"Ali “Jesus” Olmstead began the Woodynets after being told repeatedly that the oboe WAS NOT A JAZZ INSTRUMENT. Instead of admitting defeat and drinking birthday cake milkshakes to drown her pain, Ali took charged and formed her own freeform jazz group. She began by inviting Charlotte “Banana’s Are Magical” Hecht, who had received great acclaim at the first grade talent show for her stunning rendition of Mary Had A Little Lamb, and was an accomplished recorder player. After the invitation, Charlotte dedicated herself completely to freeform jazz clarinet.
Ratih “Sheepland” Sutrisno was the second to be brought into the fold. She began her musical career at a young age, performing alongside her parents and two sisters in the Indonesian version of “The Partridge Family”. At the tender age of 10, Ratih announced her decision to begin her solo career as a bass clarinetist. After releasing three full albums and one EP, to much critical acclaim, Ratih abruptly disappeared from the music scene for a year. When she returned, she had renounced the bass clarinet in favor of the B flat clarinet and the Woodynets, as well as grown an additional two inches. Rumors of kidnapping and brainwashing have circulated about this sudden switch, but it is more likely Ratih simply came to realize that people who played bass clarinet were weirdos (and, let’s be honest, have you seen Max May? Case in point).
The rest of the group was finagled into joining through a mixture of sweet-talking, begging, bribing, and blackmailing.
Anri was born in a tuba case, but for years ignored her calling and destiny, instead turning to the flute. It took her five years to stop fighting her fate and begin her budding relationship with her tuba. The two are now happily married, and were in fact approached by Ratih about joining the group at their wedding.
Chelsea Kipp and Helen Wieffering both began playing the trumpet with their middle school bands. After a mere three weeks of this ridiculous instrument, both realized that clarinet section was far superior, and as an added bonus, contained more girls. While Helen has continued on this course and now views her short stint in the trumpet section with regret and shame, Chelsea switched to the French horn and regained some measure of respect for instruments made of brass (though perhaps, it is true, not for those annoying trumpets). Both were convinced to join by Charlotte; it is believed some photos from "The Incident" were used as persuasion.
Ally Fulton was a skilled concert violinist, renowned throughout the world for her masterful performance of the Sibelius Concerto, with Paavo Berglund and the Bournemouth Symphony orchestra, as well as her recording of Beethoven’s violin concerto with conductor Rafael Kubelik and the Philharmonc Orchestra. She was born in Chelm, a small city in Eastern Poland. After being admitted at the Warsaw Conservatory at age seven, she studied with Carl Flesch and George Enescu. After a tragic accident at age 10, in which the speed of her playing caused a fire in which nearly all of her hair was burned off, Ms. Fulton permanently put down her bow. She found the lack of music in her life too much to bear, and picked up the clarinet a year later. She found out about the group through a mutual friend.
Abby plays only Asian flutes. She has no room in her life for any other instruments, or in fact, anything else at all, including last names. Abby is perhaps a little bit racist, but then, so is everyone else in the world. It is unknown how she was approached, as Abby never does anything but play the Asian flute, and eat macaroni (no cheese, as she is lactose-intolerant).
Jessie Austin learned to play the clarinet in 4th grade. After suffering multiple setbacks due to the difficulties of playing the instrument without the mouthpiece, she gave the clarinet up for good. She never played, touched, or even looked at any sort of instrument from this time until her 15th birthday, when, much to the amazement of her party guests, she spontaneously began playing the violin, tuba, and bassoon all at once. She abandoned the first two in favor of the bassoon, and found, to her surprise, that she was really quite good. She quickly took up the piano as well, developing a mastery of the instrument far beyond her years. She was invited to join by Anri; by that point, Ali had begun to resort to calling random numbers in the phonebook in hopes of finding a bassoonist."
Ali Olmstead came up with the idea, as it says above, for a non-jazz instrument free-form jazz group (exception is clarinets, which are sometimes used in jazz). I wrote our biographies for it. Even if it doesn't go anywhere (I doubt it will), I had fun writing them.
No comments:
Post a Comment