Ak & Zuie's Non-Fransiscan Duets CD cover transcribed!!

What they say...

Ak and Zuie was formed in the Sandakan province of Northeastern Borneo.

While on tour as rhythm section for a legendary group, bassist Stephen Jay and drummer Peter Gallagher discovered the true potential of unique style of harmo-rhythm syncopation that had been emerging in their ensemble work. In an unusual twist of fate, one of the promoters of the Asian tour booked a performance in an extremely remote and tine village in Borneo where he had grown up. It was the first performance of electrified music in memory and created significant amazement. But while the actual featured performance of the evening left the audience confused, the rhythm section sound check had them dancing with their goats! Jay and Gallagher’s techniques had been influenced by extensive instrumental folk music studies in some of the most remote regions of Africa and Asia.

In Sandakan, they had the opportunity to conjure their new groove, based on overlapping global rhythms, loud and clear, for the first time before the most pristine of ears. It was music from another world, with deep roots in their own.

The response was profound! A near panic of fervent dancing quickly turned into spontaneous ritual as unexpected to the audience as the players. The gigantic sound and familiar rhythmic motifs had a miraculously intoxicating effect.

All were elevated by an ecstatic transport of some divine frenzy nearly impossible to stop. In the days following, interactions with the people and their indigenous instruments revealed catalytic rhythmic perspectives.

Something superbly real had happened, and Ak and Zuie was born.

Since then Jay and Gallagher have continued to explore polymetric syncopation and intuitive interplay while performing and recording as a duo, with special guests, and with noted artists. Their collective recording credits include more than two dozen gold and platinum albums worldwide, two Grammy winners, performance and compositions in feature films, and three George Foster Peabody Awards for original PBS scores.

A detailed description of Harmo-Rhythmic theory can be found at www.stephenjay.com (under articles). The Non-Fransiscan Duets are two piece realizations of selected songs from Jay’s albums, Sea Never Dry, Tangled Strings, and Self Avoiding Random Walk. The songs were originally composed “from the bass and drums up”, with most of the harmonic and melodic ideas and embellishments having originated from specific harmonic/rhythmic nuances happening in the rhythm section. These seminal physical/compositional events are in live inverse detail.