Donuts

for solo percussionist and electronic sounds (10.5 min.)

Donuts is an homage to a work of the same name by J Dilla (aka Jay Dee, aka James Yancey).  Prospective performers of Donuts are strongly encouraged to listen to Donuts by J Dilla (Stones Throw Records, 2006).  A prominent hip-hop producer, J Dilla worked on Donuts from his death bed in a hospital and the album was released on his 32^nd birthday, three days before his death from complications of a rare blood disease.  Many, including myself, consider his Donuts, a collection of thirty-one hip-hop instrumentals, to be a seminal work in the genre.  The majority of my Donuts, (with the exception of the donut entitled One for Dilla), are not meant to sound anything like J Dilla’s work per say, but are meant more as my personal take on the form and structure of Donuts.  Listening to J Dilla’s Donuts, while not a requirement for enjoyment of my version of Donuts, might be of some help to put the structure, form, and content of my version into perspective.

in addition to the audio of Eddie Trager’s performance, below is video of him playing a portion of it: