On his weekly Celsius Drop show, dublab co-founder Frosty guides you through an exploration of the vast Future Roots music spectrum.

This week, Frosty welcomed special guests Jonathan Hepfer and Phil Ranelin onto the show.

HOUR ONE – JONATHAN HEPFER:

Iannis Xenakis – Pleiades III. Melanges
Bernard Permegiani – Géologie Sonore
Trevor Bača – Fabergé (introduction)
Caroline Shaw – Entr’acte
Philip Glass – Glassworks: I. Opening

HOUR TWO – PHIL RANELIN:

Phil Ranelin – A Tear in Elmina
Phil Ranelin – Perserverance 2019
Tribe – Wide and Blue
Phil Ranelin & Emanative – Vibes from the Tribe
Tribe – Freddie’s Groove

* CELSIUS DROP EXPANSION PLAYLISTS:
For further listening, check out these Spotify playlists featuring additional music picks from this week’s guests: Jonathan Hepfer / Phil Ranelin

ABOUT JONATHAN HEPFER

Jonathan Hepfer is a percussionist, conductor, and concert curator. He is the artistic director of Monday Evening Concerts (M.E.C.) in Los Angeles. Founded in 1939, M.E.C. is one of the longest running series in the world devoted to contemporary music. MEC has gained international admiration for its presentation of music frequently new, sometimes old and always uniquely stimulating. Musical history is made at Monday Evening Concerts, whether it was the American debut of Pierre Boulez, world premieres of Igor Stravinsky, or the appearances here of such artists as Marino Formenti and the Arditti Quartet. Presenting the finest local and visiting artists, MEC is the place to hear adventurous new music in Los Angeles.

With MEC, Hepfer has directed performances of major works such as Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians and Drumming, Pierre Boulez’s sur Incises, Samuel Beckett and Morton Feldman, Words and Music, Philip Glass’s Glassworks, Gérard Grisey’s Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil, and the West Coast premieres of Julius Eastman’s Femenine and The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc. He joins Frosty on-air to give a glimpse of the sounds to come in the forthcoming Monday Evening Concerts season. Catch a glimpse of the calendar here.

ABOUT PHIL RANELIN

Legendary trombonist, composer, and Tribe co-founder Phil Ranelin graces Celsius Drop to talk about his long career and his recent releases: Hometown: Detroit Sessions 1990-2014 on Strut Records and Wide Hive’s career retrospective album Phil Ranelin Collected Works 2003-2019.

Phil Ranelin is the continuum of the Indianapolis J.J. Johnson, David Baker and Slide Hampton Slide-Trombone Tradition in that city. He has chosen the very difficult independent Jazz musician path by producing his own albums with small labels handling the recording, manufacturing, marketing and distribution. His local, national and international acclaim are a result of his mastery of his instrument, the unique human voice-like and sounds of nature he brings to the instrument, his bold ensemble configurations such as a 5-trombone choir, a multi-instrumental woodwind quartet juxtaposed to his trombone, the use of a four-piece rhythm section (w/congas) and his revolutionary compositional and arrangement skills which might mix complicated rhythmic patterns with repetitive melodic phrases or reconstruct standards by composing complimentary preludes and postludes – all to showcase the strength and creativity of his players and to present his own personal messages of love, peace, justice and respect for family and to honor those great musicians who impacted his own life. As a seasoned trombone master, his youthful following is still seeking out the music he created in the 1970s under the label he co-founded in Detroit, Tribe; while magazines around the world rave over Ranelin’s more recent albums which helped to earn him two international grants from the City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs as the City of Los Angeles’ Cultural Ambassador to the 2009 Guadalajara International Book Fair and as Artist-In-Residence 2011 for three weeks in Panama as part of Ranelin’s “Eric Dolphy Central American Roots” project.

Read more about Ranelin here.