Shoehorn is an original performance artist who creates music with his feet and dances with his horn. Michael Shoehorn Conley has combined organic body rhythms and sophisticated jazz forms and concepts into an entertaining spectacle. While specializing in sax and tap dance, he is a multi-instrumentalist, arranger and composer, utilizing a variety of wind and percussion instruments, original poetry and songs and an ear for music from around the world.
Shoehorn: ABOUT Shoehorn
Shoehorn's Hatband - Shoehorn in a quartet with piano, bass, drums
Shoehorn's Hatband consists of Shoehorn backed by a trio of piano, bass, and drums. The players are all trained jazz musicians who jam and experiment with Shoehorn's material, from originals to grooving vamps, world music covers and standards from various eras of American music. Equally adept at old blues songs, classic showtunes, cooking Latin numbers and improvised vocabulary with funk and rock roots, it is an entertaining show band you could dance to.
This group is featured on Shoehorn's 2008 studio recording, titled Cafe Cirque, available at www.cdbaby.com/cd/shoehorn2
Trio Calzador - Latin/Japanese/Gypsy Swing with guitar
Trio Calzador emphasizes Latin and Japanese styles with a hint of gypsy swing and funk. It includes guitar and bass with Shoehorn's usual array of tappercussion, reeds and vocals. This group made a CD in 2003 titled Trio Calzador. Featured with Shoehorn are guitarist Toshi Onizuka and bassist Skip Elliott Bowman.
The disc is available at www.cdbaby.com/cd/shoehorn
- Shoehorn- tap dancing musician
"SHOEHORN" Tap dancing saxophonist
ONE-MAN SHOW or Bandleader, Soloist
Background: Shoehorn tap dances and plays the sax at the same time. He does this at festivals, theaters, clubs, weddings, schools, corporate, and casual events, mostly around Portland and the Northwest, but also as far away as Japan, Australia, Europe, Singapore and Russia and Toronto. He started as a street performer in New Orleans and gained experience jamming with performers in various genres, from rock and blues to world music and jazz and circus artists.
Shoehorn has performed in at least 30 countries. He is now a bandleader and solo performer with many different ways of presenting his basic ability of tapping and playing sax at the same time. People find this ability remarkable and often comment on how musical it is when they had expected a gimmick. He has recorded and released five CDs, each offering a new angle on his music and a range of textures from guitar and spoons to jazz piano trio to the Flamenco-flavored fusion of Trio Calzador. Being a synthesist of styles and techniques, he improvises on his originals and many jazz and pop tunes and enjoys collaborations with other artists. Shoehorn sings in English, Spanish and Japanese, and plays tunes from around the world as well as standards from the USA. He occasionally raps in the "RAPTAP!' style he developed.(WBRT 1994 CD) He also has pioneered the use of MIDI and analog electronics in tap dance (e-tap) since 1983 and utilizes the MIDI Tappercussion Mark VII etap.instrument on most gigs and and his recordings, all of which have featured at least one electronic tap tune. He also provides musical back-up and services for variety performers. He can perform anything from a 3-minute walk-on to three hour-long sets.
For his one-man multi-media show, "Shoehorn's Saxovision" Shoehorn adds spoken word and other elements to his standard multi-instrumental tap dance performance. (See press/reviews)
Performance Options from Shoehorn - President of shoehornmusic
Shoehorn’s world-famous solo act-
tap dance and sax plus e-tap*, harmonica, clarinet,
and the one-man-drum-circle!
Shoehorn's "Saxovision" The solo act plus Spoken-word, Voice-overs, Tributes, Singalongs, Costumes, Lighting, and even more Instrumental "Characters" -no joke!
Shoehorn’s Hatband-
quartet with piano, bass, & drums
Trio Calzador - with Spanish guitar & bass
Shoehorn’s Vaudeville Lounge -
Hatband plus special guest performers
Jugglemania with Shoehorn
A Downsized Circus!
Shoehorn VonTap Family-
I perform with my young daughters in our musical variety show.
Shoehorn School Show
Book Shoehorn for your school assembly!
Shoehorn provides a highly entertaining yet educational presentation sure to be a hit with your students. Tap dancer and multi-instrumentalist Michael “Shoehorn” Conley has worked his whole life to embrace cultural diversity, starting with his experience as an exchange student in Peru, and continuing through his studies of jazz saxophone and rhythm tap, Spanish, Japanese, and other languages, and his interest in peace and environmental awareness, as reflected in his recordings and performances. His work demonstrates not only American art forms, but also illustrates the connections between other races and nations through rhythm and song.
Also available: musical ensembles and "Jugglemania with Shoehorn"
improv & groove tap, sax & music STUDY
STUDY.Want to learn Jazz/Rhythm Tap? Sax? How to play an instrument and tap dance at the same time? How about Improv and/or Theory? e-tap? JAM! Shoehorn is now accepting private students. Group lessons can be arranged.
contact: tappercussion@yahoo.com
Shoehorn Bio
Shoehorn
Dancer and saxophonist Shoehorn is an internationally recognized tap soloist, featured in the Emmy-nominated PBS TV documentary JUBA:Masters of Tap & Percussive Dance, and has recently toured Russia and Austria with other leading tap artists. He recently performed in Tap Treasures and Tap Masters at Tap City 2004, the New York City International Tap Dance Festival.
Shoehorn's Vaudeville Lounge played 5 sets at the Beaverton Summerfest July 17-18, featuring special guests Nancy King, Toshi Onizuka, TJ Yale and Artis the Spoonman. They were also featured at the BITE Festival in Portland on August 15th, with guests Roxane Butterfly on tap, vocalist Shirley Nanette, eccentric guitarist Baby Gramps and unicycle champion Rob Brown.
The man they call Shoehorn not only plays the alto sax amazingly well, he also does some expert tap-dancing as he plays. That's some serious multi-tasking. Stan Hall - The Oregonian 5/31/02
SHOEHORN-TAP DANCE AND SAXOPHONE
Michael Shoehorn Conley is a phenomenal entertainer. He simultaneously creates music with his feet and dance with his horn. He performs this organically, with no set routine, improvising on standards, blues, rock, world music and his own compositions.
Inspired by Gene Kelly and John Coltrane, it's clear that Shoehorn is operating on his own concept in tap dance, which he refers to as Tappercussion (TM), a term he also uses for his electronic tap ("etap" TM) instruments. Besides shoes and sax, he features clarinet, harmonica, percussion, and "etap", xylophone or vocals.
Shoehorn's music reflects his personal investigations and interpretations of cultures he has immersed himself in, including Latin American, Asian and European flavors and the variety of his native USA. He also draws deeply on nature for inspiration and validation, carrying his sax to the mountains and seaside.
Shoehorn, performing tap and sax simultaneously, was featured in Emmy-nominated JUBA: Masters of Tap and Percussive Dance on PBS TV. Director Lane Alexander called him "the discovery, the hit of the festival".
Shoehorn went to Russia in April 2002 with an all-star cast of tap dancers, including Savion Glover, Brenda Buffalino and Jason Samuels-Smith,performing in a series of concerts in Moscow and St.Petersburg for the Tapparade 2002,Festival.
Shoehorn has recorded three CDs as a leader including Trio Calzador, released in October 2003. He is a BMI composer and a member of American Federation of Musicians Local 99.
Shoehorn and Trio Calzador were featured on OPB TV's Artbeat October 23rd & October 26th, 2003
Shoehorn's Vaudeville Lounge was featured on Artbeat in September, 2004
Shoehorn leads several groups, including Trio Calzador, a world-jazz outfit with flamenco guitarist Toshi Onizuka, the VonTap Quartet, with piano,bass and drums, and the larger ensemble with rotating cast called Shoehorn's Vaudeville Lounge. He also works as a "one-man pit orchestra" with comedian Rhys Thomas in Jugglemania with Shoehorn.
Some reviews of Shoehorn:
“Both an exceptional entertainer and a serious artist, Shoehorn's synthesized the juba-lent complexities of jazz and tap--mind-melding with both Honi Coles with John Coltrane--creating an utterly engaging blend of bebop toughness and fluid, feets-don't-fail-me-now panache.” Tim Duroche, Willamette Week
"The man they call Shoehorn not only plays the alto sax amazingly well, he also does some expert tap-dancing as he plays. That's some serious multi-tasking." The Oregonian -5/31/02
"Miraculous...a dance company and orchestra in one."
Boston Globe
"...amazing marriage of dancing and saxophone playing." ChicagoTribune
" an amusing routine with a serious message..."
Christian Science Monitor
"impeccably tight and controlled dancing ... mean alto saxophone..."
Boston Herald
"Es un gran artista"
flamenco master- Ramon De los Reyes
"covering the boards with a sheet of sound..."
Boston Phoenix
" A sound to behold"
Twin Falls Times-News