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Trey Gunn
Trey Gunn playing Warr Guitar with KTU at Tampere Jazz Happening 2005
Background information
Born	(1960-12-13) December 13, 1960 (age 51)
Genres	Experimental, art rock, jazz fusion, progressive rock, progressive metal, world music
Occupations	Musician
Instruments	Warr guitar, Chapman Stick, fretless bass, bass, guitars, keyboards
Years active	1983 -
Associated acts	King Crimson, The Trey Gunn Band, Quodia, TU, KTU, UKZ
Website	www.treygunn.com

Trey Gunn (born December 13, 1960) is an American musician, known for his membership in progressive rock band King Crimson from 1994 to 2003, playing Warr Guitar and Chapman Stick.

Biography[link]

A native Texan who now resides in Seattle, Washington, Gunn began his musical life at the age of seven playing classical piano. His interest in music grew through various instruments: electric bass, electric and acoustic guitar, keyboards, and the touch guitar. He moved to Eugene, Oregon, and played in punk bands while he completed a degree in classical music composition at the University of Oregon.^[1] He then moved to New York City where his professional career began.

He spent some time as a student of Guitar Craft with founder Robert Fripp and appeared on several Robert Fripp and the League of Crafty Guitarists recordings. From 1988 to 1991, he toured playing Chapman Stick in the UK and Europe, with Toyah Willcox, Robert Fripp and Paul Beavis, at first under the band project name "Fripp, Fripp" who by the second tour became "Sunday All Over the World". They recorded and released one album in 1991 entitled Kneeling At the Shrine. In the same year and with the SAOTW line up, he also played stick on the solo Toyah album Ophelia's Shadow, produced by Toyah who was to later guest on his album, The Third Star.

In 1992, he was asked to join David Sylvian and Robert Fripp in a collaborative project that toured the United States, Europe and Japan. The band released The First Day and Damage — a live recording from the Royal Albert Hall in London. During this period Gunn also recorded his first solo album One Thousand Years.

In 1994, Gunn joined King Crimson. With King Crimson he played Chapman Stick and subsequently diverse types of Warr guitar and was part of the "double trio" formation opposite Tony Levin. In 1997, King Crimson fragmented into smaller configurations known as the ProjeKcts. Gunn, along with Fripp, participated in all of the ProjeKcts performances and recordings. In 1999, the group mutated into a four piece — Belew, Fripp, Gunn and Mastelotto. He left Crimson after "The Power to Believe" tour in 2003. Over the course of his decade with the group he participated in thirty-three King Crimson CDs, two DVDs and hundreds of performances.

He has also performed and recorded with a number of other musicians: Tool, Puscifer, Robert Fripp, Sean Malone and Gordian Knot, David Sylvian, Vernon Reid, John Paul Jones, Eric Johnson, Italian singer Alice, Azam Ali, Matt Chamberlain, Michael Brook, Bill Rieflin, David Hykes of the Harmonic Choir and many more. He has released a number of solo albums, as Trey Gunn and as the leader of The Trey Gunn Band.

Years of working with broad-necked instruments like the Warr guiar affected Gunn physically and he had to seek less abusive outlets for his artistic expression. ^[2] In 2003, Gunn founded the multi-media group Quodia with Joe Mendelson where he contributed more vocals than in previous projects and less Warr guitar. In 2004, he and Pat Mastelotto started collaborating with Kimmo Pohjonen and Samuli Kosminen, forming KTU out of their respective duos TU and Kluster. In 2007, he began working with Eddie Jobson in the group UKZ.

In addition to helping run a collective music label based in Seattle called First World (FWD) and a multi-media production company (7 Directions), he is currently dividing his time between his solo work, film and television scoring, music supervising, and building multi-dimensional media projects.

Discography[link]

Solo albums[link]

• Playing with Borrowed Time (1985)
• One Thousand Years (1993)
• The Third Star (1996)
• Raw Power (1999)
• The Joy of Molybdenum (2000)
• Live Encounter (2001)
• Road Journals (CD-ROM) (2002)
• Untune The Sky (CD/DVD) (2003)
• Music for Pictures (2008)
• Modulator (2010)
• I'll Tell What I Saw (2010)

With King Crimson (selected discography)[link]

• VROOOM (1994)
• THRAK (1995)
• THRaKaTTaK (1996)
• Deja VROOOM (DVD) (1999)
• The ProjeKcts (4CD Box Set) (1999)
• The ConstruKction of Light (2000)
• Level Five (2002)
• The Power to Believe (2003)
• Eyes Wide Open (DVD) (2003)

With others[link]

• 1991 Ophelia's Shadow (with Toyah)
• 1991 Kneeling at the Shrine (with Sunday All Over the World)
• 1993 The First Day (with David Sylvian / Robert Fripp)
• 1993 Darshan (The Road To Graceland) (with David Sylvian / Robert Fripp)
• 1994 Damage: Live (with David Sylvian / Robert Fripp)
• 1994 Dream (with U. Srinivas & Michael Brook)
• 1995 Charade (with Alice)
• 1996 Cortlandt (with Sean Malone)
• 1999 Gordian Knot (with Gordian Knot)
• 1999 Zooma (with John Paul Jones)
• 1999 Birth of a Giant (with Bill Rieflin / Robert Fripp / Trey Gunn)
• 1999 The Repercussions of Angelic Behavior (with Bill Rieflin / Robert Fripp / Trey Gunn)
• 2005 TU (with TU)
• 2005 8 Armed Monkey (with KTU)
• 2006 Elysium for the Brave (with Azam Ali)
• 2007 V Is for Vagina (with Puscifer)
• 2007 The Arrow(CD/DVD) (with Quodia)
• 2007 Escape Plan (with Stretching Madness)
• 2008 Squeeze Me Ahead of Line (with The Season Standard)
• 2009 Quiver (with KTU)
• 2009 Down in Shadows (with N.y.X)
• 2010 Cocoon (with Inna Zhelannaya)
• 2011 Grace For Drowning (with Steven Wilson)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Trey Gunn homepage
• Trey Gunn homepage on MySpace
• Quodia homepage
• Quodia homepage on MySpace
• DGM/King Crimson homepage
• Interviews on Outsight Radio Hours

Michael Manring (born June 1960 in Annapolis^[1]) is an American bass guitarist from the San Francisco Bay Area, (Northern California).

Biography[link]

Michael Manring was born as youngest of four children. His family lived in Norfolk, Virginia and moved to the suburbs of Washington, D.C in 1969. The Manrings were a very active family musically, providing a very fertile background for Michael's musical development. He and his brother Doug - a guitarist and drummer, later living a long time in Japan - formed a very active rhythm group still being at high school, venturing through jazz rock and fusion, playing rock classics at beer parties or pop standards in restaurants and at weddings.^[2]

Manring was a pupil of bassist Peter Princiotto from Spring Hill area, Virginia. He began to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts in the late 1970s, but canceled his studies in 1979 because of the heavy workload he already had, touring with several different bands like the Prog Rock band However.^[3] During his time at Berklee College he used every opportunity to play with very different musicians and bands. In the 1980s he studied and toured with Jaco Pastorius and began to develop his own style.^[4]

In addition to a long tenure in the 1980s as house bassist for Windham Hill Records, Manring has recorded with Spastic Ink, Alex Skolnick (in the bands Skol-Patrol and Attention Deficit, also featuring Tim Alexander from Primus), Larry Kassin, Tom Darter, Steve Morse, David Cullen, Alex de Grassi, Will Ackerman and many other noted musicians. He headlined his own band, Montreux, throughout the 1980s. He has been a member of Yo Miles!, Henry Kaiser and Wadada Leo Smith's Miles Davis tribute band, since its inception. 1994 Manring was polled Bassist Of The Year by the readers of Bass Player magazine.^[5] Manring's name is also tied with that of fingerstyle guitarist Michael Hedges, who was a dear friend and fellow musician. Manring toured extensively with Hedges and played on all Hedges albums except one.^[5] Manring is known as a humble and gracious live performer with a gift for improvisation with guest musicians.

Since 2005 Manring is member of the band DeMania with guitarist Alex de Grassi and percussionist Christopher Garcia.

Michael Manring remains active, touring the world for performances and clinics. He lives in Oakland, California.^[6]

Music and musical influences[link]

Because of his association with the Windham Hill label Manring often was seen as a New Age musician. He doesn't see himself as belonging to a certain style or genre and often jokes about categorising his music. His album Thonk he termed for example "... the first New Age–Death metal–Fusion–album“.^[3]

Manring has a solid musical knowledge and uses the bass as a solo instrument usually in alternate tunings, with additional possibilities and patterns invoked on the fly with lever-activated de-tuners and bridges, somewhat like a pedal steel guitar. He wants to show that the electric bass can be used in a musically rich and expressive way.^[3] Manring occasionally plays on two (or even three or four) basses at the same time during live performances. Manring is also a composer of experimental music, mixing technology and fretless bass with the sounds of kitchen implements and cardboard boxes, evidenced on his "Book of Flame" solo album.

He is a technical virtuoso, generally using his bass in very different ways. Mostly he plays a fretless bass, which gives him ample possibilities to change tone and pitch just like on acoustic bass. Manring is rhythmically very versatile and often uses polyrhythms.^[3] He's said to do "... things on the electric bass that haven’t been done before, are nearly impossible, and (are) illegal in most states.".^[7] A very special technique used by Manring is the tuning change of single or several strings in the course of playing a piece.

Equipment[link]

Manring plays a custom bass by Zon Guitars, the so-called Zon Hyperbass, a very flexible instrument, which was developed by Joseph Zon and Manring.^[8] Special tuning pegs and a special bridge allow instantaneous tuning change of single strings as well as of all strings simultaneously by the action of several tiny levers, a system like that of the TransTrem guitar. The development of this special model was caused by Manring's use of open tunings. When Manring began changing tunings during pieces by turning the pegs while playing,^[3] he soon realised the limitations of this approach. First he tried to overcome these limitations by changing a normal Music Man Sting Ray Bass, but then began to develop the Hyperbass with Zon. The Hyperbass has Bartolini pickups for every string and four Fishman Transducer for the body signals of the instruments.

Apart from the Hyperbass, Manring uses a whole fleet of instruments. A listing at his website gives the following models:^[9]

• Zon Legacy Elite Special fretless, aka "Bub"
• Homemade Jazz Bass-style fretless
• Zon Michael Manring Hyperbass
• Zon Custom Fretless, aka "Junior" or "Son of Bub"
• Larrivee 5-string fretless acoustic bass guitar
• MusicMan Stingray fretless
• Paroutaud Music Laboratories 5-string fretless Infinite Sustain prototype
• PRS fretless
• Riverhead Unicorn fretless
• Riverhead Unicorn fretted bass
• Zon prototype headless fretted bass, aka "Vinny"
• Zon Legacy Elite 6-string fretless
• Zon prototype Legacy 10-string bass (5 x 2).

Manring uses several bass amplifiers, among others the SWR Mo' Bass amp, a multi effect bass amp.

Discography[link]

collected from^{[10][11][12][13]} and^[14]

Original work[link]

• 1986 Unusual Weather (Windham Hill)
• 1989 Toward the Center of the Night (Windham Hill)
• 1991 Drastic Measures (Windham Hill)
• 1994 Thonk (Highstreet)
• 1995 Up Close 21 (Windham Hill / High Street Records / Boston Acoustic)
• 1998 The Book of Flame (Alchemy Records)
• 2005 Soliloquy (Manthing Music)

Collaborations[link]

with Michael Hedges

• 1981 Breakfast in the Field (Windham Hill)
• 1984 Aerial Boundaries (Windham Hill)
• 1986 Watching My Life Go By (Open Air)
• 1987 Live on the Double Planet (Windham Hill)
• 1990 Taproot (Windham Hill)
• 1996 Oracle (Windham Hill)
• 1999 Torched (Windham Hill)
• 2000 Michael Hedges – The Best of Michael Hedges (Windham Hill)
• 2001 Beyond Boundaries – Guitar Solos (Windham Hill)
• 2003 Platinum & Gold Collection (RCA Victor)
• 2006 Pure Michael Hedges (RCA)

with Danny Heines

• 2001 What Worlds They Bring (Vadadisc)

with Alex Skolnick

• 1997 The Skol-Patrol (Pluto-Bound)

with Montreux

• 1985 Chiaroscuro (Windham Hill)
• 1987 Sign Language (Windham Hill)
• 1989 Let Them Say (Windham Hill)

with John Gorka

• 1991 Jack’s Crows (High Street)
• 1992 Temporary Road (High Street)
• 1994 Out of the Valley (High Street)
• 1996 Between Five and Seven (High Street)
• 1998 After Yesterday (Red House)
• 2001 Company You Keep (Red House)
• 2006 Writing in the Margins (Red House)

with Paolo Giordano

• 1994 Paolo Giordano (Step Musique/New Sounds)
• 2000 Kid in a Toy Shop (Step Musique/New Sounds)

with Turtle String Island Quartet

• 1995 By the Fireside (Windham Hill)

with Attention Deficit

• 1998 Attention Deficit (Magna Carta)
• 2001 The Idiot King (Magna Carta)

with Jeff Loomis

• 2008 Zero Order Phase (Century Media)

with Yo Miles

• 1998 Yo Miles! (Shanachie)
• 2004 Sky Garden (Cuneiform)
• 2005 Upriver (Cuneiform)

with Sadhappy

• 1998 Good Day Bad Dream (Periscope Recordings)
• 2005 Outerspaces (Periscope Recordings)

with Norm Stockton

• 2009 Tea In The Typhoon (Stocktones Music) [Fretless Bass on "Rockefeller Forest"]

with Scott McGill und Vic Stevens

• 2001 Addition by Subtraction (Free Electric Sound)
• 2003 Controlled by Radar (Free Electric Sound)
• 2006 What We Do (Free Electric Sound)

with Larry Kassin und Tom Darter

• 2001 Scatter (MKD Music)

with David Cullen

• 2001 Equilibré (Solid Air Records)

with Human Factor

• 2002 Human Factor (Human Factor)

with At War With Self

• 2005 Torn Between Dimensions (Free Electric Sound)

with DeMania

• 2006 DeMania (Tropo Records)

with Jeff Dodd

• 2007 Falling Awake (Aesthetic Records)

with Jeff Titus

• 2007 Wood Dragon (Musician101 Music)
• 2011 What We Don't Know (Jeff Titus Music)

with Jim Matheos

• 1999 Away with Words

with Yves Carbonne and Dominique Di Piazza

• 2005 Carbonne - Di Piazza - Manring^[15]

with Justin King (as King West Manring Vamos)

• 2008 I-XII

with Sándor Szabó

• 2010 Inner Smile (Indie Europe/Zoom) (ASIN: B0035W8QIS)

with Lukas Ligeti

• 2011 Pattern Time (Innova Records)

Compilations[link]

Windham Hill compilations

• 1982 An Evening with Windham Hill Live (Windham Hill)
• 1985 Windham Hill – Winter (Windham Hill)
• 1985 Windham Hill Sampler '86 (Windham Hill)
• 1985 Windham Hill Sampler '85 (Windham Hill)
• 1986 A Winter’s Solstice II (Windham Hill)
• 1989 Windham Hill Radio Sampler I (Windham Hill)
• 1990 Windham Hill – The First Ten Years (Windham Hill)
• 1990 A Winter’s Solstice III (Windham Hill)
• 1990 Restore the Shore (Windham Hill)
• 1991 Windham Hill Sampler '92 (Windham Hill)
• 1991 Windham Hill Guitar Sampler II (Windham Hill)
• 1993 A Winter’s Solstice IV (Windham Hill)
• 1995 Heal the Bay (Windham Hill)
• 1996 Sanctuary – 20 Years of Windham Hill (Windham Hill)
• 1996 Redbook Relaxers – Daybreak (Windham Hill)
• 1996 Redbook Relaxers – Dreamscape (Windham Hill)
• 1996 Carols of Christmas (Windham Hill)
• 1997 Summer Solstice – A Windham Hill Collection (Windham Hill)
• 1997 Redbook Relaxers – Lullabies (Windham Hill)
• 1997 Redbook Relaxers – Dinner Party (Windham Hill)
• 1997 Redbook Relaxers – Between Friends (Windham Hill)
• 1997 Redbook Relaxers – After Hours (Windham Hill)
• 1997 Redbook Relaxers – Piano Reflections (Windham Hill)
• 1998 Thanksgiving – A Windham Hill Collection (Windham Hill)
• 1998 Yoga Zone – Music for Yoga Practice (Windham Hill)
• 1998 Conversations with God II (Windham Hill)
• 1999 Sun Dance – Summer Solstice III (Windham Hill)
• 2000 Windham Hill Classics – Morning (Windham Hill)
• 2000 Windham Hill Classics – Journeys (Windham Hill)
• 2000 Windham Hill Classics – Harvest (Windham Hill)
• 2000 Windham Hill Classics – Angels (Windham Hill)
• 2000 The Mozart Variations (Windham Hill)
• 2002 Spirit of Life (Windham Hill)
• 2003 Windham Hill Chill II (Windham Hill)
• 2003 Prayer – A Windham Hill Collection (Windham Hill)
• 2003 Adagio – A Windham Hill Collection (Windham Hill)
• 2003 A Winter’s Solstice V (Windham Hill)
• 2003 A Windham Hill Wedding Album (Windham Hill)
• 2004 Winter Wonderland – A Windham Hill Collection (Windham Hill)
• 2004 Lullaby – A Windham Hill Collection (Windham Hill)
• 2005 A Quiet Revolution – 30 Years of Windham Hill (Windham Hill)
• 2005 Essential Winter’s Solstice (Windham Hill)