|
|
Q.K.R. - Quincy, Kelvyn, & Ronnie |
 |
Q.K.R. presents "Rapazz"
Where progressive spoken word meets creative, improvised music.
Listen to "Switchin' in the Kitchen"
|
Q.K.R. is a new musical and vocal group featuring poet Quincy Troupe, singer and guitarist Kelvyn Bell, and drummer and multi-instrumentalist Ronnie Burrage. These three inventive, individually talented artists grew up in the rich, musical environs of St. Louis, Missouri, during the early 1950’s to late 1960’s, before migrating to the East Coast where they now reside. They formed Q.K.R. in 2009 after performing together for the first time at Robbie’s House of Jazz in St. Louis, in a new music series for which baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett of the World Saxophone Quartet was the curator.
Q.K.R. delivers a dynamic, refreshingly funky, feisty, and imaginative new sound integrating the poetry and explosive poetic voice of Troupe with the rhythmic guitar, pulsating drums and percussions, churning piano, and intriguing vocal styling (blues, funk, jazz, ballads) of Bell and Burrage that haunts the listener long after the set is over. Q.K.R.’s compelling approach to the ancient art of music and voice produces a driving, mystical, melodic music that has sparked an unexpected buzz among lovers of jazz, hip-hop, and the spoken word and promises to energize audiences around the world.
For Q.K.R. booking information and press materials, contact:
Margaret Porter Troupe Arts Projects, 1925 Seventh Avenue, Suite 7L, New York, NY 10026
Call 212-749-7771 or email mptroupe@yahoo.com
Click here to download press release. |
| ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES |
Quincy Troupe
Quincy Troupe is the best-selling author of seventeen books that include eight volumes of poetry, the latest being The Architecture of Language (2006) and Transcircularities: New and Selected Poems (2002), winner of the 2003 Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award and named one of the 10 best books of poetry published in 2002 by Publishers Weekly. Troupe co-wrote The Pursuit of Happyness, which was made into a major motion picture starring Will Smith; the definitive biography of trumpeter Miles Davis, Miles: The Autobiography; and a memoir Miles & Me, soon to become a major motion picture starring Samuel Jackson and Laurence Fishburne. Professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, Troupe was the first official poet laureate of the State of California. He has performed and recorded with numerous musicians including Ron Carter, Arthur Blythe, Billy Bang, Hamiet Bluiett, Oliver Lake, Julius Hemphill, Phil Upchurch, Donal Fox, George Lewis, and many others. Troupe lives in New York City.
|
Kelvyn Bell
Kelvyn Bell is a composer, singer and guitarist, known for his associations with Arthur Blythe's most provocative ensembles in the 1980s, his collaborations with trombonist/vocalist Joseph Bowie in the New York-based jazz-funk band Defunkt, and his pivotal experience with acclaimed avant garde drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw. Recognized as an innovator early in his career with his funk, jazz, blues, energy, improvisation and rhythms, he started his own band called Kelvynator. “Arthur Blythe was my jazz teacher, Defunkt was the preacher and Kelvynator is my own church." Says Bell about his musical development. In 2009 he won an Audelco Award for Outstanding Musical Direction of Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe, and since 2002 has been Composer-in-Residence for The Classical Theatre of Harlem. Having studied music theory at The University of Missouri, Columbia, and classical guitar at Southern Illinois University, Kelvyn Bell has written original music and arrangements for numerous other theatrical productions, been director of The Harlem School of the Arts Jazz Ensemble, and garnered an international reputation playing and recording with such greats as James Brown, Maceo Parker, Fred Wesley, Ronnie Burrage, Hamiet Bluiett, Lester Bowie, Oliver Lake, Living Colour, Steve Coleman, Cassandra Wilson, Geri Allen, and James Carter, among others. |
Ronnie Burrage
Ronnie Burrage is a drummer, multi-percussionist, keyboardist, vocalist, and music producer. He cut his teeth in music performing with Duke Ellington, when he was only 9 years old. “Burrage is known to drum and percussion lovers as the ‘quixotic man with the quick hands’ who moves in and out of bebop, funk and soul with the ease of golden brown biscuits sopping sweet gravy,” wrote poet K. Curtis Lyle in the St. Louis American newspaper about Burrage’s homecoming as part of Q.K.R.’s debut in St. Louis in 2009. A member of Kelvynator, Burrage built his musical legacy as a sideman with such greats as Woody Shaw, McCoy Tyner, and Archie Shepp. He has also worked with other great musicians and improvisational groups both in the USA and abroad, including Jackie & Rene McClean w/James Moody & Gary Bartz, Sonny Fortune, Sonny Rollins, Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorious, The World Saxophone Quartet, to name a few. Burrage teaches at Penn State University in the departments of Integrative Arts and African and African American Studies. His courses, “A Closer World,” and “Hip-Hop Music and Culture” are designed to illustrate the inner-connectedness of all the major art forms, including dance, literature, music, poetry, and the visual arts and excite his students through applied and experiential learning opportunities. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
