Since 1985, Todd Bishop has been teaching and performing professionally in Portland, OR and the west. He has been a leader in jazz, avant-garde, and indie rock bands and has produced five CDs of original music both for Seattle’s Origin Records as well as for his own independent release. He is an engaging musician with his organic, multi-layered style. His audiences have been captivated by his visceral performances, which are as much a result of Keith Moon and Olatunji. Flatland, a jazz power trio, released two albums. SatelliteI, a groove-based album featuring early Bishop arrangements of Don Cherry tunes, was produced by Tony Lash, Tony Smith, Dandy Warhols. Origin of Species was Bishop’s second album. It featured a number of dark soundscape pieces and a propulsive drum solo. They were a prominent regional act and shared bills such as Galactic, Charlie Hunter and Wayne Horvitz. The ambient, softly-textured, free improvisations of Lower Monumental were next, which released Mayday Session 2005. It features “Headlights”, a Bishop composition that was spontaneously performed live on Seattle’s Sonarchy Radio. The movie-music/international pop-oriented Pop Art 4 is Bishop’s most ambitious project to date, with a European tour in the works and at least four additional CDs worth of material currently in development, including free interpretations of the music of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, Lalo Schifrin’s Dirty Harry soundtrack, and Candy, an album of original music. Charles Dowd taught him classical percussion at the University of Oregon. He also studied jazz with John Thomas (Woody Herman and Chick Corea) at University of Southern California. Six national tours were also taken by DCI-affiliated drum and bugle corps. This included the 1986 Santa Clara Vanguard which placed second nationally. He was taught by George Tuthill and Ralph Hardimon as well as Alan Keown, a marching specialist. He is also an accomplished visual media photographer, having taken photographs of musicians from the Pacific Northwest. He has been back to Rome several times and is one the main providers of photographic imagery to OriginArts. Bishop is a painter who creates abstract landscapes that echo the Oregon farmland and wilderness in oils. The Provenance gallery in Eugene, OR represents him and has collected his work from buyers across four continents. He is also the inventor of the Skulli, My Sweet Fiend character designs. These are selling well in large Japanese and North American chains. from http://originarts.com
