Out October 11 on Cryptogramophone Records, and

Featuring Nels Cline, Alex Cline, John Fumo, David Witham, and Joel Hamilton.

Gauthier & Cryptogramophone curate The Stone (NYC) – November 1-13

Open Source is the sixth recording by violinist / composer / producer Jeff Gauthier. His ensemble of almost 20 years, The Jeff Gauthier Goatette,features guitarist Nels Cline, his twin brother Alex Cline on drums and percussion, trumpeter John Fumo, David Witham on piano and keyboards, andJoel Hamilton on bass. Gauthier’s music draws from as many influences as the title Open Sourcesuggests. From jazz to classical, to fusion to “new” and improvised music, Gauthier’s compositions are informed by the many great artists with whom he has worked.

As a violinist Gauthier has performed and recorded with artists like Yusef Lateef, Adam Rudolph, Nels Cline, Alex Cline, Mark Dresser, Vinny Golia, and many others.  As a producer or executive producer, he has worked with such luminaries as Alan Broadbent, Alex Cline, Mark Dresser, Peter Erskine, Bennie Maupin, Myra Melford, Jimmy Rowles, Stacy Rowles, Alan Pasqua, Don Preston, Jenny Scheinman, Scott Amendola, Ben Goldberg, and guitarist Nels Cline for whom he has produced 6 recordings.  Gauthier is also founder of Cryptogramophone Records, and co-producer of the Angel City Jazz festival in Los Angeles.  Gauthier will be curating The Stone in New York City the first two weeks in November, 2011.  The Goatette will perform Saturday, November 5th.

Regarding the title Open Source, Gauthier says, “This is not music for others to tinker around with asOpen Source might imply. It’s music drawn from an open source of creativity and style, as interpreted by musicians who have the skills to interact with each other in the moment.  Over time, this interaction can develop into a musical language that grows and evolves.  In the case of the Goatette, this language has even developed a new dialect drawn from the gradual introduction of electronics into our musical vocabulary.  All I have to do is say ‘Spaceprov’ and everyone knows what I want.”

The Goatette will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2012, but the origins of the group go back even farther, to the band Quartet Music led collectively by Gauthier, the Cline brothers, and bassist Eric von Essen.  Formed in 1979, Quartet Music recorded 4 albums (all currently out of print) and toured the west coast over 12 years. Gauthier continues, “I’ve been playing music with Nels and Alex since we were in our early 20s.  They have a musical connection that can only come from a lifetime of creating music together, aided perhaps by sharing the same DNA as twins. Joel Hamilton and David Witham have played in my band for 18 and 20 years respectively. John Fumo and I discovered we had a special musical connection while working in Steuart Liebig’s band Quartetto Stig for 5 or 6 years, as well as in Alex Cline’s “Band of the Moment.”

As a composer and improviser Gauthier often uses counterpoint to integrate the newest voice (trumpet) into the Goatette.  Regarding his influences as a composer, Gauthier says, “Having grown up as a violinist, the music of J.S. Bach is the bedrock of my being. I also studied counterpoint and composition with teachers like Harold Budd, who has great skills as a composer and teacher. Harmonically, I’ve been influenced by the music of Bill Evans, Igor Stravinsky, Ralph Towner, Olivier Messiaen, and John Coltrane, to mention only a few.  And it’s impossible not to mention the influence of Eric von Essen, who was perhaps my greatest musical teacher.”

Open Source is a mature work by an eclectic and experienced musician who values human interaction in music making above all else.  Having forged careers as producer and presenter to compliment his performing life, Gauthier has been able to work with some of the most creative musicians on the planet, thus paving the way for his own musical growth and renewal. With the support of these longstanding musical relationships, the open source of creativity continues to flow.

Friday, June 19 – 8pm (doors 7:30)
VIJAY IYER TRIO performing at Harlem’s Temple M
Vijay Iyer, piano
Stephan Crump, bass
Marcus Gilmore, drums

TEMPLE M
555 West 141st Street (East of Broadway)
New York, NY 10031
Subways: 1 train to 137 & Broadway (City College) or A/B/C/D to 145 & St-Nicholas

Vijay Iyer has been fortunate to stay fairly active as the leader of his working trio this year – various US venues and festivals, a European tour, and a studio recording, titled Historicity, due out this October on the German label ACT Records, with distribution in the US by Allegro.

Vijay will share his latest findings with New York audiences, playing at a vibrant new uptown spot called Temple M.

Check out a full-length trio concert Vijay’s Trio did in Amsterdam last February, recorded for Dutch radio. (Requires appropriate media player, as well as your patience through a brief Dutch-language preamble and interlude. 2 sets!)

Also check out this nice feature article in this Friday’s New York Times about trio drummer Marcus Gilmore (grandson of Roy Haynes), along with Vijay’s Fieldwork colleague and Fully Altered client Tyshawn Sorey, Dan Weiss, Kendrick Scott and Justin Faulkner, who according to Times critic Ben Ratliff, are all “finding new ways to look at the drum set, and at jazz itself.”

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ALSO Friday, June 19 – 9:00 PM
EAST COAST DEBUT PERFORMANCE
Amir ElSaffar/Hafez Modirzadeh Quartet – Expansions on the Maqam and Dastgah

Amir ElSaffar – trumpet
Hafez Modirzadeh – saxophone
Mark Dresser – double bass
Alex Cline – drums

Alwan for the Arts
16 Beaver Street (between Broad and Broadway), 4th floor
New York, NY 10004
cover: $15
phone: (646) 732-3261
website: http://www.alwanforthearts.org/event/363

A Destined Collaboration: Amir ElSaffar and Hafez Modirzadeh, each of mixed heritage (Iraqi American and Iranian American, respectively) whose musical careers are dedicated to expressing their ancestral traditions within a highly personalized and creative jazz language, have now teamed together to articulate a unprecedented form of music with serious forward-looking potential. ElSaffar, originally from Chicago, has spent years traveling abroad seeking out masters who could impart to him the Iraqi maqam tradition, and composed the highly acclaimed Two Rivers suite (released in 2007 on Pi Recordings), his first major work joining maqam with contemporary improvised music. Hafez, based in the San Francisco Bay area and fifteen years Amir’s senior, had spent years under the guidance of Iranian master musician, Mahmoud Zoufounoun, learning the Iranian counterpart to maqam, known as dastgah. By 1992, Hafez had developed his own “chromodal” approach to intercultural musical practice, which allows for the co-existence of multiple traditions within one cohesive system, and has since composed a large body of uncompromisingly original work that adapts Persian tuning into a variety of musical contexts.

ElSaffar and Modirzadeh were aware of each other for a number of years, thanks to mutual friends such as Vijay Iyer and Rudresh Mahanthappa, who repeatedly talked to each about the other. Amir was first exposed to Hafez’s music when Iyer played him In Chromodal Discourse (first released in 1993 on Asian Improv Records) in 2001, and knew immediately that Hafez was someone he would like to make music with. Finally, in late 2008, Fred Ho brought Hafez and Amir together for his own big band recording session in New York, and the chemistry was immediate. Fortunately, Amir had a performance the following evening at the Jazz Gallery, and Hafez was able to join his quartet for the engagement.

This left ElSaffar with the determination to travel to the West Coast a few months later to develop concepts with Modirzadeh, where intense practice together over a 10-day period led to a collaboration on four performances, the most notable of which was at the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles. There, joined by world-renowned bassist Mark Dresser and master drummer, Alex Cline, all four musicians were left enthused and anxious for another chance to play together. The opportunity has come, sooner than expected, as Dresser and Cline will be joining ElSaffar and Modirzadeh for a performance at Alwan for the Arts, a Middle Eastern Cultural Center located in Manhattan’s financial district on June 19th.

The group will be performing new and original material that weaves through the tonal spectra of Iraqi maqam, Persian dastgah, and contemporary jazz, exploring concepts of sound generated by the timeless modes of expression that seek to expand human spirit.

For more information, please call or email us at 215-921-4447 or info [at] fullyaltered.com.