(Montreal)
Craig Pedersen Quartet
Craig Pedersen trumpet
From Ottawa and Montreal, a fiery, inspired avant-jazz quartet made up of younger mavericks and led by Craig Pedersen trumpet, with Linsey Wellman saxophones, Joel Kerr bass and Eric Thibodeau drums. They’re on a tour of Ontario and Quebec with their new album Ghosts.
Craig Pedersen is a trumpet player, composer and educator based out of Montréal. An active freelance musician specializing in jazz and free music, he also performs commercial, classical and klezmer music. He actively leads his own bands, the Craig Pedersen Quartet and the It’s A Free Country duo with Joel Kerr.
Since 2011, Craig has released eight albums, ranging between composed material to improvisation, through jazz, free music, country, and klezmer, in a variety of ensembles. Recent highlights of this work have included collaborations and/or performances with Joe Morris, Jean Derome, Joane Hetu, Lori Freedman, Nicolas Caloia, Ian Birse and Laura Kavanaugh (Instant Places), and Mark Molnar (Kingdom Shore), as well as recording on the soundtrack for Robert Lepage’s Needles and Opium, and performances at L’Off Festival du Jazz and FONT Canada. His method book exploring extended techniques for the trumpet, Trumpet Sound Effects, was published by Berklee Press and HalLeonard in November of 2014.
linseywellman.com
“An astringent tea for the ears.”
“It’s consistently playful, imaginative work that’s somehow true to both the emotional directness of country music and the oblique abstraction of current improvisation, just not at the same time.”
“I hear in it something Robert Wyatt-ish”
“…reminds this listener of the halcyon days of the 1970s when the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Julius Hemphill and Henry Threadgill first entered my consciousness. ”
