Live Nation and Music & Politics present

in association with Nufunk.ca & The Nujazz Festival

KELLER WILLIAMS

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18th, 2014

@ THE PHOENIX CONCERT THEATRE 410 Sherbourne St.

with CHAMELEON PROJECT & DJ 1970Slick

Doors @ 7:00pm

Tickets: $21.50 s/c @ Ticketweb, Rotate This & Soundscapes

In association with Live Nation, The Nujazz Festival and Music & Politics are proud to present the return of KELLER WILLIAMS, one of the most beloved artists in the festival & jam scene, fo his first Toronto show in 8 years! Hell be playing two full sets, with Torontos own Chameleon Project opening up with their unique improvised jazzdubtronica vibes. Not to be missed!

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Links:

www.kellerwilliams.net

www.facebook.com/kellerwilliams

www.chameleonproject.com

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About Keller Williams

Those whove followed Keller Williams recording career to date know that he has given each of his albums a single-syllable title: FREEK, BUZZ, SPUN, BREATHE, LOOP, LAUGH, HOME, DANCE, STAGE, GRASS, DREAM, TWELVE, REX, LIVE, ODD, THIEF, KIDS, BASS, PICK, KEYS and FUNK. Each title serves not only as a concise summation of the concept guiding the particular project but also as another piece of the jigsaw puzzle that is Keller Williams. GRASS, for example, is a bluegrass recording, cut with the husband-wife duo the Keels. STAGE is a live album and DREAM the end product of a wish list: Keller collaborating with some of his greatest musical heroes. THIEF is a set of unexpected cover songs. And KIDS offers up, you guessed it, Williams first and possibly only childrens record.

The naming trend has continued with 2012s BASS and PICK, respectively a set of songs where Keller plays bass and Williams collaboration with royal bluegrass family The Travelin McCourys. In 2013 Keller released FUNK with his newest collaboration a six-piece funk outfit More Than a Little. What all of the titles reveal, when taken together, is an artist of great stylistic breadth and infinite imagination, a singer, songwriter and musician, always on a quest for the new. Keller Williams has never followed the prescribed path laid out by the conventional music business, nor has he taken the prescribed meds laid out by his team of conventional doctors. Instead, he has taken the A.D.D. path Artistic, Determined, Dedication. Its a path that has served him quite well.

Since he first appeared on the scene in the early 90s, Williams has defined the term independent artist. And his recordings tell only half the story. Keller built his reputation initially on his engaging live performances, no two of which are ever alike. For most of his career he has performed solo. His stage shows are rooted around Keller singing his compositions and choice cover songs, while accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. With the use of todays technology, Keller creates samples on the fly in front of the audience, a technique called live phrase sampling or looping, With nothing pre-recorded, the end result often leans toward a hybrid of alternative folk and groovy electronica. A genre Keller jokingly calls acoustic dance music or ADM.

That approach, Williams explains, was derived from hours of playing solo with just a guitar and a microphone, and then wanting to go down different avenues musically. I couldnt afford humans and didnt want to step into the cheesy world of automated sequencers where you hit a button and the whole band starts to play, then youve got to solo along or sing on top of it. I wanted something more organic yet with a dance groove that I could create myself.

Williams solo live showsand his ability to improvise to his determinedly quirky tunes despite the absence of an actual bandquickly became the stuff of legend, and his audience grew exponentially when word spread about this exciting, unpredictable performer. Once he began releasing recordings, starting with 1994s FREEK, Williams was embraced by an even wider community of music fans, particularly the jam band crowd. While his live gigs have largely been solo affairs, Williams has nearly always used his albums as a forum for collaborations with fellow musicians. An alliance with The String Cheese Incident on 1999s BREATHE marked Williams first release on the bands label SCI Fidelity Records, an imprint he still partners with today for recordings. DREAM, Kellers 2007 release, found him in the company of such iconic musicians as the Grateful Deads Bob Weir, banjo master Bla Fleck, bass great Victor Wooten, American musician/poet Michael Franti and many others.