A Woodwind Animism Tribute
Natural Shakuhachi Quartet - Primeval Chamber Music

Bigfoot is elusive, yet always in our hearts. This is a four-part tribute to the majesty, the grit, and even the stink of our hairy relatives around the world. They leave clues, hide in the forest and have always appeared in every culture in various forms. This is the musical form. Not of Bigfoot or his relatives, but rather of the thought-texture that transmits between a bamboo flute sage -- a Wood Prophet -- and the deeper soul of Bigfoot.

Is Bigfoot "real"? I hear you ask.
And I say, "Is there funk after death? Is 7 up?"

"Bigfoot Revelation" has two meanings. First, for anyone (and there are many) who has had what they call "an encounter," the experience certainly qualifies as a revelation, at least in the authentic cases, and perhaps even in the inauthentic cases. Direct, alive, startling -- activating smell, the most psychologically powerful of all the sense perceptions -- these encounters tend to contain certain common elements in general. The first two movements here are a tribute to some of these Bigfoot Encounter Key Ingredients: the smell and the clues and traces.

The second meaning of Bigfoot Revelation is an internal point of view or realization that I have had about them: they are very "real." I will not attempt to explain the depths and multiple dimensions of what I mean by that in these liner notes, but suffice it to say that upon this realization, I was moved to compose this four part tribute to them.

Movements 3 and 4 are a reflection on to the other side of the encounter: the point of view of the Bigfoots. Of course, homo sapiens is partly a delusional, paranoiac, death-obsessed homicidal species, so it only makes sense to avoid us if you can. The "forest" as a living ecosystem that is the emerald jewel of all the creations of Earth (and perhaps of the entire Universe) is where a thriving alternative hominid species would, should and does hide. Once safely hidden from Those-Who-Think-They-Know-But-Can-Barely-Even-See ("humans"), They can expand and embrace their domain, their majestic and living Wood Ape Home.
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THE WOOD PROPHETS - Natural Shakuhachi Quartet

Out of the deep woods comes a chamber group like no other. Composting “styles” and morphing boundaries, they give voice to a rare and musky instrument: bass shakuhachi, the Bigfoot of flutes. This low bamboo flute group plays original multi-movement compositions by Cornelius Boots, resurrecting a visceral sense of the ancient days of the Earth.

Recipients of a 2020 InterMusic SF Musical Grant, their five-movement saga, Wood Prophecy, tastes like raw, living Nature with elemental notes of Zen meditation, rural blues, jubilee gospel and sacred Renaissance polyphony.

Soothingly feral new music.
World-building Chamber Music.
Dark Green Religious Music.
Bamboo Gospel.

Pioneers of “woodwind animism,” the Wood Prophets return to the roots of music itself, when trees were gods, and the old gods sought gnostic symbiosis with musicianers in general, and woodwinders specifically.

Their early concerts were described as listening to a gospel quartet of large owls performing the music of Funkadelic, Tool, Muddy Waters and Palestrina. Their five-part woodwind chamber saga Wood Prophecy is an adventure in timbre, pulse and structure; Wood Prophecy transmits the wordless wisdom of the old gods of the woods.

HISTORY:
Emerging from the Black Earth Shakuhachi School, and formerly known as The Heavy Roots Shakuhachi Ensemble, The Wood Prophets is the world's one and only Taimu Shakuhachi Quartet. The sound is of natural life, the conceptual bones are creativity and multiculturalism.

When founder Cornelius Boots began writing for under-valued-yet-potent woodwinds in 1994, he changed his name to align with this singular artistic vision. After a quarter-century of reed and flute adventures -- rock bands featuring the robot bass clarinet; intensive circular breathing; aggressive style sorcery; Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet; heavy metal and blues iterated on solo shakuhachi; 175 compositions; 12 albums; 3 music degrees; a shihan (master) shakuhachi license; a few grants, commissions and festivals; dozens of students, lectures, performances -- Wood Prophecy is a kind of apotheosis for Boots.

Luckily his student of 17 years, Kevin Chen, has also become a true master of wind, breath and sound and together they were able to start the Taimu ensemble experiments that have now flowered into The Wood Prophets.

TAIMU:
"Shakuhachi" is a vertical, end-blown flute made of root-end bamboo that emerged from Japanese Zen Buddhism back in the old feudal/samurai times. The design is painfully basic -- no parts, no mouthpiece, no keys, only 5 finger holes and a blowing edge at the very end of the tube (no whistle design as in recorders, we need a flute-like embouchure) -- and the instrument appears as a cured and cleaned up version of exactly what it was when it grew from the ground. To keep the inner bore natural is called "jinashi" and to use a wider, thicker piece of bamboo is called "hocchiku."

San Francisco renegade flutemaker Ken Mujitsu LaCosse created the Taimu in the early 2000's by modifying jinashi, hocchiku versions of shakuhachi so that they had a bigger, "fog-horn glow" to their tone. Taimu means "the big nothing" and it is considered the full-throated, baritone or bass variant of shakuhachi: the Barry White, the redwood tree -- the Bigfoot of all flutes. So rare, it almost didn't exist at all, but thankfully, here we are. Thank you Brother Ken (1960-2019).

WOOD PROPHET:
A Wood Prophet understands and demonstrates the wisdom of symbiosis. Specifically, collaboration between a human musician and the element of Wood. Backed by the power of the deep past, a Wood Prophet is the bridge between many styles of music, and the intelligence of living Nature. Masters of respiromancy and proponents of natural music, Wood Prophets' mission is to provide the soundtrack to a profound shift in the human/Nature relationship.

"We are not problem-solvers, gatekeepers or soothsayers. We are breathy shepherds of illumination. The unknown is not always the unfamiliar."


LIVE BAND:
Kevin Chen
Filipe Lopes
Karl Young
Cornelius Boots

Former members:
Ken LaCosse
Darrell Hayden
Chris Adkins

Brain Trust:
Felicia Chavez, Andrew Lloyd Westhoff, Tyler Sterkel, Filipe Lopes Chaves, Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, Virginia Dofflemyer, Kevin Chen, Nils Frykdahl, Gentry Densley

Lineage:
Agrippa, The 3 Tons (Ellington, Kenton, Clinton), the Jameses (Etta, Brown and Ronnie Dio), Dolphy, Coltrane, Kirk, House, Patton & Watazumi