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Mark Howell

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Mark Howell is a guitarist, trumpeter, singer, composer, ethnomusicologist, and music archaeologist. He was born in Mississippi in 1952 and played locally with musicians such as Wade Walker, Marty Stuart, Cassandra Wilson, Al Fielder, George Cartwright, and Evan Gallagher. In 1982 he moved to New York City and in 1983 formed an avant-garde post-rock band with Meltable Snaps It bass clarinetist Michael Lytle called Better Than Death (BTD). (BTD was the last band to perform at the Mudd Club.) Soon after forming BTD Howell played guitar on the second Curlew record, North America, where he met and worked with Martin Bisi, Rick Brown, Tom Cora, and Fred Frith. In 1989 he joined Frith, Nick Didkovsky, and Rene Lussier in the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet. Three years prior to that (1986) he collaborated with Etron Fou saxophonist, Bruno Meillier to form a Euro-American group with jazz leanings, Zero Pop. Between 1986 and 1994 Zero Pop toured Europe seven times and the United States three. They recorded one LP, All the Big Mystics, and one CD, Glows in the Dark. In between Zero Pop tours BTD recorded Swimman (1987), and promoted that release with a U.S. tour. In 1989 Howell formed a third band, Timber, with V Effect drummer, Rick Brown and Lets Active bass player, Faye Hunter (later replaced by Jenny Wade). Between 1989 and 1996 Timber made two U.S. tours and one European one. They released one CD, Parts and Labor, were included on Matador's LP and CD New York Eye and Ear Control, as well as on two of Elliot Sharp's State of the Union compilation CDs. Howell's involvement with the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet lasted between 1989 and 1995 and included five European tours, several U.S. dates (including the Bang On A Can Festival in 1992), and the recording of "The As Usual Dance Towards the Other Flight to What is Not," which was released on Frith's CD, Quartets. He also played with Frith, Didkovsky, Lussier, and others, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music performance of, "In Memory," in 1989. In addition to work in bands, Howell has written for dancers, such as Lynn Shapiro (at the American Dance Festival 1994), Amy Sue Rosen, Diane Torr, and Stephanie Artz, and has been commissioned by several ensembles and soloist. Two such commissions were "North By South," (1993) for percussionist Kevin Norton, and "To the Heart," (1997) for the ten-piece mixed ensemble, New Ear. His composition scores are published by Frog Peak Music. In 1996 Howell earned an M.F.A. in music composition at SUNY Stony Brook; and in 2004 a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the CUNY Graduate Center. His dissertation was, "An Ethnoarchaeological Investigation of Highland Guatemalan Maya Dance-Plays." Since finishing his doctorate Howell has devoted considerable time to researching the music of Precolumbian America. He has presented papers, been on panels, and published in books and journals on topics related to this subject. In 2006 he become the director of the [[Winterville Site], an archaeology park and museum in the Mississippi Delta. Howell continues to collaborate with Rick Brown in a duo, Inconvenient Music.

Select Discography

Inconvenient Music, MP3 downloads. Myspace.com/Inconvenient Music (2007). ''State of the Union'' (Elliot Sharpe compilation, with Timber), CD. EMF (2001). ''Quartets'' (with the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet), CD. Rec Rec Zurich (1994). ''Parts and Labor'' (Timber), CD and LP. joint distribution by Rift and Rough Trade London (1992). ''New York Eye and Ear Control'' (compilation, with Timber), CD and LP. Matador (1991). Glows in the Dark (Zero Pop), CD. Rec Rec Zurich (1987). All the Big Mystics (Zero Pop), LP. Rec Rec Zurich (1987). Swimman (Better Than Death), LP. Lost/Twin Tone (1987). ''North America'' (Curlew), LP. Moers (1986); reissue as CD, Cuneiform (2002).

Select Publications

"An Acoustic Analysis of La Salle's Trading Bells." In Orient Archaologie Band 22 Studien zum Musikarchaologie VI. Eds., Ellen Hickmann, Arnd Adje Both, Ricardo Eichmann, and Lars-Christian Koch. (2008), 477-485. "Possible Precolumbian Music Survivals in the Rab'inal Achi." In The World of Music. Music Archaeology: Mesoamerica 49 (2007:2), 105-138.

References

www.musicarchaeology.org htttp://olewnick.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_olewnick_archive.html

http://www.facebook.com/pages/mark-howell/69104569910 http://www.myspace.com/inconvenientmusic http://www.myspace.com/nanihwaya http://www.frogpeak.org/fpartists/fphowell.html http://the-world-of-music-bibliography.blogsplot.com/

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