Zach Layton, Alex Waterman, Ryan Sawyer Trio + Michael Evans’ Swirling Lotus Blossom Bandits Band
Zach Layton
Zach Layton is a composer, curator, improviser, teacher, and new media artist based in Brooklyn with an interest in biofeedback, generative algorithms, experimental music, buddhism and indeterminacy. His work investigates complex relationships and topologies created through the interaction of simple core elements like sine waves, minimal surfaces and kinetic visual patterns.
Zach’s work has been performed by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony and he has performed and exhibited at the Kitchen, ISSUE Project Room, Roulette, Diapason, PS1/MoMa, Anthology Film Archives, Joe’s Pub, Exit Art, SCOPE Art Fair, Art Forum Berlin, New York Electronic Art Festival, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Eyebeam, Sculpture Center, Millenium Film Workshop, St. Mark’s Ontological Theater, Dumbo Arts Festival, New York Digital Salon, Miguel Abreu Gallery, Participant Gallery, Monkeytown and many other venues in New York, South America and Europe. He has collaborated with Luke Dubois, Vito Acconci, Joshua White, Jonas Mekas, Tony Conrad, Bradley Eros, Alex Waterman, Nick Hallett, Andrew Lampert, Matthew Ostrowski, Michael Evans, MV Carbon, Seth Kirby, Matthew Welch, Christine Bard, Andy Graydon, Ryan Sawyer, Matt Mottel, Bradford Reed, Anthony Huberman, Sarina Basta, Gareth James, Emily Manzo, Patrick Hambrecht, Marissa Olsen, Angie Eng, Adam Kendall, Chika Ijima, Peter Gordon, Peter Zummo, Tristan Perich and Ray Sweeten among many other artists, filmmakers, curators, musicians and friends.
Zach is also founder of Brooklyn’s monthly experimental music series, “Darmstadt: Classics of the Avant Garde” co-curated with Nick Hallett featuring leading local and international composers and improvisers, was the co-curator of the PS1 summer Warm Up music series from 2007 -2009 and curator at Issue Project Room. Zach has received grants from the Netherlands America Foundation, Free103.9’s AIRtime fellowship, Turbulence, Jerome Foundation, Experimental Television Center, NYFA, the Danish Council for Visual Art, the City of Copenhagen Artist in Residence Program, and is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Interactive Telecommunications Program.
Alex Waterman
Alex Waterman is a founding member of the Plus Minus Ensemble, based in Brussels and London, specializing in avant-garde and experimental music. In New York he performs with the Either/Or Ensemble. Alex has worked with musicians such as Robert Ashley, Richard Barrett, Helmut Lachenmann, Keith Rowe, Marina Rosenfeld, Anthony Coleman, Elliot Sharp, Ned Rothenberg, Gerry Hemingway, David Watson, Chris Mann, Alison Knowles, Thomas Meadowcroft, and Michael Finnissy. He has performed as guest musician with numerous ensembles, including Trio Event (Berlin), Champs d’Action-Antwerp, Q-O2-Brussels, and Magpie Music and Dance Company. Waterman has made music for numerous European ballet and modern dance companies including Freiburg Ballett/Pretty Ugly, Scapino Ballet, Nederland Dans Theater III, and others. As a curator he has organized events at Les Bains:Connective in Brussels, OT301 in Amsterdam, Miguel Abreu Gallery and The Kitchen. His duo projects with the dancer Michael Schumacher have toured in Switzerland, Italy, Holland, the Opera of Monaco and most recently in all 5 boroughs of New York in a Joyce Theater production in association with the City Parks Foundation in July of 2008.
In 2007, Alex curated two exhibitions in New York, one on experimental music and poetics: Agapê (June 2-July 28th, 2007) at Miguel Abreu Gallery; and the other on graphic notation, Between Thought and Sound: Graphic Notation in Contemporary Music (September 7-October 20, 2007) at The Kitchen in Chelsea. Alex is presently working on his PhD in musicology at NYU, as well as writing a book about the composer Robert Ashley with the designer and writer Will Holder. Alex participated in Dexter Sinister’s residency at the Armory for the 2008 Whitney Biennial writing a new work based upon Herman Melville’s Bartleby The Scrivener. Alex Waterman and Beatrice Gibson’s film, A Necessary Music, narrated by Robert Ashley and with original music by Waterman, premiered at the Whitney Museum ISP show and won the Tiger Prize for Best Short Film at the Rotterdam Film Festival in 2008. Alex lectured and performed as part of the exhibition, The Possibility of Action at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona in 2008, and was in residence at the ICA in May 2009 with his ensemble, in addition to performing solo works. He installed a permanent 12 speaker sound installation out in Napa Valley in July of 2009, at the residence of Norah and Norman Stone, is presently working on a new film project in Vieques, and starting up his record label (D.S. al coda). He also plays the music of Arthur Russell with Arthur’s Landing whenever he can. His writings have been published by Dot Dot Dot, Paregon, FoArm, and Artforum.
Ryan Sawyer
Ryan Sawyer aka Lone Wolf (b. 1976) grew up in San Antonio, Texas, where he played drums in various punk rock bands, most notably, At The Drive-In. After 21 years in Texas, he decided to move to New York to pursue a formal education of music and broaden his understanding of music making on the drum set. While in New York, he studied under Bobby Previte, Susie Ibarra, Hamid Drake, and Thurman Barker, and was a regular fixture in the New York free jazz and noise scene, frequenting legendary venues such as Tonic, The Cooler, and The Knitting Factory. Interested in combining elements of improvisation, jazz, and aesthetics of the musical avant garde, Sawyer performed his music in underground parties and rock clubs in hopes of making his music widely accessible to the public.
Ryan has played and recorded with hundreds of improvisors and bands while maintaining his own groups (Tall Firs, Glass Rock, Stars Like Fleas) throughout the years. Some of his collaborations include, Charles Gayle, Thurston Moore, Jandek, TV on the Radio, Celebration, Scarlett Johansson, and Rhys Chatham. Ryan also led and co-wrote the New York Chapter of The Boredoms’ 88 Boadrum, a piece that incorporated 88 drummers playing an 88 minute piece of music co-written by Ryan Sawyer and Gang Gang Dance.
Michael Evans’ Swirling Lotus Blossom Bandits Band (a South-African tinged jazz-blues-improvisational band) celebrates the expatriates of South Africa (Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana, Mongezi Feza, Louis Moholo and Johnny Dyani) that relocated to Great Britain in the early 1960’s. Tunes by Gwi Gwi’s band, Blue Notes members…Chris Mcgregor, Dudu Pukwana, Mongezi Feza, Johnny Dyani and Llouis Moholo as well as Sun Ra, Howlin’ Wolf and Stan Kenton.
Featuring: Michael Attias : alto saxophone, Michael Evans: drums, Evan Gallagher: keyboard, Jeff Hudgins: alto saxophone and Adam Lane: upright bass, Peter Zummo: Trombone
Michael Evans is an improvising drummer/percussionist/thereminist/composer whose work investigates and embraces the collision of sound and theatrics. As well as being a drumset player, his work with unusual sound sources includes found objects, homemade instruments, the theremin and various digital and homemade analog electronics. His work with the theremin varies the quality of its sound through set-up and technique. On the theremin he has performed with dancers and in group settings playing experimental, jazz, rock, ersatz lounge and chamber music. In 2000, he was photographed playing a Moog ether wave theremin for the front of Bob Moog’s Big Briar catalog. He has performed in multiple performances of the NYC Theremin Society’s Issue Project Room concerts during 2005, 2006 and 2007. He has studied movement/sparring/drumming with Professor Milford Graves, drum technique with Joe Morello, tabla with Misha Masud, kanjira with Ganesh Kumar and Haitian/Afro-Cuban hand drumming with John Amira. He has studied musicianship with Helen Hobbs Jordan, composition with Richard Cameron Wolf, Blue Gene Tyranny and the theremin with Pamelia Kurstin.
He has worked with a wide variety of artists of all sorts including Ron Anderson, Jeff Arnal, Audio Artists, Claire Barratt, Samm Bennett, Jac Berrocal, Carla Bley, Naval Cassidy, James Chance, Martha Colburn, Combustible Edison, Lol Coxhill, EasSide Percussion(ESP), Roger Ely(the Devil’s Chaueffeur), Nicolas Dumit Estevez, Ken Filiano, Fast Forward(Gobo), Chris Ferris, Michael Gira (Angels of Light, Swans), Gisburg, Gilbert Godfried, God Is My Co-Pilot, David Grubbs, Alexander Hacke(Einsturzende Neubauten), Susan Hefner, Steve Horowitz’s Code Ensemble, Jarboe (Swans), Pamelia Kurstin, Skip LaPlante’s Music for Homemade Instruments, Zach Layton, Gen Ken Montgomery, Neil Leonard, Aimee Mann, Karen Mantler, Sean G. Meehan, Donald Miller, Eric Mingus, Gordon Monahan, Joe Morris, Anders Nilsson, Evan Parker, Andrea Parkins, Maxime De La Rochefoucauld, William Parker, Yvette Perez’s Birdbrain, Gino Robair, Lary Seven, Elliot Sharp, Moe! Staiano, LaDonna Smith, David Simons, Jesse Stewart, Toronto Dance Theatre, Stephen Vitiello, Christopher Walken, Jason Willet, Peter Zummo’s Noisy Meditation Band and John Zorn.
He continues his ongoing collaborations with: Jeff Arnal(MEJA duo), Anders Nilsson & Ken Filiano(Fulminate Trio), Peter Zummo’s Noisy Meditation Band, Lary Seven and composes music for and performs with Susan Hefner and Dancers. Recorded examples of his work can be found on EasSide Percussion’s ESP release on Avant records, MESuperstar on A.T.M.O.T.W. records, Karen Mantler’s Farewell and Pet Project releases on XtraWatt records, Just Drums 2 – The Project(a compilation of 35 drummers) on Fever Pitch records, MEJA(Michael Evans/Jeff Arnal) on C3R records, Fulminate Trio: s/t on Generate records and Deviant Shakti: Ladonna Smith and Michael Evans on Trans Museq records.
Joshua Abrahms + C. Spencer Yeh
Bassist & composer Joshua Abrams has been in the thick of Chicago’s vibrant music scene for fifteen years, playing & recording as a leader & as a sideman in projects across the genres. He co-founded the “back porch minimalist” band Town & Country (thrill jockey/box media) & with Matana Roberts & Chad Taylor the trio Sticks & Stones (thrill jockety/482 music). He has released four records under his own name as well as two under the moniker Reminder that navigate the realms of jazz and improvisation, electro-acoustic composition, beatmaking, minimalism and field recordings (Eremite/Delmark/Eastern Developments/Lucky Kitchen). He has appeared on over 50 recordings including records by Fred Anderson, Hamid Drake and Bonny “Prince” Billy. “Natural Information”, Abrams first record for Eremite focuses on creating sustained meditative, hypnotic, highly rhythmic spaces. At the music’s heart is the guimbri, a 3 stringed lute traditionally used by the Gnawa of Morocco in trance ceremonies. Abrams presents new melodies, structures, and situations for the traditional instrument to create a space that contrasts the rate/mindstate of contemporary technologically paced living. He will be performing with Chicago drummer Michael Avery.
C. Spencer Yeh was born in Taipei, Taiwan (1975), moved to the US in 1980, studied radio/television/film at Northwestern University, lived in Cincinnati, Ohio for over a decade, and is now based in Brooklyn, New York. Yeh works as a solo artist and improviser, most notably with his project, Burning Star Core. He has collaborated with a variety of artists and groups, including Tony Conrad, New Humans with Vito Acconci, Evan Parker, Thurston Moore, Amy Granat with Jutta Koether, Okkyung Lee, Paul Flaherty and Chris Corsano, John Wiese, Nate Wooley, Wally Shoup, Don Dietrich and Ben Hall (as The New Monuments), Clare Cooper, Prurient, and Jandek. He has performed at festivals and venues such as Sonar, FIMAV at Victoriaville, Frieze Arts Fair, Issue Project Room, No Fun Fest, High Zero, the 24 Hour Drone People at Fylkingen, The Kitchen, and ZKM Karlsruhe. His video and sound works have been showcased internationally.
Brian Chase is a drummer and composer living in Brooklyn, NY. Growing up on Long Island, he started taking private drum lessons at an early age which lead to earning a Bachelors of Music from the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio. Brian is probably best known as a member of the rock group Yeah Yeah Yeahs, a band that has toured extensively throughout the world and has been nominated for three Grammys. Other recorded projects include a minimalist punk rock band called the Seconds, a duo ensemble with saxophonist Seth Misterka, and Jeremiah Lockwood’s Sway Machinery. Performance collaborations have also included Alan Licht, Okkyung Lee, Matt Welch, Stefan Tcherepnin, and Kid Millions’s Man Forever. Brian is also interested in the Just Intonation tuning theory and, heavily influenced by the work of La Monte Young introduced to him by guitarist Jon Catler, has begun an ongoing recording and performance project in which the principles of Just Intonation are applied to drums and percussion. Influential drum and percussion teachers are and have been Susie Ibarra, Greg Bandy, and Michael Rosen. Away from the drums, Brian is a regular practitioner of Ashtanga yoga.
The Thirteenth Assembly + Pierre-Yves Macé presents Miniatures/Song Recycle
Forged from a shared history of collaborations ranging from intimate duos to Anthony Braxton’s sprawling Sonic Genome Project, The Thirteenth Assembly features four distinguished musician/composers working together as equals to create distinctively eclectic, yet cohesive music. Drawing on years of familiarity, as well as its members’ diverse backgrounds in genres ranging classical, folk,rock, jazz and the avant-garde, this collective ensemble has performed across the United States and Europe since 2007, and released its debut recording (un)sentimental (Important Records) in 2009.
“Cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, guitarist Mary Halvorson, violist Jessica Pavone and drummer Tomas Fujiwara are among the most exciting new jazz musicians to emerge on the New York scene,” declares the Wall Street Journal’s Martin Johnson, “and it is hard to talk about any one of these players without mentioning the others. Each of these musicians is a masterly soloist, and they all are creating music that is delicate, complex and eclectic. There isn’t much—if any—repertoire written for cornet-viola-guitar-drum ensembles, but with the appealing blend of unique sonorities and lithe rhythms found on (un)sentimental,that may soon change.”
Critics have credited the group with “truly remarkable capabilities”(Nick Storring, Exclaim!), “a knack for detailed and apropos framing of each others’ solo turns” (Bill Meyer, Dusted), and “an admirably relaxed sense of self, and a shared conviction to keep all options open” (Nate Chinen, New York Times). AllAboutJazz.com’s Troy Collins adds, “The unified ensemble sound of The Thirteenth Assembly is centered around empathetic communication and a willingness to subvert ego for the good of the group; there is no grandstanding here, only four longstanding friends conspiring to make adventurous yet accessible music. A stunning achievement,(un)sentimental demonstrates the endless possibilities of contemporary music by players at the top of their game.”
Pierre-Yves Macé (1980) is a French musician whose musical practice
encompasses improvisation on machines, a background in piano and classical percussion, jazz-rock/prog-rock bands, dance accompaniments, and an interest in literature and musicology. He received his PhD in Musicology in 2009, which explored phonography and the “sound document” in contemporary music. His first recordings, Faux-Jumeaux, was released on John Zorn’s Tzadik label in 2002. Subsequently, he released Circulations (Sub Rosa, 2005), and Crash_test ii (Tensional integrity) (Orkhêstra, 2006) for a string quartet. He has held residencies at CalArts in Los Angeles, CNMAT in Berkeley (2004), and GRM in Paris (2006, 2008). Macé has performed in the Octobre Festival in Normandie, MIMI, Villette Sonnique, Brocoli Transnumériques. His artistic collaborations include projects with ON (Sylvain Chauveau & Steven Hess), That Summer, Louisville, artist Hippolyte Hentgen, and writers Mathieu Larnaudie, Philippe Vasset, and Christophe Fiat. He is also a member of the Encyclopédie de la parole, a speech encyclopaedia crew whose goal is to constitute a compositional plan through which different forms of recorded speeches may be compared.
Miniatures / song recycle (2010) for piano and tape (including 12 anonymous found voices):
“I began working on this miniature project when I was asked to perform something for piano and laptop. My first concern was to avoid the typical ambient stuff which melts piano and electronics into long and extended movements. As a limited pianist, I also decided to use the instrument more as an accompaniement to something else (a lead part) than as a soloist in itself. All those thoughts lead me to work on a collection of very small pieces which rigorously alternate between “music concrète” miniatures, and songs made of recycled material. The processed voices we hear on those songs come from anonymous a cappella recordings found on the web (and to a lesser extend on films) ; reversed and cut into small fragments, they constitute a completely new musical material which is then accompanied by the piano. Set up that way, the collection of « songs » unexpectedly evoke a traditional lied form, a song cycle made of recycled raw material.”
Chicago Underground Duo
The Chicago Underground Duo formed in 1997 as an organic offshoot of the larger Chicago Underground Collective. The Duo consists of Rob Mazurek (cornet, electronics, piano) and Chad Taylor (percussion, electronics, vibes, mbira, guitar). Both stalwarts of the Chicago Jazz scene, their performances are dually based on notated compositions composed by both artists and on pure improvisation.
Mazurek and Taylor have released five CDs together, their most recent release being Boca Negra (Thrill Jockey, 2010). They have toured extensively in the U.S, Canada, Europe, Japan, and Brazil and are considered to be the most musically adventurous performers of the Chicago Underground incarnations.
Joe McPhee Trio X + Trio Caveat
Trio X consists of three like-minded improvisers Joe McPhee (Saxophone/trumpet), Dominic Duval (Bass), and Jay Rosen (Drums). The band was founded after its premier at the 1988 Vision Jazz Festival. Sharing an affinity for popular jazz standards, the trio’s musical repertoire is on one hand influenced by the likes of Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman, and Freddie Hubbard, and the other refined by the avant-garde sensibilities of their contemporary musical practice.
The three members have performed with a variety of musicians, McPhee with Evan Parker and William Parker, Duval with Cecil Taylor, Mark Whitecage, and Steve Swell, and Rosen with Sonny Simmons, Anthony Braxton, and Charles Gayle. They have released a number of recordings on the CIMP and Cadence Jazz Records labels and continue to receive critical acclaim for their live concerts and festival appearances.
Trio Caveat consists of bassist James Ilgenfritz, saxophonist Jonathan Moritz, and guitarist Chris Welcome. A parlour jazz trio, they have perfomred throughout the U.S. in art galleries, cafes, concert halls, parlors, and basements. Initially formed as a trio with Moritz, Ilgenfritz, and drummer John McLellan, the group’s discreet dynamics and attention to unlikely sonorities facilitate the deepest possible listening experience.
Minerva Trio + Yuganaut
Minerva trio
To be on your toes, to hear ahead, to remember moments passed, to trust your instincts, to make each part as strong as the whole, to keep it fresh, to play your heart out, to keep cool, to try your very best, to be detached, to push it, to leave space, to play beyond yourself, to let go, to restrain yourself, to know when to play, to know when to stop…The music of the Minerva trio ranges from rigorous composition to free improvisation, oftentimes blurring the line where one ends and the other starts. Their music borrows elements and aesthetics from various musical genres and styles including jazz, avant-garde, rock and a variety of folkloric musical traditions. The players are JP Schlegelmich on piano, Pascal Niggenkemper on bass and Carlo Costa on drums. All three musicians contribute compositions to the band’s repertoire.
Bios
JP Schlegelmilch is a Brooklyn-based pianist, accordionist and composer. Current projects include the experimental instrumental rock group NOOK; the jazz quartet Old Time Musketry, and the power-organ-trio Put a Motor in Yourself. JP also frequently plays with rock groups and the improvisational theatre group FACE.
In each of these projects and in the process of composition, JP seeks to synthesize his diverse musical interests, to create a personal and non-genre-specific music. He strives to continually enrich his musical language through studying various musical traditions including jazz, free improvisation, classical, and folk music from around the world.
www.myspace.com/jpschlegelmusic
Born in 1978, the German-French bassist Pascal Niggenkemper played from early age on the violin and the piano. At the age of 17, he experienced the impact of improvised music and started to play the double bass. Pascal co-lead the audio visual dance project Turbo Pascale. Elements of dance music are blended together with aspects of free improvised music and folk music. Two VJ’s who interact with the gesture of the music and project their visual expression on the screen are part of this group. This formation toured Germany, Kazakhstan, Czech Republic, Slovenia, and France. In 2005 Pascal Niggenkemper was granted with the DAAD Award to study in New York City. It is in NY that Pascal met Robin Verheyen and Tyshawn Sorey and formed the Pascal Niggenkemper Trio. They recorded the CD “pasàpas” (Konnex) and toured twice in Europe (Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, France and Austria) and played at different Festivals. Their performances were recorded for the WDR and the BR Radio. This band will be on tour in March 2010 to present their new CD. With guitar player Scott Dubois and drummer Jeff Davis Pascal formed his new band Pascal’s Newfield, that explores an area where post-modern jazz aesthetic, rock music and contemporary classic music fuse together. This ensemble will be on tour in December 2009 in Europe.
www.pascalniggenkemper.com
www.myspace.com/pascalniggenkemper
Carlo Costa is a drummer and composer from Rome, Italy. Since moving to New York about four years ago Carlo has been active in the local music scene performing with many musicians in a wide variety of genres ranging from country to free improvisation. In the past few years he has performed in Austria, Italy, Norway, Macedonia and the US with various groups including the Spaennkraft trio, the Felician Honsig-Erlenburg Trio and Quartet, and the Georgi Sareski band. Current projects include Hunter Gatherer, Land of Leland, Silent Flux, Oh Liza Jane, and Dive Bar Dukes.
www.carlocostamusic.com
www.myspace.com/carlocosta
Consisting of Stephen Rush (Keyboards, Toys, Euphonium & more), Tom Abbs (Bass, Tuba & Didjeridoo) and Geoff Mann (Drums, Cornet, Mandolin & Vibes), Yuganaut is a collective of improvising virtuosos. Playing pre-written and structured compositions, they explore sonic spaces by listening deeply to each others articulation and interpretation of the score. The surprising dialogue that results from this process is like watching an extremely well-honed basketball team pass the ball. Well-oiled, communicating, intuitive, and almost ESP-like in it’s performance, the group is comfortable in many styles/genres, so the music flows from funk to swing, open jazz, to avante-classical aesthetics. With training in diverse musics such as strict classical Western Music, jazz, rock, South Indian and electronica, Yuganaut pushes the notion of eclecticism swiftly out the window and proclaims loudly that the world is a lace where all musics can find a happy home, together.
Søren Kjærgaard, Andrew Cyrille duo & Søren Kjaergaard plus friends including Kato HIdeki, Zach Layton, Bruce Tovsky
There is a somnambulant quality to Optics, a kind of waking-life feeling. Søren Kjærgaard, a 29-year-old Danish pianist, recruited bassist Ben Street and the phenomenal drummer Andrew Cyrille for this trio, and, boy, do they listen to one another.
Cyrille, known for his work with the likes of Cecil Taylor and Oliver Lake, is the senior member, and much of what happens revolves around him. The 14-minute title track that opens the CD demands patience from its musicians. Kjærgaard plots out deep, serious chords, employing dramatic pauses as the rumble of mallets on skins establishes the tone. Street picks deliberately on the upper neck of his bass as Kjærgaard then lays down an ascending series of minor chords. A quiet snare roll, a repeated three-key phrase played lightly—this is minimalist bliss. On “Cyrille Surreal,” icy, detached chords play against a reluctant swing rhythm, but things evolve, as they always do, and rowdiness finally replaces inertia.
Some of the song titles are unfortunate (including the aforementioned one). “Mallets”? No, the tune is cleverer, and more fun, than that. Kjærgaard’s staccato notes and chords conjure a movie scene: How about calling it “Gene Hackman chases Tom Cruise through the streets of Memphis”? This idea, piano as percussion, informs much of the album. “Work of Art” has the pianist playing melody and rhythm, despite the fact that it’s a duet—a percussive duet—with Cyrille. The disc ends with the funereal “Radio House Requiem,” an elegy for Danish Radio, which ceased most of its jazz programming last year because of budget cuts. We hope that doesn’t mean Kjærgaard has lost an outlet in his homeland.
John Medeski w Tisziji Munoz, Don Pate & Bob Ra-kalam Moses
Tisziji Munoz’ Heart-Fire Sound: Celebrating Sacred Origin Featuring John Medeski with Don Pate/Bass and Bob Ra-kalam Moses/Drums
(New York, NY) For the first time in more than 18 years, keyboardist John Medeski of the innovative trio Medeski Martin & Wood is pairing with guitarist Tisziji Munoz for live dates and an upcoming recording session this spring.
Munoz and Medeski kicked off their partnership April 9th at the Colony Café in Woodstock, NY and will continue with another show on May 15th at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, NY. Joined by musicians Don Pate and Bob Ra-kalam Moses, Medeski and Munoz will play a selection of music comprised of various Tisziji Munoz compositions. Although known for their healing qualities, Munoz’ pieces are not always easy listening. Medeski comments that the performances will be “very powerful” and believes that it will open many people’s minds to the strength of Munoz’ compositions. The evening promises to be one of exciting jazz improvisation with musicians who consistently test their boundaries by challenging themselves and the audience with powerful music.
Composing and playing by the mantra “Heart-Fire Sound” Tisziji Munoz channels his jazz experience and spiritual teachings through his music. Of this knowledge, Medeski states: “He keeps a certain spirit of music alive in the tradition of John Coltrane, passed down through his work with Pharaoh Sanders. Tisziji’s whole life and music are a sacred thing.”
Tisziji Munoz’ biography is filled with the names of great musicians. Munoz began playing music as a child, teaching himself the drums in the Afro-Cuban style before moving on to the ukulele and eventually the guitar. Munoz’ music is known for its healing qualities, just as he is known for his deep devotion to spiritual pursuits. Becoming fully entrenched in the jazz scene, Munoz created Anami Music Productions to handle the ever-expanding demands of his musical spirit. During this time, Munoz began touring with saxophone legend Pharaoh Sanders. Munoz has since gone on to play and record with Elvin Jones, Ravi Coltrane, Dr. Art Davis, McCoy Tyner, Rashid Ali, Paul Schafer, Don Pate and John Medeski.
Since 1991, John Medeski has been part of the genre-defying trio Medeski Martin & Wood. Building upon their jazz roots with the addition of different rhythmic styles, electronics and various forms of rhythmic grooves MMW have broken out of the traditional jazz sphere, garnering them fans from across the musical spectrum. MMW have shared the bill with groups such as The Roots, Beck, A Tribe Called Quest, Ray Charles, Hermento Pascoal, and Phish, frequently appearing in venues unavailable to most jazz artists. Medeski’s recording credits include John Zorn, Iggy Pop, T Bone Burnett, Ray Lamontagne, Dan The Automator, k.d. Lang and more. Medeski has also produced The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, pedal steel guitar group The Campbell Brothers, and two records from The Wood Brothers
Amiri Baraka and Henry Grimes with special guest Atiba Kwabena-Wilson
ISSUE Project Room is proud to host its first Littoral Reading Series event of 2009 featuring:
Amiri Baraka and Henry Grimes
$10 – buy tickets
In 2007, Akashic Books ushered Amiri Baraka back into the forefront of America’s literary consciousness with the short story collection Tales of the Out & the Gone. Now, this reissue of Home–long out of print–features a highly provocative and profoundly insightful collection of 1960s social and political essays.
Home is, in effect, the ideological autobiography of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka. The two dozen essays that constitute this book were written during a five-year span–a turbulent and critical period for African Americans and whites. The Cuban Revolution, the Birmingham bombings, Robert Williams’s Monroe Defense movement, the Harlem riots, the assassination of Malcolm X . . . each changed the way Jones/Baraka looked at America. This progressive change is recorded with honesty, anger, and passion in his writings.
Amiri Baraka (previously known as LeRoi Jones) is the author of numerous books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. He was named Poet Laureate of New Jersey by the New Jersey Commission on Humanities, from 2002-2004. His most recent book, Tales of the Out & the Gone (Akashic, 2007), was a New York Times Editors’ Choice. He lives in Newark, New Jersey.
Henry Grimes
Master jazz musician (acoustic bass, violin) HENRY GRIMES has played more than 3OO concerts in 23 countries (including many festivals) since May of ‘O3, when he made his astonishing return to the music world after 35 years away. He was born and raised in Philadelphia and attended the Mastbaum School and Juilliard. In the ‘5O’s and ‘6O’s, he came up in the music playing and touring with Willis “Gator Tail” Jackson, “Bullmoose” Jackson, “Little” Willie John, and a number of other great R&B / soul musicians; but drawn to jazz, he went on to play, tour, and record with many great jazz musicians of that era, including Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Haynes, Lee Konitz, Steve Lacy, Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan, Sunny Murray, Sonny Rollins, Roswell Rudd, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, McCoy Tyner, and Rev. Frank Wright.
Sadly, a trip to the West Coast to work with Al Jarreau and Jon Hendricks went awry, leaving Henry in Los Angeles at the end of the ‘6O’s with a broken bass he couldn’t pay to repair, so he sold it for a small sum and faded away from the music world. Many years passed with nothing heard from him, as he lived in his tiny rented room in an S.R.O. hotel in downtown Los Angeles, working as a manual laborer, custodian, and maintenance man, and writing many volumes of handwritten poetry. He was discovered there by a Georgia social worker and fan in 2OO2 and was given a bass by William Parker, and after only a few weeks of ferocious woodshedding, Henry emerged from his room to begin playing concerts around Los Angeles and shortly afterwards made a triumphant return to New York City in May, ‘O3 to play in the Vision Festival. Since then, often working as a leader, he has played, toured, and / or recorded with many of today’s music heroes, such as Rashied Ali, Marshall Allen, Fred Anderson, Marilyn Crispell, Ted Curson, Andrew Cyrille, Bill Dixon, Dave Douglas, Andrew Lamb, David Murray, William Parker, Marc Ribot, and Cecil Taylor. Henry has also given a number of workshops and master classes on major campuses, released several new recordings, made his professional debut on a second instrument (the violin) at the age of 7O, has now published the first volume of his poetry, “Signs Along the Road,” and has been creating illustrations to accompany his new recordings and publications. He has received many honors in recent years, including four Meet the Composer grants and a grant from the Acadia Foundation. He can be heard on more than 
recordings on various labels, including Atlantic, Ayler Records, Blue Note, Columbia, ESP-Disk, Impulse!, Jazz NewYork Productions, Pi Recordings, Porter Records, Prestige, Riverside, and Verve. Henry Grimes now lives and teaches in New York City.
Atiba Kwabena-Wilson (musician/poet/storyteller) is the founder and artistic director of both Songhai Djeli and the Befo’ Quotet. He was the recipient of a full Scholarship for voice and flute, earning his B.A. in Music from Long Island University. Mr. Kwabena-Wilson studied arrangement and orchestration for jazz ensembles with Calvin Hill (bassist with Max Roach and faculty advisor for L.I.U.). He also studied Jazz Improvisation with the late John Lewis (pianist with the Modern Jazz Quartet and professor at City College).
Atiba visited Jamaica in February of 2004, where he was interviewed by Jean Small, host of “A Festival of Words” on Radio Mona FM 93. He spoke of his life’s journey which has led him to poetry and storytelling.
In 2005, Atiba was featured in “Uptown” magazine, summer issue.
Throughout the years, Atiba Kwabena-Wilson has been involved with numerous projects and programs that have reached out to many people. An abbreviated list of his performance profile is provided below:
* Guest Lecturer at Hunter College (subjects: “African Origins of the Blues” and “African Origins of Hip-Hop”)
* Served as artistic director through Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, 1999-present, of “Music Meets Poetry” series
* Toured schools under the auspices of the Julliard-Lincoln Center Community Out-Reach Program, both as a solo artist and as a member of “Ngoma”, performing traditional songs, stories and dances of Azania (aka South Africa)
* Performed at FESTAM International Music Festival, Inc. in Dakar, Senegal 1998 through 2000
* Filmed with the Grammy Award Winning Rap group ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT (MTV Unplugged)
* Featured in “Bum Rush the Page- A Def Poetry Jam”, Edited by Tony Medina and Louis Reyes Rivera, Three Rivers Press 2001 and “New Rain” Vol. 9 Edited by Gary Johnston and Malika M’Buzi Moore, Blind Beggar Press 1999
* Appeared as percussionist/ flutist on “The Rose That Grew From Concrete” Vol.1: A CD focusing on poetry by Tupac Shakur, performed by various artists
* Appeared as a performing artist for the American Museum of Natural History
* Featured on CBS, Traditions
* Provided “Edu-tainment Clinics” for Hospital Audiences Inc.
* Conducted storytelling and music workshops for the New York City Housing Authority
* Provides music, poetry and storytelling workshops, staff development seminars, assembly programs, concerts and lecture/ demonstrations throughout the tri-state area under the auspices of the Caribbean Cultural Center, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corp. Education Dept. and Henry Street Settlement Cultural Outreach/Ed. Dept.
Lawrence D “Butch” Morris
Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris’ work includes television, film, theatre, dance, radio, interdisciplinary performance based collaborations and concert and recording settings. As a composer he in known most notably for the development and evolution of Conduction, conducted improvisation and interpretation that transcend culture and geographics to present a new social-logic to the language of music.
In the last 15 years he has assembled over 100 ensembles for performance in 14 countries. In 1999, the Bell Atlantic-Jazz Awards nominated him Composer of the year and creative musician of the year. Morris also develops interdisciplinary projects with choreographers such as Min Tanaka, with visual artists such as David Hammons, with writers such as Ntozake Shange, and with theatre artists such as The Wooster Group.
He has worked with countless musicians/composers including Alice Coltrane, Gil Evans, Philly Joe Jones, Cecil Taylor, Steve Lacy, David Murray, Don Pullen and Reggie Workman.
A WEEK OF HORNS III
February 8, 2008
nmperign: bhob rainey – soprano saxophone, greg kelley – trumpet + daniel carter + Marianne Giosa
nmperign
nmperign has been hailed the world over as the leading purveyors of whatever that strange thing they do is. Their palette of sounds makes laptops seem as flexible as doorbells, and their precise but wildly unpredictable improvisations would have you at the edge of your seat if you weren’t so afraid of the noise you would make getting there. Fierce and fragile, lush and fractured, nmperign is tough to pin down and all the better for it.
“(nmperign’s) attention to the architecture of improvisation, control over a huge palette of sonic material, and ability to explore the extremes of music-making with subtley and wit mark them as two of the most original thinkers in free improvisation today.” Ed Hazel, Boston Phoenix
“nmperign’s music seems to unwind as two parallel soundtracks being put in line by a kind of Leibnizian god. The duo has a disturbing (turmoil) serenity; they seem to have been set up in this new monadology for an eternity.
For me, there is nothing to be called ‘minimal’ in their music, in their choice of low and dangerously weak sounds. It would be nonsense to call this music ‘minimal’; on the contrary, their way of making music refines our senses and gives precision to a double movement of internalization and openmindedness. So space is opened and landmarks disappear.” Philippe Alen, Improjazz
nmperign has collaborated with Le Quan Ninh, Gunter Mueller, Jason Lescalleet, Jerome Noetinger, Lionel Marchetti, Gino Robair, Vic Rawlings, Mike Bullock, and many others.
Daniel Carter
Daniel Carter
Over the past three decades-plus, Daniel Carter has performed with: Sun Ra, Billy Bang, Roger Baird, William Parker, Roy Campbell, Sabir Mateen, Simone Forti, Joan Miller, Thurston Moore, Nayo Takasaki, Earl Freeman, Dewey Johnson, Nami Yamamoto, Matthew Shipp, Wilber Morris, Denis Charles, MMW (Medeski, Martin, & Wood), Vernon Reid, Raphé Malik, Sam Rivers, Sunny Murray, Hamiet Bluiett, Cecil Taylor, David S. Ware, Karl Berger, Don Pate, Gunter Hampel, Alan Silva, Susie Ibarra, D.J. Logic, Margaret Beals, Douglas Elliot, Butch Morris, TEST, OTHER DIMENSIONS IN MUSIC, ONE WORLD ENSEMBLE, SATURNALIA STRING TRIO, LEVITATION UNIT, WET PAINT, THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS, and many many many many others (meaning more every week or day practically).
MARIANNE GIOSA (sound and movement artist)
trumpet, conch, and small percussion
Native born New Yorker, is trained in musical, kinesthetic, visual and healing arts. She received a BA in Fine Arts from Queens College in 1984 and picked up the trumpet which was her childhood instrument in 1995. Studied music in various New York City schools including Mannes College, School of Jazz, and the classical division of Manhattan School of Music. She has performed musically in many different settings from orchestra to free jazz. In the late 90’s, she worked in City Center Orchesta and The Doctors Orchestra. She also worked with Hot Lavendar Big Band. She met the legendary Daniel Carter in 1999 and became immersed in the improvised world of music.
Trained in dance in early childhood, she also returned to the dance world in 1987 where she become immersed in West African Dance and music. Traveled to West Africa both in 1993 and 1999 and studied with core members of Les Ballets Africains (Guinea) and Sing Sing Rythm (Senegal). She currently works as a guest teacher with Toukounou under the direction of Sidiki Conde. She joined Cilla Vee Movement Project in 2005 and began to explore movement and breath in improvised setting. Coupled by her dedication to healing and yogic practices she has become immersed in somatic awareness, movement and breath.
Presently working with Brandish , muscians Daniel Carter and Todd Nicholson with sculptor Alain Kirili, “it is a meeting point where dance music and a visual space come together”. She is also performing with other improvisational groups including Open Music Ensemble, MMP, and Cilla Vee Movement Project.
8pm $10
