Charles Townsend is an electric violinist/composer who lives and works in Philadelphia PA.
Charles played in jazz pioneer Bill Dixon's student orchestra for 5 years and was asked to play violin in Mr. Dixon's premier of his muscial composition, "A Season in Hell" in 1978.
Charles began a series of tutorials in the spring, summer, and fall of 1977 with avant garde composer Bassit Alan Silver. In this same period, he regularly began improvising on violin over Milford Graves' percussion workshop, which has approximately 30 hand drummers. He performed with the Gunther Hampell Orchestra in 1985 at the Painted Bride Arts Center, and knew Sun Ra personally.
In 1986 he recorded with the afrocentric avant garde band Kuntu on Cadence Records.
Like guitarist Michael Mantra, Charles has taken his music directly to the people by playing on the street, as the former vibrant club scene is now dead, and the only other way for adventurous contemporary musicians to perform is to be sponsored by this or that foundation with their slow moving 'grant machine'.
If you are lucky enough to hear him, Charles performs stream-of-consciousness medleys including music from Thelonius Monk, the Beatles, movie themes and classical pieces. He is also very active with his progressive jazz trio, featuring Parijat on bass, and Sun Ra drummer La Marr Prince on percussion.
Through his risk-taking violin solos, Mr. Townsend has advanced the sound of the violin and been responsible for a number of new sounds and new approaches to theart of improvision on his instrument.
We present a sampling of his recent recordings, now available here for downloading.
Violinist Charles Townsend at work...
1. Tribaluminescence / Progressive Jazz (excerpt) - composed by C. Townsend
2. Miles to Go (before I Sleep) / Progressive Jazz - composed by C. Townsend
3. Toads of the Short Forest / Prgressive Jazz (excerpt) - composed by C. Townsend
4. Confluence - composed by C. Townsend
5. Serenade to a Cuckoo / Traditional Jazz (Rashan Roland Kirk)
6. Green Dolphin Street / Traditional Jazz (Kader - Washington)
7. Along the River Run / neo-classical / (excerpt) - composed by C. Townsend
8. Saturday Night in Old City / Progressive - Electronic (excerpt)- composed by C. Townsend
9. Silver Moon Song / gothic - electronc / (excerpt) - composed by C. Townsend