Neon Egypt’s departure from mainstream jazz began in 1992 with formation of the performance art collaborative “Tabula Rasa”. This four piece ensemble undertook an intentional regimen of mental and musical exercises designed to reach beyond the players’ musical “programming” as jazz musicians, and augment it with the pure ability to create – by inspiration as it were – through attentive, intuitive listening. Each weekly session was recorded and distributed for review to the participants the following week.

The earliest experiments were hesitant and clunky, as the musicians struggled to escape their usual and familiar chordal and rhythmic jazz frameworks and “patterns” of playing, while attempting to create something unknown, something truly fresh. As they continued to work this process week by week, new, natural “patterns” began to emerge and assert themselves. For example, the four players found that they would consistently create musical pieces that had apparent structure. Thirty-five to forty minute musical pieces would materialize that had three or more clearly defined movements, each with an easily discernible beginning, middle, and end. As the process of refined listening continued, a continual stream of new musical information began to flow through and inform these flexible movements, seemingly regulating itself in some unknown manner, so that the players would each fully exercise their creative contributions, and yet all somehow end up in the same musical “place” consistently. Previous constraints such as time signature and key signature became essentially irrelevant, as the musicians began to play in unusual, mixed keys and rhythms. Pure, coordinated inspiration became the new “glue” holding the pieces together. It was always apparent when a particular piece was complete, and the players would reach a natural ending together and simply stop playing, at once.

The fruit of these years of musical experiment and growth are now represented in Neon Egypt, a continuing collaboration of just two members of the ground breaking group Tabula Rasa. Neon Egypt’s music is fully and spontaneously improvised, and recorded live without overdubs or retakes.

Influences: Wayne Shorter, Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, Cal Tjader, Joe Morello, Don Lamond, Ed Shaughnes