Paul Giess 🎺

on #BandcampFriday, i gotta give love to the afroeaters featured on our forthcoming album NATURE GURL. usually we roll deep in the afroeatery with an ensemble of five, but this record revolved around the trio of me, paul giess & hubby mark anthony palacio. for almost two years on wednesday nights from 2023 to 2025, paul came over to jam in germantown—first in my 3rd floor office & later in our dining room—as we crafted sonic landscapes in response to handwritten poems pulled from my journals. we went for walks in the woods & went camping to get inspired. we flexed our muscles of improvisation & spontaneity like children. we shunned the rules & just had fun. the process was ecstatic, joyful & revelatory. as a result, NATURE GURL is a deep & loving collaboration among friends & family. NATURE GURL is now available for pre-order in digital & vinyl formats on Bandcamp (link in bio). photo credits: 1 - NATURE GURL band shot in the dining room 2 - yolanda & mark chillin in wissahickon valley park 3 - mark in the “living willow grove” on the karl stirner art trail in easton, pa 4 - paul in the office cookin 5 - yolanda in the office on keys 6 - mark on bass in the hallway 7 - don cherry talkin about “elephantasy” (in blank forms 06: organic music societies) 8 - actin like silly animals in the woods 9 - bandcampin at parvin state park 10 - racoon & elk #naturegurl #yolandawisherandtheafroeaters #spokenword #poetry

NATURE GURL is OUTSIDE! 🌱🌞

Next EKO show is coming up hot on May 2nd at @dawsonstreetpub with @squigg.ler and @pgtpt . Music starts at 9. Come early and stay late for good food, drinks, and hangs. $10 at the door. See you there at one of my fave Philly 2nd homes! Photos from my show this past weekend at The Perch. 📸: @tifl

April 22nd 5-7 Philly Jazz Month comes to Dilworth Park for Happy Hour at the Patio ! A great way to wrap up the work day, or start your downtown adventures. Untethered in Motion is a spontaneous creation of sound, groove and dance that will ignite your mind body and imagination. A one of a kind performance not to be missed ! The performance with feature musicians Paul Giess, G Calvin Weston, Timothy Ragsdale and Rodrigo Pichardo @pgtpt @gcalvinweston @timonbass_ @rodditorium And dancers Phill Cuttino Jr. and Jay “Rukkus” Jao @jiptheruler @spotlightspecialist Performance made possible by @creativephl and @midatlanticarts #phillyjazzmonth #centercityphilly #livemusic #happyhour

Philly Jazz Month - April 22nd 5-7 Untethered in Motion in Dilworth Park A free concert of music and dance during Dilworth park happy hour. Untethered in Motion adventures through universes of groove and sound to ignite your mind, body and imagination. Join us ! Presented by @leogadson and the Producer Guild. In partnership with @centercitydistrict and @ccdsips Dancers - @jiptheruler and @spotlightspecialist thx to @urbanmovementarts Musicians - @timonbass_ @rodditorium @gcalvinweston and @pgtpt

Meet the band!! Playing two sets of electric jazz on Friday! — Untethered, led by Trumpet player and "electronic wiz" Paul Giess (Ropedope), approaches performance through what their drummer G. Calvin Weston (Ornette Coleman, Vernon Reid, James “Blood” Ulmer) describes as “Spontaneous Creative Composition.” Rather than adhering to fixed structures, the group allows sound to unfold in real time. Opening and tightening, cooling down and igniting. Creating music that is fluid, responsive, and alive in the moment. The result is a genre-crossing sonic experience where deep-pocketed funk exists alongside intimate chamber-like passages, and sensitive balladry carries as much weight as sound. In this performance, the collective is presented as a trio, joined by Mathew "Honey Bee" Little, a Philadelphia-born pianist whose expressive playing adds melodic depth, harmonic complexity and a sweetness to the group’s improvisational language. Little has shared the stage with artists including Musiq Soulchild, Talib Kweli, Bilal, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Haley Reinhart, and Dame Dash, bringing a wide-ranging musical sensibility that expands the trio’s dynamic range. @pgtpt @gcalvinweston @mattlittle19 @theperch_musicandarts_workshop @ropeadope #phillyjazz #phillypoetry

Autotoon Racoon is a duet with @markanthonypalacio and an outtake from the Nature Gurl Sessions. Catching the playful spirit that was in the room while we made Nature Gurl, but not on the album itself. Up on bandcamp and all streaming platforms Nature Gurl, an album by Yolanda Wisher & The Afroeaters is set to release April 22nd. Follow the group’s bandcamp pge for the direct connect ! @yolandawisher is #naturegurl #newmusic #independentmusic #nature #raccoon Made in some free play time between other tunes. a

At & after the gig last Saturday in @awburyarboretum , playing NATURE GURL tunes & more for Women’s History Month at the Lightning House, a former stone carriage house that serves as a collective woodworking, performance & gathering space. The name is inspired by a moment in 1968, when a tree struck by lightning in front of the Sun Ra house here in Philly was transformed into an instrument. Hollowed out, it was named the “Ancient Infinity Lightning Wood Drum.” Thanks to all the friends & fans & strangers who came to bask in the new spring sun with us.☀️ 📸: me + Thelonious Mark Palacio + Mark Anthony Palacio

NOW AVAILABLE: “ursa minor,” the second single off of the upcoming album NATURE GURL 🌱 from Yolanda Wisher & The Afroeaters. “ursa minor” was inspired by an anniversary trip to the Catskills where Mark and I saw a baby bear by the stream near the cabin we were staying in. The poem is a riff off of the bear and the stream…a stream of consciousness poem that follows a stream of thought to the cosmos…🐻🌊 Yeah, stream & download the full single “ursa minor” on Bandcamp (link in bio). The album NATURE GURL is available for pre-order in both digital & vinyl formats. The full jawn drops on Earth Day 🌍 April 22nd. Audio credits: Yolanda Wisher - vocals Paul Giess - effects trumpet, beat production, sound design, synth Mark Anthony Palacio - drum machine #naturegurl #yolandawisherandtheafroeaters #spokenword #poetry

Ghost Harmonics is April 10th!! Featuring two sets of music from the phenomenal Untethered Trio (Paul Giess @pgtpt , Calvin Weston @gcalvinweston , and Matthew Little @mattlittle19 ) and readings from Anselm Berrigan @zebraicosmologic , Jericho Jennifer Nelson @henkaipantomime , Jonathon Todd @toddjonathon , and Nikki Volpicelli @nikkivolpicelli . Come on by! Suggested $5-10 at the door or through Link in Bye Oh ! #livemusic #poetry #performingarts #fishtown

🌱NEW SINGLE ALERT! 🌱 The first track on my sophomore album NATURE GURL is “without a name.” The seeds of this poem germinated when Mark & I were on our honeymoon in Belize back in 2006 when these photos were taken. We stayed at @hiddenvalleybelize for a week & were treated to a private waterfall lunch one afternoon. During lunch we saw an animal—dark, long & cat-like—crawl across the rocks above the waterfall. We were startled, but it paid us no mind & kept going on its way into the wilderness of the reserve. When we got back to the inn, we described the animal to the staff but never got a definitive answer about what it might have been. The mystery has stayed with us. The animal felt like a messenger, a portal, a visitation–one of the first on a 20-year journey that has led to this song & album. We had a ball putting this tune together, especially recording the wild animal sounds in the background! 🐓🐆🐦🦎 Have you ever encountered an animal without a name? Has an animal ever been a sign of the unseen for you? Talk about it… Stream & download the single “without a name”on Bandcamp (link in bio). NATURE GURL is available for pre-order in both digital & vinyl formats. The full album drops on Earth Day 🌍, April 22nd. Audio credits: Yolanda Wisher - lyrics, vocals, improvisational animal sounds Paul Giess - effects trumpet, keys, additional drum programming, improvisational animal sounds Mark Anthony Palacio - bass, improvisational animal sounds @okayplayer - drum loop #naturegurl #yolandawisherandtheafroeaters #spokenword #poetry

Join us for an afternoon concert at Awbury Arboretum’s Lightning House, this Saturday March 21st from 3-4 pm.  Yolanda Wisher and the Afroeaters will be previewing pieces off their upcoming album “Nature Gurl” while celebrating Women’s History Month by honoring works by Sonia Sanchez,  Nellie Rathbone Bright, and Summer Walker.   Bring a lawnchair, or a blanket and soak up the sounds of nature, music and poetry.   Registration link (free) in bio - @awburyarboretum #naturegurl #spokenword #poetry Performance made possible by Philadelphia Musician’s Union Local 77, AFM Local 77 and the Music Performance Trust Fund. @awburyarboretum @yolandawisher @markanthonypalacio @local_77274_afm