About Negara
Bruce
beaton
Chris
Jacobson
Doug
Shafer
Negara creates a unique world-infused blend, with influences ranging from Middle-Eastern, North and West African and Spanish to rock, jazz and blues. The music allows inventive strings and horns to ride over tightly knit percussion that can span the range from delicate to intense, from mesmerizing to infectiously danceable. The music is rooted in ethnic tradition yet is thoroughly contemporary.
Doug Shafer
Doug Shafer is a Portland, Oregon musician and artist. He has played guitar for many years, and has added ethnic traditional stringed instruments, including oud, cumbus, and saz. Doug also plays a wide variety of hand drums from the Middle East and South Asia. Doug has studied with a variety of well-known and respected musicians including Karim Nagi, Souhail Kaspar, Tobias Roberson and Naser Musa.
Doug is also a member of the Krebsic Orkestar and the Underscore Orkestra and is a veteran of numerous other Portland bands.
As a visual artist, Doug makes paintings and one-of-a-kind illuminated manuscripts. His work has been exhibited in various galleries and museums around the country and has been purchased by a number of prominent collectors and institutions, including the National Gallery in Washington DC and Harvard University in Cambridge, Ma.
Chris Jacobson
Chris Jacobson is an active player of Middle-eastern and West African drums and percussion. Chris has studied in recent years with master Arabic percussionist Souhail Kaspar and at the Middle-Eastern Music and Dance Camp in Mendocino. In addition Chris has studied extensively with and performs with master West African drummer and dancer Nii Ardey Allotey. His studies in African drumming also include travels to Ghana in West Africa and studies with Mamady Keita, Obo Addy and Chata Addy.
Chris has been a member of Mizna (part of Portland’s Gypsy Caravan), Nii Ardey Allotey & Friends and other Portland bands.
Sean Molloy
Sean Molloy, a Portland native with a doctorate in Neuroscience, was first drawn to middle-eastern music through a love of Tribal Style bellydance. Although originally attracted by the power of the dance, he was equally seduced by the unique blend of musical styles and rhythms and put his experience as a kit drummer to use while performing with Portland bands Mizna (part of the Gypsy Caravan) and others.
Miguel Maldonado
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Miguel started studying clarinet at 19, switching to tenor sax at 22. He soon added soprano sax and flute as well as other wind instruments and percussion from around the world. He played in Florida in a very busy Blues band where he became involved with the Carribean community, performing with notable steel drummer Tony Kitchner (Lord Kitchner's son), Jr. Pussette's Disney World steel band (The Silver Stars), and Othello Mollineaux. In Oregon he performed with African drummers O.B. Addy and Chata Addy, and in Maui, Hawaii with Willie Nelson and Pat Simmons (Doobie Brothers).
Miguel can also be heard on his debut recording of original compositions, The Dreamer and the Dreamed.
Belinda Underwood
Belinda is a lifetime musician. Though she plays standup bass with Negara, she is talented on an array of instruments and has a wonderful voice. She has studied and performed with a who’s who of jazz musicians and has created a recording of original compositions and jazz standards, Underwood Uncurling.
Over the last several years she has been making trips to Egypt to study at the Arab Music Institute in Cairo. Belinda also plays world music with Ritim Egzotik, Arabesque and Ala Nar and jazz with a host of notable players.
Learn more about Belinda at her web site.
Special guests
Adam Weiner
Adam has been drumming his whole life. He started on drumset, playing world music in the late 1980’s. In San Diego he studied music with William Shaheen. In 1995 he received an MFA in world music at California Institute of the Arts where he studied frame drums and hand drumming with John Bergamo and Glen Velez, latin percussion with Efrain Torro and South Indian Percussion with Poovalur Srinivasn. He also served as chief dance accompanist for modern dance classes at CALARTS. Upon arriving in Portland, he began studying Persion tonbak with Hosssein Solehey and has performed at numerous Iranian Festivals in Portland.
Adam has played with Brothers of the Baladi, Tree Frogs, Funk Shui, Agamus, Krebsic Orkestar and has accompanied Flamenco guitarist Mark Ferguson.
Adam works as a public school music teacher in Portland and is currently studying tabla with Rik Masterson.
We’re thrilled to have Adam joining us.
Past members & friends
Bruce Beaton
Bruce was raised in the United States, traveling constantly with his air force family during the 50's and 60's. Originally playing the saxophone, he switched instruments and bought a set of conga drums. After many years of Afro-Cuban lessons, he traveled to Egypt and the Mediterranean where he was introduced to the exotic sounds of the Middle East. He became the first drummer for the Gypsy Caravan in 1991 and spent sixteen years creating, producing and performing with them. He now spends much of his musical time recording with Graphic Recliner.
JD Devros
Miguel Maldonado
Sean
Molloy
