Jon Catler is an American composer and guitarist specially known for playing
microtonal
Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones—intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of tw ...
guitars like
31-tone equal tempered guitar, a 62-tone
just intonation
In music, just intonation or pure intonation is the tuning of musical intervals
Interval may refer to:
Mathematics and physics
* Interval (mathematics), a range of numbers
** Partially ordered set#Intervals, its generalization from numbers to ...
guitar, and a
fretless neck. He is the member of Catler Bros and
Willie McBlind bands.
Catler is the founder of microtonal music label, FreeNote Records
[FreeNote website]
Jon Catler
retrieved: 12/27/2012 and has appeared in
Montreal Jazz Festival
The Festival International de Jazz de Montréal ( en, Montreal International Jazz Festival) is an annual jazz festival held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Montreal Jazz Fest holds the 2004 Guinness World Record as the world's largest jazz fest ...
.
Jon Catler has been an advocate of microtonal music since the early '80s. Unlike his main influences Harry Partch and LaMonte Young, he applied the principles of the Just Intonation system to rock and jazz music, becoming a rare example of a microtonal axe player. Apart from performing and recording, he also cofounded the American Festival of Microtonal Music and the World Out of Tune Festival, established a microtonal music record label (FreeNote Music), and designed microtonal frets for electric guitars and basses.
Jon Catler first learned to play guitar the conventional way. He grew up listening to Albert King, Jeff Beck, and Jimi Hendrix (but also ear-opening jazz saxophonists John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman), mastering the instrument's basics and playing in various groups with his brother Brad Catler, a bassist and percussionist. In 1978, Catler's curiosity about microtonal music was ignited when he read an article about Ivor Darreg. He contacted him and the guitarist located for him a 31-tone guitar available for sale. From this point onward, Catler never went back to the 12-tone equal tempered system.
Catler worked his way gradually through increasingly higher divisions of the octave and now alternates between a 31-tone equal tempered guitar, a 62-tone Just Intonation guitar, and a fretless neck. As he learned to master his custom-made instruments, he applied the new sounds in his jazz-rock outfits the Microtones and Just Intonation. All the while he established a lasting musical relationship with seminal minimalist music figure LaMonte Young, playing on LaMonte Young and the Forever Bad Blues Band and touring Europe and the U.S. with the group.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Catler's activities have been divided between jazz-rock and contemporary music. He has appeared in many jazz festivals, including the Montreal Jazz Festival. His power trio Catler Bros. released Crash Landing in 1996 on his own record label established for the occasion, attracting some attention from the rock guitar press. Swallow, a rock band, began its activities in 2001.
On the other hand, he has performed the music of Charles Ives and Harry Partch, has recorded a set of art songs with soprano Meredith Borden (Birdhouse), has helped found and organize the American Festival of Microtonal Music since the mid-1980s and, with Young's cosponsorship premiered in 2001 the World Out of Tune Festival in New York City. His ambitious work Evolution for Electric Guitar and Orchestra, also released on FreeNote, headlined the event. His book The Nature of Music, a direct reference to Partch's landmark Genesis of a Music, summarizes his approach to what he calls "Nature's harmonic tuning system."
Discography
* 2018 - ''Ultra Minor'', Jon Catler &
Ra-Kalam Bob Moses
* 2018 - ''Devil's Dance'', 13 O'Clock Blues Band
* 2009 - ''Bad Thing'', Willie McBlind
* 2007 - ''Find My Way Back Home'', Willie McBlind
* 2007 - ''Jon Catler: American Festival of Microtonal Music'', Jon Catler
* 2001 - ''Evolution for Electric Guitar and Orchestra'', Jon Catler
* 1998 - ''Birdhouse'', Birdhouse
* 1996 - ''Crash Landing'', Catler Brothers
* 1995 - ''Playtime'', Michael Zentner
* 1993 - ''Just Stompin,
LaMonte Young
La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best kno ...
* 1993 - ''Steel Blue'', Steel Blue
References
External links
FreeNote LabelJon Catler's Blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Catler, Jon
Living people
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
Microtonal musicians
Year of birth missing (living people)