For more information on In One Wind, please contact
Matt Merewitz at Fully Altered Media / (347) 384-2839 or matt@fullyaltered.com

The past couple weeks have seen a good bit of activity for cellist Erik Friedlander and his new Bonebridge project. Late last week Pitchfork’s Grayson Currin posted a great interview with Erik about Bonebridge and his career as a cellist in a variety of settings.

On Tuesday, NPR Music (and many affiliate NPR station websites) began streaming Bonebridge in its entirety for their First Listen series.

And on Wednesday, Erik performed live and was interviewed on Soundcheck with John Schaefer.  It was clear that John was pleased to welcome Erik back to the program after a number of years. Also performing were Doug Wamble on slide guitar, Trevor Dunn on double bass and Michael Sarin on drums (the exact band from the new album).

New York audiences can see Erik Friedlander’s Bonebridge live Thursday June 16 at 9:30 PM at Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater.

Stay tuned here for more news. You can pre-order Bonebridge on Bandcamp and on Amazon MP3 or Amazon as a physical CD.

Featuring MC John Robinson and Trumpeter Christian Scott,
With Covers of Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Goapele
and The Jazz/Hip-Hop Mashup, “The Lee Morgan Story”

“By definition the bass player is a pivotal figure in jazz, a steward of tonality as well as tempo. Determining a good one can require close listening: that quality reveals itself in the cohesion of the band as well as in the handling of line and phrase. All of this [is] accounted for in Mr. Williams’…harmonically sound original compositions and a balance of tradition and novelty.”
- Nate Chinen, The New York Times

Concord Jazz proudly announces the release of Washington, DC-born, New York-based bassist Ben Williams’ debut album State of Art, available June 28, 2011. The album is a result of Williams’ first prize in the 2009 Thelonious Monk International Competition for double-bass. State of Art marks Williams’ first album as a leader, however it is not the bassist’s first time working with the Concord Jazz family.

For the past two years, Williams has been a working member of two Concord Jazz artists’ working bands: vibraphonist Stefon Harris & Blackout, a R&B and hip-hop-tinged group, which calls on Williams’ unique connection with go-go, from his native Washington, DC to inform its sound and pianist Jacky Terrasson’s Trio. Williams was featured on Harris’ 2009 Concord Jazz debut, Urbanus and Terrasson’s 2010 Concord Jazz debut, Push. So it is particularly fitting that he now joins the Concord Jazz roster as a leader in his own right.

The title of Williams’ debut stops modestly short of such a bold argument, but does sum up the young bassist’s of-the-moment approach. “I’m trying to interpret the times,” Williams says, “to represent what’s going on today.”

To that end, State of Art is a wholly contemporary amalgam of jazz, R&B, hip-hop, and even classical influences which fully acknowledge the past while maintaining an urgency born of the here and now. The variety of flavors that comprise this musical stew, Williams explains, are drawn from his full 26 years of experience – with perhaps an extra nine months besides.

“I always feel like you start your musical training maybe even before you’re born,” he says. “Consciously or subconsciously you soak in all the music you hear around you, so when you do get to the point where you’re expressing your own music that stuff is all mixed in there whether you like it or not. So I just try to be honest and represent all that influence.”

Williams cites his mother’s tastes as defining his earliest listening experiences. At home he was surrounded by the sounds of Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, the Jackson 5; his formative years coincided with the heyday of Michael Jackson and Prince.

Those inspirations are deeply imprinted on State of Art, not only in Williams’ choice of repertoire – which includes Jackson’s relatively obscure “Little Susie” and Wonder’s 1985 hit “Part Time Lover” – but in his own original compositions, like the infectiously groovy opener, “Home”, and the James Brown tribute “Mr. Dynamite”, which also evokes latter-day Cannonball Adderley.

Click HERE to watch video

They also surface in the surprising context of the album’s sole standard, an airy reimagining of “Moonlight in Vermont” that sees Williams switching to electric bass. “I like to juxtapose something old with something new,” he says. “Where ‘Part-Time Lover’ is the only song on the record that swings the whole way through, even though it happens to be a Stevie Wonder cover, ‘Moonlight in Vermont’ is the reverse: a very old standard interpreted in a very modern way. It’s probably closer to Prince than Frank Sinatra.”

He also ventures boldly into the common ground between jazz and hip-hop on “The Lee Morgan Story”, a tune by emcee John Robinson that Williams discovered when the two appeared together as part of jazz/hip-hop fusioneers Revive Da Live’s show “Hip-Hop 1942.”  He invited not only Robinson to revive his role as Morgan’s rap biographer for the recording, but also recruited trumpeter Christian Scott, himself no stranger to blurring genre boundaries.

Though the Monk Competition has established Williams’ place among the leading bassists of his generation, it wasn’t his first instrument. He began by playing around on a classically-trained cousin’s piano, which he then inherited when she upgraded to a newer instrument. “I still remember that day when my mom made me go into the basement,” Williams recalls. “I heard all this noise, and I came upstairs and there was a piano. Having a piano in the house was the best gift I probably ever could have gotten.”

Williams learned the piano by ear, picking out TV theme songs and tunes he heard on the radio. By the time he got to middle school, he’d decided to pursue the guitar, but mistakenly signed up for a string class that taught only violin, viola, cello and bass. “By the time I found out, it was too late to get into the guitar class. So I picked what looked like the coolest instrument, and that was the bass. Needless to say, I stayed in the class.”

Click HERE to Watch Promo Video

While he continued to play piano, and has even won piano competitions in his native Washington D.C., he quickly took to the bass and, through that, to jazz. He went on to study with Rodney Whitaker and Jack Budrow at Michigan State University School of Music and earned his Masters at Juilliard. Since leaving academia Williams has relocated to New York and performed with a host of jazz greats, including Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Pat Metheny, Roy Hargrove, Mulgrew Miller, and Cyrus Chestnut.

The band Williams assembled for State of Art is a first-time assemblage of his peers, most of whom he’s played with in a variety of different configurations. At its core, the band consists of tenor/soprano saxophonist Marcus Strickland, guitarist Matthew Stevens, keyboardist Gerald Clayton, drummer Jamire Williams (who also appeared with the bassist on Terrasson’s Push) and percussionist Etienne Charles, joined on three tracks by alto/soprano saxophonist Jaleel Shaw. Williams mixes a string quartet into his arrangements of Jackson’s “Little Susie” and Bay Area soul singer Goapele’s tender, yearning “Things Don’t Exist.”

“I’m always looking for guys who are team players, who are great players but know how to elevate the whole band,” Williams says. “They play in a way that makes everybody else around them sound better, but also bring their own voice to the music.”

For all the assembled talent and wealth of influences, Williams has clearly discovered his own identity as bassist, composer and bandleader. The albumis at its heart a statement, one that announces the arrival of an important, timely new voice – in essence, the state of the art.

Release date: June 28, 2011

Concord Music Group

Follow Ben on Twitter (@benwmsonbass)

Ben Williams Media Site

With Music Inspired By The Crime Novels of Fred Vargas

New York City CD Release Party
May 1, 2011 – 7:30 PM
at DROM
85 Avenue A (between 5th & 6th Streets)
New York, NY 10019
(212) 777-1157

If the evocative atmospheres and skewed, sinuous grooves of Les Nuages En France, the debut CD by the Marco Cappelli Acoustic Trio, conjure an air of mystery and suspense, credit their inspiration to the crime novels of author Fred Vargas.

A uniquely gifted guitarist who blends influences from the contemporary classical and avant-jazz/improv realms, Cappelli discovered the work of Vargas (the pseudonym of French historian Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau) through a friend and was instantly drawn in by the writer’s unusual approach to the thriller.

“I found her books interesting because they’re not just suspense stories. I was touched by her psychological analysis of the characters, the way she used the pretext of a thriller story to analyze relationships between characters.”

Each piece on Les Nuages En France is named in reference to characters from Vargas’ novels, written in conjunction with similarly-inspired poems by Italian poet Barbara Raggi. Cappelli explains that his attraction to these novels stems from his father, a judge who instilled his humane philosophies into his son.

Photo Credit: Peter Gannushkin

“My father never treated the matter of being a judge like a mathematical thing: you murder somebody, you get this many years of jail,” Cappelli explains. “I grew up with the idea that you always have to consider the human aspect of judiciary cases; you always have to see the other side of the story.”

The album’s liner notes include a quote from the author explaining her distaste for the complex, extremely violent thrillers that make up most of the genre these days, from books to movies. Cappelli sympathized with that from his father’s personal experiences, and found Vargas’ comments similar to his own approach to music.

“The expression in music is something you have to make very simple,” he says. “That’s what I tried to do with these pieces, to have a very direct relation to the sound that I was working on with my partners in the trio. There’s no deep, intellectual thinking behind the playing. It’s pretty direct and based in the everyday musical experience I share with these musicians, but it has a deep feeling in it.”

Conservatory-trained in Rome and Basel, Cappelli became one of Europe’s leading contemporary classical guitarists. Since moving to New York, he has complemented his work in the classical world with extensive experience on the avant-garde and improv scenes. In addition to the Acoustic Trio, Cappelli leads or is a member of the Naples-based chamber group Ensemble Dissonanzen; Syntax Error, which performs music in accompaniment to films and images; and the NYC-based quintet Italian Doc Remix (IDR), which blends jazz and Italian folk music.

Cappelli assembled the Acoustic Trio as a showcase for his unusual custom-built instrument, an amplified classical guitar modified by the addition of eight sympathetic strings underneath the standard six. “You don’t have to talk with these guys,” Cappelli enthuses about his bandmates, bassist Ken Filiano and percussionist Satoshi Takeishi. “They play what you didn’t know you had in mind.”

Ken Filiano is a remarkably diverse bassist who has worked with artists including Nels Cline, Bobby Bradford, John Carter, Warne Marsh, Roswell Rudd, and Don Preston. He leads and composes for his quartet with Michael Attias, Tony Malaby, and Michael T.A. Thompson. Filiano and Cappelli first met while recording with pianist Anthony Coleman for John Zorn’s Tzadik label. “Ken is the king of acoustic bass,” Cappelli says. “His sound and his groove are amazing and his improvisational skill is just perfect.”

Japanese-born percussionist Satoshi Takeishi studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston and has developed a highly individual approach to rhythm and color, influenced by his studies in Colombia and the Middle East. He has worked with a wide array of musicians such as such as Eliane Elias, Eddie Gomez, Randy Brecker, Dave Liebman, Anthony Braxton, Mark Murphy, Herbie Mann, and the Paul Winter Consort. “Satoshi has a very special sound,” Cappelli says.

Release Date: March , 2011

Marco’s Website
Marco’s Facebook Page
Mode Records

For more information on Marco Cappelli, please contact: Matt Merewitz / matt@fullyaltered.com or 347-384-2839.

Tour Dates Around NYC & East Coast Following CD Release

Anyone who’s ever puzzled over the oddly altar-like mirrored globes that serve as the centerpiece of many a suburban garden will instantly be in on the joke that provided the title for trombonist Joe Fiedler’s Sacred Chrome Orb (Yellow Sound Records, release date March 29). While Fiedler attaches no particular significance to the name, it does represent a delight in the incongruous, a refreshingly skewed perspective, and an off-kilter sense of humor, all qualities that pervade the music of his unique, intensely expressive trio.

On their third CD, the Joe Fiedler Trio has developed an expansive language all their own. Fiedler is an inventive trombonist whose talents have found him founding the eccentric brass band Big Sackbut, working with visionary leaders Andrew Hill, Lee Konitz and Maria Schneider and avant-garde giants Anthony Braxton and Cecil Taylor; in big bands led by Satoko Fujii and Charles Tolliver; a member of the Captain Beefheart tribute band Fast and Bulbous; or accompanying pop stars like Jennifer Lopez and Wyclef Jean.

His compositions thus draw on a wealth of diverse sources and experiences, but nothing has been more inspiring, he insists, than his bandmates themselves. In bassist John Hebert and drummer Michael Sarin, he has found two highly individual voices who meld into a chameleonic unit, able to morph from the airy to the explosive with supple, surprising grace.

The uncommon trombone/bass/drums line-up was inspired by similar trios led by Albert Mangelsdorff (to whom Fiedler paid tribute on the trio’s 2006 debut) and Ray Anderson. But despite surface similarities, Fiedler, Hebert and Sarin have evolved their own unmistakable slant on that tradition, which the leader was keen to showcase on this new release. “The trio has matured nicely,” Fiedler says, “and has something strong to say.”

Nowhere is the group’s cohesive strength more evident than on the title track. A tightly-woven mesh of angular lines and stop-time rhythms, the tune’s urgent vitality demonstrates the trio’s ability to wrest emotion from complexity, each sharp turn and sudden lurch striking sparks.

The piece was in part inspired by the use of similar dynamics by saxophonist/composer Bennie Wallace, Fiedler says. Many of the compositions on the album, in fact, took other musicians or styles as the leaping-off point for creation, though the links between inspiration and outcome are rendered virtually invisible by Fiedler’s original approach.

“I get into these listening phases and tunes come out of them,” Fiedler explains. “I’ll hear or feel something that just gives me a little nudge. If I played you the records, they wouldn’t sound anything alike, but one rhythm or shape or vibe will push me to sit down and write something weirdly related.”

Both “Ging Gong” and “Ethiopia” came from one such period, which Fiedler spent intently listening to Ethiopian pop singers. The stream of Fiedler’s creative consciousness can be traced to a high bass line that Hebert plays on the bridge of his instrument in “Ging Gong,” which Fiedler intended to approximate African thumb piano – an instrument not present on the pop records he was listening to at the time.

Similarly, the buoyant lyricism of “#11” was sparked by a recording of a Rachmaninoff cello sonata performed by Vladimir Horowitz and Mstislav Rostropovich at Carnegie Hall’s 85th anniversary; the ebullient “Priestish” by a Billy Harper tune that Fiedler performed while on tour with tuba player Bob Stewart’s quintet; and the shadow-tinged “Next Phase” was written mid-flight after listening to Andrew Hill.
The latter is also a showcase for Fiedler’s dramatic use of multiphonics. His approach advances the technique used by players from Mangelsdorff to Coltrane, freeing him to use harmonics and overtones pianistically. “I used a much more sophisticated use approach to multiphonics this time around,” Fiedler says. “I see it as a major departure; it reminds me of the difference between Dixieland versus more modern jazz.”

Fiedler announces his bold take on multiphonics from the outset, entering the opening track, “Occult”, with a sound like a train whistle. The atmosphere that this striking sound creates is sustained throughout the ensuing six minutes, with both the leader and Hebert stretching out over Sarin’s simmering intensity.

As its title implies, the groove-heavy “Two Kooks” is an opportunity for the trio to embark on a more light-hearted excursion. “I felt like we needed to just swing and get funky on something,” Fiedler says, “to do something fun and not as serious.”

On a more personal note, “Chicken” was named for the composer’s six-year-old daughter, though, as Fiedler admits, “it’s not really a kid tune. When I played it for her, she ran out of the room and buried her head in the sofa. I’m not sure what that means.”

Whatever it means for Fiedler’s young daughter, Sacred Chrome Orb is likely to provoke strong reactions in any listener, even if it doesn’t send them scrambling for the couch cushions.

Joe Fiedler Trio Tour Dates:

April 10 – Saint Peters/Jazz Vespers, NYC (with Kozlov, Sarin)

April 19 – University of the Streets, NYC (with John Hébert-bass, Michael Sarin-drums)

April 21 – The Local 269, NYC (with John Hébert, Michael Sarin)

May 1 – The WindUp Space, Baltimore, MD (with John Hébert, Michael Sarin)

May 16 – The Lily Pad, Boston, MA (tbd)

May 27 – Muddy Waters, Burlington, VT (with Rob Morse-bass, Dan Ryan-drums)

May 29 – On The Rise, Richmond, VT (with Morse, Ryan)

Joe Fiedler Website

Joe Fiedler on Facebook

Joe Fiedler on Myspace

For more information on the Joe Fiedler Trio, please contact Matt Merewitz

Fully Altered Media / matt@fullyaltered.com or 347-384-2839.

Lugerner’s Septet With His New York Peers Featured on Narratives

A Bay Area transplant to the NYC scene, multi-reedist Steven Lugerner releases two albums that display the full spectrum of his compositional abilities. A student of such luminaries as Fred Hersch, Ralph Alessi, Jamie Baum, Jane Ira Bloom and fellow multi-instrumentalist Charles Pillow, Narratives features Lugerner’s working septet, while on These Are The Words he is joined by trumpeter Darren Johnston, pianist Myra Melford, and drummer Matt Wilson.

Heard throughout both discs on alto and soprano saxophones, flute, clarinet and double reeds, Lugerner’s musical training began in the third grade on clarinet. From there, he became involved through concert and symphonic bands throughout his school career, including the Peninsula Youth Orchestra, where he discovered and picked up the oboe. “Doubling was something I fell into; it’s the way I function in playing music,” says Lugerner. “Whenever I’m writing music or improvising, I never hear my role being exclusively on one instrument. I always hear certain portions of any given piece played by different instruments. Doubling has leaked into all other aspects of my musical life.”

Comprised of a crew of good friends and fellow New School alumni, the septet on Narratives was born out of Lugerner’s diverse musical background. “Symphonic music is a really heavy influence, and being a part of a youth orchestra at such an early age certainly rubbed off on how I hear and conceive music in my head.”

Musically maturing around San Francisco’s burgeoning hardcore/metal scene and the city’s diverse cultural environment, Narratives was conceptualized with a wide-reaching aesthetic. Each member of the band was selected for their specific sound, with trumpeter Itamar Borochov’s idiosyncratic trumpet style balancing Lucas Pino’s tenor virtuosity; pianist Glenn Zaleski’s “improvised symphonies” colored by guitarist Angelo Spagnolo’s sonic manipulations; anchored by the fat rhythm section of Ross Gallagher on bass and Michael Davis on drums. “All of these compositions have been floating around in my head for close to four years,” Lugerner says. “Each one has seen multiple rewrites and revisions, slowly blossoming into individual narratives.”

Calling the Torah “the ultimate narrative,” These are the Words is based on The Five Books of Moses and the practice of Gematria, which assigns numerical values to the Hebrew alphabet. A method favored by medieval Kabbalists, Gematria was often used to derive further insight into the mystical interrelationship between words and ideas.

Lugerner’s move to New York prompted a rediscovery of his Jewish heritage. “I began studying with a local rabbi, in addition to Judeo-Christian theology courses at the New School. During that time, I was exposed to a lot of new ideas and knowledge. Somewhere along the line, I was introduced to Gematria.” Lugerner uses multiple Gematria methods as his compositional and improvisational launching point, selecting verses from the Torah and applying their Gematria numbers. These numbers were utilized in compositional techniques: in the creation of melodies and harmony, as intervallic relationships to use in improvising, time signatures, and tempo markings. “I wanted to create Jewish music that didn’t necessarily sound overtly Jewish. I wondered if it was possible to create something undeniably Jewish, just by its association with its raw materials.”

With all this underlying structure, These are the Words is still full of spontaneity and vibrancy. The compositions allow much space for improvisation, and the full band only met in the studio to record. The ensemble was inspired by a show Lugerner saw at the Red Poppy Art House in San Francisco, featuring Melford and Johnston with clarinetist Ben Goldberg and bassist Lisa Mezzacappa. The quirky instrumentation and Melford’s intensity stuck with Lugerner. Johnston often fills the trumpet chair in Lugerner’s septet on the West Coast, and Melford’s playing history with Wilson spans many years. This pair of pairings defines the sound of These are the Words as much as its lack of bass. “Playing without bass, I felt, would free Myra and Matt’s roles, and would expose the colors in what Darren and I are playing,” says Lugerner, describing the specificity of the mute and reed combinations that shift throughout the album.

The large sound of Narratives, shaped by three horns and Spagnolo’s wash of guitar effects, jumps out from the opening “Flux Capacitor.” This is contrasted by the intimacy of These are the Words and its emphasis on the subtleties of small ensemble interplay. Lugerner’s music has often been described as cinematic, and both albums clearly reflect that adjective in different ways.

Tour Dates

May 11th – Septet @ Barbès (Brooklyn, NY)
June 30th – Septet @ Tea Lounge (Brooklyn, NY)
July 25th – Septet @ Yoshi’s (Oakland, CA)

West Coast Quartet Dates with Melford, Johnston & Wilson TBA

RELEASE DATE: March 22, 2011

www.stevenlugerner.com

For more information, contact Matt Merewitz / matt@fullyaltered.com or 347-384-2839

We realize we’re a little late to the punch, but if you haven’t already put the finishing touches on your 2010 year-end lists for jazz or other eclectic non-mainstream music, please consider the wonderful projects we’ve worked on in one way or another this past year. 

I would like to acknowledge all of you in the media and the industry for helping us make 2010 another successful year for Fully Altered Media. And of course we couldn’t do it without our amazing clients, listed below. 

I would also like to especially acknowledge former staffer Stephen Buono, all-around utility man Nick Venti and my new assistant Maribel Gil, who recently joined the Fully Altered team part-time, as well as day-to-day helpers Russ Flynn, Andy McGhie and Will Martina.

If you haven’t yet finished your year-end Top 10 or Top 20 or Top 50 lists, please consider the albums below. I hope that my eclecticism and open ears will continue to show through in the music we send your way.

To a Healthy & Productive 2011 and Beyond,
Matt Merewitz & Maribel Gil

Here are all the records we worked in 2010 for your consideration (in chronological order by release date):

Dave Rempis & Frank Rosaly Cyrillic (482 Music)

Colorist A Square White Lie (482 Music)

Sam Sadigursky The Words Project III: Miniatures (New Amsterdam)

Steve Colson Trio The Untarnished Dream (Silver Sphinx)

Thomas Savy French Suite (Plus Loin)

Dan Weiss Trio Timshel (Sunnyside)

Allison Miller BOOM TIC BOOM (Foxhaven)

Nels Cline Singers Initiate (Cryptogramophone)

Adam Rudolph & Ralph Jones Yeyi (Meta)

Adam Rudolph & Yusef Lateef Towards the Unknown (Meta)

Mike Reed’s People, Places & Things Stories & Negotiations (482 Music)

Jacky Terrason Push (Concord)

The Claudia Quintet Royal Toast (Cuneiform)

Pete Robbins sILENT Z – Live (Hate Laugh Music)

Ideal Bread Transmit: Vol. 2 of the Music of Steve Lacy (Cuneiform)

David Weiss & Point of Departure Snuck in (Sunnyside)

Rafi Malkiel Water (Tzadik)

Barry Harris Live in Rennes (Plus Loin)

Billy Bang Prayer for Peace (TUM)

Vijay Iyer Solo (ACT)

Blue Cranes Observatories (Self-released)

Eddie Gomez & Cesarius Alvim Forever (Plus Loin)

Rudresh Mahanthappa & Bunky Green Apex (Pi)

Kellylee Evans Nina (Plus Loin)

Nels Cline DIRTY BABY (Cryptogramophone)

Mike Reed’s Loose Assembly Featuring Roscoe Mitchell Empathetic Parts (482 Music)

Scott Amendola Trio Lift (Sazi)

Dan Tepfer Five Pedals Deep (Sunnyside)

The Dymaxion Quartet Sympathetic Vibrations (Self-released)

Jason Stein’s Locksmith Isidore Three Kinds of Happiness (Not Two)

Jerome Sabbagh I Will Follow You (Bee Jazz)

Look for some excellent new projects for January and beyond from:

•    Trumpeter Taylor Haskins to release new album Recombination on Nineteen-Eight Records in February 2011
•    Debut album, Steampunk Serenade by Honey Ear Trio Featuring Erik Lawrence, Rene Hart & Allison Miller to be released in March 2011
•    & much much more

For more information, contact Matt Merewitz at Fully Altered Media/
matt@fullyaltered.com / 215-629-6155

]]> http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2010/11/22/fully-altered-media-2010-the-year-in-review-2/feed/ 0 http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2010/11/22/saxophonist-jerome-sabbagh-releases-trio-album-i-will-follow-you-bee-jazz-december-7-2010/ http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2010/11/22/saxophonist-jerome-sabbagh-releases-trio-album-i-will-follow-you-bee-jazz-december-7-2010/#comments Mon, 22 Nov 2010 18:16:03 +0000 maribel http://fullyaltered.com/fa/?p=1377 Featuring Longtime Guitar Collaborator Ben Monder
And French Drum Legend Daniel Humair

Photo Credit: Emra Islek

December 7, 2010 (NYC) – With I Will Follow You (Bee Jazz), French-born, Brooklyn-based tenor and soprano saxophonist Jerome Sabbagh brings his singular vision to the fertile ground of improvised music. Bolstered by the broad color palate of virtuosic guitarist and longtime collaborator Ben Monder, and the masterful rhythmic orchestration of legendary drummer Daniel Humair, Sabbagh’s lyricism and glowing sound serve as beacons in an improvised journey at once hauntingly beautiful and aggressively unhinged.

Taking advantage of the adventurous setting of a trio without a bass, the players’ seamless interaction makes it impossible to discern who’s leading from who’s following, as they shepherd the listener through an ever-changing tapestry of sound. “Without a bass player, there’s less of a desire to go into time,” says Sabbagh “and it opens up new textural possibilities.”

Despite the constant risk taking – or perhaps because of it, the music is always compelling. “There’s this cliché that improvised music is hard to listen to,” Sabbagh notes. “Maybe I’m an idealist, but I find the best improvised music has a directness of expression that immediately draws the listener in.”

I Will Follow You follows three critically acclaimed efforts as a leader. North (voted Best CD of 2005 by the readers of French monthly magazine Jazzman) and Pogo (four stars in DownBeat) both feature Sabbagh’s uncanny, song-like compositions and lush tone, in a quartet that includes Monder, bassist Joe Martin, and drummer Ted Poor. One Two Three (four stars in DownBeat), an album of standards played in the totemic sax-bass-drums instrumentation pioneered by Sonny Rollins, features bassist Ben Street and drummer Rodney Green. I Will Follow You represents a bold departure from the more controlled settings of these albums, yet retains the lyricism, clarity of purpose, and melodic flair that are the hallmarks of the saxophonist’s style.

The smooth ebb and flow between tracks has an appealing narrative continuity, opening with the controlled chaos of the title track, which builds in anticipation as Humair moves from brushes to sticks and Monder answers him, at the flick of a pedal switch, with ferocious distortion. Other highlights include “Comptine”, a moody free ballad with echoes of Bartok and “The Clown,” an exploration of a simple melody that becomes increasingly dense as Sabbagh and Monder improvise symbiotically in chromatic counterpoint. I Will Follow You concludes with a sumptuous rendition of “I Should Care,” the album’s only standard.

“I spent a lot of time arranging the sequence of the record, trying to make it into something that could be listened to from start to finish,” Sabbagh remarks. “The tracks are short, especially for an album that’s mostly improvised. Everything was wide open, but we all strove for concision, which was good, since dragging things out is an easy mistake to make in a free setting.”

Sabbagh composed the music with the sounds of Monder and Humair in mind. He set out to avoid prefabricated compositional patterns by writing with pen and paper only, as opposed to sitting at the piano. Coupled with the six improvised pieces, miniatures of unfettered freedom and keen interplay, the compositions endow the album with a self-contained quality, “like a little world unto itself,” he says.

Though this is the first time they play together, the three players mesh with a psychic energy that would be impressive even for a longtime working band, a testament to Sabbagh and Monder’s exceptional musical bond, and to the 72-year-old Humair’s peerless listening ability. A first-call drummer in Europe whose career trajectory took him from playing bebop with the likes of Bud Powell and Dexter Gordon to improvising with avant-garde explorers Tony Malaby and Ellery Eskelin, the protean Humair was an obvious choice for the shifting dynamic of this trio.

“Daniel is a master free player but came up swinging with the best, and he is also a painter. Form is important to him, as it is for Ben and I,” says Sabbagh. “Even when we are playing free, we are ever-conscious of creating a narrative arc in the moment.”

Sabbagh was exposed to music at a young age by an early teacher, pianist and composer Annick Chartreux, who first inspired him to transcend the confines of genre, a lasting influence. “She would play the overture to Mozart’s The Magic Flute, ‘So What’ from Kind of Blue, and some Jimi Hendrix, all in the same listening session.” Since moving to New York in 1995, Sabbagh has played with Guillermo Klein, Bill Stewart, Billy Drummond, and Victor Lewis, in addition to numerous others.

Asked about his musical values, he explains: “The keys for me are melody, sound, and interaction. Each player weaves a unique voice into the collective in a way that makes sense with the material, while staying true to their inner song. I think the process of making good music with people is similar whatever the project may be.”

I Will Follow You is yet another exciting example of Sabbagh’s musicianship, integrity and artistic vision.

RELEASE DATE: December 7, 2010

Press:

“Mr. Sabbagh played with untroubled self-assurance, and his songs had a sleek and sturdy appeal. Just as crucially, his colleagues strove for the unexpected, individually and as an ensemble. [...] Mr. Sabbagh avoided direct allusions to the saxophone totems. What he is working toward, simply and effectively, is a sincerely personal vocabulary.”
- Nate Chinen, The New York Times

“You don’t find many post-bop era musicians recording programs of all standards; fewer still choose to do them in a pianoless trio. French native Jerome Sabbagh relishes the challenge with One Two Three (Bee Jazz) and his nerve pays off. Avoiding any of the usual stylistic cliches, Sabbagh lets these compositions speak for themselves. He’s not afraid to simply play the melody, although when the spirit strikes him he can spin out inspired improvisations.”
- James Hale, DownBeat (4 stars)

“Memorable tunes with assured performances […] Pogo sounds contemporary and vital, and the band delivers one of the year’s strongest ensemble performance.”
- Peter Margasak, DownBeat (4 stars)

“A refreshing, cliché-free young tenor and soprano saxophonist. In this, his second album as a leader and one including only his compositions, he creates moods as well as lines and spaces.”
- Owen Cordle, JazzTimes

“An exceptionally assured and compelling debut as a leader [...] The music is consistently evocative, tuneful and substantial.”
- Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen

“Over the past few years of performing together, they’ve bonded, learned, and are continuing to define their sound.”
- Mark F. Turner, All About Jazz

“A startlingly good young jazz musician [...] Sabbagh chooses notes judiciously and swings firmly. And Sabbagh and North grow stronger and deeper with each listening.”
- Marc Meyers, All About Jazz

Links:

Jerome Sabbagh Official Website
Jerome Sabbagh Facebook Fan Page
Jerome Sabbagh on Myspace
Jerome Sabbagh on Twitter

For more information, please contact Matt Merewitz at Fully Altered Media /
(215) 629-6155 or matt@fullyaltered.com

November 30, 2010 (NYC) – There are many who embrace tradition, and jazz’s recent history is replete with acolytes of a certain era or style. Bass clarinetist Jason Stein is cut from a very different cloth however, and Three Kinds of Happiness, the new album by his trio, Locksmith Isidore, demonstrates just how deeply and completely he has assimilated the past—his own and that of the music–while maintaining his own voice, as a composer and as a performer.

The album’s title hails from Stein’s studies in philosophy at the University of Michigan, before he moved to Chicago in 2005, and even before he became a music major. “Simply put,” he explains, “It’s a Platonic concept concerning long-term relationships between happiness and sadness; for me, it’s about practicing, and specifically the idea that if I work through a problem thoroughly now, my future will be positively impacted in the process.”

Stein practices voraciously, and his dedication to his instrument is manifest in every note he plays on this, Locksmith Isidore’s third album and second with the current lineup of Stein, Jason Roebke on bass and Mike Pride on drums. Stein’s instrumental approach encompasses many shades of jazz via such influences as Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane and Archie Shepp. As with those masters, his playing can veer in a split second from consummate lyricism toward fire music with astonishing subtlety. “Coltrane’s later music was a formative influence on me, as he employed many of the great New Thing players,” muses Stein. “Compositionally though, Steve Lacy has been a model for me above most others.” Certainly his teachers have been formative influences, including David Murray, Charles Gayle and Donald Walden, but Lacy’s versatility is special to Stein. “I’ve tried to bring his diversity to Three Kinds of Happiness; I have a lot of respect for his ability to achieve such a broad stylistic scope while staying true to his own musical vision.”

The trio’s current emphasis on composition over improvisation constitutes a very conscious change in group aesthetics; it results from the release of Stein’s solo album on Leo Records and from the supporting tour, where improvisation guided much of the music. “I wanted to provide some more substance for us to explore,” Stein elucidates. Indeed, Stein’s ability to compose in both traditional forms and in freer structures is uncanny. From the sultry and wistful “Little Bird,” to the wicked whimsicality of “More Gone Door Gone,” he offers new wine in old bottles, expanding tradition while never leaving it. Even the intricate abstractions of compositions like “Arch and Shipp” embrace the middle ground between metered swing and the lack thereof in unpredictable ways. The trio sound is an integral component. “Michael, Jason and I have developed a real rapport,” states Stein, “and all nine of these compositions were written with their playing styles in mind.” The ensemble is Lacyesque in range, from sparseness to controlled vigor, and the track titles reflect Lacy’s love of words and humor.

For Stein, many of the titles also refer back to another tradition, one just as personal and just as deeply rooted as the music. They evoke his family history. The group’s name, which combines Stein’s paternal grandfather’s first name and occupation, is only one aspect of his family’s contribution to his musical development. “It was my father, who died when I was ten, that instilled in me my enthusiasm for music—not for any one type or style, but for music in general,” reminisces Stein. “I remember driving with him when I was five or six, and he was drumming on the steering wheel while listening to 1980s popular music. That made as much of an impression on me as did the music. I was overwhelmed by his love and enjoyment of music, and I wanted to understand and experience that.” Stein’s titles evoke that time and the shades of those now grown and gone. “Little Bird,” is for his little sister, and “Sammy’s Crayons,” is an homage to his half-brother’s childhood love of drawing.

In a fundamental way, these family circumstances and events have proven to be the catalyst for Stein’s current music. His move to Chicago precipitated many of the diverse working relationships he enjoys now, from his time in Ken Vandermark’s incendiary Bridge 61 to his minimal rock excursions with guitarist David Daniels. Three Kinds of Happiness is one important confluence of these seemingly disparate influences, and it places him and Locksmith Isidore in the pantheon of those who have the courage to go beyond mere mimicry and reach for the fluidity and flexibility of innovation.

RELEASE DATE: November 30, 2010

Press Quotes:

“[On Three Less Than Between] Stein’s strong tunes, which routinely dissolve the boundary between composition and improvisation, they do an excellent job switching from bristling swing to tangled outbursts of unmetered free jazz. It’s especially rewarding to listen to…”
- Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader

“As Stein subdivides and recombines his phrases, giving gleaming kisses to the reed, fluttering and finely twining closely-valued hues, it isn’t so much about putting an instrument through its paces as it is one artist’s affirmation of his relationship to the brush.”
- Clifford Allen, Signal Noise

“[Stein] plays pretty and raucous, taciturn and ebullient, bouncing confidently between a spectrum of emotions and dialects.”
- Derek Taylor, Master of a Small House

“..it is clear that Jason Stein has burst upon the scene as a player to be heard.”
- Grego Applegate Edwards, Gapplegate Music Review

Links:
Jason Stein Official Website
Jason Stein on Twitter

For more information, please contact
Matt Merewitz at Fully Altered Media
matt@fullyaltered.com
(215) 629-6155

CD RELEASE PERFORMANCE
@ Jazz Standard
October 26, 2010
(7:30 & 9:30pm)

Exclusive Album Preview & Online Press Kit:
Dan Tepfer Trio — Five Pedals Deep
(contact us for password)

Photo: Vincent Soyez

In his forthcoming trio release, Five Pedals Deep on Sunnyside Records, wildly inventive pianist Dan Tepfer plumbs the depths of conventional harmony, engaging pop modalities, minimalism, and jazz tradition with the audacity and irreverence of a deep-sea explorer. The 28-year-old, Brooklyn-based pianist has forged a richly layered collection of lyrical, immediately accessible compositions that upon repeated listenings reveal a nuanced scaffolding of atmospheric soundscapes beneath the surface.

Beyond the eclectic influence of such vanguard groups as indie rockers Dirty Projectors and electronica maven Aphex Twin, Tepfer drew much of his inspiration for the album from Thelonious Monk. “When you listen to Monk’s music, you can put it on for anybody, it doesn’t matter if they’re into jazz, and they love it,” says Tepfer. “The reason for that is that it’s got really strong melodies, there’s a real coherence to the sound, it grooves, and there’s a strong feeling of fun that comes through in the music. I think in many ways I’m trying to do a contemporary version of that.”

The album title originates from a bibulous evening Tepfer spent with a cousin. “We were at a party, and we’d drunk five bottles of wine, and she said something like, ‘You get pretty happy when you’re five bottles deep.’ What I heard was ‘five pedals deep,’ and I thought that was a beautiful way of expressing the feeling I often get when I’m playing, a feeling of being drunk on music,” says Tepfer. “A pedal is a long bass note that ties different harmonies together, and it’s one of my favorite musical devices.”

Tepfer features the deft interplay of two eminent musical contemporaries, bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Ted Poor, a departure from his longtime collaboration with bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Richie Barshay, his touring trio for the past six years.

“It’s like when you’ve been married for a long time,” says Tepfer. “You just know someone so well that even if you are completely improvising, you can still hear in your head how he’s going to react. With Thomas and Ted, there was none of that. I had no idea.”

The “sound of surprise” is evident throughout, the players never relying on reflexive facility as they navigate the varied terrains of Tepfer’s original compositions, mostly written over the past two years. This ranges from the minimalist ostinato of “All I Heard Was Nothing,” to the dense drum ’n bass-inspired rhythms of “Peal Repeal,” to the languorously dissonant beauty of “The Distance,” with four minute-long interludes serving as connective tissue. Tepfer’s visceral tie to the music cuts through in the wistfully nostalgic “Le Plat Pays,” Belgian troubadour Jacques Brel’s stirring homage to his homeland.

“Growing up in Paris, my first girlfriend was a huge Jacques Brel fan,” Tepfer says. “I just remember learning the lyrics and being so captivated by that tune in particular. There’s so much meaning contained in this appearance of simplicity.”

In his solo rendition of “Body and Soul,” Tepfer includes a subtle nod to mentor Lee Konitz, conspicuous by his absence, although Konitz’s influence is deeply felt. “Nobody plays ‘Body and Soul’ like Lee does,” Tepfer says. In 2009, he released a duo album with Konitz called Duos with Lee. “One thing that’s really come up for me in the last four years now, playing with Lee pretty regularly, is the integrity of melody. I feel sinful if a phrase doesn’t get resolved.”

Born to American parents, Tepfer spent his first 18 years in Paris, beginning classical piano studies at the Paris Conservatoire Paul Dukas at the age of six. He had improvisation in his blood, though, inherited from his grandfather, West Coast jazz pianist Chuck Ruff. With a fecund intellect that extends far beyond music theory, Tepfer went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in astrophysics from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, writing his undergraduate thesis on “Numerical Simulations of Galactic Superwinds.”

While in Scotland, he also played in the Edinburgh Jazz Festival and the International Fringe Festival, even conducting a production of Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Telphone. He later earned a master’s degree from the New England Conservatory in Boston, and has performed alongside legendary jazz musicians Steve Lacy, Paul Motian, Ralph Towner, and Billy Hart, among others.

Though at this point his passion for cosmology has taken a back seat to his musical career, it continues to inform his worldview. “I think the tone of my music reflects who I am, and who I am is somebody who is fascinated by the huge scale of the universe,” Tepfer says. “I love seeing myself on the earth from really far away, and I’m sure that comes out in the music somehow.”

Website:  http://www.dantepfer.com/
Twitter:  http://twitter.com/tepferdan

RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 26, 2010

For more information, please contact
Matt Merewitz at Fully Altered Media
matt@fullyaltered.com
(215) 629-6155