Screaming Headless Torsos, also known as the Torsos or SHT is a

jazz rock Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, ...

band formed in 1989 consisting of founding member and

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

ist

David Fiuczynski David Fiuczynski (born March 5, 1964) is an American contemporary jazz guitarist, best known as the leader of the Screaming Headless Torsos and David Fiuczynski's KiF, and as a member of Hasidic New Wave. He has played on more than 95 albums as a ...

vocalist Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

Freedom Bremner,

bassist A bassist (also known as a bass player or bass guitarist) is a musician who plays a Bass (instrument), bass instrument such as a double bass (upright bass, contrabass, wood bass), bass guitar (electric bass, acoustic bass), synthbass, keyboar ...

David Ginyard,

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

ist Daniel Sadownick, and the alternating drum chair of

Jojo Mayer Sergé "Jojo" Mayer (born 18 January 1963) is a Swiss virtuoso drummer born in Zürich and currently residing in New York City. Mayer is the son of touring musician and bass player Vali Mayer and the brother of actress Delia Mayer. He began his ...

, Gene Lake, Skoota Warner and James "Biscuit" Rouse. On September 26, 2014, Screaming Headless Torsos released the much anticipated ''Code Red'', their first new record in 9 years. The album is true to the Torsos

gumbo Gumbo (Louisiana Creole: Gombo) is a soup popular in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and is the official state cuisine. Gumbo consists primarily of a strongly-flavored stock, meat or shellfish (or sometimes both), a thickener, and the Creole ...

of styles but marks some noticeable sonic progressions. The 11-song album features guest artists and a new vocal sound. Code Red is the first Torsos record featuring vocals and vocal arrangements by lead singer Freedom Bremner. The album was produced by Torsos veteran producer Gregg Fine with, three tracks "Code Red", "Wizard of Woo", and Sideways, being co-produced by 14 time Grammy award winning producer, Ron Saint Germain (

Muse In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the ...

Living Colour Living Colour is an American rock band from New York City, formed in 1984. The band currently consists of guitarist Vernon Reid, lead vocalist Corey Glover, drummer Will Calhoun and bassist Doug Wimbish (who replaced Muzz Skillings in 1992). S ...

, Michael Jackson, 311, Diana Ross). Guest performances by guitarist James Valentine (Maroon 5) on track 2, "Brooce Swayne", keyboardists Casey Benjamin (Robert Glasper Experiment) and Chris Fisher (Funk Nuveau) both performing contrasting vocoder /synthesizer vocals on track 6, "Sideways" and the legendary keyboardist

Bernie Worrell George Bernard Worrell, Jr. (April 19, 1944 – June 24, 2016) was an American keyboardist and record producer best known as a founding member of Parliament-Funkadelic and for his work with Talking Heads. He is a member of the Rock and Roll ...

( Parliament- Funkadelic,

The Talking Heads Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991.Talkin ...

) lays his psychedelic handy work on track 3 "Wizard of Woo", a tribute written in Bernie's honor by Fiuczynski. Historically the Torsos' music mixes and mashes guitar-driven rock, jazz, hip-hop, funk, soul, r&b, reggae, and drum-and-bass grooves and concepts, along with future-shock percussion, improvisation, acrobatic vocals, and most recently Fiuczynski's eastern, Arabic, and African, microtonal guitar influences. SHT's original line up was

ist

Dean Bowman,

Fima Ephron,

ist Daniel Sadownick, and

drummer A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one mem ...

(Nerve). Drummer

Gene Lake Oliver Gene Lake, Jr. (born January 12, 1966 in St. Louis) is an American jazz drummer. He is the son of saxophonist Oliver Lake. Lake began playing drums when he was five years old, and took lessons with Pheeroan akLaff as a high schooler at The ...

joined the Torsos, replacing

for their 2001 album ''Live!!'' and the album "Torsos 2005". In 2001 vocalist Freedom Bremner replaced Dean Bowman. He joined the band officially in 2004 and was featured along with Dean Bowman on the album "Torsos 2005". Fima Ephron, featured on all the Torsos' albums, left the band in 2004 replaced briefly by bassist Steve Jenkins until 2008 and the entrance of David Ginyard. Screaming Headless Torsos has also featured many of New York's top musicians during their live performances including Sofia Ramos (vocals), John Medeski, (keyboards), rapper Ahmed Best, and Reggie Washington, (bass). The Torsos' rhythm section has also at times served as the backing band for artist,

Meshell Ndegeocello Michelle Lynn Johnson, better known as Meshell Ndegeocello (; born August 29, 1968), is a German-born American singer-songwriter, rapper, and bassist. She has gone by the name Meshell Suhaila Bashir-Shakur which is used as a writing credit on so ...

, for both live in concert and on her early recordings. Prior to the release of ''Code Red'', Screaming Headless Torsos toured heavily in Mexico and Latin America and sporadically in Europe, but was absent in the United States. After 5 years without releasing new music, SHT released the single and companion video for the song, "Dead Christmas Trees" in 2010. In March 2012 SHT was invited to play Vive Latino 2012 in Mexico City, the largest indie Rock Festival in the Americas. It was the beginning of a resurgence for the band. As a result of that performance at Vive Latino, which aired on Coca-Cola television throughout Latin America, SHT was invited to Colombia's Jazz al Parque Festival and on September 9, 2012, SHT performed for an audience of 20,000 at the festival in Bogotá Colombia, the largest jazz festival in South America. At that show SHT introduced a new keyboard player/vocalist, Akie Bermiss, from the New York City band Abaraki. Currently, the band is touring and promoting Code Red. On September 27, 2014, the "Code Red Europe Tour" launched with a performance at the Berklee Beantown Jazz Festival in Boston Massachusetts, followed by 15 concerts in Germany, Austria, The Netherlands, Poland, The Czech Republic and Switzerland. The band is planning a US tour, more dates in South America and Mexico, as well as the second leg of Code Red Tour Europe in March 2015 with concerts in Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, Luxembourg, Belgium, Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland and some debuts in several countries in Eastern Europe. RDS Rough Trade Records

Discography

* ''

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'' (1995) * ''Live!!'' (2001) * ''2005'' (2005) * ''Live in New York & Paris''(DVD) (2005) -recorded at the

Knitting Factory The Knitting Factory is a nightclub in New York City that features eclectic music and entertainment. After opening in 1987, various other locations were opened in the United States. The Knitting Factory gave its audience poetry readings, perform ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and at the club

New Morning New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. * ''Choice Cuts'' (2006) * ''Dead Christmas Trees'' single (2011) * ''Code Red'' (2014)

References

External links

Official Screaming Headless Torsos band web siteOfficial Screaming Headless Torsos Facebook page
{{Authority control American experimental musical groups Musical groups established in 1989 Jazz-funk musicians