Jeb Bishop and Dan Ruccia performing at Revolve Studios in Asheville, NC
Trombonist Jeb Bishop and Violist Dan Ruccia recently teamed up on a tour through the mid Atlantic states of the US to perform music from their 2017 release Scratch Slice Jag released on Out and Gone records. Bishop grew up in Raleigh, NC where he was involved in the punk rock band Stillborn Christians and the Alternative band Angels of Epsitemology. After moving to Chicago Bishop became a regular in Ken Vandermark’s bands as well as performed with Joe McPhee, Peter Brötzmann’s Tentet, Alexander von Schippenbach’s Globe Unity Orchestra and many other crucial members of the creative new music world. Ruccia hails from Durham and has recorded many of his own compositions, in addition to being at DJ at Duke University’s WXDU radio station in his spare time.
The two artists recently performed at the Revolve Sound Series in Asheville. They met when Bishop was living in the triangle a few years ago. Although Bishop has since moved to Boston, Massachusetts, both he and Ruccia colaborated on Scratch Slice Jag and the album was released to critical acclaim from the Free Jazz blog.
Shane Parish and Tashi Dorji at Revolve Studios 6/29/2018
Asheville based guitarists Shane Parish and Tashi Dorji performed an opening set of improvised music then later joined Bishop and Ruccia for an improvised quartet performance to close the evening. Parish is a member in both Aleuchatistas and Dirge Duo as well as a collaborator with many artists. Dorji has performed with a number of musicians highly regarded in the improvised music realm including Sir Richard Bishop, Tyler Damon, Bill Orcutt, Joe McPhee and Mette Rasmussen. Dorji has recently released a duo record with Rasmussen on the Montreal based label Feeding Tube records. Parish and Dorji have released a recording together as well in 2016 on the MIE label entitled Expecting. In their duo Parish sounds at times like crafty guitarist Robert Fripp while Dorji shreds in a style similar to that of Fred Frith. The duos and quartet performances were both enjoyable but the duos were clearly the most coherent and strongest moments of the night.
