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Like many cities in the
1960’s, Seattle was a remote seedbed of creative
musical development. In earlier years it was a breeding ground for experimental artists such as John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Mark Toby. Now it became the home for a new generation of musicians such as Quincy Jones, Ray Charles, Jimi Hendrix, and NW Rock and Roll groups such as The Kingsman, The Frantics, The Wailers and years later, Nirvana and Pearl Jam. The music of the Psychedelic culture was about to emerge. Jon Keliehor studied music
at university level, played with aspiring jazz
ensembles in clubs and coffee houses, and by the age of
20 was accepted as percussionist with the Seattle
Symphony Orchestra. All this was a valuable
training ground, but the need for a wider range
of musical experience prompted him to leave the symphony in 1963 to
explore the more fertile waters of jazz music.
Between 1963-70, his interests
expanded toward rhythm and blues, and eventually pop
music, providing him with new areas of experience and
new techniques to assimilate. Playing in jazz groups with Seatlle musicians Larry Coryell, Joe Brazil, Overton Berry, Jerry Heldman, Marius Nordal, Lee Graham, and in the R&B group The Frantics, with Joe Johansen, Jerry Miller and Mike Mandel, his drumming developed to a peak. Following on, he co-founded the Seattle
based pop group The Daily Flash with Steve Lalor, Don MacAlister and Doug Hastings. They were a huge regional success, releasing an album and several singles. The group toured
the West Coast psychedelic circuit finally settling in
Los Angeles where they eventually broke up. The nucleus of this group re-emerged as Bodine, lasting for another two years.
In Los Angeles he became a sought after
drummer, doing guest performances with the Doors, the
Byrds, Lee Michaels, The Gentle Soul, and recordings with Frank Zappa, Jeff Simmons, David Ackles, Noel Harris, and a variety of artists, including one enigmatic
Los Angeles session with James Brown. In 1970, leaving many musical
contacts behind, he took an
abrupt change of pace and moved to London.
In London he looked for a more
direct way to develop his interests in percussion
oriented music. Within the year of his arrival he
started to work with dancers and choreographers at
London Contemporary Dance Theatre. He
opened a doorway to new knowledge, new techniques, and
this time a deep dive into the study of world, ethnic
music. His first compositions emerged. He taught music
at the London School of Contemporary Dance, accompanied
dance classes, and began to compose music for the
company, producing a score for one of Robert
Cohan’s most dynamic works, CLASS. This
piece and others that followed were a feast of
percussion instruments and musicianship.
Keliehor brought complex arrays of
instruments normally found within Brazilian, Indian,
and African music cultures to bear on the new-music
environment of modern dance. His innate
understanding of dance rhythms, coupled with emerging
concepts of dance-theatre provided an impetus to create
a new and original music. He worked with nearly
every contemporary dance company in London between
1970-1984, creating a ‘World Music’, ahead
of its time, landmark pieces that explored music
styles, rhythms, and fast changing counting systems.
By 1975 his studio at the London
Diorama Arts, gave him a sanctuary to search for deeper
cross-fertilisations of world percussion culture, and
moreover, for a more abstract form of music. Intrigued by the loan of a large collection of
Indonesian gongs, his music began to incorporate
gamelan influences into modern minimalist music
structures. In 1978 he co-founded an exploratory music
group with ex-Quintessence leader Raja Ram. This
ensemble of nine musicians created a range of music
that explored raga, gamelan and world percussion
tonalities, performing at the first Symposium On
Humanity, Wembley, in 1979. The following year saw an
intensive rewrite of CLASS, as well as a new score for
Robert North’s TROY GAME, for The Royal Ballet. CLASS V went on tour throughout the UK. It became
both a challenge for percussionists, and London
Contemporary Dance Theatre’s flagship piece.
In 1981 he emerged with two new
ensembles, the Percussion Music Research Ensemble and
Luminous State Theatre. Now the music was dark
and dream time, serious and not, a swirling fantasy of
hypnotic and trance like textures. Here he mixed
drums, Indonesian gong tonalities, Chinese theatre
instruments, western classical percussion, plastic
sound toys, obscure ethnic instruments and a variety of
sound contouring electronics. His music
concentrated on poly-metric and super-imposed event
concepts, following the idea:
“If time is the only thing
that keeps everything from happening all at once, what
is Time then?”.
By fusing live performance with
sample and loop recording techniques, Keliehor
developed a multiple-stream music style that he called
Frozen Slices. This music attracted young
experimental choreographers and musicians. He
performed with non-verbal and non-narrative theatre
companies Theatre of Lies and Lindsay Kemp Theatre, and
in 1983 created The Dreamhouse, a large-scale music
performance at the Commonwealth Institute. In
1984, working with Orlando Kimber, Eddy Sayer and Simon
Tassano, Keliehor co-created an exceptional recording
of new percussion music, EAST MEETS WEST, commissioned
by Bruton ATV. And this seemed to signal a time
of change. Within a few months he decided to
return to America once again.
Living in Los Angeles by 1985, he briefly returned
to London for the London Contemporary Dance Theatre
Royal Gala performances in the summer of 1985, but continued working
with Lisa Lyon on the Icons Of The Divine project. He
moved to Seattle again in 1986. His return to
America gave him new perspectives on composition, and
opportunities to explore new directions in music.
A seven-year association with the
unique, experimental music ensemble Gamelan Pacifica, in Seattle,
produced a new range of composition. This music
can be heard on the Gamelan Pacifica CD, ‘TRANCE
GONG’ and on ‘ISLANDS INBETWEEN’ for
Touch Records.
He deepened his involvement in
recording by creating a production facility called
Luminous Music, and a house recording studio, the
Transdimensional Bedroom. Works such as Celestial Nile and Zacary’s Dream brought a new melodic
scope to his music as he began to further develop ideas
on the Kalimba, an instrument he used extensively in
dance classes. In Seattle he worked primarily at
Cornish College of the Arts, wrote music for dance, and performed with local highlife band Je-Ka-Jo, led by Jon Kertzer. He co-produced Trance
Culture with associate Michele Savelle, a performance of ritual drumming, dance and arts.
Working closely with Venezuelan dance company DanzaHoy, his continuing work with modern dance produced new music and performances in both North and South America. In 1988 he
met Signy Jakobsdottir, a gifted percussionist with
whom he has collaborated on many projects. In
1996, with their first child Brendan, they decided to
return to Glasgow.
His first CD release, CELESTIAL
NILE, developed for the choreography of Jacques Broquet
(DanzaHoy) opened the doorway to a journey style of
music rich in metaphysical and mythological interests.
A second CD, based on music for poet James
Broughton’s The Androgyne Journal, brought this
style to a more intimate approach in OCEAN OF DREAMS.
Although a great deal of his music
remains currently unpublished, works such as
CREATE MUSIC, EAST MEETS WEST, OCEAN OF DREAMS, CELESTIAL
NILE, SPIRAL IN ALCYONE, are now available, and
reissues of powerful, older works such as CLASS V and TROY GAME are beginning to emerge from Luminous Music. Recent recorded works such as DOMAINE, ABYSS, SELUNDING SULING and SMARADAHANA on the CD FLOAT SOUND OBJECTS, are beginning to reveal new music
for gamelan instruments. In 2006, the CD FROM THE TIME OF DREAMS has brought new and past compositions together, in a revitalised look at the liquid, dreamtime textures of his London Diorama music.
Now resident in Glasgow he creates music and performance projects for the contemporary gamelan ensemble Gamelan Naga Mas. He has maintained his long-term
commitment to modern dance as a solo percussionist and composer, and
has emerged with a unique musical direction based on
the spirit and nature of drumming. His music is
innovative, spatial and dramatic, a contemporary world
percussion music, rich with the tonalities of
percussion and exotic instruments.
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