Matthew Montfort of Ancient Future Featured on Rachel Maddow Show

Sept. 29, 2010 - PRLog -- Matthew Montfort, guitarist and bandleader of the pioneering world fusion music group Ancient Future, was featured on the September 24th, 2010, Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. Kent Jones, the show's pop-culturist, was in San Francisco to cover the Music for People and Thingamajigs Festival. Matthew Montfort kicked off the festival, showcasing his unusual guitars: the Godin Glissentar, an 11 string fretless guitar, and the scalloped fretboard guitar, a special modified instrument able to produce ornaments characteristic of the sitar.

In the September 24th "Just Enough with Kent Jones" segment on the Rachel Maddow Show, Jones tried out unusual instruments and interviewed festival performers. Matthew Montfort was asked to demonstrate the unique musical features of the Godin Glissentar. A selection from Matthew Montfort's performance was the only music from the Music for People and Thingamajigs Festival featured. Montfort performed his piece, "Purple Raga," from his Seven Serenades for Scalloped Fretboard Guitar recording, but in this unusual arrangement, he was accompanied at the end by Bui Huu Nhut, a master of the dan bau, a traditional Vietnamese single string instrument with an indigenous version of a whammy bar. Bui Huu Nhut is well known to fans of Ancient Future from his performance of "Jah Nam" on Ancient Future's Asian Fusion recording, which was also featured on the Putumayo sampler, Asian Lounge. The two performed a spontaneous improvisation based on the guitar solo section of "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix. They received a standing ovation from the festival audience.

Matthew Montfort Bio

As leader of the world music group Ancient Future, Matthew Montfort has devoted himself to the scalloped fretboard guitar since 1978. He spent years of study with some of the world's best musicians, such as gamelan director K.R.T. Wasitodipuro, North Indian sarod master Ali Akbar Khan, and vina master K.S. Subramanian, with whom he did an intensive study of South Indian note-bending techniques. He was interviewed in the December 2009 Les Paul issue of Guitar Player Magazine about the scalloped fretboard guitar and the application of the rules of Indian raga to the music of Jimi Hendrix. He has performed concerts worldwide, from the Festival Internacional de la Guitarra on the golden coast of Spain to the Festival of India in Mumbai. He has worked with many world music legends, including tabla phenomenon Zakir Hussain and Chinese zither master Zhao Hui. Montfort wrote the book Ancient Traditions – Future Possibilities: Rhythmic Training Through the Traditions of Africa, Bali, and India, which has been used by many musicians to improve their rhythm skills.

View Press Release with Video, Audio, and Photos: http://www.ancient-future.com/pr_rachelmaddow.html

Screen Shot of Montfort on Maddow: http://www.ancient-future.com/images/rachelmaddow1-16.jpg

Video: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/39352511#39352511

Video Clip Transcript:

Rachel Maddow: So here's the bad news. On the day that we find out that a fist fight broke out in the stands between a man and two women no less, while Sharron Angle was speaking at a candidate forum in Nevada, on the day that Stephen Colbert braids performance art and politics together so tightly that he almost pops immigration reform out of Congress with the sheer pressure of his wit, on the day we actually get in the mail the stink mailer from the crazy Carl for Governor campaign in New York, the piece of direct mail scented with the smell of land fill, on the day when we most need a man of Kent Jones' talents to make sense of the world around us, Kent is on vacation. That's the bad news. We need him. He's gone. The good news is that it turns out that Kent does some freaky crazy weird stuff on vacation and then pops into a studio to tell us about it. Kent, did you seriously do what I heard you did today?
Kent Jones: Ah, well, I mean this depends on what you think it is that I “did” today. I'm in San Francisco and I think that I helped the people of San Francisco advance music to the next level.
Maddow: OK.
Jones: That's what I think I was doing today. So, may I present the Festival of Music for People and Thingamajigs. (Ancient Future musicians Matthew Montfort and Bui Huu Nhut perform on fretless guitar and dan bau)
Jones: This is a guitar, but not like one we know. Tell me about this.
Matthew Montfort: Right, this guitar actually has no frets on it. And so it's basically a combination of an oud and a guitar.
Jones: You told me that these are skatch boxes. What is that?
Tom Nunn: Skatch box is a kind of instrument that comes out of a technique called skatching. And skatching is basically taking a shaped comb and scraping it across a surface. (Tom Nunn and David Michalak playing their scatch boxes)
Jones: And that's what it sounds like inside my head.
Gretchen Jude: This is a koto, a traditional Japanese instrument. And this is a photo koto. They react to light in a way you will hear when I play.
Jones: Could you play a little bit for me, please?
Jude: Of course. Actually, your cameraman can play?
Jones: What? How does that work?
Jude: OK. The light comes in here. Ready? (Sound of photo koto reacting to camera light)
Jones: That was my cameraman playing the photo koto. It's a first.
Terry Berlier: This one is used from recycled pan lids and this is called the percussion ball. Each hole has a different length tube in it. So the longest one is about ten feet long. And so the length of the tube determines the pitch or the note you're getting.
Jones: Thank you, good night!
Maddow: Kent, if you come back to the office without that thing, that makes noise when you hit it with light, I'll be very angry.
Jones: I'm going to need a bigger desk, I'm just saying right now.
Maddow: And also maybe a larger overhead compartment for the flight home.
Jones: That goes without saying.
Maddow: Thank you, Kent. Happy vacation.
Jones: Thank you.

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Formed in 1978, Ancient Future is the world's longest running ensemble dedicated to the creation of world fusion music. Ancient-Future.Com Records releases recordings by the master musicians associated with the broad musical scene surrounding the band.