Artist News

We are thrilled by the addition of saxophonist Yosvany Terry to our artist roster and congratulate Don Byron for receiving the Doris Duke Artist Award.


YOSVANY TERRY

A resident of New York City, Terry is known for melding the traditional sounds of his native Cuba with fiery post-bop, innovative technique, and sophisticated harmonies. His brilliant new album, Today's Opinion (Criss Cross), quickly attracted the attention of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Jazzwise magazine.

Terry will be touring with the stellar quintet featured on the new recording, comprised of his brother Yunior Terry on bass, Michael Rodriguez on trumpet, pianist Osmany Paredes, and drummer Obed Calvaire.


DON BYRON

Love, Peace, and Soul, the Don Byron New Gospel Quintet's brand new album, dedicated to the music of gospel icons Thomas A. Dorsey and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, was featured in the Wall Street Journal and praised by the Chicago Tribune as an early contender for Record of the Year. Also the subject of the Jazz Times magazine's May cover story, the New Gospel Quintet will tour Europe from May 5-12 and remains available for US concerts throughout 2012. A West Coast fall tour is in the works, including a performance at the San Francisco Jazz Festival on October 6.

Don Byron's music from several earlier recordings for Nonesuch and Blue Note Records
(along with music by Tin Hat Trio – more below) plays a major role in the documentary film Joe Papp in Five Actsby director/producer Tracie Holder, to be premiered April 29 at New York's Tribeca Film Festival. A co-production with PBS/American Masters, the film is a portrait of New York's indomitable, street-wise champion of the arts who introduced interracial casting to the American stage and brought us free Shakespeare in the Park, Hair, and A Chorus Line.

Don Byron's String Quartet No. 2, Four Thoughts on Marvin Gaye, opens the new album by the adventurous string quartet ETHEL, entitled Heavy, to be released on Innova Records April 24. Listen here


DAFNIS PRIETO

Fresh off an extensive tour with Spanish pianist Chano Dominguez's acclaimed "Flamenco Sketches" project, Dafnis Prieto (Yosvany Terry's friend and frequent bandmate since their teens) has not had time to rest since receiving a 2011 MacArthur Fellowship last fall. In January, on the heels of a European tour, his Proverb Trio with vocalist Kokayi and keyboardist Jason Lindner went into the studio to record its debut album. Entirely improvised, the interactions of Prieto's explosive drumming, Kokayi's rapid-fire rapping and soulful singing, and Lindner's daring sound explorations yield exhilarating results. Proverb Trio's music is full of joy, new sounds, and deep grooves. The record's summer release on Prieto's label, Dafnison Music, will be celebrated at New York's Jazz Standard on August 14-15, following the performance of the Dafnis Prieto Sextet at the Newport Jazz Festival on August 4. Dafnis's Newport debut will include the premiere of a new original composition commissioned by the festival.


PARKINGTON SISTERS

The Parkington Sisters album, Till Voices Wake Us, was proclaimed an essential acoustic album of 2011 by Acoustic Guitar Magazine. In March they were featured in the Boston Globe, played a sold out show at Club Passim in Cambridge and opened for the Dropkick Murphys at the sold out Tsongas Arena in Lowell. The sisters are currently writing new songs for their next album to be recorded this summer at Studio G in Brooklyn, NY, again with producer Joel Hamilton (Elvis Costello, Tom Waits) . They plan to tour throughout the year, including joining the Dispatch "Circle around the Sun Tour" in the Northeast this October, and a string of West Coast dates in November.


RON MILES

Born out of a long collaborative history, the great chemistry of Denver-based trumpeter Ron Miles and guitarist Bill Frisell is amply documented on a number of Frisell recordings and their sublime, but criminally neglected duet album Heaven from 2002. Joined by master drummer Brian Blade, they teamed up again in 2010 and 2011 under Ron's leadership for a few select concerts in Denver and Boulder, and cut a record I had the privilege and honor to produce. Entitled Quiver, the album is slated for an October 2012 release on Enja Records and features some of the most inspired music these three players have made in recent years. Primarily featuring Miles's own tunes, the recording also includes interpretations of Duke Ellington and Henry Mancini compositions, as well as a wonderful song first recorded by Bix Beiderbecke and Bing Crosby in 1929, "There Ain't No Sweet Man That's Worth the Salt of My Tears."

Following a short tour in late April with Bill Frisell's "Great Flood" project, Ron Miles will be the soloist in a performance of Juan Rodrigo's "Concierto de Aranjuez" from the classic Miles Davis-Gil Evans album Sketches of Spain, at the Ludwigburger Schlossfestspiele in Germany (May 12).


TIN HAT

The acclaimed chamber jazz ensemble that recently enchanted concert audiences in San Francisco, New York, and Philadelphia is now looking forward to the release of what is possibly the most focused record of their career. "The Rain Is a Handsome Animal," available in August on New Amsterdam Records, is at once a new chapter for Tin Hat and a distillation of the qualities that have entranced the band's fans for fifteen years. At its heart are two unique voices: the poetry of E.E. Cummings and the singing of Tin Hat's violinist Carla Kihlstedt.

Tin Hat guitarist Mark Orton's profile as a film composer also continues to rise. He has scored or contributed music to two new documentaries which will both premiere at this month's Tribeca Film Festival in New York: The Revisionaries by director Scott Thurman (about the interplay of religion and politics in Texas and its influence on the state's school curriculums), and Joe Papp in Five Acts by director/producer Tracie Holder (see Don Byron above). Orton has also been commissioned by the National Park and Forest Service to score films about Death Valley National Park and Tongass National Forest. Other recent films Orton has provided music for are Buck, the acclaimed documentary about a horse trainer, Flat Daddy (about the families of Iraq War soldiers), and 360, a new film by director Fernando Mereilles (City of God, The Constant Gardener).

Tin Hat clarinetist and composer Ben Goldberg recently premiered his magnum opus "The Orphic Machine" at the Jewish Music Festival in Berkeley. Goldberg says: "Orphic Machine is a song cycle commissioned by Chamber Music America's New Jazz Works. The lyrics are taken from an amazing book on speculative poetics by Allen Grossman called Summa Lyrica. The music is the most ambitious of my career; it features Carla Kihlstedt on vocals and a nine piece group including Kenny Wollesen, Ron Miles, Greg Cohen, Myra Melford, and Ches Smith."

Please view videos from the March 4 premiere:
"Care"
"The Present"

Ben Goldber, Tin Hat, and Tin Hat violinist and singer Carla Kihlstedt are featured in this recent San Francisco Chronicle article.

Another (former) member and co-founder of the original Tin Hat Trio, pianist/accordionist Rob Burger is also a fledgling and highly talented film composer. His music can be heard in Bully, the much talked about documentary currently playing in theaters. Called "an astonishing musician with a profound compositional sense of how to do just the right thing at the right time" by John Zorn, Rob has become a much sought after musician who has lent his playing and arranging skills to artists as diverse as Leonard Cohen, Marianne Faithfull, Rufus Wainwright, Laurie Anderson, Iron & Wine, Lucinda Williams, and many others.


TRIO M

Featuring pianist Myra Melford, bassist Mark Dresser, and drummer Matt Wilson, TRIO M displays its telepathic interplay on a new album, The Guest House, on Enja Records.

All three musicians contributed compositions, including pieces inspired by such diverse muses as the poetry of Rumi and Al-Jawahiri, the prose of Yvonne Vera, the comedy of Don Knotts and the music of Albert Ayler. Also included are selections written for the band's 2010 collaboration with chef Paul Canales and a benefit concert for The Relay For Life.

"They've always been tight," explains DownBeat reviewer Jim Macnie, "but this disc finds them bringing the interaction to a superb level." The New York Times' Nate Chinen adds, "The Guest House, the group's excellent second album, doesn't feel tethered to any era or dialect. With compositions by all three members, it's a crisp, engaging ride, variously roiling or reflective, with high-wire interplay at almost every turn."

AllAboutJazz.com's Troy Collins writes, "What makes this trio of equals unique is its ability to integrate disparate forms with a singularly organic sensibility. Liberally informed by past traditions and bolstered by spirited interplay, Melford, Dresser and Wilson's thrillingly unpredictable performances update the venerable piano trio tradition with bold invention."


BRIAN CARPENTER'S GHOST TRAIN ORCHESTRA

The Ghost Train Orchestra is in the early stages of recording their follow-up to last year's acclaimed Hothouse Stomp. Their forthcoming album features wild new arrangements of adventurous "chamber jazz" from the mid-to-late 1930s by Alec Wilder, John Kirby, Reginald Foresythe, and Raymond Scott. Their debut album Hothouse Stomp, featuring trumpeter Brian Carpenter's arrangements of some of the best Chicago and Harlem jazz of the late 1920s, appeared on several top ten lists for 2011, including NPR, Boston Phoenix, All About Jazz NY, The Sound Room, and JazzTimes.

Founder and trumpeter/arranger Brian Carpenter will be at the Berkeley Repertory Theater this summer to work on a new musical loosely based on Herbert Asbury's California gold rush and crime saga "The Barbary Coast". The piece is part of a new program spawned by Berkeley Repertory Theater called The Ground Floor, detailed in this New York Times article. Carpenter also recently hosted a 4-hour radio retrospective on his friend and mentor Sam Rivers featuring Dave Holland, Barry Altschul, Jason Moran, Steve Coleman, and many other special guests. The show aired on March 2nd on WZBC-FM and is now available as a podcast here.

Carpenter is also wrapping up work on the debut album by songwriting vehicle Brian Carpenter & The Confessions, mixed by Craig Schumacher (Neko Case, Calexico, Devotchka).