MUCH GOES INTO MAKING OF MASQUE.Byline: Fred Shuster Music Writer Living Colour's hard-rocking ``Cult of Personality'' was probably the only Top 15 hit to mention the Nobel Prize Nobel Prize, award given for outstanding achievement in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, peace, or literature. The awards were established by the will of Alfred Nobel, who left a fund to provide annual prizes in the five areas listed above. while sampling dialogue with Malcolm X Malcolm X, 1925–65, militant black leader in the United States, also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, b. Malcolm Little in Omaha, Neb. He was introduced to the Black Muslims while serving a prison term and became a Muslim minister upon his release in 1952. and presidents John F. Kennedy "John Kennedy" and "JFK" redirect here. For other uses, see John Kennedy (disambiguation) and JFK (disambiguation). John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917–November 22, 1963), was the thirty-fifth President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Nearly two decades later, Vernon Reid, Living Colour's leader and buzz-saw guitarist, still has something on his mind. A longtime exponent of New York's avant-garde music scene, Reid says the music he now makes with his band Masque masque, courtly form of dramatic spectacle, popular in England in the first half of the 17th cent. The masque developed from the early 16th-century disguising, or mummery, in which disguised guests bearing presents would break into a festival and then join with their deals with the questions of identity and ethnicity. ``What does it mean to be a guitarist in a specific genre?'' he considers. ``What does it mean to be from a certain ethnic group? What does it mean to be an American? What does it mean to be an American in today's world?'' Those notions are wound up in ``Other True Self,'' the all-instrumental new effort from Masque, a group which, like Living Colour, treads a line somewhere between heavy metal and prog-rock. Reid said some of his concepts hail from talks he had with Cream bassist Jack Bruce John Symon Asher "Jack" Bruce (born May 14, 1943) is a Scottish-born musician, composer and singer. He is best-known as an electric bassist, harmonicist and pianist, and was most famous as a vocalist and the bassist for the 1960s rock band Cream. He lives in Essex, England. about their similar backgrounds. Like Reid, who was born in the U.K., Bruce has worked in a wide variety of settings. ``We talked about who we were, where we were in our musical lives, and who and what `I' might mean,'' said Reid, 47, who appears with Masque tonight through Sunday at Catalina's in Hollywood. Alongside tours with Masque and Living Colour -- which reunited a few years ago after a 10-year split -- Reid keeps the wolf from the door scoring films, including the recent ``Five Fingers,'' starring Laurence Fishburne, the PBS PBS in full Public Broadcasting Service Private, nonprofit U.S. corporation of public television stations. PBS provides its member stations, which are supported by public funds and private contributions rather than by commercials, with educational, cultural, documentary ``Almost Home'' and the horror flick ``Shadow: Dead Riot.'' Soundtrack music, he says, ``can say things you can't say with lyrics, but it can also suggest very particular places in time and emotion.'' In concert, Reid and his New York-based Masque shift easily from the Jimi Hendrix blues ``Red House'' to the New Orleans r&b of ``Voodoo Pimp In feudal England, a type of tenure by which a tenant was permitted to use real property that belonged to a lord in exchange for the performance of some service, such as providing young women for the use and pleasure of the lord. Stroll'' through Radiohead's ``National Anthem'' and even Depeche Mode's ``Enjoy the Silence.'' As Reid recalls, ``I've always liked lots of different music -- I love Debussy, I was knocked out by Dionne Warwick, Sly Stone, Mingus and the Sex Pistols when I first heard them. I grew up around calypso Calypso, in Greek mythology Calypso (kəlĭp`sō), nymph, daughter of Atlas, in Homer's Odyssey. She lived on the island of Ogygia and there entertained Odysseus for seven years. music. I never built up any boundaries from thinking something wasn't cool enough to really get into.'' Fred Shuster, (818) 713-3676 fred.shuster@dailynews.com VERNON REID & MASQUE Where: Catalina's, 6725 W. Sunset Blvd., Hollywood. When: 8:30 and 10:30 tonight and Saturday, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: $20 to $30. (323) 466-2210; catalinajazzclub.com. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: VERNON REID |
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