Michael Gulezian
Encyclopedia
Michael Gulezian is an American
composer and Fingerstyle guitarist. He is noted for dramatic compositions, a penchant for manipulating metre, an affinity for open tunings, and an unconventionally free two-handed technical approach. Gulezian's use of bottleneck
slide on 12-string guitar, coupled with his command of reverse analog reverbs have made his recordings notable for their dream-like sonic atmosphere. Gulezian inhabits a musical territory between his mentor John Fahey
, and his friend and colleague Michael Hedges
.
n folk songs, and his father, classical Middle-Eastern oud
virtuoso and Pharonic Egyptian ethnomusicologist H. Aram Gulezyan. Michael immersed himself in his Armenian
cultural heritage, Middle Eastern music
, non-Western Indian
and Chinese music, improvisational rāga
s, as well as Western idioms such as Gregorian chant
s, rock, Jazz
and folk
.,, In 1965 the family moved from the New York City area to Tucson, Arizona.
As a young guitarist he was influenced by the early Mississippi Delta fingerstyle guitarists: John Hurt
, Bukka White
, Son House
, and Robert Johnson, as well as their contemporaries from the Atlantic seaboard, Blind Blake
and Reverend Gary Davis
. Later he discovered and explored the music of John Fahey
and Leo Kottke
, and further broadened his musical horizons by listening to Keith Jarrett
, John McLaughlin
, Ravi Shankar
and Sun Ra
.
While attending Colorado’s Holy Cross Abbey, Gulezian studied Joseph Campbell
, Carl Jung
, and James Joyce
, who became a significant influence on his perception of language, music, linear time, Roman Catholicism
, and temporal reality. While still in high school, Gulezian was introduced to John Fahey through Robbie Basho
. After recording his first self-published album Snow on his own Aardvark Records imprint, Gulezian signed to John Fahey’s Takoma Records
label. Snow was re-released in 1980 (with minor modifications) to a global audience on Takoma/Chrysalis as Unspoken Intentions. It received international critical acclaim, and established Michael as a visionary artist; musicians such as Henry Kaiser
and Michael Hedges
cited Unspoken Intentions as a major influence. In the midst of Gulezian's accelerating professional success, the Takoma label went bankrupt. Disillusioned with the music industry, Gulezian returned to college and graduated with honors, with degrees in Entrepreneurship and Marketing from the University of Arizona
’s Eller Center for the Study of the Private Market Economy.
Upon graduation Gulezian returned to a career in music. He founded the Timbreline Music label, releasing his third album Distant Memories & Dreams in 1992. He began touring again and published his fourth CD The Dare of an Angel in 1994. In 1997 Gulezian moved to Nashville, Tennessee
. In 2002 Unspoken Intentions was reissued on CD by Fantasy Records
. His fifth CD was released in 2003 - the incendiary Language of the Flame, and followed in 2005 by the live recording Concert at St. Olaf College.
In recent years Michael has played hundreds of concerts, and continues to present guitar workshops and master classes at colleges and universities across the USA. In addition to his live concerts, Gulezian has been featured in the USA on many radio and television broadcasts, and is regularly played on NPR
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
composer and Fingerstyle guitarist. He is noted for dramatic compositions, a penchant for manipulating metre, an affinity for open tunings, and an unconventionally free two-handed technical approach. Gulezian's use of bottleneck
Bottleneck
A bottleneck is a phenomenon where the performance or capacity of an entire system is limited by a single or limited number of components or resources. The term bottleneck is taken from the 'assets are water' metaphor. As water is poured out of a bottle, the rate of outflow is limited by the width...
slide on 12-string guitar, coupled with his command of reverse analog reverbs have made his recordings notable for their dream-like sonic atmosphere. Gulezian inhabits a musical territory between his mentor John Fahey
John Fahey (musician)
John Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the...
, and his friend and colleague Michael Hedges
Michael Hedges
Michael Alden Hedges was an American composer, Acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter.-Background:...
.
Biography
Gulezian began playing acoustic guitar at the age of six; although he never took formal lessons, he underwent years of self-imposed classical guitar training. He was influenced by his mother, who sang ArmeniaArmenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
n folk songs, and his father, classical Middle-Eastern oud
Oud
The oud is a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in North African and Middle Eastern music. The modern oud and the European lute both descend from a common ancestor via diverging paths...
virtuoso and Pharonic Egyptian ethnomusicologist H. Aram Gulezyan. Michael immersed himself in his Armenian
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
cultural heritage, Middle Eastern music
Middle Eastern music
The music of Western Asia and North Africa spans across a vast region, from Morocco to Afghanistan, and its influences can be felt even further afield. Middle Eastern music influenced the music of India, as well as Central Asia, Spain, Southern Italy, the Caucasus and the Balkans, as in chalga...
, non-Western Indian
Music of India
The music of India includes multiple varieties of folk, popular, pop, classical music and R&B. India's classical music tradition, including Carnatic and Hindustani music, has a history spanning millennia and developed over several eras. It remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as...
and Chinese music, improvisational rāga
Raga
A raga is one of the melodic modes used in Indian classical music.It is a series of five or more musical notes upon which a melody is made...
s, as well as Western idioms such as Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...
s, rock, Jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
.,, In 1965 the family moved from the New York City area to Tucson, Arizona.
As a young guitarist he was influenced by the early Mississippi Delta fingerstyle guitarists: John Hurt
John Hurt
John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
, Bukka White
Bukka White
Booker T. Washington White , better known as Bukka White, was an American Delta blues guitarist and singer. "Bukka" was not a nickname, but a phonetic misspelling of White's given name Booker, by his second record label .-Biography:Born between Aberdeen and Houston, Mississippi, White was the...
, Son House
Son House
Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. was an American blues singer and guitarist. House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music...
, and Robert Johnson, as well as their contemporaries from the Atlantic seaboard, Blind Blake
Blind Blake
"Blind" Blake was an American blues and ragtime singer and guitarist.-Biography:...
and Reverend Gary Davis
Reverend Gary Davis
Reverend Gary Davis, also Blind Gary Davis, was an American blues and gospel singer and guitarist, who was also proficient on the banjo and harmonica...
. Later he discovered and explored the music of John Fahey
John Fahey (musician)
John Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the...
and Leo Kottke
Leo Kottke
Leo Kottke is an acoustic guitarist. He is widely known for his innovative fingerpicking style, which draws on influences from blues, jazz, and folk music, and his syncopated, polyphonic melodies...
, and further broadened his musical horizons by listening to Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett is an American pianist and composer who performs both jazz and classical music.Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey, moving on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music; as...
, John McLaughlin
John McLaughlin (musician)
John McLaughlin , also known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, is an English guitarist, bandleader and composer...
, Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar , often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent...
and Sun Ra
Sun Ra
Sun Ra was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama...
.
While attending Colorado’s Holy Cross Abbey, Gulezian studied Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell
Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
, Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
, and James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
, who became a significant influence on his perception of language, music, linear time, Roman Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
, and temporal reality. While still in high school, Gulezian was introduced to John Fahey through Robbie Basho
Robbie Basho
Robbie Basho was an American composer, guitarist and pianist, and one of the pioneers of the acoustic steel string guitar in America.-Biography:...
. After recording his first self-published album Snow on his own Aardvark Records imprint, Gulezian signed to John Fahey’s Takoma Records
Takoma Records
Takoma Records was a small but influential record label founded by John Fahey in the late 1950s.. It was named after Fahey's hometown, the Washington, D.C. suburb of Takoma Park, Maryland.-History:...
label. Snow was re-released in 1980 (with minor modifications) to a global audience on Takoma/Chrysalis as Unspoken Intentions. It received international critical acclaim, and established Michael as a visionary artist; musicians such as Henry Kaiser
Henry Kaiser
Henry Kaiser may refer to:People*Henry Felix Kaiser , American academic known for the varimax rotation*Henry J. Kaiser , American industrialist and shipbuilder who founded Kaiser Permanente...
and Michael Hedges
Michael Hedges
Michael Alden Hedges was an American composer, Acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter.-Background:...
cited Unspoken Intentions as a major influence. In the midst of Gulezian's accelerating professional success, the Takoma label went bankrupt. Disillusioned with the music industry, Gulezian returned to college and graduated with honors, with degrees in Entrepreneurship and Marketing from the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
’s Eller Center for the Study of the Private Market Economy.
Upon graduation Gulezian returned to a career in music. He founded the Timbreline Music label, releasing his third album Distant Memories & Dreams in 1992. He began touring again and published his fourth CD The Dare of an Angel in 1994. In 1997 Gulezian moved to Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
. In 2002 Unspoken Intentions was reissued on CD by Fantasy Records
Fantasy Records
Fantasy Records is a United States-based record label that was founded by Max and Sol Weiss in 1949 in San Francisco, California. They had previously operated a record-pressing plant called Circle Record Company before forming the Fantasy label...
. His fifth CD was released in 2003 - the incendiary Language of the Flame, and followed in 2005 by the live recording Concert at St. Olaf College.
In recent years Michael has played hundreds of concerts, and continues to present guitar workshops and master classes at colleges and universities across the USA. In addition to his live concerts, Gulezian has been featured in the USA on many radio and television broadcasts, and is regularly played on NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
.
Discography
- Snow (1979, Aardvark Records)
- Unspoken Intentions (1980, Takoma/Fantasy)
- Distant Memories and Dreams (1992, Timbreline Music)
- The Dare Of An Angel (1996, Timbreline Music)
- Language of the Flame (2003, Timbreline Music)
- Concert at St. Olaf College (2005, Timbreline Music)
Collaborations, Compilations
- Lights Out 5 (1995, KINK FM 102)
- Lágrimas de arpa y luna (1996, Resistencia)
- Takoma Eclectic Vol. 2 (1998, Takoma Records)
- Takoma Slide (1999, Takoma Records)
- 156 Strings: Nineteen Totally Original Acoustic Guitarists (2002, Cuneiform)
- Bridges 9 (2003, Pennsylvania Public Radio Associates)
- The KUMD Sessions: Live from the Music Room #2 (2003, KUMD)
- Lights Out 9 (2004, KINK FM 102/Boyd Coffee Company)
- The Revenge of Blind Joe Death: The John Fahey Tribute AlbumThe Revenge of Blind Joe Death: The John Fahey Tribute AlbumThe Revenge of Blind Joe Death: The John Fahey Tribute Album is a tribute CD to guitarist John Fahey released in 2006 by Takoma Records.- History :...
(2006, Fantasy Records)
Books, Sheet Music
- Ian and Nisa. Individual transcription (2004, Stropes Editions)
- Between the Strings – The Secret Lives of Guitars (2004, Mel Bay Publications)