Spirit-taught, avant-garde jazz virtuoso and extreme guitarist, Muñoz is best known for his unique, original sound and style, likened to that of a spiritual tornado. His career has spanned over five decades and includes a vast repertoire of creative works and inspired compositions released by his independent label, Anami Music.
Tisziji has received unqualified praise from such artists and fellow collaborators as Rashied Ali, Pharoah Sanders, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Henry Kaiser and Ra Kalam Bob Moses.
Following his departure from military service in 1969, Tisziji pursued his interests in Canada, generating his own musical ideas as well as taking a leading role in the development of Toronto’s underground music scene. ...
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Spirit-taught, avant-garde jazz virtuoso and extreme guitarist, Muñoz is best known for his unique, original sound and style, likened to that of a spiritual tornado. His career has spanned over five decades and includes a vast repertoire of creative works and inspired compositions released by his independent label, Anami Music.
Tisziji has received unqualified praise from such artists and fellow collaborators as Rashied Ali, Pharoah Sanders, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Henry Kaiser and Ra Kalam Bob Moses.
Following his departure from military service in 1969, Tisziji pursued his interests in Canada, generating his own musical ideas as well as taking a leading role in the development of Toronto’s underground music scene.
As a guitarist in the musicals Hair and Godspell, he met and inspired the now world-famous keyboard player, Paul Shaffer, who became Tisziji’s primary accompanist from 1970 to 1972, and recalls:
“Tisziji’s music is of a unique, other-worldly nature… although I didn’t understand it, I was galvanized. He began to instruct me in how to accompany and play this type of music. Thus began a musical and spiritual friendship which continues to this day.
I apprenticed with Muñoz until I left for New York in 1974. He taught me first a repertoire of jazz standards, expanding my knowledge of harmony, then gradually freed me to play the modal type of spatial music with which he dealt. He led me and a small group of cats in an exploration of music as a means of spiritual communication with each other and, ultimately, with G-d.
I have [since] played with all the great guitar players, from Eric Clapton to Van Halen to Santana to Jeff Beck, and nobody plays guitar the way Tisziji Munoz does. He is very spiritual, and as a guitar player he swings wild.”
John Medeski, of the genre-defying trio Medeski Martin & Wood, has garnered fans across the musical spectrum. Built upon jazz roots, electronics and rhythmic grooves, MMW have broken out of the traditional jazz sphere and have shared the bill with groups such as The Roots, Beck, A Tribe Called Quest, Ray Charles, Hermento Pascoal, and Phish, frequently appearing in venues unavailable to most jazz artists. Medeski’s recording credits include John Zorn, Iggy Pop, T Bone Burnett, Ray Lamontagne, Dan The Automator and k.d. Lang. Medeski has produced The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, pedal steel guitar group The Campbell Brothers, and two records from The Wood Brothers.
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