“Multi-talented jazz/experimental artist Rev. Dwight Frizzell is probably the only person in history to have interviewed freeform jazz legend Sun Ra over a ten-year period and played with former U.S. president Harry S. Truman (an ancient snippet of Truman playing piano is heard on Frizzell’s 2001 release, Bullfrog Devildog President). Frizzell grew up in Independence, MO, just a few blocks from the home of Truman and, in 1976, issued the obscure recording Beyond the Black Crack, an album based on the “time-shifting effects of black holes.” Although the album was mostly sold to friends and family to finance its limited pressing, it would eventually be listed by future experimental outfits as Nurse With Wound and Morphogenesis (and later surface on CD). By 1980, Frizzell had befriended Sun Ra, with portions of their conversations later appearing in John Szwed’s book Space is the Place: the Lives and Times of Sun Ra. Soonafter, Rev. Frizzell formed the Black Crack Revue, a self- described “Afro-nuclear wave funk swing reggae Turska band” which he has performed with on a regular basis ever since. Frizzell also does experimental audio/theater work (and film) utilizing graphic notation from both physical and biological phenomena, archaic folk sources, texts and ambient recordings.” —Greg Prato, All Music Guide
Rev. Frizzell was a founding member of NATF, BCR, newEar, Myth-Science Ensemble, Alter Destiny and the first editor of The Pitch. His work received Peabody, Emmy, and Golden Reel awards and funding from the NEA and Missouri Arts Council. He earned a terminal degree in Sound Design for Theater (studying with Tom Mardikes at UMKC) and was inducted into the Moorish Orthodox Church (as Arif) by Hakim Bey. Dwight worked and/or performed with many artists including Pauline Oliveros, John Cage, Youseff Yancy, Ellen Fullman, Frederic Rzewski, Alvin Curran, Michael Eaton, Bird Ellington Fleming, David Ossman, Judith Walcutt, Dale Eldred, Allaudin Ottinger, Cliff Baldwin and Victor Papanek. Dwight is Head of the Sound Minor program at KCAI.