Dartanyan L. Brown

 

Professional bassist and vocalist, lecturer and composer offering:

• Live Performance Jazz - American Roots - Electronic music - Interdisciplinary performance

• Improvisation Clinics for vocalists and instrumentalists

• Private lessons, all ages over 10 years. We love music and you will too. It's YOUR music, after all.

• Sound for Motion Picture - Video - Media agnostic output - and H.264

 

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Dartanyan's career in music defies boundaries. He is a recent inductee into the Central Iowa Blues Society's revered Hall of Fame, while jazz bible Downbeat Magazine, as early as 1974 noted him as "one of the few electric bassists in jazz exploring the melodic possibilities of his axe." While he has been a thrilling performer onstage, his work in the classroom has been no less inspiring.

He credits his parents' worldview combined with a midwestern early life with providing the grist for the artistic mill he works daily. 2007 marks a new chapter as Dartanyan is offering new educational initiatives designed for middle- and secondary school-aged students as well of unveiling previously unreleased recordings from concerts, interviews, seminars and digital media productions that fans worldwide have anticipated for over two decades.

Throughout his 30-year career, Dartanyan has recorded and/or performed with an incredible variety of musicians, dancers, performance artists and purveyors of new media. The list includes trumpeter Bill Chase, Attila Zoller, Suru Ekeh, Grover Washington, Jr., Mark Levine, Kenny Barron, Horace Arnold, Mike Vax, Larry Ridley, Clark Terry, Dick Oatts, Warren Gale, Alvin Batiste, Kent Jordan, Arnie Lawrence, Barry Finnerty, Frank Foster and many others.

He is finishing production on a set of live concert recordings by Ron Dewitte, Big Mike Edwards, Jaimeo Brown, Sam Salomone, Craig Horner and Don Brown under the nameplate, The Iowa Blues All-Stars.

He is also in production on a DVD and audio set documenting his work with poet and friend Al Young. Mr. Young, recently designated California's Poet Laureate by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, has established himself as a unique voice. Al and Dartanyan are a living example of how words and music are meant to play together.

Dartanyan was born into a musical family where his father and mother both studied and performed music from religious to conservatory to Jazz. Dartanyan now performs with his son, Jaimeo , a drummer and his vocalist daughter Marisha whenever they come home from their adopted home in the New York City region where they earned their collegiate degrees at Wm. Paterson and Barnard colleges.

Dartanyan began his career on the west coast in 1987 with Teja Bell, a guitarist and producer of uncommon talent who, along with violinist Steven Kindler produced Dolphin Smiles, an album that created a commercial stir in the New Age world. Life long friends, Bell and Brown also performed with jazz flute legend Paul Horn and recorded the album History of My Heart with synthesist and sound design pioneer Susanne Ciani.

Fellow Iowan and lifelong friend Peter Otto, is the Music Technology Director at the University of California, San Diego. Peter is active as an administrator, educator, designer, research coordinator. They began working the intersection between acoustic and electronic music while still undergraduates in the midwest.

Dartanyan also performed in San Francisco's legendary Digital Be-In gatherings of the early 90's. He performed and composed for Tribe'r, a music/dance unit with MIDI-wired dancers. Dartanyan was featured onstage alongside artist/lecturers including Todd Rundgren and the late Timothy Leary. In the world of Dance, Dartanyan has performed with internationally acclaimed dancer/choreograper Bill T. Jones while his electronic compositions for dance have been performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (pictured far right). A lover of the spoken word, Dartanyan has provided sensitive, compelling accompaniment to California's Poets Laureate Al Young and Quincy Troupe, Beat-era original David Meltzer and Hip Hop/Slam artist Bamuthi.
		University of Montana Dance Team with Dartanyan at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

By 1996 Dartanyan's sound design talents came to the attention of CD-ROM/New media publishers Broderbund/Living Books. In league with Random House, Living Books and Mark Schlicting, brought Theodore Geisel's Dr. Seuss franchise to the then-emerging new media arena. Dartanyan's whimsical sound creations can be heard on the best-selling CD Dr. Seuss's ABC, a release which may be one of the most ubiquitous children's technology products ever sold (iPod notwithstanding).

In addition to his performing career, Dartanyan has provided guidance to hundreds of educators on how to integrate Jazz studies and music technology into the K-12 educational sphere. In the civic arena, Dartanyan has spoken before the San Rafael, CA. Chamber of Commerce educating the business community on the advantages of Jazz music and its place in the educational and professional arenas. He continues to blend the arts, education and entreprenurial spirit into a new paradigm for how, when and why we educate our children to their responsibilities to the community they inhabit.

 Dartanyan holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and News Editorial Journalism (1975) from Drake University. While there he studied the fundamentals of the bass violin with the esteemed cellist John Ehrlich. Dartanyan studied in New York with the legendary Richard Davis. Ron Carter is another primary influence. Jaco Pastorius was a personal friend and confidant during the C.C.Riders days in 1972.

He is currently a member of the San Francisco chapter of the Recording Academy, the International Association of Jazz Educators and has established the music publishing company Mayorisha Music to offer Dartanyan's 30 year collection of audio archives.

Highlights of Dartanyan’s professional career include the following:

2007 - Established Mayorisha Music Publishing and RadioDartanyan, original audio content.

2003 - 2007 - Music Faculty, Marin Academy

2003 - Inducted into the Iowa Blues Hall of Fame

2002 - Development Database Administrator & Music Teacher, Brandeis Hillel Day School

1995 - 2002 - Director of Technology and Jazz Educator, The Branson School

1993 - 1998 Audio Technology Specialist & Sound Designer

1994-1998 Apple Computer's P.I.E. Audio, MIDI expert San Francisco, CA.

1997 Sound Designer, Living Books/Random House, San Francisco, CA

1991-1993 Staff Writer, investigative reporter MacWEEK newsweekly

1990 Western region User relations and Tech support; CE Software

1988-89 SoundRangers established Marin County (clients: Suzanne Ciani / , Teja Bell, Paul Horn, Theodor Holm Nelson, Whole Earth Review)

1986-87 Engineer, Sound designer, producer Audio Art Studios, Des Moines, Iowa

1979- Music video performance with Grammy winner Rickie Lee Jones. Songs: Chuck E's in Love and Youngblood

1979 - 1985 Artist in Residence;

Jazz Artists in Schools program, National Endowment for the Arts

Residencies: University of Montana, Iowa Arts Council, Montana Arts Council, American Dance Festival and public school programs in Louisiana, Arizona, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Arizona.

1973-74 Bassist, lead singer and writer with Epic Records. Recorded album Pure Music, released 1974

1967-70 / 1974-75 Reporter, Photographer, Reviewer: The Des Moines Register and Tribune

For more information: email Mr. Brown at: dartanyan@dartanyan.com or call: 415.740.7115

snailmail: (updated June 26, 2006)

526 C Street

San Rafael, CA 94901

www.dartanyan.com