4th Annual "New Languages" Festival program

(Darcy James Argue's Secret Society)

New Languages Announces the 4th Annual Festival Program
http://www.newlanguages.org/

The Living Theatre
21 Clinton Street
New York, NY 10002
(212) 792-8050

$10 Nightly Admission
$25 All-Festival Pass

For three nights in June, a stage on the Lower East Side of Manhattan will become a window onto the future of Jazz. For the fourth year, New Languages will unite some of the most original voices of a generation that grew up breathing the air of postmodernity. The lineup includes Miles Okazaki, Tyshawn Sorey, Tony Malaby, Darcy James Argue, Bruce Eisenbeil, Chris Speed, Jackson Moore, Aaron Ali Shaikh, Ty Cumbie, and many others.

This generation grew up in the midst of a civil war between classicism and the avant-garde -- so it is all the the more astounding that the staggering panoply of voices, affinities, and approaches has become more commensurable and less fragmented with each passing year. But until now there has never seen such an intense compression of talent from every corner of today's Jazz scene. Sparks will fly.

FULL SCHEDULE

Thursday June 12
8 pm - The Color Now
9 pm - Miles Okazaki: Mirror
10 pm - Tyshawn Sorey: Wu-Wei (Chapter Three)

Friday June 13
9 pm - Jackson Moore with Eivind Opsvik and Eric McPherson
10 pm - The Tony Malaby Trio featuring Matt Brewer and Gerald Cleaver
11 pm - Darcy James Argue's Secret Society

Saturday June 14
9 pm - Aaron Ali Shaikh, Michael Formanek, and Randy Peterson
10 pm - TOTEM> Bruce Eisenbeil, Tom Blancarte and Andrew Drury
11pm - Chris Speed, Skuli Sverisson, and Jim Black
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DETAILED SCHEDULE

Thursday June 12
8 pm - The Color Now
Ty Cumbie - Guitar
Daniel Carter - Alto Saxophone
Adam Lane - Bass
Lukas Ligeti - Drums

The Color Now is an unlikely band of musicians from wildly different backgrounds encompassing traditional jazz, modern "classical" music, free jazz and worldbeat. The group was assembled by guitarist Ty Cumbie, who emerged from a traditional jazz background. It features the unique polymath, restless journeyman and free jazz mainstay Daniel Carter, who has stayed active, against all odds, for over 30 years in New York City. Bassist Adam Lane and drummer Lukas Ligeti are both pioneering composers and conceptualists in addition to being consummate improvisers. Lane has cultivated his own unique mix of experimentalism and groove and is first-call bassist for masters such as John Tchicai. Ligeti's music is a unique fusion of acoustic and electronic, traditional and avantgarde, Occidental, African, and other influences.

9 pm - Miles Okazaki: Mirror
Miles Okazaki - Guitar
David Binney - Saxophone
Miguel Zenon - Saxophone
Jonathan Flaugher - Bass
Dan Weiss - Drums

Miles Okazaki burst into public consciousness this year with the release of Mirror, a brilliant self-produced album featuring an expansive and intricate triple suite that boldly sculpts new rhythmic and harmonic spaces. His music features a use of extended form that brings the listener to a heightened perception of these spaces over time. and an intense internal logic that frequently carries his soloists to new heights.

10 pm - Tyshawn Sorey: Wu-Wei (Chapter Three)
Personnel TBA
Tyshawn Sorey is an iconoclastic drummer and composer who has persistently challenged himself to break new boundaries - yet each of his projects has displayed an impressive concentration of creative purpose. Sorey has composed works for solo piano, various chamber ensembles, and for his working group OBLIQUE. His recent album That/Not is an impressive panorama of music running from tight group improvisations to architectonic notated music. At New Languages he will presents the world premiere of Wu-Wei (Chapter Three), a multi-part work commissioned by Roulette and supported by the Jerome Foundation and the Van Lier Fellowship.

Friday June 13
9 pm - The Jackson Moore Trio with Eivind Opsvik and Eric Mcpherson
Jackson Moore - Alto Saxophone
Eivind Opsvik - Bass
Eric Mcpherson - Drums

Jackson Moore is joined by two brilliant colleagues who share his propensity for unscripted melodicism and propulsive swing. Fascinated by the degree of stability that the language of jazz has attained at the turn of the century, Jackson has dedicated himself to shaking it up. As a composer and bandleader he furnishes an environment of maximum volatility and risk - an environment where perpetual rupture creates an opportunity for fresh responses. As these exceptionally nimble improvisers rise to the challenge, expect the sound of surprise.

10 pm - The Tony Malaby Trio
Tony Malaby - Tenor Saxophone
Matt Brewer - Bass
Gerald Cleaver - Drums

Tony Malaby has brought a monumental voice of volcanic lyricism to an incredible diversity of projects since moving to New York in 1995, including Apparitions with Drew Gress, Tom Rainey and Mike Sarin, the Tony Malaby Cello Trio with Fred Lonberg-Holm and John Hollenbeck, Paloma Recio with Ben Monder, Eivind Opsvik and Nasheet Waits, and Tamarindo with William Parker and Nasheet Waits. Tony also co-leads the Malaby Sanchez Rainey Trio. He is a master of steering his groups through a range of musical climates, veering unpredictably from capricious zephyrs to stormy squalls as the mood strikes.

11 pm - Darcy James Argue's Secret Society
Darcy James Argue has accomplished an impressive feat: he has united a team of top flight musicians behind a massive omnibus of works for 18-piece orchestra. Argue’s awards include the BMI Charlie Parker Composition Prize/Manny Albam Commission, the SOCAN Award for Composition, the DownBeat Student Music Award, and grants from Meet The Composer, the American Music Center, and the Canada Council for the Arts. His band is packed with brilliant soloists, including trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, saxophonist Erica vonKleist, and trombonist Ryan Keberle. If you have not yet heard Argue's engrossing, labyrinthine compositions, don't miss this opportunity.

Saturday June 14
9 pm - Aaron Ali Shaikh, Michael Formanek, and Randy Peterson
Aaron Ali Shaikh - Saxophones
Michael Formanek - Bass
Randy Peterson - Drums

Appearing for the third time in New York, this trio brings together two great veterans with one of the most original saxophone voices of the next generation. With each performance these improvisers probe deeper into the physical and emotional protoplasm that boils beneath all musical form. Shaikh is a recent graduate of the Jazz academic establishment and something of a renegade within the emerging improvising community, due to his singular musical personality. His music is influenced by microtonalism, early Jazz saxophone approaches, the Qawwalis of South Asia and modern improvisation styles. A Cleveland, OH native and the son of Sindhi (Pakistan) immigrant father and European-American mother, Shaikh is at the forefront of the new multi-culturalism emerging in American politics, academia and art.

10 pm - TOTEM> with Bruce Eisenbeil, Tom Blancarte and Andrew Drury
Totem is a noise rock free improvisation trio that ventures from microscopic sound worlds to walls of sound. Guitarist Bruce Eisenbeil, bassist Tom Blancarte and drummer Andrew Drury make music at the frontiers of understanding, influenced by paradoxes and extremes, adverse circumstances and technology - both primitive and futuristic. After returning from concerts in France and Switzerland, the trio will be celebrating the release of their debut CD, Solar Forge, on June 10th.

11pm - Chris Speed, Skuli Sverrison, and Jim Black
Chris Speed - Tenor Saxophone
Skuli Sverrison - Bass
Jim Black - Drums

Chris Speed, saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer, leads or co-leads the groups Pachora (with Jim Black, Skúli Sverrisson, and Brad Shepik); Human Feel (with Andrew D'Angelo, Black, and Kurt Rosenwinkel); yeah NO (with Black, Sverrisson, and Cuong Vu); and Trio Iffy (with Ben Perowsky and Jamie Saft). The latter two groups predominantly feature Speed's
compositions. As a sideman he's performed with Tim Berne's Bloodcount, John Hollenbeck's The Claudia Quintet, Jim Black's Alasnoaxis, and The Clarinets. Speed performed on the Grammy-nominated album A Blessing, by the John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble; and with Pachora contributed the track "Tirzah" to the Masada tribute album Voices in the Wilderness. He has also performed and/or recorded with Myra Melford, Mark Dresser, Susie Ibarra, Erik Friedlander, Satoko Fujii, and Dave Douglas.