Matt Mitchell - mattmitchell.us - a musical microcosm

Hello friends and family.

I have some news to share. Today marks the worldwide release on ECM records of Tim Berne's Snakeoil, featuring Oscar Noriega - clarinet and bass clarinet, myself on piano, and Ches Smith playing drums, congas, timpani, gongs, and other percussion. In addition to playing piano I co-composed the tune "Yield" with Tim. This band is the exact same band that used to be called Los Totopos.

We are soon going to tour the US and Europe. You can find dates here:

http://www.screwgunrecords.com/page_b.php?pageid=concerts

Also at the Screwgun site, you can hear excerpts from the record, purchase the record, and also purchase scores of the tunes we play on the record:

http://www.screwgunrecords.com/records.php?pageid=records&record=snakeoil

http://www.screwgunrecords.com/scores.php?pageid=scores

The record has also been reviewed many times already. Here are several of the reviews:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/arts/music/a-new-album-from-paul-mccartney.html [below the McCartney review]


http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/feb/02/tim-berne-snakeoil-review


http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=41326

http://www1.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=41305


http://freejazz-stef.blogspot.com/2012/02/tim-berne-snake-oil-ecm-2012.html

http://londonjazz.blogspot.com/2012/02/cd-review-tim-berne-snakeoil.html


http://www.allmusic.com/album/snakeoil-r2352112/review


http://www.criticaljazz.com/2012/02/tim-berne-snakeoil-ecm-2012.html

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/theticket/2012/0203/1224311139141.html

http://www.seaoftranquility.org/reviews.php?op=showcontent&id=12252

Between the two Snakeoil tours, on March 7, I will be playing at Cornelia St Cafe. I'll be playing two sets - one at 8:30 with my duo with Ches Smith, and one at 10 with Fourth Floor, my duo with Dan Weiss. I've wanted to play double shows with these two duos for a while now so I'm excited to finally do the first one.

http://www.corneliastreetcafe.com/Performances.asp?sdate=3/7/2012&from_cal=0

That covers most of my activity for the next couple months. This past month I played several concerts with Quinsin Nachoff's new group Flux, which also includes Dave Binney and Kenny Wolleson. This group recorded this past weekend as well.

Another exciting thing is that Fourth Floor just recorded our first album a couple weeks ago. We played 3 tunes by each of us. We're really excited with how it turned out.

That should do it! Thanks for reading, and please let me know if you'd like to be removed from this list.

best wishes,

-m