Press Quotes:
CALIENTE!
Circle around the Sun
“[Red Arc] is an intoxicating work of art…Fred Ho is mesmerizing as he fuses a multitude of musical forms and meters…He single handedly creates a rich and nearly mystical backdrop upon which Salinas weaves his poetic magic…Together they form an impressive monument of sound and meaning—not solid, but intricately carved like a jeweled lattice depicting a hybrid cultural commentary…Fred Ho and Raul Salinas have joined forces to create something utterly special…This is complex literature and jazz—made up of blue-collar downtown words and globally blown saxophone notes. Red Arc is serious audio art for all Americans with hard won life experiences who can appreciate the cries of the underdogs. If, however, you are a Mexican American or someone who appreciates the blended cultures of the American southwest, this CD is an absolute treasure that you owe it to yourself to experience. Cultural masterpieces don’t come around everyday, so when they appear, they need to be collected and shared with future generations.”
~ Noe Hinojosa, Jr.
Mesquite Review, Vol. 9 #2, Aug/Sept 2006
“Fred Ho and Raúl Salinas were THE absolute highlight of this year’s [2004] MELUS (Multi-Ethnic Literatures in the U.S.) conference!”
~ Professor James Smethurst,
University of Massachusetts-Amherst
W.E.B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies
“Poet Magdalena Gomez and musician Fred Ho challenged Oberlin audiences with a fierce representation of history and the ways that music and poetry can shock people into thought…Gomez, award winning Hispanic poet, novelist and educator, began the program with an excerpt from her novel, Soap and Water. Her descriptions of a young girl coming of age in the Bronx were delicate and robust. With a delivery that enraptured the audience, she explained that her motive is to capture “the stories of abuse of women and appreciate all the women that influence[d]” her…[Fred Ho] approached the stage with an authority that grabbed the audience’s attention. Ho began by making conceptual statements about political movements: “Every social movement has two wings: one is reformist, the other wing is radical.” He explained that it is the “energy generated by these wings that brings about change.”…Ho redefined the “saxophone” sound. He employed the squeak register, making sounds that challenged his audience. There were elements of jazz, yet he dismissed concepts of steady rhythm and simple melody. At the end, during a question-and-answer session an audience member asked him to address this dismissal. He said his music is the kind that people either love or hate, he also mentioned that there is website devoted to criticizing him… Ho’s selections commemorated the migration and lives of Asian people throughout the world. After his performance he and Gomez did a collaborative spoken word and musical performance in which Ho played cacophonous notes in polyrhythm accenting Gomez’s words on American corruption, the phenomenon of American political “innocent by-standerism.” Some of the poems seemed overwhelming and filled with familiar political language. In spite of this, her poems and Ho’s music challenged western conception that poetry and music are supposed to make audiences comfortable and reinforce their easy lifestyle.”
~ DeShaun Sneed
review of Ho-Gomez performance
at Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, 2004
“A musician and a conjurer, one night in a recording studio, the poet raulrsalinas and the saxophonist Fred Ho expanded the tradition ofKerouac, the Beats, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and the Last Poets. Hail! Hail! Hail!”
~ Alejandro Murguia
“What we have here is a poetic fusion that defies categorization: It is Zen, but it is angry; it is Chicano, but its rhythms are those of Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk; it is regional in its setting and imagery, hemispheric in its vision. In short, it is raulrsalinas—one long enjambed bop calling for liberacion con salsa y cool.”
~ The Texas Observer
Performance History
April, 2004 Multi-Ethnic Literatures in the U.S. annual conference, San Antonio, TX
March 5, 2005 Brooklyn Academy of Music BAMCafe
March 10, 2005 McNamara Alumni Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
March 11, 2005 MacAlester College, St. Paul, MN
May 17, 2005 San Francisco State University Poetry Center, San Francisco, CA
March 17, 2005 New College of California, San Francisco, CA
April 20 & 21, 2005 Brooklyn Academy of Music Harvey Theater, Brooklyn, NY
May 21, 2005 Hostos Center for the Arts & Culture, Bronx, NY
May 23, 2005 Lucille Lortel Theater, benefit for the Ali Forney Center, New York, NY
September 15, 2005 Holyoke Community College, Holyoke, MA
September 16, 2005 New World Theater, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
September 22, 2005 Bunker Hill Community College, Boston, MA
