Living In Las Cruces- Spring/Summer 2008

LOCAL HERO

By Charlotte Tallman
Photography by Bill Faulkner

The story of Michelle taking that first step toward becoming an innovative musician started when her grandfather bought her a guitar 30 years ago when she was five years old. From there, she began to absorb the very core of music. She listened deeply, heard what was played, then made it better. As she grew older, she moved from strumming a few chords on her guitar to diving deeper into music, instruments and cultures.

"I've always been interested in world music and the instruments," says Michelle, who writes the majority of the music she plays. "A lot of the instruments from Africa and India are reminiscent of guitars. I started getting into the history of those instruments and playing that type of guitar."

While Michelle plays, and teaches with, a wide variety of guitars, including standard six string electric and acoustic guitars, there is one that is as unique as the music she creates -- a 14-string fretless (which provides a wider variety of tones than fretted) guitar. The 14-string guitar was designed by Michelle, then made by Kevin Siebold. Michelle first read about a fretless guitar, again coming from Indian, African and early European instruments, in an article and wanted to "play them in a contemporary way."

"It was very hard to get a hold of a fretless guitar, so I went about my standard guitar studies and didn't think much about it," Michelle says, but eventually desire proved to be stronger than availability. "I decided to de-fret one of my own guitars about five years ago. It became one of my favorite guitars."

On a weekend, you are likely to find Michelle playing one of her guitars at the Mix Pacific Rim Cuisine or St. Clair Bistro, where she creates a mixture of adventurous meets experimental jazz with drummer and percussionist Joe Seltzer, or at times, Dereck Lee. When she is not a part of local gigs, she is traveling with Joe and their group, Marla Singer, to such cities as Washington, D.C., New York and Colorado Springs. At times she also gigs solo shows in the Bay Area or Los Angeles. Most recently, Michelle joined together with local poet, Zulu, to create a guitar poetry slam, they call Slan.

Originally from Jersey City, New Jersey, Michelle spent one-and-a-half years writing music for AOL/Time Warner in California before bringing her talents to Las Cruces. Since living in Las Cruces, Michelle has worked on three original scores for movies, including Ken Forestal's Hospice (in which she also did the sound design for the movie), Michael Torrez's Silent Movie and Mark Medoff's One Hundred MPG.

Michelle also teaches guitar lessons to students from ages eight to 72, something she started in college 13 years ago as a way to supplement her income.

Michelle, humble as she is when you engage in a conversation with her on the topic of her creativity, won't go unnoticed regarding her talent, in this community, or across the nation. New York photographer Ralph Gibson will include Michelle in his upcoming book, The State of the Axe, in a celebratory pictorial of musicians with their finest partners -- their guitars.