Paul Chasman: A One-Man Guitar Festival
“Spellbinding...imaginative...sensitive... A fine
example of a guitarist’s devotion to the full exploration of his
instrument’s capabilities.”
--Guitar Player Magazine Paul Chasman’s musical career has spanned
nearly forty years. He came to Portland, Oregon in 1969, where he played
in a number of blues and bluegrass bands, most notably the Heavy Gauge String
Band. When Paul was twenty-two, he found himself the single father
of a one year old son. This circumstance led Paul to curtail his career
playing in bands and to become a full-time private teacher in order to balance
a musical career with his devotion to his child. It also developed
into a musically fruitful period during which he spent his free time studying
jazz and developing his solo guitar style. This culminated in 1979 when he
released his first album, Solo Guitar, which Frets Magazine called “...one
of the finest examples of fingerpicking you’ll ever hear.”
At this time, Paul began composing music for
the guitar, melding jazz, classical, and folk idioms into his own unique style.
He developed a system for harmonics on the guitar, cascading, bell-like tones,
which he utilized throughout entire pieces in ways that had never been done
before. Guitar Player Magazine called him “one of the most deft
harmonics practicioners,” and called his harmonics technique “simply
astounding.” He has written articles on his harmonics technique
and other subjects for a number of national publications.
Beginning in 1998, Paul spent a particularly productive
decade on the Oregon coast where he composed music for guitar and cello, the
outcome being three CD’s: Sonatas No. 1 and 2, Songs from the Bay, and
I Hope. Acoustic Guitar magazine said, “Chasman's intricate arrangements
are...creative ...effective...well conceived and illustrate (his) deft playing
skills and harmonic and melodic gifts as well as his ability to develop his
compositional ideas in the ensemble format."
Chasman also helped found the Acoustic Guitar
Summit featuring Paul, Terry Robb, Mark Hanson, and Doug Smith. During
Paul’s nine year association with the Summit, they played for packed
auditoriums in Oregon, Washington, and California, were featured several times
on NPR, and recorded two highly acclaimed CD’s.
Paul put his guitars away for a few years during
the Bush presidency, devoting his energies to satirical political writing. He
developed a website: thecarlletters.com on which he posted “Letters of
Advice and Constructive Criticism to the Famous, the Infamous, and the Current
Administration” under the pseudonym of Carl Estrada. For years,
The Carl Letters has boasted a number one Google rating under the search words: “Anti-Bush
Political Humor.” Paul also wrote a novel, “The Book of Bob,” which
reportedly had many readers laughing out loud and was described by one critic
as “laughing magic.”
Since Paul and his wife moved to the Olympic
Peninsula in 2007, he has picked up his guitars again and performed as onstage
guitarist in the Port Angeles Community Players production of “Man of
La Mancha,” was musical director of PACP’s production of “Celebration,” and
played solo guitar concerts at the Juan de Fuca Festival. He is currently
composing music for eight-string guitar and plans to record a CD of the results
next year.
A Paul Chasman concert is a celebration of penetrating
musicality, technical mastery, and high humor. He explores influences
in jazz, classical, blues, bluegrass, ragtime, and rock, along with a sampling
of his own compositions which draw from all his musical and life experiences. Paul
typically plays four guitars in performance, each one facilitating a different
aspect of his broad range. A Paul Chasman concert is truly A One-Man
Guitar Festival. |