Johnny E

My Phillies won it all tonight. My mother, brother and his family still live there. I was ten years old when the Phillies won it all back in 1980 (for the first time in their 97 year history). It was bitter sweet however because I remember the day of game six (when they won it all) the electric company came and turned off our electricity because we hadn't paid the bill. My older brothers and sister all went to the bar and I was left listening to the game in the dark on a transistor radio with my mom (who was never a real baseball fan). I screamed out the bedroom window but no one screamed back although I could hear the celebrations in the distance. That was the year I became a lifelong baseball fan. It's never left me and I still get a little weak kneed thinking about it. And even though I've lived in Seattle for many years now, I must admit it brought a tear to my eye watching my old team win it all tonight. I been getting text messages from old friends with pictures of all the celebrating in the streets (not just Broad Street but every fucking street throughout the city) all night. People like to dis on the Philly sports fans, but they are the loyalist most devoted fans in the world. Go PHILLY!!!

Seattle Sound Magazine Reptet - Chicken or Beef? (Monktail) Review by Rachel Dovey If a small-town mariachi band suddenly went on a collective crystal meth trip, it would sound like Reptet. Chicken or Beef showcases some serious talent, but you don't notice that on the first listen. The swinging brass-driven melodies and dexterous drumming are all but eclipsed by Naked City-like screams, coughs, shivers, whistles, beatboxing, panting and randomly placed lyrics, like the voice announcing "I'm from the future!" and repeating "chicken or beef?" throughout the title track. But with intensity and precision, the bizarre set of songs ("Gwand Wabbit", Fish Market", "Go Bears") is able to grab the listener's interest and keep it. It's very refreshing to listen to some jazz that doesn't flaunt the fact that it's a cerebral art form, but focuses unnatural energy on raw entertainment.

Still waiting....

Agreed. Fast Eddie from The Hustler has always stood out to me. Seems like he was a good man as well, never afraid to stand up for what he believed in and put his money where his mouth was. RIP Paul.

You saw Reptet and we're practically in diapers...no, wait a minute. we were actually wearing diapers!

Watch Reptet performing the title track to their new CD, Chicken or Beef? at Boston's Johnny D's in april of 08'. And if you want more, check out and Zeppo as well.

interesting...could you send me the link?

In Cold Blood Lenny Night of the Hunter

Exactly! Thanks Jim.

Our first negative review jazzreview.com Featured Artist: Reptet CD Title: Chicken or Beef? Year: 2008 Record Label: Monktail Records Style: Free Jazz / Avante Garde Review: Kinda contemporary, kinda free/avant garde, kind of a serious melting pot of styles often defying classification in many ways, Reptet has released its third album, Chicken or Beef? Interesting title. Even more interesting is the music and its direction. There are clear times when thick, often pronouncedly powerful, bass lines help this elusive project coalesce and take form, along with some very active horn work. This is not always the stuff you’ve been used to hearing when you think of contemporary or even acid jazz. You do expect some of its elements in free jazz, with which more of this than not readily identifies, in my opinion. Parts, like “Reptet Score!” begin deceivingly moderate and modest and then morph into loud and frenzied pieces. Other parts are more (well, somewhat more) traditional and tame, like the cleverly-timed “EltiT.” The title tune was definitely one I couldn’t get my head around, no matter how many times I listened. Maybe on a good note, there was simply too much energy. By contrast, however, the melody was sorely lacking, as was the melody on the tune immediately following it, “That’s Chicken or Beef.” The latter began with a strange resemblance to the old Roger Miller classic, “King of the Road,” then decided to go “someplace else.” There’s a lot of “diversity” in style here, for certain. Examples would be the slower-paced, rather soulful piece, if I dare, titled “Gwand Wabbit” and the odd “Fish Market,” which begins in a frenzied Molly Hatchet-style fast pace, complete with chatter about going to the fish market. It too then ventures off (I suppose in the direction of the fish market), leaving me to scratch my puzzled head. Instrumentally, these guys have talent. There’s no disputing that. How they’ve utilized it here is another story. Maybe I haven’t completely embraced free jazz yet, but unfortunately this project doesn’t help. Tracks: Danger Notes, Reptet Score!, EltiT, Eve of Thrieve, Chicken or Beef?, That's Chicken or Beef, Gwand Wabbit, Fish Market, Swanni, Kill the Air, Go Bears Record Label Website: http://www.monktail.com Artist's Website: http://www.reptet.com Reviewed by: Ronald Jackson Source

Yes I know. I just wanted to second Larry's support of Doug's review.

Reptet Live at Johnny D's in Boston, April 16th 2008

Earshot Jazz Reptet – Chicken or Beef? Monktail Records MCMC8 Reptet’s new CD poses the age-old airplane- and wedding-reception dining question: Chicken or Beef? As listeners ponder this question, Reptet employs various antics that include shouts, grunts, group sing-alongs, and a 1980s hair rock guitar solo. And, oh yeah, there’s some good playing and writing too. Chicken or Beef? Is full of oddball humor and mixed genres. I love the heavy dance-like compound meter framed by collective shouts on “Reptet Score!” The title track, the album’s fifth, features a clarinet solo over a percussion groove followed by chants of “chicken or beef?” The next song, “That’s Chicken or Beef,” is straight up 60’s Jamaican ska that’s cut short by the group singing “that’s chicken or beef,” And later on the multi-sectional “Fish Market,” Reptet rhetorically asks: “why don’t you go to the fish market and get a fillet tonight?” and in doing so, confuses the matter even further. Cynics beware: Chicken or Beef? Isn’t just wacky shtick from players who aren’t good or serious enough to play “real jazz,” as it takes some serious chops to pull this stuff off. The group’s involved compositions and arrangements require each player to negotiate tricky rhythms and meters as well as tempo and groove changes – often several times within the same song. Reptet handles this with ease. The album features a lot of ensemble writing, and each musician’s doubling abilities (each of Reptet’s six members are credited with no less than four instruments, not including vocals or bull moose calls) provide many orchestration possibilities. Add the thirteen guest musicians to the fray and the result is an adventurous album with a wide sonic palette and range of styles. Whether or not you enjoy tongue-in-cheek music or are vegetarian shouldn’t matter, because one thing is for sure: Chicken or Beef? is good, clean, irreverent fun. Hey! -Review by Chris Robinson

Don't see anything wrong in Doug Ramsey's review. Me neither. After reading Doug's review I pulled out my old OJC copy of "The Dynamic Sound Patterns of the Rod Levitt Orchestra", and there are some strong parallels - although I'm quite certain no one other than myself in the group has ever heard of Rod Levitt.

I'm so glad you like the music. Thanks for giving it a chance and supporting us.

The Arts Journal Doug Ramsey Reptet, Chicken Or Beef? (Monktail) The method in their madness is sometimes concealed in over-the-top shenanigans, but there's plenty of artistry, discipline and technique in this second CD by the Seattle sextet. They meld a wild combination of musical ingredients into tight arrangements that in some of their more structured moments recall the combo writing of Rod Levitt, in others jump bands of the early forties and, in many, nothing but Reptet. Source

For the third consecutive year, Monktail has assembled a series of day-long concerts in Capitol Hill's jewel of a public space, Cal Anderson Park. Last year each day attracted 1000 people, camped out on blankets and chairs, playing with frisbees and puppies, and chasing dancing children around the meadow. Please join us for the city's only free outdoor summer jazz festival this Saturday (and again on August 23rd, please) from 1:00-8:00. Bring a blanket and bring your ears. Check out our coverage and ad in The Stranger, as well as in the Seattle Times Weekend section: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/text/2008057812_jazz18.html (and below). Paul deBarros called it one of his favorite concerts in 2007 -- Don't miss it! Saturday July 19 SOUNDS OUTSIDE 2008 -- FREE! The third annual Sounds Outside festival, a celebration of adventurous music and community, presented by the Monktail Creative Music Concern. Cal Anderson Park - Capitol Hill 1635 11th Ave, Seattle, WA 98102 1:00 Paul Harding & the Juju Detective Agency 2:30 The Owcharuk Sextet 4:00 Bill Horist 5:30 Cuong Vu featuring SPEAK 7:00 Blue Cranes http://soundsoutside.com Sounds Outside concert series sounds a little different By Hugo Kugiya Special to The Seattle Times To the uninitiated passers-by in Cal Anderson Park, the sounds coming from the shallow, grassy bowl Saturday might induce a bit of confusion at first. Instruments clearly will be involved. People clearly will be in control of them, and expertly so. Harmony, melody, arranged in bars. Music, for sure. Jazz of some kind. But it will arrive upon the ears of most as something different and unnamable — and certainly unlike anything heard in a typical, free summer concert. But this is Capitol Hill, the intersection of bohemian and high culture in Seattle, where the work of a run-of-the-mill blues or pop cover band might go underappreciated, and where something fresh and challenging might just take hold and grow. At least, that's the hope of the organizers of the Sounds Outside concert series, in its third year. "It's music that most fans aren't exposed to in everyday life," said musician and concert organizer John Seman. "We're trying to promote discovery. If it's outside and it's free, maybe people will give it a chance, encounter it in a way they wouldn't otherwise." The first Sounds Outside concert of the summer starts at 1 p.m. Saturday, with a set by Paul Harding & the Juju Detective Agency, the first of five freestyle jazz performances that will last almost eight hours in the park's amphitheater. The performance space, where outdoor movies are also played, was part of the city's recent re-creation of the formerly dull and dusty playfield near Seattle Central Community College. The concert series (a second Sounds Outside concert is set for Aug. 23) is the work of the Monktail Creative Music Concern, a self-described musicians' cooperative made up of about a dozen active composers and musicians, many from the Cornish College of the Arts. Monktail was started by Seman and drummer Mark Ostrowski, high-school classmates from Reading, Pa., who went their separate ways for college (Seman went to Oberlin, Ostrowski to Berklee) but reunited in Seattle. The musicians of Monktail, according to its Web site monktail.com, "thrive on the atypical and exigent; the real weirdo stuff." For instance, Paul Harding & the Juju Detective Agency describes itself on MySpace as a "mix of free Motown, post-hardbop, snakeskin Miles Davis, cubic country ... We call it free hop." "Harding is like [saxophonist] John Coltrane but with words," Seman said. "He totally blows." The Owcharuk Sextet (rhythm section, violin, trumpet and clarinet), led by pianist Michael Owcharuk, follows the Harding group at 2:30 p.m. Slavic liturgies and classical piano formed Owcharuk's musical upbringing and are discernible in his group's music. Then at 4 p.m., guitarist Bill Horist takes the stage with a solo performance that promises to deliver sounds rarely pulled from a guitar. "He uses implements on the strings and body of the guitar," Seman said. "He's not just plucking away." Grammy-winning trumpeter Cuong Vu, a jazz-studies professor at the University of Washington, performs at 5:30 p.m. The former Pat Metheny sideman is known for playing what might best be described as a soundscape of electronically enhanced, arrhythmic jazz. Ending the concert is Blue Cranes, a saxophone quintet slated to start at 7 p.m. The Portland crossover band joins indie rock with experimental jazz. All five performers will play for one hour with 30-minute breaks in between. Concert-goers should bring their own food and drinks. Seman guessed that perhaps as much as a third of last year's audience "happened upon it." "I'm sure some of them wondered, 'What is this? This isn't music,' " said Seman, 34, a trained ethnomusicologist who works as a preservationist for Experience Music Project. "There will be some people who will need a little finagling to get on board ... This isn't exactly lawn-chair music." It's "music from the other side of the fence," if the transcription is accurate. Peace, MCMC http://monktail.com

Yeah Johnny.. Why just chicken or beef?? Well the original version went like this: Chicken, Beef or Dungeness Crab? But our publicist said that since Dungeness Crab isn't available in all parts of the world, it would be wise to drop it so as to be more "inclusisve" to all our fans. There was a turkey version too, but that's a whole 'nother story.

Sonic Curiosity REPTET: Chicken or Beef? (CD on Monktail Records) This CD from 2008 features 60 minutes of jubilant jazz. Reptet is: John Ewing (on drums, percussion bull moose call, and vocals), Samantha Boshnack (on trumpet, flugelhorn, slide trumpet, and vocals), Chris Credit (on saxophones and vocals), Tim Carey (on upright and electric bass, baritone guitar, and vocals), Nelson Bell (on trombone, tuba, euphonium, conch shell, and vocals), and Izaak Mills (on saxophone, clarinet, flute, percussion, bull moose call, and vocals) with guests: Lalo Bello (on percussion), Mark Oi (on guitar), Tobi Stone (on clarinet), Clinton Fearon (on frog and vocals), Eyvind Kang (on viola), Lori Goldston (on cello), Paris Hurley (on violin), Maeg O’Donoghue-Williams, Sari Breznau, Kevin Hinshaw, and Scott Adams (all on additional vocals). Blaring horns and nimble percussion form the outspoken nucleus of this lively music. Many other instruments contribute to the gestalt, though, producing a full palate of sound. Among the numerous brass and woodwinds, it is the saxophone that holds bouncy sway with strident chords and emphatically piercing notes. Although not entirely devoid of studious melancholy, the horns generally convey a joyous sentiment. Their blaring definition is rich with a sensuous command that becomes quite pronounced at times. The utterances of trumpet, flugelhorn, and clarinet combine tastefully to augment the sax. The percussion is agile and crisp. While maintaining steadfast propulsion, the rhythms often divert into complex tempos that fit superbly with the rumbling basslines. Strings provide a subtle undercurrent of classical temperament that is frequently audible peeking through the intentional cracks in the mix. Plucked upright bass establishes instances of cerebral sobriety that ground the otherwise soaring sense of sonic delight. These compositions display an exultant quality that can be remarkably infectious. Combining elements of swing and cafe jazz, the tuneage is rollicking and rewarding. Source

Jazz Society of Oregon Review by Kyle O'Brien Chicken or Beef? - Reptet If you like to live outside the chords, Seattle is a good place to be. The Emerald City has developed a reputation with its younger musicians who like to be outside the realm of normal swing by incorporating funk beats, atonal melodies and lots of experimentation. The sextet Reptet falls into that category and they continue what groups like Critters Buggin’ have started -- a fusion of sounds that is purely Seattle experimental. It’s not inaccessible avant-garde, as the opening track, “Danger Notes” proves. In fact, it could be an outtake from a ‘70s crime drama score. With instrumentation as diverse as baritone guitar, euphonium, flute, saxophones, brass and “bull moose call,” you know you’re not getting just another jazz group. This is fusion way past the jazz meets rock variety. There is Spanish-influenced bombast (“Reptet Score!”), Eastern-influenced horn jazz (“Eve of Thrieve”), tribal chanting on the title track, ska (“That’s Chicken or Beef”), and plenty of other styles to keep you on your toes. To call this jazz is confining that which can’t be kept. It’s silly at times, always experimental, and not for the squeamish. But it can be fun if you keep a very open mind. 2008, Monktail Records, 59.40. Source

Not sure if the link still works since they block Yotube where I'm at now. I'll check it when I get home later. Now, if you simply can not wait. i know that the links to it at www.reptet.com and www.myspace.com/reptet work. Top link goes right to Youtube now.

El Intruso (Argentina...in Spanish) Here's a link to the original. I dumped it into an online translator and here's what came out. If anyone can provide a better translation, I will be forever in your debt. REPTET - Chicken or Beef? Danger Notes, Reptet Score! , eltiT, Eve of Thrieve, Chicken of Beef? , That's Chicken or Beef, Gwand Wabbit, Fishmarket, Swanni, Kill the Air, Go Bears Musicians: Samantha Boshnack: trompeta, flughelhorn, voices Nelson Bell: trombón, tuba, eufonio Christopher Credit: saxo baritone, saxo tenor, saxo high Izaak Mills: saxo tenor, clarinete, flute, percussion Tim Sea turtle: contrabass, under electrical, guitar baritone John Ewing: battery, percussion Guests: Beautiful Lalo (percussion), Mark Oi (guitar), Tobe Stone (clarinete), Eyvind Kang (it violates), Lori Godstom (hoop), Paris Harley (violin), Clinton Fearon, Maeg Donoghgue-Williams, Sari Breznau, Kevin Hinshaw, Scott Adams, Satchmo & Jack (voices) Monktail Record, 2008 Qualification: Dame Two True humor begins when no longer it is taken in serious the own person (Herman Hesse) Reptet is one of the most excellent bands of the new musical scene of the city of Seattle. In its creative plea they agree the vital substance of the tradition of the jazz, the rigorous perspective of post bop, the expressive enthusiasm of Latin music, the energetic indisposition of the indie rock, the academic protocol of contemporary classic music, the exotic loudness of folk European, the redeeming spirit of dixieland and the insatiable search of the free improvisation. In the structural composition of the musical DNA of this sexteto, we found a bequeathed iconography of genuine rebels of the modern art like Herman Sony Blount (alias Sun Ra), Louis Thomas Hardin (Moondog alias) and Frank Zappa (alias Frank Zappa); and also a cathartic narrative proposal founded on the ancestral principles of aesthetic the circus one and on an unlearnable exercise of the absurd humor that seems inherited of the Brothers Marx. The absurd term is used to identify to those who do not act according to a logical thought, separating from the reason. Humor is an emotional state that determines in the individual the possibility of realising certain mental associations. Sigmund Freud said that the essence of the humor consists of which one saves the effects that the respective situation had caused normally, eluding the suffering and allowing that prevails the principle over the pleasure. When the absurd one moves to the field of the art being associated with humor, it allows to introduce elements of null coherence in foreseeable a logical frame being heightened, by means of subtle resistances, his creative nucleus. These factors are unified in the proposal of Reptet and it is not that pies to the face are thrown or leave rinds of banana in the floor awaiting which somebody slips and falls… or that plays their with a clown disguise. Reptet incorporates playful aspects to represent its music, solves situations through absurd and, really, it pushes to us that the principle of pleasing del prevails that spoke Freud. That yes: when they push, it is necessary to have well-taken care of of not stepping on a banana rind or that the enjoyment of the triumph of the pleasure does not include tortazo in the face. Of plus this saying that they do not use disguises of clown (if my memory serves me right during his concerts one of his members it is disguised of penguin, is not the same). There are some who ***reflx mng themselves of the other and are some who ***reflx mng themselves with the other. Absurd humor as much requires a special effort of the emitter as of the receiver and implies an underlying complicity between both. If the emitting fault in its formulation, will fall in the ridiculous situation; and if the receiving fault in its interpretation, the result will be inversely proportional to the looked for one in origin. We do not have to confuse comicidad with humor. While the comicidad is a more superficial phenomenon, whose main function is to generate the laughter to bring about an explosive and purificante relief, humor, however, it penetrates in intellectual the human plane as as much emotional inducing to a reflective smile of inward-looking dynamics that worsens the level of understanding of the reality. Reptet does not resort to the comicidad, the ridicule and exaggeration in a premeditaded search through the laughter, of the recognition and the acceptance of the other. In his place it chooses the sense of humor like means to enjoy themselves, than they make and they think like derivate action from the self-acceptance and the car-recognition to obtain a panoramic vision of his circumstantial surroundings. If you not want complications or is of that when they tell him joke laughs three times (the first a hearing it, second when they explain it and third it understands when it), perhaps the sagacidad of absurd humor does not please to him. Of being thus, one will more also lose a significant portion of the supply of Reptet… and some things. And being useful that we are in confidence will not have been you the one that you left forgotten that rind banana over which I encountered in the door of my house, no? Chicken or Beef? it is the third disc of the band and, surely, the one that better comes near to its scenic unfolding. It was recorded in Seattle by Mel Dettmer, that worked among others with Wayne Horvitz, Skerik and Mr. Bungle and the cover of the album, like its Do predecessor this! of 2006, it has illustrations of the legendary Jim Flora. The disc abre with Danger Notes, composition of Samantha Boshnak solved through inherent a harmonic frame to music of big band and with recognizable echoes of Latin jazz. Dynamics, in counterpoint of winds, is intercepted by the low one to change in a vigorous rythmical ascent that causes the unfolding of the single ones, concluding in a natural return to the germinal melodic statement. Reptet Score! , whose responsibility belongs to Chris Credit, it acts like soundtrack of an imaginary film that, by the way, would deserve to film itself. The exotic initial sonoridades transfer to us to the Middle East and of there, without scales, to the Iberian Peninsula. A impiadoso joint with elaborated you break and unimpeachable freshness, joined by means of brief vocal entreactos that celebrate like a collective catharsis. A catharsis is a deep purifying experience brought about by an external stimulus. It comes from the Greek term Κάθαρσις, katarsis or katharsis, that mean purification or purge. A purge however is a laxative used for the lee elimination and, when he is very powerful, also it eliminates eses, member states and some letters more. Olvídese of the subject! Lees are pure. The catharsis concept, although it has anthropological roots, also has been used in medicine and the psychoanalysis. I do not want to go me by the branches and less after a laxative but I like to investigate in everything what she allows me to have subjects of conversation with my barber that, by the way, him story that is deaf. I found out that the day was deaf that I asked to him that it trimmed the sideburn and left with a haircut to the mohicano style. Not to leave ends loose, I say to him that the mohicanos Indians are a literary invention of James Fenimore Cooper, who created that word combining the name of the real tribes of the mahicanos and moheganos. Bueh… takes all this like a purge, I mean… like a catharsis with lees. In eltiT we found a cautious approach to the tradition of the jazz but with a structural embryo undressed of leftover elements and a constant emphasis in the pitch harmony, to the way of the minimalismo. Interludio in contrabass has a transforming effect, allowing that the sonorous drawing passes through the melancholy of the blues and the lyricism of Spanish music folkloric; this last one heightened by the magnificent speech of the trompeta of Boshnack. Everything ends with the saxos of connected Mills and Credit in an admirable duel of textures. In Eve of Thrieve, persistent hi hat and the ominous loudness of saxo high, construct the foundations on which the single ones mount in block, with excellent interventions of Bell in trombón, Sea turtle in contrabass and Ewing in action. The percusiva vortex, the obsessive refrain and the contribution of Mills in his human beat box in Chicken or Beef? they join with That s Chicken or Beef in rate of ska. Gwand Wabbit is one (another one) commendable composition of Boshnack that it unifies, in ascending lines, the blues and contemporary classic music. At Fish Market, out of position intro to pure rock ends at a futurist vision of hard bop to the Sun Ra. The musician Sun Ra affirmed that Saturn came from the planet and that it remained in the Earth with the mission to save the humanity; however, in the case of Reptet, it happens quite the opposite: still they follow in Saturn. Swanni, of Izaak Mills, reunites, in dose of strange balance, intense textures of great harmonic complexity, free improvisation and a full humor of complicities. In truth, only lacking that in this album we find frightful howls, processed tapes, the infrequent loudness of the bombardino or eufonio, barks, a passage that seems to announce a bullfight of bulls and the disturbing sarcasm of Frank Zappa. Good exactly all that passes in the Kill subjects the Air and Go Bears. Great end. Reptet, from the point of view of the creativity and humor, crosses with authority the thin border that separates the genius of madness. Welcome that thus is. Madness, sometimes, is not another thing that the presented/displayed reason of different form (Johann W. Goethe) Sergio Piccirilli

Not sure if the link still works since they block Yotube where I'm at now. I'll check it when I get home later. Now, if you simply can not wait. i know that the links to it at www.reptet.com and www.myspace.com/reptet work.

ah, i should have said this before...but please give comments rate the videos in Youtube. That's how is generates more google hits and potentially becomes a viral video. If you think they suck or think they are worthy of an award, please let us know over at Youtube. thx, -johnny

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RANDY!!! Randy, it's just a wedding gig. A three-piece would have sufficed.