Tuvan music in a new light. Not only did he choose the repertoire for the evening (exclusively Tuvan music, with the exception of “There’s Only a Moment”), but he also composed the music for several of the songs featured on the evening. Regarding the album, he says, “This album is the product of many years of communication between musicians. Even though we are from different countries and cultures, music has always been the thing that allows us to communicate across borders and languages. It’s been a great honor to develop relationships with Shodekeh and all of our collaborators through the process of creating this album, and I’m deeply grateful to everyone who has helped make it happen. Hope you enjoy it!”

Shodekeh

With 36 years of personal, professional and community-based experience, Dominic “Shodekeh” Talifero continues to make musical strides as a groundbreaking and highly adept Beatboxer, Vocal Percussionist and Breath Artist who pushes the boundaries of the human voice within and outside the context of Hip Hop music and culture. As the first vocal percussionist to do so, he formally served as a dance technique musician and composer-in-residence for Towson University’s Department of Dance for 12 years and is the founding director of Embody, A Festival Series of the Vocal Arts, which strives for artistic and cultural convergence through a variety of vocal art traditions from a multitude of worlds such as opera and Tuvan throat singing, to the many forms of vocal percussion, which has featured such vocal luminaries as Madison McFerrin, Alash Ensemble, Dan Deacon, Raul Midon, and Joyce J. Scott.

Beatboxing is a form of vocal percussion born within the world of Hip Hop, and easily exists as one the most highly advanced vocal art forms known within the diversity of the human voice. Imitating and often replacing a drum set, drum machine, or drum loop through a series of vocal effects or percussive sounds primarily produced by the larynx, nasal, oral and chest cavities, Beatboxing exemplifies the Hip Hop philosophy of creating meaningful artistic expressions with limited resources at its most extreme; it replaces the source of the timeless break beat with the human voice, becoming a ubiquitous and indigenous feature of the African American city experience and soundscape.

Shodekeh recently served as TU's very first Innovator-in-Residence from 2019 - 2022, a historic designation which was anchored by the College of Fine Arts & Communication, allowing him lecture, collaborate, experiment, compose, perform and conduct research within the departments of Music, Art + Design/Art History/Art Education, Dance, Communication Studies, Electronic Media + Film, Mass Communication, Theatre Arts, Arts Integration & Interdisciplinary Arts Infusion, as well as the Asian Arts & Culture Center of TU, the TU Community Art Center, TU Community Dance & the TU Center For The Arts MFA & Main Gallery.

In previous years Talifero served as music faculty of the American Dance Festival at Duke University and has served as the chosen musician for a variety of master class experiences led by such luminaries as Ailey II of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Paul Taylor American Modern Dance Ensemble, and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. In his close relationship with the world of dance, he has acquired a wealth of experiences of applying his vocal and rhythmic skills in the movement context of ballet, capoeira, fire movement, belly dancing and a wide range of modern dance techniques created by such legends as Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, and Lester Horton.

This deeply synthesized relationship with dance, which began in 2006 has also played a tremendous role in Shodekeh’s sustained & pioneering development of ‘Breath Art”, which is essentially the deep practice and extensive research of isolated creative breathing techniques and methods maintained within the musical and kinesthetic modalities of universal human vocal expression. This deep artistic and philosophical practice and ongoing research of "Breath Art" are greatly exemplified in the recent commissions of original compositional work for the Covid-19 sculptures created by Rebecca Kamen for the 2021 exhibition "Reveal" at the American University Museum in Washington DC and his cymatic / sound art composition "Vymatics" for the 2022 world premiere event of "Voyages", a brand new immersive science communication series based at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, MD.

Over the years, Talifero has evolved and moved through the world as a musical ambassador from Beatboxing’s Hip Hop roots to explore innovative and convergent cultural collaborations with a wide range of traditional and classical artists. He serves as the Beatboxer and vocal percussionist for the globally renown Alash Ensemble, one of the world’s leading Tuvan Throat Singing ensembles from Southern Siberia, and features as a guest artist on their Smithsonian Folkways album release “Achai”, as well as a co-curator and executive producer on the recently released album “Embodiments” with Bady Dorzhu Ondar of Alash, which is the first full album of Traditional Tuvan Throat Singing and Hip Hop fusion; has become a regular collaborator with the magnificent percussion and rhythm ensemble So Percussion based at Princeton University, with whom he composed for during Shodekeh’s historic Carnegie Hall debut in 2021.

One of Shodekeh’s most recent and by far bravest endeavor has been the recent establishment of his own collection and living archive with the Towson University Special Collections and University Archives in 2021, which is entitled “Ideations of Potential: Shodekeh's Innovation Lab of Embodied Scholarship & Hip Hop Imagination". This lifelong collaboration is the first Hip Hop-based archive created in the state of Maryland and the first Beatbox / Breath Art driven archive instituted in the world, with the expressed and dedicated mission of maximizing the collection as a platform for raising awareness on the epidemic of black youth suicide and ideation.

Ideations of Potential: Shodekeh's Innovation Lab of Embodied Scholarship & Hip Hop Imagination @ the Towson University Special Collections & University Archives.

https://archives.towson.edu/collections/ideations-of-potential

Joyce J. Scott

Baltimore legend and MacArthur fellow Joyce J. Scott is an historian, visual artist, educator, sculptor, weaver, printmaker, singer, performance artist, jeweler, beadworker, glassmaker, and force of nature. Her artworks have been featured around the globe and she has been a frequent collaborator with Bady and Shodekeh during Alash's visits to Baltimore. Her presence on this project is a blessing.

Joyce herself says of this collaboration: “Who would believe a 73 years old African American Baltimore Artist, who sculpts and is a blues singer would one day be embraced by the heart thumping, smooth breezing, throat alchemizing, bad ass Tuvans of Alash. Mesmerized by the invitation to blend my urban Blackness with their Siberian Soul is a revelation. Amen.”

Wendel Patrick

Wendel Patrick is a multitalented artist whose creativity knows no bounds. Equally at home performing on stage with his band, behind two turntables, beatboxing, improvising, or playing a Mozart Concerto on stage with orchestra, Wendel Patrick has toured Europe on several occasions and performed throughout the world with renowned spoken word artist and poet Ursula Rucker. Not only has Wendel been a constant fixture of Alash’s Baltimore performances, as part of the Baltimore Boom Bap society which he cofounded with Erik Spangler, he also took Siberia by storm in 2019 on his visit to Tuva with Shodekeh for Alash’s 20th anniversary. Wendel is also a Professor at the Peabody Institute of Music, where teaches Hip Hop Production and Theory, the first ever course of its kind at a major music conservatory.

Jasmine Pope

Jasmine, like many musicians, fell in love with music in the church, inspired by semi-regular visits by The Fleming Sisters. Listeners find themselves connecting her performances to those of trailblazing black female vocalists such as Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughn, Lauryn Hill, and Me’shell Ndegocello. “I think there is an internal rhythm and spirit that we all have inside, and that’s what brings us together as people.” A frequent contributor to Baltimore Boom Bap and EMBODY performances, she is most well-known as front-woman for “J Pope and the Hear Now,” a musical collective that has frequently toured the US and performed with musicians such as Esperanza Spalding, Robert Randolph, and the Wailers, with the band being called “one of Baltimore’s best kept musical secrets.”

Eze Jackson

Eze Jackson has traveled the world over, and toured the US opening for such legendary Hip-Hop idols such as Rakim, the Roots, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Beanie Sigel, KRS-One, Cormega, Jay Electronica, and Redman & Method Man, but he keeps coming home to the place he knows best, Baltimore. As a trained actor, Eze was a theater major at the Baltimore School for the Arts and has been involved as “Ezewriter” for a variety of multimedia film, TV, and stage projects. Since 2014, he has released six solo studio albums, three as the frontman of hip=hop collective Soul Cannon, and his is the founder of EPIC FAM (Every Person is Coming From A Memory). Eze is an integral figure in the Baltimore artistic community, as Baltimore Magazine put it, “It’s hard to envision the Baltimore music scene without Eze Jackson.”

Erik Spangler

A.k.a DJ Dubble8, is a composer and electronic musician. Engaged equally with ensemble improvisation, live sample-based mixing, hybrid electronica production, and notated chamber music, Spangler aims to dissolve cultural boundaries while drawing all corners of inspiration into cohesive sound images. Spangler’s compositions have been performed across the United States and internationally from Canada to China, by ensembles including the Atlantic Brass Quintet, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and International Contemporary Ensemble.

Of the evening, Erik says, “This evening felt truly magical in the way that Bady, Shodekeh, and the rest of my friends on stage were able to create a profound musical dialogue in the live moment that transcended geography, ancient and modern influences. The music that we performed could only have happened through a deep trust, and the previous experiences that some of us had in previous years improvising with Bady and the other members of Alash Ensemble when they have come to Baltimore.”

Rafaela Dreisin

Rafaela is a graduate of the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University. She works in both the Baltimore Chamber Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and is the co-Director of Classical Revolution Baltimore, a chamber music series that organizes performances in non-traditional venues. Rafaela has been featured in the Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Magazine, and has presented at TEDxMidAtlantic.