(Brooklyn/Amsterdam/San Diego)
Golden State
Harris Eisenstadt drums, composition Michael Moore clarinet Sara Schoenbeck bassoon Mark Dresser contrabass
Harris Eisenstadt has led critically acclaimed ensembles since 2003, and Golden State is his newest and most fully realized project as a composer/bandleader to date. Founded in 2012 in Southern California while Eisenstadt was in residence at the California Institute of the Arts teaching in Wadaa Leo Smith’s African American Improvisational Music department, Golden State at first brought together flutist Nicole Mitchell and bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck, two of the world’s leading figures on their respective instruments in contemporary composed / improvised music, and the iconoclastic contrabassist Mark Dresser. A fifth member, singular American expatriate, clarinetist Michael Moore, will join Golden State as a sub for Mitchell during Golden State’s summer 2014 Canadian and American festivals tour. The ensemble has performed extensively on both coasts of the U.S. despite its recent formation and geographicmichael_moore-2 challenges – Mitchell and Dresser live in California, Eisenstadt and Schoenbeck live in New York, and Moore lives in Amsterdam. Summer 2014 Canadian and American festivals are Golden State’s international festival premiere performances.
Golden State’s eponymous 2013 debut on the Songlines label garnered universal critical praise in North American and European publications and appeared on numerous best of 2013 lists. Dusty Groove praised its “unique sense of timing and spacing,” while Step Tempest called it “irresistible… music that breathes.” All About Jazz Italy cited Eisenstadt’s “bold structures and compositional voice,” while the New York City Jazz Record proclaimed “Eisenstadt’s sophisticated themes… suggest that his music has the potential to be as transformative as other non-idiomatic composers like Anthony Braxton.” Jazzrightnow.com calls Golden State “Eisenstadt’s most exploratory work to date,” while Emusic.com gave it Jazz Pick of the Week and cited Eisenstadt as “a prolific, distinctive stylist who operates with a consistently high level of quality control.” All About Jazz claims “Eisenstadt’s compositional prowess continues to yield significant rewards.”
(Chicago/Oslo)
Sun Rooms
Jason Adasiewicz vibraphone Mike Reed drums Ingebrigt Håker Flaten bass
The Chicago group Sun Rooms formed in 2008 with Nate McBride playing bass, first experimenting as a free improvising trio and later focused attention on arranging tunes that Adasiewicz wrote during his wife’s first pregnancy in the summer of 2009.
Delmark Records released the band’s records Sun Rooms in 2010 and Spacer in 2011 to critical acclaim including: The New York Times Ben Ratliff’s Top 10 Pop and Jazz Records of 2010, The Village Voice Top 50 Jazz Records of 2010, The Chicago Tribune Howard Reich’s Top 10 Jazz Records of 2010, The Chicago Reader Peter Margasak’s Top Albums of 2010, Dusted Magazine Derek Taylor’s Top Jazz Records of 2010, the Chicago Tribune as a Top 10 Jazz Record of 2011.
Ingebrigt joined Sun Rooms in the summer of 2013, playing his first show with Jason and Mike in Brazil and later toured Italy and Beligum, which culminated in a recording at a studio in Amsterdam, where the trio collectively arranged a batch of new tunes that Adasiewicz wrote while recovering from spinal surgery early in the year. From The Region will be released on Delmark in August of 2014.
Vibraphonist, drummer and composer Jason Adasiewicz is an integral member of Chicago’s jazz and improvised music scene, bringing his aggressive yet lyrical style to over 10 working groups including Mike Reed’s Loose Assembly, Peter Brötzmann/Jason Adasiewicz Duo, Nicole Mitchell’s Ice Crystals, Rob Mazurek’s Starlicker, Josh Berman and His Gang, Ingebrigt Häker Flaten Chicago Sextet, James Falzone’s Klang and Ken Vandermark’s Topology and Audio One. Adasiewicz performs frequently in Europe and is a member of groups lead by Peter Brotzmann, Eric Boeren and Mats Gustafsson. Adasiewicz won the 2011 Downbeat Annual Critic’s Poll in the Rising Star Vibes category. His quintet Rolldown, with Josh Berman, Aram Shelton, Jason Roebke, and Frank Rosaly, formed in 2004 and have released two records, Rolldown (482 Music, 2008) and Varmint (Cuneiform Records, 2009). Starlicker (with Rob Mazurek and John Herndon) Double Demon (Delmark 2011) was named by the New York Times as a Top 10 Pop and Jazz Record of 2011 and the Los Angles Times as a Top 10 Jazz Record of 2011.
Drummer Mike Reed is the rhythmic catalyst in a number of Chicago’s most arresting ensembles, including the David Boykin Expanse, Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra, My Silence, and duos with Jeff Parker and Mars Williams. Reed has also shared the stage with many of his AACM mentors such as Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Nicole Mitchell and the late Fred Anderson. As a bandleader, he’s best known for Mike Reed’s People, Places & Things, a capaciously inventive group devoted to unearthing and reinterpreting Chicago’s forgotten hard bop anthems. Over the past decade, Reed has built a democratic musical empire as a player, bandleader, director of the Pitchfork Music Festival, and founder of the Emerging Improvisers Organization, a nonprofit group that sponsors weekly jazz and improvised music performances.
Norwegian bassist and composer Ingebrigt Håker Flaten is also a musician whose experience is both geographical and aesthetic. While the fertile Scandinavian new jazz scene offered a vast amount of opportunities to work in different bands with musicians whose concepts are as individual as the grains in a reed, Flaten has found home and on-the-bandstand education in places as far flung as Chicago and his current residence Austin, Texas. A muscular player whose tone and attack run the gamut from Paul Chambers to Buschi Niebergall, his sense of both openness and control serves ensembles as diverse as The Thing, Free Fall, Atomic, Scorch Trio and the Kornstad/Håker Flaten Duo. In addition to his own Chicago Sextet and Austin-centric Young Mothers, Flaten has also recorded and performed with Frode Gjerstad, Dave Rempis, Bobby Bradford, the AALY Trio, Ken Vandermark, Stephen Gauci, Tony Malaby, Daniel Levin, Dennis Gonzalez and numerous others. Flaten studied at the Conservatory in Trondheim (1992-1995), turning professional shortly afterward, yet his hunger to play in new situations with new musicians – schooled or amateur, frequently recorded or just starting out – puts him in a rare class, that of a truly broad-minded artist. That mettle has served him well, living and developing the music under his own steam and drawing from influences as diverse as Derek Bailey, George Russell, Chris McGregor, filmmakers Ingmar Bergman, contemporary pop melody and gritty punk music as well as everyday sights and sounds.
“… but it is arguably with Sun Rooms, his trio with bassist Nate McBride and drummer Mike Reed, that Adasiewicz offers the most direct demonstration of his expansive and highly personal instrumental vision.”
“Nobody here grandstands, fusses over details, or wastes time. Solos take their place in an arrangement and then disappear. There’s no problem of scale or mismatch of affect to material. It’s a modest and affecting band, in control of its mood.”
“Adasiewicz and colleagues showed how three players can create vast waves of sound while keeping the music utterly transparent and luminous.”
Hamilon Artists Inc.
Tickets $12-23, passes $60 plus service charges
Available at Dr. Disc, Hammer City Records, Picks & Sticks and online at brownpapertickets
Contact: cem [at] zulapresents [dot] org
