| 10/26/03
We finished taping the Thione Diop video last night.
All I can say is WOW! The crew I worked with were great
and helpful. Thanks goes out specially to John Duda
for the lighting and camera. Phil Haley did a great
job as assistant director. Jason Bradley did a wonderful
job with the audio. Mark Weidling and Phil's uncle were
kind enough to lend us some equipment that we desperately
needed.
The video will have Thione
playing sabar along with the djembes as well as playing
some solo phrases. Editing will be done by Dashiel Hermann
and Phil Haley whom I know will have some great layouts
to show all the parts correctly.
This morning I received
a call from Madou
Dembele. He just returned after spending
four months in Africa. No wonder he never returned my
calls! He will be our next master drummer featured in
our Master Drummer Series DVDs. It will feature Mali
and Ivory coast rhythms. Taping starts in 2 weeks!
10/25/03
Friday the 24th we flew in Thione Diop from Seattle
and we went to Rhythm
nightclub to introduce him. Rhythm
Revolution, John Yost's weekly community
drumcircle was held at the club that night. Needless
to say, John was at his best with lots of energetic
people. Thione said, "John can really fly".
Thione
loved the club and he was itching to play. The grooves
just flowed. He takes to the floor and wows the crowd.
His playing cut through the circle effortlessly and
smiles were all around. After the circle, people went
to Thione and introduced themselves. What a great way
to make new friends!
10/19/03
Inanna, Sisters
in Rhythm will be the other group in our
women percussion DVD.
Are you interested in seeing
more of them?
Contact us and sign up for the pre-release notification
of the women's percussion DVD we're creating. The DVD
will include Voices of Africa and Inanna. This will
be a very exciting video of women percussionists.
Click on the images to see
the videos.
10/18/03br>
Wereceived 3 djembes and a set of dununs from Drumskull
Drums last week. They are on loan to us
and will be used on our Thione Diop DVD. These drums
are perfect and well worth the money. The sound is unreal
and it will be hard to send them back.
10/14/03
Just got back from a trip to Seattle and Vancouver.
While in Seattle, I met with Thione
Diop a young and modest Senegalese master
drummer. I'm glad to say that Thione was very excited
about producing a Senegalese djembe rhythms DVD for
the public. This DVD will be a "must have".
I drummed with Thione and had to stop a few times in
awe because of his hand speed and clarity of the sounds
they produced. Thanks goes out to Sara Porter, Thione's
manager, and her friends for the great dinner and an
awesome drum class with Thione.
Thione has a great CD out which can be
purchased at http://www.thionediop.com.
There are samples that you can listen to before purchasing.
The CD represents the ability of this young master drummer
and what he has to offer.
Interested in getting on
the mailing list for this DVD? Contact
us and we will let you know when it will be available
for a discount. We're looking at an early January 2004
release.
10/9/03
I've added a video of Voices
of Africa in the multimedia section under
Performance
videos. They are an internationally acclaimed,
all women's a cappella and percussion ensemble. Visit
their homepage for their upcoming performances and more
info about them.
Are you interested in seeing more of them?
Contact us and sign up for the pre-release notification
of the women's percussion DVD we're creating. The DVD
will include Voices of Africa and one more women's group.
This will be a very exciting video of women percussionists.
Click on the image to see
the video.
9/26/03
New videos just uploaded. Go to
the Drumcircle videos
and African Rhythms videos
to check them out. If you have a link or video you want
to share send me a note and I'll see if we can add it
to our site.
9/22/03
We have djembes
for sale again! I've started to rebuild them with
Bouba Fnu from Camaroon. If you haven't read about our
djembes read the djembe
testimonials.
9/21/03
Thanks goes out to Veronika Balingit,
our art director, for revamping the website. If you've
bought the DVD she's the one who designed the cover
and our future covers.
9/19/03
Here is a great write-up from
Beverly Nadelman of New York City to the Djembe-L
group
From: Beverly Nadelman
Date: Wed Sep 17, 2003 10:12 am
Subject: John Yost/Tintin drums DVD
For those who have seen the posts rom Tintin drums concerning
the availability of the John Yost DVDs-go for it. Somewhere
between a year and one half and two years ago I purchased
the first two CD-ROMs John and Alejo put out. I found
them extremely useful and wrote to Alejo about them,
praising them and suggesting that John add companion
CDs with the djundjun parts. I also offered to vend
the CDs for him gratis summer 2002 because I felt they
were a tremendously useful and extremely economical
learning tool for those who could view and listen on
their computers. I took them with me to the 2002 "Catskill...Happen'n"
and sold out so thoroughly that someone even bought
my own personal demonstrator CD.
I received CD-3 when it first came out.It
contained the djundjun parts for (I think, if memory
serves, CD-2) both in video and sound, each part separately
played in user choice of slow or fast and all parts
together, again both slow and fast. Truly excellent.
I found it really useful last summer when I used kids
from the kit drumming classes as the djundjun players
for performances with the kids from the djembe classes.
The DVD is even better. The videos are,
of course, much sharper and easier to see, and one doesn't
have to bump up the computer to watch if one has a DVD
player. Further, both the djembe and djundjun parts
are on one disk. This is a truly affordable and extremely
useful learning tool albeit the drummer's name is not
internationally well known. Go for it.
Beverly
9/17/03
Here is a nice quote from from Dale Wambaugh
of drumjournal.com
:
" I met John Yost at the World Rhythm
Festival in Seattle last April. It was one of those
paradigm shifts watching the guy with the quiet smile
strap on a djembe and play like he was born with the
drum in his hands. Simply said, Yost ROCKS! "
"John really did surprise me-- a
true artist. Arthur Hull held court at breakfast the
second day of the World Rhythm Festival and John Yost
was there with all the other DCF's. I had never met
him before and you have to admit a table full of DCF's
is a pretty strong set of charismatic personalities.
Yost was the kid with a quiet smile. And then I heard
him cut loose in the drum circle that evening--- OH
MY GAWD! John is a nice guy and a great artist. It was
a pleasure to meet him and hear him play. Remo
has a good bio on him on their DCF page too."
9/15/03
We have audio and video clips! This will be ongoing
so please visit again and you will see more clips added.
9/14/03
We now have DjembeForums!.
Register and be one of the first to post! Click the
forums
link to get there. Shops are welcome to post their specials
on percussion related items. I will add video and audio
links so keep checking.
9/11/03
We have signed a with a distributor to sell our John
Yost Teaches: West African Rhythms DVDs
to the educational markets. Hopefully this leads to
bigger and better things. If you are a retailer or distributor
and would like to carry the DVD, please contact
us for quantity pricing.
We are now selling the John
Yost Teaches: West African Rhythms
DVDs in 16 stores. The list will keep growing as
we learn how to market the product and as more people
learn about it. If you know of a store that may want
to sell the DVDs please let us know.
We have been working hard on our next DVD project. It
will be called John Yost Teaches: Djembe
101 and will be a great complement to
the John Yost Teaches: West African Rhythms
series. This DVD will be a whole beginner's course which
John teaches at his day job. More than just the basics
will be covered. We are in the editing stage and it's
looking real nice. More info once we near the end of
production.
The next rhythms DVD, wisely named, "John
Yost Teaches: West African Rhythms 2"
will include the following rhythms: Fanga, Kassa,Yankady,
Makru, and Kuku. All are very popular rhythms and guaranteed
to get you into the groove!
NOTE:
Until further notice, there will be no release
of John Yost Teaches: West African Rhythms 2.
- Alejo
Look for both DVDs in October or November!
If you want us to send you a notice before
the release date please contact
us and tell us which DVD you are interested in.
We will give a discount to the preorders and even more
discounts to our current customers.
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