The Ghost of Langston Hughes

Electric Barbarian’s latest show The Ghost of Langston Hughes started at the Groningen three day new jazz festival: "De Drie Dagen 2009". The band proceeds with Turntablism and Spoken Word. This time it’s The Ghost of Langston Hughes. Bassplayer and composer Floris Vermeulen adds a string quartet to beats and samples. The poems are reproduced by DJ Irié who uses the Serato software for scratching the original words recorded by the poet himself. Longtime Barbarian, versatile trumpetplayer Bart Maris again plays a startling role. The texts and poems of Langston Hughes are exposed to some Barbaric treatments.

Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best-known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance.

Bart Maris – trumpet, effects
Floris Vermeulen – bass
DJ Lamont– turntables
DJ Irie – turntables

Rik Sturtewagen – violin
Tessa Zoutendijk – violin
Jan Weichsel – viola
Daniel Brandl - cello

Press

The Ghost of Langston Hughes

'Groningen bassist Floris Vermeulen offered an exceptional project, The Ghost of Langston Hughes. For this purpose he extended his band Electric Barbarian with the Kaas String Quartet. While two DJs  threw militant text fragments by Afro-American poet Langston Hughes at the audience, the strings took care of scratches and beats by making smears and pizzicati. The quartet did play a written score, but could introduce this at their own initiative. Trumpet player Bart Maris built scintillating intermediate layers by using effects. Thus jazz, hiphop and classical music melted into an impressive monument for Hughes.'

Illand Pietersma - Dagblad v/h Noorden

(25 May 2009)

Discography

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Jukebox

You Need Flash to listen to samples

The Ghost of Langston Hughes is a co-production by Grand Theatre (Groningen) and Exco Music. The project is financially supported by the City of Groningen and the Dutch Fund for Performing Arts (NFPK+).

Dreams (Slight Return)