NEWS UPDATE: Announcing an Original 1979 Band Lineup Reunion!!!
Ancient Future 40th Anniversary Concert at the Freight & Salvage, Berkeley, February 12, 2019
Hi-Res Photo of Ancient Future Circa 1981 (1.2 MB). Shown: Mindia Devi Klein, Benjy Wertheimer, Matthew Montfort
Original Band Reunion Plus Celebrating 40 Years of World Fusion Music!
Ancient Future's first concert took place on February 11, 1979, at the Sleeping Lady Cafe in Fairfax, California, a vegetarian cafe and music club co-op that was the center of a vibrant local music scene. It was the day before Ancient Future leader Matthew Montfort's birthday, who was not yet of nightclub age. This concert on Montfort's birthday celebrates Ancient Future's 40 years at the forefront of the world fusion music movement.The first set of the concert will feature original band members Matthew Montfort (scalloped fretboard guitar), Benjy Wertheimer (tabla, esraj), and Mindia Devi Klein (bansuri, silver flute).
The second set will feature band members from Ancient Future's major label releases along with top master musicians from around the world who have a long history of cross cultural music collaborations with the band. Check the press release and Facebook event pages periodically for surprise announcements of featured musicians.
Tuesday, February 12, 2019, 8 PM
Freight and Salvage
2020 Addison Street
Berkeley, CA 94704
Doors Open: 7 PM
Purchase Tix: $20 in advance at the F&S, $24 at the door. All tickets are subject to an additional $4 per ticket facility fee.
Box Office Phone: 510-644-2020, open 12:30 PM–7 PM (excluding holidays) and during all performances.
Email: info@freightandsalvage.org
Facebook Event
Poster (384k .pdf)
First Ancient Future Video
YouTube Video of Ancient Future Circa 1978. Shown: Matthew Montfort, Yusef Ali, Mindia Devi Klein, Phil Fong, Benjy Wertheimer
This concert video teaser features an amazing archaeological find: the very first video of Ancient Future, recorded in late 1978, months before Ancient Future's first concert! Thanks to Jonah and Mariposa at Marin Artists International who, after learning of the reunion concert, were able to rescue parts of Ancient Future's first video recording session from archival oblivion. This video showcases an excerpt from 'Eternal Embrace' by Phil Fong. Performances of two complete pieces have been recovered, and are now included as a video session on the eCD version of Visions of a Peaceful Planet.
Reunion Concert Edition With Long Lost 1978 Video
Visions of a Peaceful Planet by Ancient Future (Ancient-Future.Com AF 2004) Audio/Video E-CD-R: $19.98 list
First Set: Original Bandmembers
Ancient Future was formed in late 1978 by students at the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California, including Mindia Devi Klein (who went by Mindy in those days), Matthew Montfort, Benjy Wertheimer, and Phil Fong.
On April 19, 2015, the original lineup of Ancient Future performed together for the first time this century to a full house at the Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley. Sadly, Phil Fong was unable to attend the reunion as he was battling ALS. He passed away on July 18, 2016.
The first set will feature all three surviving original Ancient Future bandmembers: Matthew Montfort (scalloped fretboard guitar), Benjy Wertheimer (tabla, esraj), Mindia Devi Klein (bansuri and silver flute).
If enough funds are raised through ticket presales and donations, there may be additional featured guest artists. Check the press release and Facebook event pages periodically for surprise announcements.
Facebook Event
Press Release
Matthew Montfort (band leader, scalloped fretboard guitar)
Matthew Montfort is the leader of Ancient Future. He is pioneer of the scalloped fretboard guitar (an instrument combining qualities of the South Indian vina and the steel string guitar), and studied with vina master K.S. Subramanian in order to fully apply the note-bending techniques to the guitar. In 2009, he released his first solo guitar recording, Seven Serenades for Scalloped Fretboard Guitar, which reached #8 on Zone Music Reporter's World Radio Chart. He is recognized as one of the world's 100 Greatest Acoustic Guitarists by DigitalDreamDoor.com, a curated "best of" site, and has been featured in Guitar Player Magazine. He has performed concerts worldwide, and live on national radio and TV shows such as the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. Montfort wrote the book Ancient Traditions - Future Possibilities: Rhythmic Training Through the Traditions of Africa, Bali, and India, which has been used by many musicians to improve their rhythm skills.
Mindia Devi Klein (Indian bansuri and silver flute)
Mindia Devi Klein is a founding member of Ancient Future and an award winning musician, composer and educator known for her haunting Indian bansuri flute music. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, where she began her formal music training at the tender age of two with African American folk singer Charity Bailey. Early exposure to the jazz greats and the vast diversity of the world's music left her hungering for a doorway into the mystic heart and roots of music. She followed her muse to California and the Ali Akbar College of Music where she began training with the late Ustad Ali Akbar Khan for over 40 years. She also trained under the late bansuri maestro G.S. Sachdev and then learned in India under guidance of world renown bansuri flutist Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia. She is a recipient of the American Institute for Indian Studies Smithsonian Fellowship, the Fulbright Scholarship in Balinese gamelan, and numerous arts and composition awards.
Benjy Wertheimer (tabla, esraj)
Benjy Wertheimer, a founding member of Ancient Future, is an award-winning musician, composer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist. He has performed and recorded with such artists as Krishna Das, Deva Premal and Miten, Jai Uttal, Walter Becker of Steely Dan, Zakir Hussain, and G. S. Sachdev. Benjy has been a student of Indian classical music for over 40 years, sitting with some of the greatest masters of that tradition, including Alla Rakha, Zakir Hussain, Ali Akbar Khan and Z. M. Dagar. Along with the Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart, he was a contributing composer and member of the Zakir Hussain Rhythm Experience. For over five years, Benjy scored music for the internationally syndicated NBC series Santa Barbara, and his CD Circle of Fire went to #1 on the international New Age radio charts in 2002. Making his home in Portland, Oregon, he now tours internationally with his wife Heather in the kirtan group Shantala.
Second Set: Ancient Future Hear and Now
The second set will feature band members from Ancient Future's major label releases and top master musicians from around the world. The lineup will depend on funds raised through ticket presales and donations. Check the press release and Facebook event pages periodically for surprise announcements.Facebook Event
Press Releasel
Coconspirators and Likely Guest Artists
Georges Lammam (Arabic violin)
Georges Lammam was born in Beirut, Lebanon. Of Palestinian descent, he is a solo violinist exemplifying the Arab style of instrumental improvisation. He toured in Bolivia with renowned artists Eddie and Gabriel Navia, and joined stellar performers hosted by JoinedHands (USA NP), organized by Marcus Lovett (Phantom of the Opera), to support refugees from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan in the refugee camp in Chalkida, Greece. His compositions and performance excerpts are included in scores for two award-winning documentaries: Occupation 101 and Tea on the Axis of Evil, and he recorded a dabke (an Arab folk dance) in a 2016 feature film, Wrestling Jerusalem by Aaron Davidman. Ancient Future bandleader Matthew Montfort met Georges Lammam at the Middle Eastern Music and Dance Camp in Mendocino in 1993. In 1998 Georges Lammam performed on a track for Ancient Future's 7th release, Planet Passion. He has been touring with the band since 2001, including trips to the East Coast, up and down the West Coast, and the Southwest.
Vishal Nagar (Indian tabla)
Considered one of the most gifted tabla players of his generation, Vishal Nagar wasn't yet born when Ancient Future performed their first concert in 1979. But he was being introduced to rhythm and melody while still in the womb, as his mother is the renowned Kathak dancer and vocalist, Urmila Nagar. He began to play tabla as a toddler as soon as he was tall enough to reach the drums. He had intense rhythmic training for a brief period with the late Ustad Latif Ahmed Khan of the Delhi Gharana, and after his Ustad's untimely demise, continued under the guidance of Ustad Shamim Ahmed Khan. Vishal has had the privilege of performing with many renowned Indian classical artists including Ustad Shujaat Khan, Vidhwan Trichur Ramachandran, Pandit Ramesh Misra, and Kala Ramnath, and has also collaborated with musicians from around the world such as the Ghanaian Guitarist Koo Nimo with whom he appeared in WOMAD USA (a world music festival started by Peter Gabriel). He began performing and recording with Ancient Future in 2013, and has since performed seven tours with the band. He is prominently featured on Ancient Future's Yearning for the Wind, which was the highest rated recording on Ethnocloud for April 2014, holding #1 spots in both the video and audio categories.
Pandit Habib Khan (sitar)
Pandit Habib Khan is regarded as one of the best sitar players in the country today. He was born into a family of musicians and can trace his lineage back several generations to when classical music enjoyed the patronage of the nobility and royalty of India. He began his training at the tender age of five under the strict eye of his accomplished father, Ustad Hameed Jaffer Khan. Habib Khan has carved out a distinct style of his own which is a blend of his father's traditional techniques and his own imaginative inventions. He has recorded three Indian jazz fusion albums featuring bandleader Matthew Montfort. Habib Khan began performing concerts with Ancient Future in 1998, and is prominently featured on Ancient Future's 7th release, Planet Passion. Between Ancient Future and Habib Khan's Indian Jazz Ensemble, Montfort and Khan have performed over a hundred concerts together in the USA, India, and the Middle East.
Doug McKeehan (keys)
Doug McKeehan started his piano studies at age five, and began his first professional work at the age of twelve. He studied music at the Oberlin Conservatory, Kent State University, and the University of Otago (New Zealand). He has toured Europe twice and spent considerable time in India studying with notable Indian music teachers such as Pandit Ram Narayan, Ustad Kursheed Khan and Pandit A.G. Bhattacharya. He has composed original music for stage and T.V. productions in San Francisco and Los Angeles and has been musical director of two original musical comedy productions. In 2008 he was commissioned to compose and perform live music for the Diablo Ballet's production Jazz Fever. He cofounded Air Craft with violinist Bruce Bowers, which released a highly acclaimed jazz fusion album, So Near, So Far. He is a first call jazz pianist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since joining Ancient Future in 1985, he has performed hundreds of concerts with the band.
Ian Dogole (percussion)
Ian Dogole has articulated his vision of global fusion music as a multi percussionist, bandleader, educator, recording artist, composer and producer. He has released seven records and a DVD as a leader – Along the Route, Dangerous Ground, Ionospheres, Night Harvest, Convergence, Crossroads, Outside the Box – Jazz Journeys & Worlds Beyond and Ian Dogole & Hemispheres In Concert (DVD). Ian has recorded and performed with artists such as Hamza el Din, Tito La Rosa, Richie Cole, Paul McCandless and Alex de Grassi. He performs on a wide variety of percussion instruments, including udu, cajon, hang, African talking drum, kalimbas, cymbals and dumbek. Since joining Ancient Future in 1985, he has performed hundreds of concerts with the band.
Jim Hurley (violin)
Jim Hurley began playing violin in the Livermore public schools, and later explored rock guitar and bass, jazz and world music. Influenced profoundly by South Indian violinist L. Shankar, he incorporates styles from bebop to zydeco, European classical to Zairean soukous. He studied violin with Dr. Madeline Schatz, protege of Jascha Heifetz and Josef Gingold, at Humboldt State University, where he earned his B.A. in Music. Jim's professional credits include performances and recordings with Queen Ida's Grammy-winning Bon Temps Zydeco Band, Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (with Jon Anderson from Yes), Kenneth Nash, Dan Hicks, Al Stewart, Josh Groban, Smokey Robinson, Stanley Jordan, the Waybacks, Tempest, and many other artists. He has performed on NBC's Saturday Night Live, NPR's A Prairie Home Companion, and at numerous festivals including New Orleans Jazz and Heritage, Monterey Jazz, Winnipeg Folk, and Strawberry Music. Since joining Ancient Future in 1988, he has performed hundreds of concerts with the band.
Mariah Parker (santur)
Mariah Parker worked with ethnomusicologist Fred Lieberman and Mickey Hart on the Planet Drum project while completing her degree in music at UC Santa Cruz. She has worked with many musicians including the late composers Pauline Oliveros and Dumisani Maraire (mbira master from Zimbabwe) . She has studied with jazz great Art Lande and Latin jazz pianist extraordinaire Rebeca Mauléon. She began performing with Ancient Future in 2005 starting with a tour of Spain. She has released two recordings of her compositions on Ancient-Future.Com Records: Sangria, her 2009 debut, and 2017's Indo Latin Jazz Live In Concert, which received rave reviews and quickly rose to #32 on the JazzWeek radio charts.
Ancient Future History
Original Lineup
Hi-Res Photo of Ancient Future Circa 1979 (1.3 MB). Shown: Benjy Wertheimer, Phil Fong, Mindia Devi Klein, Matthew Montfort
This lineup of Ancient Future made two recordings that are now considered world fusion classics. In December, 1978, the band went into Tres Virgos Studio in Mill Valley to record Montfort's song Moonbath. The song became the springboard for the first Ancient Future record, Visions of a Peaceful Planet. The concept for Natural Rhythms, the band's second record, grew out of a spontaneous recording session at a friend's recording studio near a frog pond. The sound of croaking frogs was leaking into the studio, so Montfort went out to the pond with a zither and began to play, and found that certain rhythms produced musical responses from the frogs. Several months later, Montfort and Klein went to Bali to study gamelan music. They were amazed to find paintings all over the island portraying Balinese rice paddy frogs playing gamelan instruments, so they ventured out into the rice paddies where a frog jam session ensued that became part of the Natural Rhythms release.
Original Lineup Releases
Visions of a Peaceful Planet by Ancient Future (Ancient-Future.Com AF 2004).
Natural Rhythms by Ancient Future (Ancient-Future.Com 2005).
Major Label Period
Hi-Res Photo by Irene Young of Ancient Future Circa 1990 (14.7" x 9.7" jpg, 7.2 MB). Shown: Matthew Montfort, Jim Hurley, Doug McKeehan, Ian Dogole
"Ancient Future is a rare kind of band that might simultaneously aggravate purists, confound New Age dilettantes, seduce skeptics, and dazzle just about everybody else. Delicious compositions, intricate arrangements, crisp playing and impeccable production put these ambitious voyagers in a league of their own." - Derk Richardson, SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN
This lineup of Ancient Future that performed on the band's influential major label recordings played over a hundred concerts together. In 2011, they reunited to perform concerts at venues from Yoshi's in San Francisco to the Frick Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In honor of the reunion, World Without Walls was released digitally by Capitol Records for the first time ever at major digital retailers such as iTunes. Twenty two years after its initial release in 1990, broadcasters worldwide voted the record as one of the top 5 world music releases of 2012.
Major Label Releases
Quiet Fire by Ancient Future (Narada/MCA 1012).
Dreamchaser by Ancient Future (Sona Gaia/MCA 154).
World Without Walls by Ancient Future (Sona Gaia/MCA 163).
Asian Fusion by Ancient Future (Narada Equinox ND-63023).
Video
YouTube Video of Ancient Future at their 'World Without Walls' Reunion at the Freight and Salvage. Shown: Doug McKeehan (keyboards, piano), Kash Killion (bass), Ian Dogole (percussion), Matthew Montfort (scalloped fretboard guitar), Jim Hurley (violin), Mariah Parker (santur)
World Music Collaboration Period
Hi-Res Photo of Ancient Future Guitar-Sitar Jugalbandi by Julie Marten (3.75 x 5.64 jpg, 1.7 MB). Shown: Pandit Habib Khan (sitar), Matthew Montfort (scalloped fretboard guitar)
Over the years, Ancient Future has expanded its musical vision through collaborations with master musicians from more than two dozen countries, cultures, and musical traditions who are now an integral part of what is today more than just a band. Ancient Future has grown to become a large multinational music ensemble with many smaller ensembles within it, enabling Ancient Future to realize its core mission of creating world fusion music. Some popular offerings include the Indo-Arabic, Guitar-Sitar Jugalbandi, and Asian Jazz programs. Through cross cultural exchange, Ancient Future has created a musical world without borders.
Hi-Res Photo of Ancient Future Indo-Arabic Roots (3.6 x 1.7 jpg, 474k). Shown: Matthew Montfort (scalloped fretboard guitar), Georges Lammam (Arabic violin), Vishal Nagar (Indian tabla)
World Music Collaboration Releases
Planet Passion by Ancient Future (Ancient-Future.Com Records AF-2010).
Archive of Future Ancient Recordings by Ancient Future (Ancient-Future.Com AF-2030).
Videos
YouTube Video of Yearning for the Wind by Ancient Future. Shown: Matthew Montfort (scalloped fretboard guitar), Vishal Nagar (tabla).
YouTube Video of El Zaffa from Planet Passion by Ancient Future. Shown: Matthew Montfort (scalloped fretboard guitar), Georges Lammam (Arabic violin), Salaheddin Takesh (Arabic percussion), Doug McKeehan (keyboards), Sapphira (belly dance).
