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Richard Waters & Friends

ONE

If you are interest in purchasing the "ONE" CD contact richard@richardAwaters.com

The Gravity Adjusters Expansion Band (GAEB) came into being through the long term friendship between Lee Charlton, a jazz drummer and myself, a multi media artist. Lee and I had met on the MS Gulf Coast in the late 1950s where he was playing in very hot bebop band and I was going to college and teaching waterskiing. Later by chance we both moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and renewed our friendship which was heavily music/art influenced. At that time I was both painting and building kinetic sculptures some of which accidentally made sounds. Lee had a recording studio above his garage in Fairfax , CA where he hosted on-going sessions and this is where the other members of the GAEB joined our ranks. Lee had been very encouraging in terms of recording my sculptures which over time because less like sculptures and more like instruments and sound devices to be manipulated. I was a piano drop out at age 7 but had played hand percussion at drum parties at the ski shed where I worked (and played). With Lee's encouragement I began to get more serious about instrument design and construction and was at time (late 60s early 70s) using tin cans of all sizes and shapes for resonators. Lee was a collector of some instruments like one string violin and he also played saw which he taught me to play. It was about this time that I had put together a series of instruments that led to the waterphone which I painted(3896696). By this time(1970). I was building wind, string and percussion instruments in stainless steel and bronze many of which utilized water in their resonators to bend tones and get those schizio-sonic sounds. Our music sessions focused on the array of acoustic items which changed somewhat from session to session depending on who showed up that day and what I had created that week. Fortunately, I was a fourth generation metal worker so welding and fabricating came easy to me. The instrumentation was not limited to the non-conventional instruments but those playing conventional instruments were encouraged to play them in non conventional ways. This created a free music atmosphere where just about anything was OK but the further “out there” the sounds were, the better we liked it. This attitude made for a fun filled musical experience(s) that was both exciting and satisfying. Bryce Rohde (Keyboards) and Tom Beeson (bass) were two of the first player to get involved with GAEB. It was Tom Beeson and I who conjured up the name for the band – GAEB. Tom Dondelinger (drums and hand percussion) and Chuck Day (guitar/strings) also joined about that time. Clyde Flowers(bass) and Clyde Pound (piano) were also early GAEB regulars who contributed to the music. Performing free music on odd instruments varied wildly in direction and speed with there sometimes being a rhythm and sometime not. It was a sonic adventure that the participants would “tune Into” thereby making it cohesive. Since most of the players were jazz oriented, improvising came naturally, however as these sessions were open to guests, friends and visitors we had a wide assortment of music genres represented during the years that we played, recorded and performed in Marin County. Both Shelly Manne and Emil Richards flew up from L.A. to sit in on sessions. A number of musicians like Mose Allison, Micky Harte, Steve Swallow, Mel Graves, Bruce Cale and Tony D'Anna attended GAEB sessions and performances, but usually there was a small nucleus of Lee, myself and two or three others. In 1971 we had an opportunity to use a 16 track recording studio in Los Angeles for our first album “ONE” and we invited Roy Harte, David Wheat (Buckwheat), and Wolfgang Melz to join us for what was a great recoding session.

Richard Waters 2008

Richard Waters - Multi Media Artist
Gulfport, Mississippi
richard@richardawaters.com

All images © 2001-2006 Richard A Waters