About
Jess Conn-Potegal
Instruments: Drums, Hand Percussion, Turntables, Knobs and Dials
details
SolomonJess Conn-Potegal (Solomon) is a versatile Drummer, DJ and Producer specializing in funky rhythms.
A good listener and accomplished improviser, Jess is currently playing in several bands, producing beats and completing his first solo record.
Bio
Jess Conn-Potegal has been deep into rhythmicals since age 4. Listening intently,and tapping beats on everything since, Jess formed his first band at age 11, and played his first gig in the backyard.
Through exploratory playing and group interplay, Jess has focused on creative collaboration, improvisation and most of all the pocket!
After playing the drums for several years, Jess discovered electronic music, taking up the turntables as a second instrument in 1993. Finding a home in Vancouver's nascent underground dance scene, Jess DJ'd many parties and clubs in Vancouver, including residencies at spots like The Chameleon, The World and the Sugar Refinery, and even a memorable appearance on Muchmusic's Electric Circus.
Jess was a founding member of Q, an innovative live quartet informed by the aesthetic of electronic dance musics, like house, drumnbass and breakbeat. Fearless improvisors, Q was infamous for their epic live sets, packing dancefloors while stretching the boundaries of Vancouver's DJ scene. Q toured throughout BC, culminating in perfomance at events like Shambala Festival and the Vancouver International Jazz Festival.
Also deep into the world of abstract electronic improvisation, Jess was a member of Broken Record Chamber, an experimental sound-art project. Featuring turntables, live-looping, drum machines, effects, and guitar, BRC released an album, Music For Robots, on Vancouver jazz imprint Spool Records. BRC performed with several members of Vancouver's jazz-improv community, and were featured on CBC's Brave New Waves, at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival and at the Festival Du Musique Actuelle in Victoriaville Quebec.
In 2002, Jess was a founding member of the popular live hip-hop band, The Front. An incendiary combination of a tight, funky rhythm section and two gifted MC's, The Front quickly garnered a following and lots of positive reviews for their debut album, Signs Of Life. The Front played extensively around Vancouver and BC, and performed at events like The Vancouver Folk Music Festival, NXNE and CMW in Toronto. In 2004, The Front were winners of Shindig, a city-wide battle-of-the-bands produced by CiTR 101.7FM - the first hip-hop group to win! Additional recordings included live performances with CBC Radio 3, CBC Television's ZedTV, and an EP recorded at the legendary Mushroom Studios.
Reflecting his burgeoning interest in obscure late-seventies and early-eighties disco, Jess formed live space-disco orchestra, Saturn, in 2005. With a focus on genuine disco vibes, coupled with heavy percussive rhythm section and spacey analogue-synths, Saturn was featured at dance music festival Soundwave in 2004, 2005, and 2006.
Currently, Jess is working on beats, while looking toward his next live project: Integrated Circus. IC is a group created to highlight the soul-timbres of the electronic music continuum. IC brings together live, real-time analogue synthesis and re-contextualized recordings of classic electronic compositions. Integrated Circus performed at Vancouver's New Forms Festival in September, 2007, and the recording of the performance will be the subject of a remix competition to take place later this year.
Jess is also in the midst of developing a new band featuring some of Vancouver's best groove musicians...stay tuned!
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