Fusion Bags – Music Cannot be Confined!!

There’s no doubt that the pandemic has reduced and eliminated opportunities for musicians to get together and play. Gigs and tours have been slimmed down or canceled; jams and rehearsals scaled back and postponed. So what’s a musician to do?

Well Fusion Bags has an answer! They decided to do something about it by getting creative and adapting to circumstances via their new “Music Cannot be Confined” series. The idea is to select a group of musicians from around the world and “turn them loose” to collaborate on an original improvisation. First player lays down an original groove track, then others layer their parts on top until a unique and finished product is created.

Best part about it is that these are improvs in the truest sense of the word. No formal score – just some great players doing what they do best – playing in the moment! 

I was lucky enough to be asked to participate in one of these projects. Luis started with some funky percussion and hybrid drums. Then I jumped in with keys and bass. Andy dropped in the smooth slide guitar track and Jordan finished it up with his fun lyrics and airy vocals. It was truly a blast! Hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed putting it together.

Thank you Nicole of Fusion Bags for coordinating and inviting me, and for helping to keep the music flowing!

Enjoy the bass transcription below, bassists.

None of us had ever met! So I was anxious to receive the first delivery:

I got just the cool percussion tracks from Luis.

Luis Ribeiro, a Brazillian percussionist living in my home country of Austria of all places, runs @worldofpercussionbeats and has a website at https://www.luis-ribeiro.com/

Go dig in there, it’s a really cool site! Luis is starting a new platform in February called Positive Drumming.

Luis delivered tight funky and clave-infused tracks with some cool twists.

Awesome! Everything was wide open at this point. We had all briefly emailed amongst each other about a form, tempo, and number of bars. But that was all in terms of structure! So there was a lot of freedom for bass and keys to shape the tune!

Wolf and I collaborated. This could have gone in many different directions. Since the company is called Fusion Bags Wolf thought adding a bit of a fusion-ey vibe might be just right. After about 24 hours I delivered this:

Video me and Luis

Next: Guitar and Vocals!

Off it was sent to the next band mates! Andy Hidber from Switzerland who builds his own beautiful guitars added a great atmospheric flavor to the second part of the track providing an awesome build. Definitely did not expect that direction! Very cool!

And finally, Jordan Scannella @JorScan topped it off with a really fun vocal line. What an unexpected turn yet again! And I love wild cats!

Go team! Thank you all, this was fun!

Final, with all: