Ayler Records Celebrates Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut As First Living Artist With Box Set

Press Release by: quixotification

Place: WORLDWIDE EVENT

December 2007, Sweden -- Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut (New York City) is chosen as the first living artist to have a box set released by the Scandinavian record label Ayler Records.

Shurdut's Box Set documents the artist's journey into Environmental Tuning with the players who have been a part of his revolutionary vision.

This very unique box will include collaborations with Joe McPhee, Blaise Siwula, Brian Osborne, Daniel Carter, Luther Thomas, Sonny Simmons, Frode Gjerstad, Lukas Ligeti, Tom Chess, Marc Edwards, Sabir Mateen, Dave Sewelson, Marcus Cummins, Laura Cromwell, and many, many others.

Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut's choice of venue has often been as much a part of the creative process as the music itself. He is best known for tuning his instrument to the sound of his environment. Shurdut has also been sited placing the bottom of his unprotected guitar on the subway car floor and allowing the vibration from the tracks to tune it while on his way to shows. Shurdut says, "It's all there. I just let the guitar be a guitar."

Shurdut is a "Visionary," Mike Szajewski (WNUR, Chicago); with "Talent and Vision to Spare," Steven Loewy (All Music Guide). "But listeners beware - when you first get started there is no way back, you are going to be hooked for life," says Henrik Kaldahl.

"...referencing everything "from the wood rattling against the heater" to "the screams of the garbage trucks at 4 am" as Shurdut puts it, this trio has created an arresting urban sound picture. Just as the reality of big city life is expressed by yoking extended techniques to familiar jazz instruments, this CD defies metropolitan anomie with heartfelt sonic expressions that interconnect rather than alienate." -Ken Waxman, JAZZ WORD

"I am the environment"
-Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut

Selected Bio. Information: Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut (Am. b. 1967) is the founder of THIS IS THE MUSIC OF LIFE: A series featuring both inter-disciplinary and multi–instrumental artists who have a place in American History and emerging artists dedicated to documenting the essential connection between the visual, movement, music, and word in a living and creative space. He has lived in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, traveled over 20 countries, and has been a guest at The University of Pennsylvania. Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut was awarded an installation for his work from Columbia University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1993, and is the inventor of Environmental Tuning.

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