Sat 5/11 @ 9PM
One of the most intriguing bands in the Cleveland music scene in the ’80s was Uzizi, a multi-media artsy rock ensemble led by Craig Matis that blended images and music in its stage show.
Matis has continued to use the band name, although the project has morphed into something very different — different from both the old Uzizi and everything else in the local music scene.
Now he’s the driver of a mutable ensemble he describes as “an alternative world beat folk/rock group.” It includes a small choir of vocalists. It incorporates classical influences, world music, and mostly distinctively, early American shape note music into rock and roll.
The band’s bio says of their use of 19th-century sacred shape-note singing, “Matis’ affection for this unique musical style allows him to bend the pioneer religious aesthetic to his own purposes. At times, religious, anti-religious, and nonreligious, the threads of continuity are the joy of singing and the power of primitive harmonic forces.”
Corralling so many people to perform is difficult so they don’t do it often. But they’ll be playing at Wilbert’s where Katty Whomp Us, a progressive bluegrass/folk/rock group out of Granville, Ohio, will open.
Artwork by Craig Matis
https://www.facebook.com/UziziMusic