This week my hot new quartet with Keefe Jackson, Marc Riordan and Anton Hatwich is rolling through the midwest, round the east coast and up out of the south. We’re celebrating the release of or new album, These Times. The dates are below, hope to see you there!
July 25 – Kerrytown Concert House 7:30 PM
…415 North 4th Avenue
Ann Arbor, MI
Frank Gratkowski is visiting the Bay Area for a number of weeks – busy with all kinds of concerts. A few weeks ago we both played in ROVA’s sax cloud at the ODC theater in San Francisco. 16 saxophones in a circle with the audience in the middle (some very nice music). Damon Smith suggested we play together in a quintet with Tim Perkis and Kjell Nordeson, and I was all for it. Damon, Kjell, Tim & I have played as quartet a few times in the past, and the results have always been musically complex, diverse, quickly changing and ultimately rewarding – adding Frank into the mix didn’t derail our past efforts. We played several improvisations, with Frank on bass clarinet and alto saxophone, myself on soprano and alto – the group had a nice and wide orchestration palette with Tim’s electronics, Damon’s non-amplified bass and Kjell’s percussion. Everyone was mindful of the use of space and silence, and there was some good & strong music made.
The first set of the night belonged to Joshua Allen on tenor saxophone, Matt Montgomery on bass, and Spirit on drums. A number of improvisations – Josh has been playing with Spirit for at least 17 years and they play well together. Josh did a particularly nice solo point where he explored overblown harmonics in a methodical yet visceral way. Here’s a shot from their set:
josh allen, matt montgomery and spirit play at the ivy room
Singlespeed Music is happy to announce “These Times” by the Aram Shelton Quaret.
The Aram Shelton Quartet features Chicago-based musicians Keefe Jackson, Anton Hatwich and Marc Riordan. Related to the Fast Citizens (Delmark), of which Shelton, Jackson and Hatwich are all members, this quartet displays a musical range on their debut album “These Times” that encompasses free swing, creative improvisation, space & patience, and fiery energy.
In the quartet, Shelton plays equal amounts of alto saxophone & clarinet, approaching each distinctly while displaying both the large and subtle differences of the instruments. Jackson contributes on tenor saxophone with a full sound and unique approach to the utilization of extended techniques. Hatwich’s bass playing grounds the music and drives it in a compelling way, while Riordan’s drums serve as backbone to the rhythmic aspects and a frame to the open sections.
A tour celebrating the release of “These Times” is scheduled from July 23rd to 31st with dates including Chicago, New York, Ann Arbor and Washington DC. The full itnerary is below. The CD will be available at all shows.
July 25 – Kerrytown Concert House – Ann Arbor, MI
July 26 – the THunderbird – Pittsburgh, PA
July 27 – Douglas St. Music Collective – Brooklyn, NY
July 28 – Bossa – Washington, DC
July 29 – 701 CCA – Columbia, SC
July 30 – Static Age Records – Asheville, NC
July 31 - Ya-Yas – Lexington, KY
August 1 – the Hungry Brain – Chicago, IL
Went up to Sacramento on Memorial Day 2010 to play up at the Luna Cafe as part of the Nebraska Mondays series. Good friend Brent Bagwell from Charlotte was meeting up there as well with his group the Eastern Seaboard with Seth Nanaa and Jordon Schranz. First Marches show in a bit – my schedule has been quite full – I think the last time we played was all the way back in January when Anton Hatwich was visiting from Chicago and we played at Blue Six. That was a nice show.
Since then I’ve added Doug Stuart to the group on bass – but unfortunately (for Marches), Gene Baker is moving to New York at the end of the week, so this lineup of Marches with his signature sound on the Hohner suitcase organ will be missing for the foreseeable future. It was an early show at Luna and I thought we played real well – I had a great time playing with this lineup with Doug, Gene, Cory Wright on tenor & baritone and Jordan Glenn on drums. Everyone put in a lot of good energy. Satisfying.
The Eastern Seaboard played the second set – focused free jazz explosions – I like hearing how Brent approaches the freedom – thoughtful, patient. The room at Luna is a good size for this kind of music.
Played tonight with Kjell Nordeson at the Flux Theater out in east Oakland. Shared the bill with Jacob Zimmerman’s Lawson project. Playing with Kjell in duo form is both fun & challenging. In a way what we do is simple – we just play. But Within that simplicity there is so much to do! His playing style is encompassing – the sound of his kit is full and active with many layers. It allows me to follow tangential thoughts while also following a path. Fittingly to the venue, it’s sort of like LaMonte Young’s Fluxus piece that simply states: draw a line and follow it. We start in one place and follow the ideas to their end. Sometimes they don’t end, they just change direction, but we keep following it. Always with energy.
I play alto & tenor when we play in duo form, and we’ve settled on a microphone technique involving 4 mics total. I’m hoping that by sometime this summer we’ll have decided on some material to release.
Jacob’s compositions for Lawson were quite strong and thoughtful. I favored one piece in particular: a melody harmonized in clusters, the lead evenly flowing around the voices of the ensemble (Cory Wright, Matt Nelson, Drew Ceccato, Rob Ewing, Dan VanHassel, and Dan Good). Sound painting.
I like the Flux theater – Mitchell Random is a good guy – glad to have played there tonight.
Traveled to New York City for a week of shows – the impetus of the trip was Larry Ochs asking Darren Johnston to bring a group to perform at the Stone. Darren asked Cylinder, and the timing worked out for all of us. We’d originally thought of doing a trip similar to the one last September that we took to Chicago, where we played several dates, two as the quartet and two with Chicagoans. Unfortunately the situation in New York is a bit tougher to navigate without some funding, so we were only able to secure two dates: the Stone on Thursday March 18 and at the Douglass Street Music Collective on Friday the 19th. Lisa Mezzacappa also arranged an in-store for us at the Downtown Music Gallery on Sunday the 21st, Kjell couldn’t stay in town for that, so we played trio, which worked out pretty well.
Playing two nights in a row was a good experience for us, though I preferred the date at Douglass Street. My limited experience at the Stone doesn’t have me sold on it – though I appreciate the space as a performing environment and as an anchor for creative music in NYC, it doesn’t seem that musicians come to check each other out (partly because each show at 8 & 10 o’clock is a separate ticketed event), which is important when you’re not a particularly famous musician playing in Manhattan. At Douglass Street we shared the night with Michael Bates’ Outside Sources – and it was good to see some New York musicians that I haven’t before, and felt good to play in front of them and the audience who came. Michael’s group included Greg Tardy on tenor & clarinet, Josh Sinton on bass clarinet, Josh Deutsch on trumpet and Jeff Davis on drums. Nice players & interesting writing. A good turnout, and a fun hang afterwards with the musicians from Outside Sources.
As this was my first trip longer than 3 days in New York in quite awhile, I took the opportunity to arrange other dates and a few sessions. Played with Weasel Walter in two settings, the first night I got to town (wednesday the 17th) we played a trio with Damon Smith (in town for a different Stone show) at a space called Silent Barn out in Bushwick. Live-in show space – similar to spaces in West Oakland. We played a pretty blistering set, and I’m feeling real good about my recently overhauled alto reacting well when I push it. A date we played on Sunday the 20th was with Reuben Radding on bass and Daniel Carter on saxophones & trumpet, with Jen Baker joining us on an improvisation. I’ve been a fan of Daniel’s for quite a while, so it was a pleasure to play with him. A warm man – glad to meet him. That show was at Goodbye Blue Monday in Brooklyn, Lisa Mezzacappa arranged the date and played an improvised quintet with Ava Mendoza, Jason Mears, Darren Johnston & Jen Baker.
The other two dates with Matt Bauder – one was on Monday the 21st at Zebulon, the next tomorrow night at Issue Project Room as part of the Porter Records showcase event. At Zebulon we performed my suite “Kodachrome Music” for two horns & percussion with Harris Eisenstadt. Their aesthetics work perfectly with that suite, which was inspired by a trip to Southern Utah a few years ago. The small crowd at Zebulon that “braved” the rainy night reacted well and really listened. I’m looking forward to the concert tomorrow night, we’ll be playing Bauder’s “Paper Gardens” with Jason Mears and Reuben Radding.
Definitely a good trip – got to see more parts of Brooklyn than I had in the past, and saw interesting exhibits at the Whitney and P.S.1. Great to meet and play with more musicians in New York. Still not a place I want to move to. If I ever did, it’d have to be because of a particularly good opportunity……
January 26th, 2010 Posted by aramshelton No Comments
Back at the Ivy Room for the first time this year – I’d taken a little hiatus from the monthly series that I book there due to the holidays. The fourth mondays tend to fall right near thanksgiving and christmas, don’t they? For this night I asked Damon Smith, Tim Perkis & Kjell Nordeson to do a set of improvising. Damon, Tim and I have played in quartets with a roving fourth member – once with Josh Berman, a time or two with Jordan Glenn – and this time with Kjell. There’s a lot of activity musically with that quartet. Perkis is so flexible with electronics – his being computer based, a system that he’s developed over time – and of Damon can extract so many sounds from his bass that just having those two in a group creates endless possibilities. Add Kjell to that with his multi-layered rhythms and palette of sounds and it things move fast from point to points. Not that we didn’t have sections that were patient and textural, where the group’s sound really coalesced. An inspiring set – would like to play in that grouping again, soon.
The second set of the night was brought in by Jon Raskin, of ROVA. He brought his alto & baritone and was joined by Aurora Josephson, voice; John Shiurba, guitar; and John Hanes, on drums. A nicely varied set, they played several distinct improvisation that he chose either before or after (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) that it was a concerto for each of the instruments. I appreciated his “concerto” where he let the other members play an exposition of sorts before he joined.
A really strong night of music at the Ivy Room, thanks for everyone who came out despite the intermittent downpours, that are so rare in the bay area (and because of that make for the perfect excuse for people to stay at home)…
December 1st, 2009 Posted by aramshelton No Comments
Last night played up in Sacramento with Cylinder (myself, Darren Johnston, Lisa Mezzacappa, Kjell Nordeson). Ross Hammond has a series up there called Nebraska Mondays at the Luna Cafe, a small spot on 16th street in between N and O streets. Gotta love the grid style in Sacramento.
This was the first date for Cylinder since we had a recording session at the beginning of October, and though we were a little rusty on parts, it felt great to play together. I brought my Conn 6M for the show – it’s an alto that I got a few months ago – has a different kind of sound than my Pan American – maybe a bit more refined with more modern mechanisms, a really fast horn, built in ‘37. The stage was on the small size, a few times I moved backwards into Kjell’s ride cymbal, but in a perfect position in the room with tables in front and flanking. A good sized crowd came for the show, especially considering that it was Monday night, and they really responded to the music – such that we had to expand our set by three tunes… I was glad we played up there, it’s a quick trip from the Bay and completely worthwhile.
November 11th, 2009 Posted by aramshelton 1 Comment
Played last night at the Uptown in Oakland. it was a busy night down there because of a Pixies concert happening across the street at the Fox Theatre. Hard to park! Thought I’d get a parking ticket, but was lucky….
Marches and the Oakland Active Orchestra played – Marches was up first, our line-up for the night was the organ version with Gene, Cory and Jordan. Good playing – we’re making some progress – I’m really into the way the organ fits in with the saxophones. We tried a new piece – maybe should’ve rehearsed it a bit more – but it’s been a busy time out here and it’s been tough fitting in enough rehearsals. The plan is to get some solid rehearsing in and then get into the studio so that we can have a release sometime early next year. We played on the floor of the Uptown – which is good for sound quality, but a little tricky for light. Gotta work on that…..
The Oakland Active Orchestra played our second show. This one was very good with new pieces by Cory Wright, Phillip Greenlief and Rob Ewing, plus an arrangement of Echoes of Harlem by Tom Djll. A wide range of music – particularly in Tom’s piece – one section the entire group explores the smallest range of dynamics with a quick transition to a section with two drummers going for it with a strong solo by Ewing. Had a few subs on the night – Erik Jekabsons on trumpet and Sam Ospovat on drums – they both sounded great and fit well aesthetically. Sam and Jordan playing drums together worked well – they had a good sense of playing at the same time without dominating the group.
We ended the night with Rob’s piece, one that is very patient and uses the entire ensemble simply – to create a slowly shifting re-harmonization of a chord -a fitting use of the group.
The full lineup for the group this night was:
Aaron Bennett: alto & tenor saxophones
Phillip Greenlief: clarinet, tenor saxophone
Aram Shelton: clarinet, soprano & alto saxophones
Cory Wright: baritone saxophone, bass clarinet
Tom Djll: trumpet
Erik Jekabson: trumpet
Rob Ewing: trombone
Kristian Aspelin: guitar
Marielle Jakobsons: violin
Lisa Mezzacappa: bass
Damon Smith: bass
Jordan Glenn: drums
Sam Ospovat: drums
