Biography
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Born
5 March 1964 (age 60)
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Born In
Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States
Guitarist David "Fuze" Fiuczynski came to prominence with the 1994 release, titled Lunar Crush. An outing that also featured the heavy-handed and sweeping sound and style of Hammond B-3 organ specialist John Medeski, of "Medeski, Martin & Wood" fame. Thus, Fiuczynski's angular and often unorthodox phrasing along with ferocious chops and an expansive jazz fusion/rock vernacular alerted more than just a few. The "Fuze" has also recorded with drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson's high-octane ensembles, trumpeter Jack Walrath, New York City "Downtown" composer/saxophonist John Zorn, the late modern jazz pianist Don Pullen, and may others of note. However, the guitarist's Screaming Headless Torsos quartet boasts world-beat rhythms integrated with complex jazz fusion time signatures and blaring psychedelic overtones atop the rhythm section's bone crushing backbeats. Fiuczynski's 1999 effort, Jazz Punk, also serves as an enticing glimpse into the artist's diverse repertoire and willingness to incorporate disparate art forms into his modernist approach. With this release, the "Fuze" demonstrates a tremendous faculty for melding Chopin, John Philip Sousa, Hendrix, and other composers of note, into jazzy, electrified themes and shrewd statements with raw, unaffected firepower. Fiuczynski's 2001 outing titled Amandala was produced and recorded for his FuzeLicious Morsels label, as the artist continues to seek out new terrain while also paralleling his signature mode of execution with forward-thinking methodologies and novel applications.
In a break from Medeski, Martin and Wood, retro keyboardist John Medeski gets co-billing with free-thinking guitarist David Fiuczynski in a freestyle dive into a maelstrom of funk, hip-hop, jazz and rock that grooves all the way down to the last laser pit. Medeski works out on an electronically modified Wurlitzer electric piano and a B-3 organ, playing in a funky, depth-charged, jagged style while Fiuczynski is forever chopping up the lines, streaking around the keyboards, emulating Hendrix or earlier, straighter blues guitarists. Fiuczynski's band, the Screaming Headless Torsos, provides a series of tough grooves as unyielding as its name, and Michelle Johnson's weird vocals on "Pacifica" and "Lillies That Fester…" seem to come right out of a creepy alternative rock station. The musicians these guys have absorbed would fill an encyclopedia – to cite a few possible sources, jungle-band Miles, the first Tony Williams Lifetime, hip-hop, M-Base – yet they manage to convert everything into a zesty, complex yet exuberant mix all their own. If you're of an electric frame of mind, check it out.
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