Paul Dresher - worth exploring

WOW, it's great to see Dresher pop up on this site. Few musical experinces hold a candle to taking in the Dresherensemble live in a good room. An amazing extension of what Zappa, Stravinsky, and King Crimson were into. It's some of the best stuff that ever moved an eardrum. Dark Blue Circumstance is nice, but I'd kill to have some good recordings of a few live performances.

Duane, so you have seen them live? Do you own any recordings and if so, how do they hold up to the live performance (musically)? HOw did you find out about them?

I live in the Bay area and just "discovered" them on Kron4 news yesterday. For others that may want an intro aside from what his website shows - you can go to
kron4.com; click on
Morning News; scroll down and click on
Henry is making beautiful music, you can see the video stream of the story.

cheers,
aj

Saw the Dresherensemble way back in 97 at the Music Recital Hall at Sac State, a couple of the pieces were premiered there and to my knowledge have not been released on CD. Channels Passing, from Dark Blue Circumstance was played there. The work had obviously grown a lot through live performances. Right now I only have Opposites Attract, w/ Ned Rothenberg, Mark Dresser and Bobby Previte on the excellent New World/Countercurrents label, Casa Vecchia (a little more subdued) and Dark Blue Circumstance. I've ditched a couple of titles that were IMO seriously marred by Rinde Eckert vocals. Over the last couple of years Dresher has played in the bay area several times, but I haven't had my priorities straightened out enough to catch any of the recent shows.

Is there any truth surrounding the rumor that Paul is working on a musically complex opera titled "The Nanny" in honor of his sister Fran Dresher?