A spontaneous improvisation with a quartet: Hang drum, viola, guitar, and four voices. Recorded at a Music for People event, June 2007 at Immaculata University. With Ron Kravitz, Frances Miller and Lynn Miller.  If you lose patience with the meditative beginning, skip to 1:29 where the track gets rolling in earnest.  This is a true improvisation, even when the singers are shadowing each other in harmony.

10 LC MLP4  June 2007 Hang, Violin, Guitar, Voice

A cover of the classic Band song by Arrested Development.

It Makes No Difference

A cover of the Indigo Girls song by Arrested Development.

Galileo

A folk ballad written at the time of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. A single guitar and voice recorded at home on a laptop.

A Toast to New Orleans

Let It Ride (short) 2

First time out, singing for two minutes. Laptop using Garageband, adding a little reverb to soften the hard edges. Fun!

SSS 1

Bruno Grunch and the Hellbenders improvised rock opera about testing the theory of relativity with an atomic clock and a voyage to Jupiter and beyond. Recorded 6/30/72 in Hamden, CT. Note about the poor audio quality - recording was made on a small reel to reel machine with a single mic in the midst of 5 rock musicians. Then the tape sat in a box for over 45 years.

The Amplifiers Of Time

Acoustic trio plays and sings classic rock

3/30/15

Tumbling Dice

Live demo 4 13 15

Fountain of Sorrow

In the days before digital recording - multi-tracking the guitars and bass.

The Land Inside the Man

Jim is a guitarist, bassist, and hand percussion player.  He teaches Improvisation at Adelphi University in Garden City, NY (syllabus and resources available on request). Jim has worked in the nonprofit organization Music for People alongside Grammy-winning cellist David Darling for over 25 years, designing improvisation programs that are offered with encouragement in place of criticism. Jim is the author of a book on improvisation (and how to teach it) - see www.returntochild.com for reviews and details.  He has also collaborated with saxophonist Paul Winter on musical camp experiences, and with drum circle facilitation master Arthur Hull.  Jim is associated with a national network of improvising musicians called Music for People (see www.musicforpeople.org).

jim o