Award winning guitarist Henry Kaiser performs in Portland for the first time in over 20 years. He will perform a solo set and as well as in trio with Dana Valatka (AU, Elfin Elephant) and Fred Challenor. This performance is presented by The Creative Music Guild and made possible in part by a grant from Performance Works Northwest.

Henry Kaiser

Grammy winner Henry Kaiser is widely recognized as one of the most creative and innovative guitarists, improvisers, and producers in the fields of rock, jazz, world, and contemporary experimental musics. The California-based musician is one of the most extensively recorded as well, having appeared on more than 250 different albums and contributed to countless television and film soundtracks. Mr. Kaiser not only produces and contributes to a staggering number of recorded projects, he performs frequently throughout the USA, Canada, Europe and Japan, with several regular groupings as well as solo guitar concerts and concerts of freely improvised music with a host of diverse instrumentalists.

Evidence of his exceptional musical breadth and versatility can be found in just a few of the extraordinary artists with whom he has recorded and/or performed: Evan Parker, John Oswald, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Toshinori Kondo, Steve Lacy, John Stevens, Michael Stipe, Herbie Hancock, John Zorn, Wadada Leo Smith, Bill Laswell, John Stevens, Steve Smith, Drumbo, Chris Cutler, Andy West, Terry Riley, Scott Amendola, Michael Snow, Diamanda Galas, Thomas Mapfumo, Phil Lesh, Lukas Ligeti, Cecil Taylor, Merl Saunders, Tom Constanten, Negativland, and Michael McClure. Henry and Richard Thompson have collaborated since 1987.

One of the last advisory board members of GUITAR PLAYER MAGAZINE still standing, Henry has a longtime habit of musically collaborating with his many guitar heroes; such as: Jerry Garcia, Derek Bailey, Bill Frisell, Nels Cline, D’Gary, Hans Reichel, Sonny Sharrock, Barry Melton, Mike Keneally, David Torn, Fred Frith, Davey Williams, Eugene Chadbourne, David Lindley, John Abercrombie, Bruce Anderson, Amos Garrett, Glenn Phillips, Freddie Roulette, Bob Weir, Steve Kimock, Jody Stecher, Jim O’Rourke, Martin Simpson, Elliot Ingber, and Harvey Mandel.

Kaiser has had a parallel career in the film and television industry since 1972, working as a producer, director and soundtrack composer. He directed and produced many hours of science television programming. He received an Academy Award nomination for his work as the producer for Werner Herzog’s ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD, he was also the underwater camera and soundtrack composer for that film. Kaiser worked on 3 other Herzog films: THE WILD BLUE YONDER, GRIZZLY MAN, and LITTLE DIETER NEEDS TO FLY.

Henry is also a scientific diver in the US ANTARCTIC PROGRAM. He has more Antarctic under-the-ice footage in films and tv shows than any other underwater cameraman. With ten scientific diving deployments to Antarctica, he probably has more dives under fast ice than any other professional videographer. The Antarctic reaches of Youtube are littered with his many short underwater videos shot under the ice of the Ross Sea.

On the global roots front, Kaiser has made 4 albums of cross-cultural collaborations with Korean musicians Sang Won Park and Jin Hi Kim. He is also known for the 10 albums that he has made with musicians from Madagascar, his many albums of collaboration with musicians from Sweden and Norway, his album with Zimbabwe’s Thomas Mapfumo and Wadada Leo Smith, several collaborations with Vietnamese musicians, and his production work on 6 albums of music from Burma, as well as his numerous productions with Hindustani musicians such as Ali Akbar Khan and Brij Bhushan Kabra. Most recently he recorded 2 albums of collaboration with Carnatic musicians from South India, YOU CAN”T GET THERE FROM HERE, playing together with a Chinese gu-qin player from Beijing and two other American Improvisors. (http://www.henrykaiserguitar.com)

Fred Chalenor

Fred Chalenor is a bassist from Seattle WA. In a career spanning three decades, Chalenor has performed and recorded alongside Sue Ann Harkey, Tucker Martine, Lori Goldston, Jim Knodle, Henry Kaiser, Owen Maercks, Rick Adams and others.

Dana Valatka

Dana Valatka (AU, Jackie O Motherfucker, Elfin Elephant) is a Portland-based percussionist. Over the past decade she has collaborated and performed with the likes of Luke Wyland, Colin Stetson, Jonathan Sielaff, Mark Kaylor and many others.

The Creative Music Guild is a Portland, Oregon all-volunteer, non-profit organization whose mission is to promote experimental, improvised music by presenting concerts, workshops and other events that bring together internationally recognized musicians with local performers, audiences and music students of all ages. For over twenty years, the CMG has been a leader in cultivating Portland’s experimental and improvised music.

Confluence, our visiting artist series, is where the CMG started back in 1991 with bringing the best improvisers in the world to Portland. We present 6-8 concerts a year by artists from all over the world at venues around Portland. Our programming committee carefully curates this series taking into account diversity (both musical diversity as well as gender & ethnic diversity), quality and recognition (extremely high quality of craft is a given and some degree of critical and/or community recognition within the creative improvisation scene is crucial) and the ability of the musicians to come to Portland without our help (we generally don’t get involved in concerts that would happen without us).

Henry Kaiser (image courtesy of Henry Kaiser)