KITTYHAWK
Genres: Pop, Art Song, Folk • United States

Occasionally, a new musical group emerges which not only captures and audience’s attention with its special sound, but also with the particular instruments that produce it. Kittyhawk is just such a group. Daniel Bortz and Paul Edwards had been playing the Chapman Stick Touchboard separately for quite some time when they first met at the L.A., home of stick designer Emmett Chapman in 1977.  Their initial exposure to the unique, 10 string stereophonic electric instrument came from articles they read in Guitar Player and other publications, and shortly after this printed introduction to Chapman’s creation, they eagerly sought out the real thing. On that February day in 1977, Bortz and Edwards jammed with sticks and composed “Islands”, a spirited uptempo jazz-rocker which, three years later, would become the opening cut on Kittyhawk’s debut LP, Kittyhawk.  Both musicians were so confident of the Stick’s and their own melodic potentials that they read more...