From left, cast members of The Lights by Howard Korder:  Arreta Wang, Marcus Shelby (composer and performer), Matthew Chavez, and Lara Bruckman; photograph by Tom Ontiveros

Project Title: The Lights
Recipient Organization: Intersection for the Arts
Lead Artist: Marcus Shelby
Genre and Date Awarded: Performing Arts, June 2000
Presented: January 9 - January 27, 2002

Bass player and composer Marcus Shelby collaborated with theater director Val Hendrickson, choreographer Reginald Ray-Savage, and Intersection for the Arts to create an original musical version of The Lights by Howard Korder.   Representing a true melding of jazz and theater, the project was staged with a live 15-piece jazz orchestra and vocalist Antoine Garth. The collaborators noted that the music provided the play's environment, "the music and the musicians were the city and all of its elements.   All of the sound affects were scored and performed...."

In reviewing the play, The San Francisco Examiner credited the music with setting up the piece's "seductive irony, grit, and pure energy," noting that Shelby had "created an original score of slick nightclub tunes, beguiling interludes and clever sound effects."

The original plan for this project was to create an adaptation of The Lights , re-set in San Francisco's Mission District where Marcus Shelby lives and Intersection is based.   The collaborators were interested in grappling with rapid changes taking place in a community that had long been home to blue collar workers and recent immigrants.   As it evolved--in part because of the size of the cast and orchestra and costs--the collaborators chose to use the existing play as a vehicle rather than adapting it.

Further, it soon grew apparent that staging the play--with dancers, musicians, and an 20-member cast-- in Intersection's 90-seat theater would be challenging, and an additional partner, ODC Theatre, joined the collaboration.   This working relationship proved to be very successful.   Intersection managed the pre-production and developmental stage and ODC assisted with the production itself.   The Lights ran for three weeks at ODC/Theater with sold-out audiences most nights of the performance.   The show previewed to community groups, including residents of single room occupancy hotels in Intersection's neighborhood, and clients from several nearby social service agencies. A recording of The Lights Suite was released on NOIR Records in 2002.

Prior to embarking on this collaboration, in 1999 Marcus Shelby and Intersection had begun working together on a highly successful workshop and performance series entitled "Jazz at Intersection."   The series provided San Francisco musicians and audiences the rare opportunity to experience the history of jazz through performances of live music in an intimate and educational setting.   In addition, Shelby had composed original music for two theatrical productions by Intersection's theatre artists-in-residence Campo Santo and advised Intersection on a hip-hop hybrid performance festival.   However, the Creative Work Fund-supported project enabled Shelby to compose in a new form.   He notes, "Up to this point, my theater works that I had composed for were all taped recordings.   The Lights offered me the possibilities of composing for a dynamic situation.   This included conducting the score and following the dialogue of the play simultaneously."

Award winning composer and bassist Marcus Shelby is nationally recognized for his innovative, creative, and collaborative approach to combining spoken word, dance, and music.   As the 1991 winner of the Charles Mingus scholarship, Shelby's studies included work under the tutelage of acclaimed composer James Newton and legendary bassist Charlie Haden.   With Shelby's leadership, the Los Angeles based jazz group Black/Note released four critically acclaimed albums under the Columbia Records and GRP Impulse!   labels.   In 1996, Shelby established NOIR Records, a recording and production company.   Marcus Shelby's body of work includes collaborations with numerous Bay Area choreographers on original modern dance pieces and compositions for several Hollywood and independent films.

Intersection for the Arts is San Francisco's oldest alternative art space.   In the early 1960s, a group of artists, activists, and ministers founded The Precarious Vision Café in the basement of a church in the San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood.   The café, which moved to North Beach and incorporated as Intersection for the Arts in 1965, was a neighborhood place for music, literature, performance, film, art, and community.   Now more than 30 years later, Intersection's theater is thriving, it hosts the oldest literary program in California that is based outside of an academic institution, and its visual arts gallery has been renovated and revitalized.   Further, its programming, like the collaboration with Marcus Shelby, invites artists to cross disciplines, experiment with form and content.

Marcus Anthony Shelby, composer and lead artist, has been playing the acoustic bass for 19 years.   In that time, he has built a diverse and accomplished biography.   From bandleader of Columbia Records, GRP Impulse! recording artists Black/Note to music director and composer for theater, dance, and film to CEO/President of the San Francisco based independent record label NOIR Records, Shelby believes in the essential need for urban arts and the place of jazz within the urban context.

RESUME HIGHLIGHTS

Professional Affiliations

• Black/Note, creation and direction of a Los Angeles-based five-piece ensemble, winners of the John Coltrane Young Artists Competition in 1991, which led to their first major label release, 43 rd and Degnan , produced by jazz drummer and composer Billie Higgins.
• NOIR Records, co-created with Anthony Rucker in fall 1996.   Inaugural effort, Un Faux Pas , featured Shelby with pianist Matt Clark and drummer Jaz Sawyer.   NOIR urrently manages a catalog of 15 artists whose work ranges from jazz to Chinese classical, world music, and spoken word.
• NOIR Productions, production and production management projects.   Activities range from producing CDs to co-presenting the "Jazz at Intersection" series on the great jazz composers.
• The Marcus Shelby Trio, conceived in 1997, featuring Shelby on bass, Matt Clark on piano, and Jaz Sawyer on drums.
• The Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra, developed in honor of the centenary of Duke Ellington's birth, beginning in 2000.

Compositions for Film

• Chrysalis Music, compositions for the Hollywood films Higher Learning, White Man's Burden, and Emitt Till (1993)
• Park Day , directed by Sterling Macer (1998)
• Lenny Bruce, HBO Documentary narrated by Robert DeNiro (1999)
• King of the Bingo Game, PBS American Stories presentation of Ralph Ellison (2001)
• Poetic License, Youth Speaks documentary (2000)

Compositions for Dance

• Co-artistic director, the Jazz Antiqua Dance and Music Company, composer of five full-length ballets, John Anson Ford Theatre, Los Angeles, California (1993-present)
• "The Cullings," Robert Moses Dance Company commission (1998)
• "Collaboration 2000," Robert Moses Dance Company commission (2000)
• "Hatphullah Em'prahvs," Robert Henry Johnson Dance Company (1998)
• "Money Jungle," performance of Duke Ellington work with Savage Jazz Dance Company (2001)

Compositions for Theater

• Suicide in B-Flat, by Sam Shepard, directed by Val Hendrickson, San Francisco, California (1998)
• King Lear , by William Shakespeare, directed by Val Hendrickson, violin and cello sonata by Shelby, Guerrilla Shakespeare Productions (1998)
• The Years, by Cindy Lou Johnson, directed by Val Hendrickson, Signal Theatre, presented at New Langton Arts, San Francisco (2000)
• The Trail of Her Inner Thigh, by Erin Cressida Wilson, produced by Campo Santo, Intersection for the Arts (1999)
• Simpatico, by Sam Shepard, produced by Campo Santo, Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, California (1999)

Awards and Honors

• Charles Mingus Scholarship to the California Institute of the Arts (1991)
• John Coltrane Young Artists Competition (with Black/Note) (1991)
• Image Award Nomination for theatrical stage score for Emitt Till by Bryan Burrell (1999)
• California Music Award Nomination for "Best Jazz Artist 1998" (1999)
• Bay Guardian "Goldie Award," "Best Jazz Band," (1999)
• San Francisco Weekly, "Whammie Award," "Best Jazz Musician," (1999)
• Dean Goodman Choice Awards for Excellence in Bay Area Theatre, Theatrical Score for Trail of Her Inner Thigh (1999)
• Meet the Composer Residency (2001-2004)

Discography

• 43 rd and Degnan, Black/Note (1991)
• Jungle Music, Black/Note (1993)
• LA Underground, Black/Note (1994)
• Nothing but the Swing, (1995)
• Un Faux Pas, The Marcus Shelby Trio (1997)
• Midtown Sunset , Jazz Antiqua Ensemble (1998)
• Intimate Strangers , The Marcus Shelby Trio with Marcus Poston, (1998)
• The Sophisticate , The Marcus Shelby Trio, (1999)

Val Hendrickson, Director

Selected Directing Credits

• The Years , Cindy Lou Johnson, Signal Theatre Company, San Francisco, California (2000)
• Acts of Providence , Edward Allan Baker, Signal Theatre Company, San Francisco, California (1999)
• Italian American Reconciliation, John Patrick Shanley, Dean Lesher Theare, Walnut Creek, California (1999)
• La Turista, Sam Shepard, adapted by Val Hendrickson, Exit Theatre, San Francisco, California (1999)
• Suicide in B-Flat, Sam Shepard, adapted by Val Hendrickson, 3 rd Set/Slim's, San Francisco, California (1998); 3 rd Set/Justic League, San Francisco, California (1997)
• King Lear, William Shakespeare, 450 Geary Studio Theatre, San Francisco, California (1998)
• Ariel Bright, Kate Long, Theatre Valentine, San Francisco Fringe Festival, San Francisco, California (1997)
• Sylvia, A.R. Gurney, Montauk Theatre Productions, New York (1996)
• Roadside Café Plays, Carson McCullers, Edward Allan Baker, William Hauptmann, and Joe Pintauro, Exit Theatre, San Francisco, California (1996)
• Shylock on Valencia Street, (The Merchant of Venice) , William Shakespeare, Signal Theatre Company, San Francisco, California (1996)

Awards

• San Francisco Weekly Black Box Award, Suicide in B-Flat   (1998)
• Villager Downtown Theatre Award, Outstanding Direction, Action, The Floating Rep, New York, New York
• Best of the San Francisco Fring Festival, The Person I Once Was (1995)
• Noted as one of the five best productions of 1996, San Francisco Weekly, Shylock on Valencia Street

Reginald Ray-Savage, Principal Choreographer

Savage Jazz Dance Company is the only concert dance company in the Bay Area with an all-jazz repertory. Since its founding in 1992 by Reginald Ray Savage, the company has performed at the Cowell Theater, Spreckels Performing Arts Center, University of California, Davis Main Theater, Theater Artaud, and other venues.   It also has performed as part of the "Dance Mosaic" and "Black Choreographers Moving Towards the 21 st Century" festivals.

Mr. Savage has choreographed more than 100 works for the 11-year-old company of 12 dancers. His work is inspired by the music of Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and other jazz greats. In addition to Mr. Savage's choreography, the company has commissioned works from Rovert Moses, John Gourdini, Zafra Miriam, and Marni Thomas Wood.

Reginald Ray-Savage is a former member of the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, St. Louis Civic Ballet, St. Louis Black Repertoire Dance Theater, St. Louis Ballet Theater, Joel Hall Dance Company, Ruth Page Ballet Chicago, American Festival Ballet, and San Francisco Dance Theater; and he has danced in numerous national touring musical productions.   A well-respected teacher, he has been teaching jazz dance in the Bay Area for ten years. In addition, the Savage Jazz Dance Company has held numerous workshops and lecture demonstrations throughout the Oakland public school system and in association with the Mayor of Oakland's After School Program and Summer Performing Arts Camp.

www.Theintersection.org

www.savagejazz.org