Guitarist, composer and producer Michael Brook, best known for his work with U2 and his contributions to the soundtrack of An Inconvenient Truth and Into The Wild, comes to UCLA Live at Royce Hall May 30 with Armenian music legend Djivan Gasparyan. (The original December 15 date was pushed back when Gasparyan broke his leg and was not allowed to travel.)
While he has collaborated with the Irish band and other popular artists, Brook’s solo work – including Cobalt Blue and Hybrid – is far from conventional rock music, and could better labeled soundscapes as he meticulously crafts aural environments.
But Brook, a Canadian who has made his home in the Hollywood Hills for nearly 15 years, also has a fondness for “world” music, and has played with and produced albums by top musicians from around the globe, including Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, U. Srinivas and Gasparyan, the acknowledged master of the duduk, an ancient double reed instrument invariably described as “mournful.”
For Brook, who grew up in Toronto where he played in local bands including Martha & The Muffins, the connection to world music came through The Beatles. “That was the introduction for a lot of people,” Brook said. “Sitar, drones, ornamentation…it affected my guitar playing.”
And Brook finds some of the same elements in Armenian music. “It’s very much like the beginning part of Indian pieces,” Brook explained. “Gentle, ornamented melodies, very expressive, with a drone.”
Brook and Gasparyan, who lives in Armenia but spends part of each year with family in Los Angeles, first worked together on Black Rock in 1998, on which Brook fused his electronics with Gasparyan’s sound. They later recorded a more traditional album together, and are now at work on the as yet untitled follow up to Black Rock before returning again to traditional Armenian music for their next joint effort.
The UCLA show will incorporate both old and new material, with a traditional set by Gasparyan as well as collaborative pieces. Brook will play electric guitar and backing musicians will include a duduk quartet, a string quartet (led by Brook’s wife, violinist Julie Rogers), bass, drums and keyboards.
While the new album won’t be completed in time for the concert, Brook hopes to be able to give away sampler CDs from it, and both Brook’s and Gasparyan’s other recordings will be available for purchase, including BellCurve, a remix of Brook’s RockPaperScissors that turns it into one long composition.
The concert is presented by UCLA Live and tickets and information can be found at www.uclalive.org.
