Thursday, March 21, 2013

Hello there,

I have several exciting events to share with you, so I'll jump right to it.

Next month I have two gigs in Brooklyn with my trio with Chris Tordini and Dan Weiss. One is at Korzo on April 9 at 9:30 pm - my brilliant friend Chris Speed will join us on tenor and clarinet for two songs that evening.  Then on April 13 at Shapeshifter the trio will play the 2nd set of a double bill with the amazing guitarist Miles Okazaki's band. Miles's band will play at 8 pm and we will play immediately afterwards, and Miles will join us for a couple songs.

Starting today on NPR's JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater you can listen to a set by Chris Lightcap's band Bigmouth in which I took part. This was from our tour last fall - in addition to Chris and myself, the band consists of Andrew Bishop and Tony Malaby on tenor and Ches Smith on drums. This tour was a blast and I'm thrilled with how this recording came out.

http://www.npr.org/event/music/174937757/chris-lightcaps-lost-and-found-new-york-on-jazzset?sc=tw&cc=share

Tomorrow evening, the 22nd, I'm taking part in a tribute to Paul Motian at Symphony Space in NYC. I'll be playing 'Psalm' in duo with Tim Berne on the 2nd half of the concert. The list of musicians performing on the concert is amazing: Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano, Ravi Coltrane, Joey Baron, The Bad Plus, Masabumi Kikuchi, Geri Allen, Marilyn Crispell, Matt Wilson, Greg Osby....and many more...

http://www.symphonyspace.org/event/7591-a-tribute-to-paul-motian

The next night, I'll be playing and improvising on the Bach chorale "Es ist genug" with Dave Douglas at an even at the Greene Space in SoHo called Bach Lounge, presented by WQXR.

http://www.thegreenespace.org/events/thegreenespace/2013/mar/23/wqxr-presents-bach-lounge/?utm_source=sharedUrl&utm_media=metatag&utm_campaign=sharedUrl

Speaking of Dave Douglas - from March 28 to 31 I'll be playing with his Quintet at the Jazz Standard in NYC. This will coincide with  Dave's 50th birthday celebration AND the release of a new CD by the group called Time Travel. The band on this album is the same as the previous album, sans vocals - Jon Irabagon, Linda Oh, and Rudy Royston. The album is out April 9 - but if you pre-order a hard copy at the link below you will receive the album immediately in digital form as well.

http://music.davedouglas.com/album/time-travel

Immediately following the Jazz Standard run I will head to the midwest to play with the John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble. Details at this link:

http://johnhollenbeck.com/Live/

To round out April I'll be playing 3 dates with my friend Anna Webber's Percussive Mechanics septet in NYC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. This will be a fun band and the music is crazy - joining me and Anna will be Oscar Noriega, Patty Franceschy, Adam Hopkins, Kate Pittman, and Devin Gray. Dates here:

http://www.annakristinwebber.com/dates.html

Finally - to my surprise I was voted as the first runner-up in the Best New Artist category in the JazzTimes 2012 Expanded Critics Poll. The full poll is here:

http://jazztimes.com/articles/76240-the-2012-expanded-critics-poll

That should do it for this time around. Thanks so much for reading!

-m