The example that Allison Miller sets on BOOM TIC BOOM (sic) is that of a powerhouse drummer with an unerring sense of swing and a moving melodicism; an inventive composer with a gift for memorable tunes that leave ample space for bright improvisations; and a bandleader who ably marries these pieces with the right collaborators to breathe life into them. Here, those collaborators are pianist/composer Myra Melford; longtime collaborator Todd Sickafoose on bass; and guest violinist Jenny Scheinman.

Raised in the Washington D.C. area, Miller began playing the drums at the age of ten and was featured in Down Beat magazine’s “Up and Coming” section in 1991. Five years later, after graduating from West Virginia University she moved to New York City to pursue what has became a fruitful career as a freelance drummer. Miller’s talents have landed her gigs in the mainstream music world, with artists like Natalie Merchant, Ani DiFranco, and most recently, folk singer Brandi Carlile; and her jazz skills have been embraced by everyone from saxophonist Marty Ehrlich to organ legend Dr. Lonnie Smith, with a wide range of leaders in between, including Erik Friedlander, Mark Helias, Steven Bernstein, Ray Drummond, Peter Bernstein, Sheila Jordan, George Garzone, Mike Stern, Rachel Z, Kevin Mahogany, Bruce Barth, Mark Soskin, andHarvie S.Sunday,

March 21st – Washington, DC
Bossa
8pm
2463 18th Street Northwest
Washington, DC 20009-2003
(202) 667-0088
www.bossaproject.com

Monday, March 22nd – Bryn Mawr, PA
Q&A at Bryn Mawr College
7pm-10pm
Goodhart Music Room (in Goodhart Hall).
101 N. Merion Ave
Bryn Mawr, PA 19010

Tuesday, March 23rd – Pittsburgh, PA
Club Cafe
7pm doors;  7:30pm – Jeff Berman’s EARLY WARNING; 8:30 pm BOOM TIC BOOM ($8 in advance, $10 at door)
56 South 12th Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15203
(412) 431-4950
www.clubcafelive.com

Wednesday, March 24th – Morgantown, WV
West Virginia University – College of Creative Arts – Creative Arts Center (CAC)
Large Rehearsal Room 200B
5pm-7pm
Morgantown, WV 26506-6111

Thursday, March 25th – New York, NY
Cornelia St. Cafe
2 shows: 8:30pm and 10pm ($10 – call for reservations)
29 Cornelia St
Manhattan, New York, NY 10014
(212) 989-9319
www.corneliastreetcafe.com

Friday, March 26th – Philadelphia, PA
Ars Nova presents Allison Miller’s BOOM TIC BOOM
Philadelphia Arts Alliance
8pm ($12)
251 S. 18th Street
www.arsnovaworkshop.org

Saturday, March 27th – Baltimore, MD
An Die Musik
2 shows: 8pm and 9:30pm ($20 – call for tickets)
409 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21201-4405
(410) 385-2638
www.andiemusiklive.com

Steve Colson (photo: Sharon Sullivan Rubin)

Tuesday 2/2 – Steve Colson Trio’s The Untarnished Dream is Released + Saturday 2/6 – Release Party at Symphony Space

This Saturday night, Feb. 6, the Steve Colson Trio featuring Andrew Cyrille on drums and Reggie Workman on bass + Iqua Colson on vocals will perform at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia theatre at Symphony Space in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  This is the Colson’s first release since 2004 and Steve’s 5th album as a leader or co-leader.  They previously led a group in the late 70s and early 1980s called The Colson Unity Troupe. See a beautiful feature on the Colsons in their hometown paper, The Montclair Times, entitled “The Colsons: life partners who make beautiful music together”. Be on the lookout for an article on Steve in the May issue of Down Beat Magazine. Time Out New York writes:

“Pianist Steve Colson is a product of Chicago’s AACM, the organization that birthed such staunchly experimental composers as Anthony Braxton and Henry Threadgill. Colson’s music sounds straightforward by contrast: There’s probing free jazz to be found on his latest disc, The Untarnished Dream, but also plenty of refined, hard-swinging postbop. Joining the pianist here is the sterling cast heard on the album—bassist Reggie Workman, drummer Andrew Cyrille and vocalist Iqua Colson.”

Details:
Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space

2537 Broadway (at 95th St)
Upper West Side | Map

212-864-5400

Subway: 1, 2, 3 to 96th St  | Directions

http://www.symphonyspace.org

Prices
Tickets: advance $25, day of show $30, students $20

Jason Lindner's Now vs. Now (photo: John Rogers)

Tuesday 2/2 9PM – ROSE LIVE MUSIC’s 4 Year Anniversary w/ Jason Lindner’s Now vs Now & All-star Jam Session

It’s Rose Live Music’s 4 Year Anniversary and to help us celebrate, Jason Lindner’s Now vs Now will host an all-star jam session featuring a cast of heavyweights who have performed at Rose in years past. No cover.

Details:

Rose Live Music

345 Grand St (between Havemeyer St and Marcy Ave)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn | Map

718-599-0069

Subway: L to Lorimer St, G to Metropolitan Ave  | Directions

http://www.liveatrose.com

Tickets: FREE

]]> http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2010/02/02/rose-live-musics-4th-anniversary-cd-release-week-for-steve-colson-trios-the-untarnished-dream/feed/ 0 http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2009/06/13/two-amazing-shows-in-new-york-next-friday/ http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2009/06/13/two-amazing-shows-in-new-york-next-friday/#comments Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:59:51 +0000 Matt http://fullyaltered.com/fa/?p=114

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.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.