Dafna Naphtali and Ras Moshe Burnett have collaborated and performed together since 2004.
Dafna’s been working, since the mid-90’s, on ways to incorporate live sound processing into improvised music with avant-jazz leanings. Ras and Dafna’s long awaited debut album, Fusebox (coming May 21, 2021 on Gold Bolus Recordings) represents a longtime collaboration exploring a unique approach, in their duo performances, distilling language developed also in many trio and larger ensemble performances over the years with musicians including bassist Shayna Dulberger, trombonist Jen Baker, guitarist Michael Gregory Jackson, drummers Andrew Drury, Jeff Arnal, Dave Miller, Jackson Krall and others.
Fusebox duo is a prime expression of Dafna’s long standing ideas about sound and live sound processing in improvised music, playing her unique technical setup as a flexible and musical “instrument “ in the context of this music. – including improvisations, novel arrangements/configuration, sometimes with favorite repertoire pieces, and original compositions — very connected to churning polyrhythms, and extended tonalities that encompass both the acoustic and electronics expressions of sound. Together with Ras, she has explored new territory in these sound explorations of melody in timbre, rhythm in overtones and noise but rooted in communication.
This long overdue debut recording and unreleased tracks from their archive was released May 2021: https://fusebox-nyc.bandcamp.com/releases
~~~~~~~~~
REVIEWS OF FUSEBOX:
Sybaritic Singer — “IN REVIEW: RAS MOSHE BURNETT AND DAFNA NAPHTALI’S “FUSEBOX”” July 21, 2021
“dynamic, complex interactions “, “Augmenting [Naphtali’s] formidable vocal talents with live processing adds another layer of depth and beauty” and Burnett – “pyroclastic” “with grace, edge, and skill”. [Fusebox is] “a dynamic and powerful exploration of what great improvisors can do.” (review by Austin Franklin)
tinyurl.com/FuseboxReview1
The Answer is in the Beat (Paul Simpson for WCBN in Ann Arbor) July 15, 2021
“..otherworldly improvisations that tangle human impulses with generative technology, blasting tones and voices far beyond their starting points.”
tinyurl.com/FuseboxReview2
JazzWord — Ken Waxman August 13, 2021
http://www.jazzword.com/one-review/?id=130715
“Cultivated in a sophisticated and knowing fashion the electronics and processing add another dimension”
Links below are is an archive of other unreleased audio tracks, short excerpts of recordings, and video some of the duos many performances.
older/archival footage:
Fusebox trio Ras Moshe Burnett / Dafna Naphtali / Shayna Dulberger at Rhythm in the Kitchen Festival 2008:
Studio recordings: coming soon!
Z-plane Quartet w/Jackson Krall (drums) and Hans Tammen (endangered guitar) 2005 at Issue Project Room
Z-plane duo at WKCR — coming soon!
Dafna Naphtali with Ras Moshe Burnett, Shayna Dulberger and Jeff Arnal at Roulette, Nov. 2006
more audio excerpts coming soon!
Bios:
Saxophonist Ras Moshe Burnett was born and bred in Brooklyn. He gained his early musical sensibilities from his family upbringing and later played in community jazz orchestras. He also spent his formative years in venues such as the East (in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn), where so much creative music was happening in the 1970s and 1980s as a part of the broader upwelling of African American cultural expression in the area. By the late 1980s, he was playing professionally in free jazz and reggae contexts. In the past 15 years, he has emerged as a fresh saxophone voice on the scene through his formation of the Music Now Ensemble (with varying lineups) and a quartet in his own name. He also co-leads a duo with bassist Shayna Dulberger and joined Bill Cole’s Untempered Ensemble in 2009.
Dafna Naphtali’s musical DNA started with jazz. As a teenager, she started her music studies as a jazz guitarist, studying with Allen Hanlon, and later studies jazz voice and did many standards gigs as singer or singer/guitarist. In the 90’s she started making interactive electronic music and connecting the dots.