TILT Brass presents New York Noise

TILT plays music by four legendary Downtown composers

Nick Didkovsky – Stink Up! (2003) [World Premiere]

full ensemble

PERSONNEL
Trumpet – Shane Endsley, Russ Johnson

Josh Frank

French Horn – Mike Atkinson, Ann Ellsworth, Mark Taylor

Trombone – Joe Fiedler, Chris McIntyre

Bass Trombone – Jacob Garchik, Dave Nelson

Tuba – Ron Caswell

Percussion - Garrett Brown

Conductor - Greg Evans

 www.tiltbrass.org

TILT Brass’ New York Noise series presents compositions and improvising strategies developed within the singular musical culture of Downtown NYC during the past 30 years.  By the late 70′s, “Downtown Music” referred to several strains of activity in New York such as minimalist tendencies in the classic SoHo Scene, the post-punk severity of No Wave bands, and the improvisational abandon of the Loft Jazz scene. As the 80′s progressed, a natural blending of these performance practices gave rise to a sort of Post-Modern hybridity still highly influential on the “new music” community today.

The musicians of TILT are direct descendants of these historical “local” traditions, continuing to evolve and mutate inherited aesthetic DNA, often along side important legacy artists.  When possible, the group works directly with composers to adapt older works and/or create new ones for its innovative instrumentation(s), striving to expose and reinvigorate this important musical legacy.

New York-based TILT Brass is a collective of creative brass and percussion artists that has presented concerts throughout the city since 2003. Many of the musicians who participate in TILT projects are leaders in their field, such as trumpeters Russ Johnson and Nate Wooley, trombonists Joe Fiedler and Curtis Hasselbring, horn player John Clark, and percussionist Kevin Norton. The group’s repertoire features over a dozen works custom designed for its two projects, the 10-piece Creative Brass Band and 6-piece SIXtet. The latter, with duos of trumpet, trombone, and tuba, features Johnson, Wooley, Hasselbring and TILT Director Chris McIntyre on trombone, and Joe Exely and John Altieri on tuba. 

>This ever-evolving list of idiosyncratic pieces being created for both ensembles includes works by important voices in the avant jazz and experimental concert music fields, including Anthony Coleman, John King, Chris Jonas, Taylor Ho Bynum, and group members Norton and McIntyre, among others. Coleman’s work Set Into Motion, premiered by the Brass Band in 2005, was released on the composer’s acclaimed Tzadik CD Pushy Blueness in August ’06. In addition to original works, TILT presents many pieces from the experimental tradition. Programs have featured historical compositions such as a Varése graphic score from the late 50′s and selections from James Tenney’s Postal Pieces, epochal works from the 70′s by Fredric Rzewski (Les Mounton de Panurge) and early John Adams (Light Over Water), and contemporary works by Elliott Sharp and Lois V. Vierk (June ’09).

Over its 6 year history, a number of vital New York venues have presented TILT Brass projects such as the Whitney Museum, BAM Café, Joe’s Pub, Issue Project Room, and Tonic. In December ’06, TILT SIXtet joined forces with Chris McIntyre’s group Lotet (collectively known as LoTILT) at Roulette Intermedium to premiere his folio score Metaxis.The Creative Brass Band presented two nights of original repertoire at The Stone in June ’07. Entitled ALL TILT, these important events included the premiere of new works by Curtis Hasselbring and Nate Wooley,composer/performer members of TILT, and by multi-instrumentist Charles Waters and cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum. Recent SIXtet performances include a Febuary ’08 set during Issue Project Room’s Horn Week (featuring Santa Fe-based saxophonist and composer Chris Jonas) and an October ’08 presentation on Composer Collaborative’s Serial Underground at Cornelia Street Café.

May 08, 2009 | Categories: events, music | Tags: brass, composers, downtown, new music, new york, trombone, trumpet | Comments Off

Mary Jordan Presents “Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis”

JACK SMITH & THE DESTRUCTION OF ATLANTIS

“…an extraordinary job…”
                Variety

“A real triumph…something of an aesthetic manifesto”
                Filmmaker Magazine

“Superb…a fascinating portrait…a glorious visual achievement”
                TIMEOUT London

“Irresistible…” 
                Time Magazine

For Jack Smith (1932-1989), Atlantis was both the idea of a fantastical utopia and the reality of the Lower East Side apartment in which this prophetic artist staged baroque, improvisational multi-hour one-man theatrical productions, often with a cast of stuffed animals and dolls. An avant-garde photographer, filmmaker, actor, performance artist, and all around “flaming creature,” Smith has been credited as a major influence by Fellini, Godard and Jarmusch. In Mary Jordan’s mesmerizing portrait, he fairly jumps off the screen: a combination mystic, comedian and madman, a protean artist whose vast energy and creativity were undermined (or perversely fed?) by the poverty of his day-to-day life and his paranoid misgivings about just about everything. If there is a heaven for the wonderfully bizarre, Jack Smith resides there, accompanied by his patron saint, Maria Montez.

myspace.com/destructionofatlantis

Mary Jordan – Director/Producer
 
Mary Jordan grew up traveling between Toronto and the Bronx. She began working in production at the age of 16, after attending the Norman Jewison
film school. By the age of 20, she was producing for Canada¹s top new directors, such as Steve Chase, Marco Brambilla, and Curtis Wehrfritz, and
for leading production companies like Revolver, The Partners, Alliance, and Nitrate Films. During this time, she traveled across North Africa to shoot
her first documentaries and short pieces on female circumcision rituals and the cultural modernization of women in the area, which would later be
acquired by the BBC.
 
 After extensive travels, Jordan settled in Sydney, Australia where she continued her documentary work on projects such as ABC¹s Tribal Music of
Tonga and was awarded by ABC News for her bravery while documenting refugee camp conditions on the Thai-Burmese border for Médecins Sans Frontières. While in Sydney, Mary worked as a talent scout as well as founded, and later sold, the production Indigo Blue within which she produced and directed commercials and music videos.
 
 In 2005, Mary Jordan was featured as one of Filmmaker Magazine¹s 25 New Faces. Shortly thereafter, she premiered her first feature length
documentary entitled Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis which has garnished many awards. In addition to her work in film, Mary is also involved in photography, performance art, and music.

Apr 15, 2009 | Categories: documentary, events, film | Tags: cinema, documentary, film, jack smith, lower east side, new york, underground | Comments Off