Posts Tagged ‘jackson’

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.

You can listen to the album and purchase it in digital format here: http://singlespeedmusic.bandcamp.com

Aram Shelton Quartet “These Times” 2010 Tour:

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

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The Fast Citizens are finishing up a 5 date tour tonight at the Hungry Brain in Chicago, here’s  a preview from the Chicago Reader.

We played in Charlotte, NC; Asheville, NC; Columbia, SC; and Lexington, KY.

Here’s a review from the Fast Citizens’ show in Lexington last night – I’ll be writing about this tour sometime soon :

in performance: aram shelton’s fast citizens.

There are several videos from the show in Columbia, SC, which can be found here.

Here’s the Twenty Seven:

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Fast Citizens Two Cities

The second Fast Citizens album, Two Cities,  has been released by Delmark.  The Fast Citizens are the Chicago based sextet of Aram Shelton, Keefe Jackson, Josh Berman, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Anton Hatwich and Frank Rosaly. Formed in 2002 by Jackson, the Fast Citizens have decided upon a rotating leader chair and for their sophomore release Shelton has taken the reins as main composer. The title Two Cities reflects the geographic locale of Shelton, (currently based in Oakland, California), and his continued relationship with the active music scene in Chicago. Focusing on orchestration and structural variety, the Fast Citizens present a stylistically diverse album that includes hard swing, lush ballads, high-energy free improvisation, modern composition and Sun-Ra inspired grooves.

Fast Citizens at aramshelton.com

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I arranged some concerts this past weekend in Chicago and Milwaukee for Cylinder, the quartet I’ve been working on in San Francisco with Darren Johnston, Lisa Mezzacappa, and Kjell Nordeson. Two were for the quartet and two involved musicians in Chicago.

The first night was at Elastic up in Logan Square. We invited Keefe Jackson, Josh Berman, Frank Rosaly and Hans-Peter Pfafmatter to join us in some free improvisations. (Hans-Peter is a Swiss pianist, who has been in Chicago for the past four months – a grant council in Switzerland, maintains an apartment in the Ukrainian Village and they provide artist residences year after year. This is how I met Marc Unternauer and Thomas Mejer.) We played two sets of improvisations: the first grouping was a trio of Keefe, Lisa and Kjell. The second was a quartet of myself, Hans-Peter, Frank and Darren. The third was a duet with Darren and Keefe, the highlight for me being some very strong difference tones produced by the blended high notes. And the final piece of that set was a quintet with myself, Lisa, Josh, Frank and Hans-Peter. A lot of strong playing during the set – you could tell that all the musicians were listening and really improvising with each other.

The second set had only two groupings: a duo between the percussionists, Frank & Kjell; and the final piece of the night involving all eight musicians. There was only one full drumset at the space that night, so during Kjell and Frank’s duo, they constructed smaller percussion kits, the use of these highlighted their skill with using smaller sounds and the sense of space that both of them have. They set up facing straight at each other, and it had me imagining some kind of esoteric ceremony. Though the final piece of the night had all eight musicians, we arranged it so that no more than two musicians could play at a time, while allowing for everyone to truly develop material. It worked quite well, and though the entire night had a great sense of timing, patience and musicality, this “passing along the music” piece was very memorable. I was glad to be able to get these people together to play!

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Played last night at the Hideout over on Wabansia in Chicago. Played in a quartet with Keefe Jackson, Anton Hatwich and Marc Riordan. I played alto and clarinet, Keefe was on tenor, Anton on bass, Marc on drums. Back in June when I was in Chicago for a weekend, we played a show at Heaven. This time around I brought 4 new pieces, we played a new one of Keefe’s and a (very slightly) older piece by Anton (we played it in June).
We had a rehearsal the day before and worked some things out. I always try to keep things clear in the parts, but making the pieces work all together has to happen through playing. This night was a good first step in that direction.
The first set was a duo between Brian Labycz and Jim Baker. Labycz on Doepfer modular synth, Baker on ARP 2600. A wide variety of sounds, Labycz stayed closer to buzzes and sounds, where Baker would rub up against tonality from time to time. Good pacing. would like to hear this in a different space – maybe in one where each sound source is very separate so that there would be more spatial aspects. It was somewhat of a short set, I could’ve listened to them play longer.
The quartet set went well and we were able to get some video and some audio recording of the set. (I’ll be posting some of those as soon as I can.) The group has a cohesive sound already – probably due to all the playing Keefe and Anton and I have done in the past. Anton’s playing was solid throughout – particularly during a solo near the end of the set. We’ll be recording the music this weekend, with talk going around about a December week long tour – – - —- -

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Okay, it’s been waaaay too long since I last posted. Seeing as it’s July and the last post was in mid-April, that means somehow 3 months have passed without a post. This includes trips to France, Poland, Serbia, Chicago and Los Angeles and about 20 shows. So, I’ve alot to catch up for….

I’ll start with the Ton Trio dates in Europe. This happened at the very end of April and the first week of May. Kurt Kotheimer and I flew over to Paris to meet up with Sam Ospovat, who’s been living there since last October. He’s been enrolled in school, teaching English, and getting acquainted with some players on the Parisian scene and having a good time of it. It was hard for us to book dates in Paris, and though we were there for 5 days, we were only able to arrange 1 concert. This with many months of lead time. However, this gave us some days to get back into the music from The Way, and to work on some new pieces that I brought for this trip. We had some rehearsals in a space that was somewhat of a catacomb – borrowed a bass from one of Sam’s friends that lives up on the 6th floor (with no elevator) – and prepared for our concert at a space called Nouveau Cosmos. A bar and cafe, we had a decent crowd and made a good night of it. We also had Quentin Sirjac join us for a few songs on piano. It was my first time in Paris, and after being there and talking to musicians about the difficulties of doing concerts there, I felt better about only having one date there. Apparently it’s pretty tough to get shows there, especially creative music.

So, Ton Trio headed over to Poland for concerts with stops in Krakow, Warsaw and Poznan. The concerts were good, and I felt like we played together better than we ever had. And as in my previous visits, the folks having the concerts for us were very helpful. But, the attendance at the shows was less than I had expected, which was kind of a downer. Our last show was in Poznan, and in talking to the promoter, it seems there is somewhat of an audience crisis happening there – somewhat due to the worldwide economic thing – a tough time to be trying to get your foot in the door of European festival promoters and audiences in general. Not that playing this music is ever easy, in terms of getting the music out there be it through recordings or live shows. But, we were made very welcome by our hosts; after staying in Poznan an extra day and recording the new material, we had a few extra days before Kurt & Sam needed to return to Paris, so we went down to Krakow, and had a good time at Alchemia one night – and got to go to a great spot up on a hill overlooking the southern parts of the city. A good visit.

Sam & Kurt went back to Paris and I went back to Warsaw, where I stayed for a few days before the next part of my trip. I stayed with my friend Wojciech Traczyk, the bassist from the Light, one day we recorded some music, the last night I was in Poland I went with him to a concert he was playing at the Hard Rock Cafe Warsaw – funny place. Ran into Waclaw Zimpel a few times – he was busy at the time playing in several groups. It felt good to see some more of the ongoings of the scene in Warsaw – the musicians I know there are staying real busy, with a big variety of projects. Inspiring.

So my next stop on the trip was a rendezvous with the Fast Citizens in Belgrade. Several Chicago groups were asked to be part of the annual Ring Ring Festival. There programming tends to be slanted towards more improvised and electroacoustic music. So, I’m not sure if they thought that our music would fit in. We got in a day early and had a full rehearsal the day of the concert in the space, which was quite boomy – it took us a long time to decide where to actually play, on the floor or on the stage. For playing it sounded better on the stage, as a listener it was better on the floor. We finally decided on the floor. Pretty much right on time (20:00) the audience showed up, and the concert went very well. The Necks played the first set that night, they really pulled in the audience with their minimalist aesthetic – Tony Buck sounded great on drums. As we took over for the second set, the crowd of a few hundred rearranged, with a chunk of people sitting on the stage behind us – this created a great feeling with people all around, and I think it worked well to tame the acoustics in the room. The response to the music was very positive, which was extra rewarding after the smaller events in Poland and France.

The organizers were completely helpful, arranging for our accommodations for several days and being ready and willing to talk about the festival, and Belgrade itself, a very interesting city that has seen it’s share of troubles. The city is a real mix between old and new, with a sprawling ancient citadel close by the club where the festival took place – Rex. Lots of capitalist style commercialism in the fashion stores and sidewalk cafes with stray dogs taking naps at bus stops and homeless children (young) close by. (Why is it that the homeless know better English than store owners? Pure finances) Boyan was a great help to all of us, it was great to talk to him about the history of Serbia including Yugoslavia.

So, my next stop was Berlin. I’ve never been and have heard so many great things about Berlin that I decided when booking this trip that I had to make a side trip. I arranged a solo concert at the Electronic Church, which I happened to share with Liz Allbee and George Cremaschi, both of whom are now ex-Oaklanders. George moved to the Czech Republic full time a bit over a year ago, and Liz has decided to move to Berlin. Why is it that I know more musicians who move to Europe from the Bay Area than from Chicago? Is it because it is farther away and you may as well just move there if you want to have a presence on the continent? Is it because in Chicago there are more established series and contacts? Perhaps a combination? I was glad to share the bill with Liz & George and talk to them about their plans. It’s inspiring to see people taking a chance by moving to new countries – I hope the best for them.

The Electronic Church is a smaller space, the show was on a Sunday and there were something like 5 other creative music shows that night including one with Tony Buck, one with Axl Dorner & Fred Lonberg-Holm, etc… but, we still had a nice little crowd and I was glad to meet a few people – thanks Shintaro for arranging it! I didn’t have alot of time in Berlin – 2 nights – so spent one day wandering – mainly in the former East Berlin. Went by the Reichstag, and the Brandenburg Gate – touristy. Good to see though. I was really into the feel of Berlin as a city – the transit is great – goes everywhere, is affordable – I had the best falafel I think I’ve had in a looong time at Babel, enjoyed the streets and neighborhoods – kind of like Chicago with more trees – kind of like Portland with more city. Lots of cyclists – relaxed though, not speeding around like here in the states. Also, don’t think I saw a single bike helmet. Really glad I went, and want to get back there sometime soon!

My trip was almost over and I had to fly out of Paris, and had to get back there. I had been in touch with Audrey Chen and she had a concert happening at Atelier Tampon that she invited me to take part in the night before my flight back to the states. Perfect. So, I flew from Berlin on Monday morning, had a 2 hour layover, got into Paris around 5, met Sam at his apartment on Q’uai d’Orsay around 6, dropped off my things and then took the Metro to the space. Thankfully I’d been in Paris the week before and knew how to get around, otherwise it wouldn’t have worked out so well! The space is one of the few places in Paris that has creative music concerts and has hosted all sorts of people including Henry Grimes in it’s small confines. There was an opening at the same time with lots of delicious organic wine – the red was almost effervescent! Very good. First Audrey played a duo with Id M Theftable, a fellow from Maine who does electronics and voice improv, then I joined them for some playing. A good concert, with food afterwards in the upstairs apartment. A great last night of music on the continent. We stayed late and eventually took a taxi all together, even though I was staying in a totally different part of town. I didn’t get much sleep, but this was for the best, as I caught up for it on the plane headed back to California, getting a leg up on the jet lag.

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I’m back in Oakland now, but I’ll post what I wrote when I wrote it:

I’m sitting in Keefe Jackson’s apartment in Pilsen, listening to the rough mixes of the Fast Citizens recording session from the last two days. It’s tuesday January 27, a week after I arrived on a flight coming from Florida that happened at the same time that Barack Obama took the office of the President. It was a huge relief to know that by the time I would get into Chicago, he’d be in charge of the country.

I came to Chicago in the middle of the winter to put together music for a new Fast Citizens recording. The idea had come about back in the summer. I had talked to Keefe and Josh about the need to continue the Fast Citizens. I suggested that the next album have a new leader from within the group. Maybe because I brought it up I was picked to be the next leader. So, Aram Shelton’s Fast Citizens were born. I wrote 5 new pieces during the last week of December and spent the following week developing them and creating the parts with the idea that the clearer the ideas and notation, the easier it would be to actually pull off making a new album in a small amount of time. Over the course of the last five days we had one long rehearsal, one short rehearsal, 3 gigs and two days in the studio. Productive!

We set up three dates: the first was on Friday up in Milwaukee at Bruno Johnson’s bar called the Sugar Maple. A beautiful space on East Lincoln with a room specifically made for concerts. Fred wasn’t able to make that gig, and we had two sets to fill, so we used a good amount of material from the first album. Not having Fred there changed the dynamic of the group in a big way – he adds a vital texture to the sound of the Citizens. I was glad to have him back for the next two shows. The second was on Saturday at the Heaven Gallery in Wicker Park. We shared the bill with two duos: Ben Boye on piano with Frank Rosaly and Charles Rumback on drums with Dave Rempis. The last was Sunday night at the Hungry Brain. That night we shared with Han Bennink solo (!) and Fred Lonberg-Holm’s Valentine Trio.

Though there were many strong moments all three nights, the first two dates felt like live rehearsals, whereas the set at the Brain was a real performance, with the parts being much more internalized by everyone. The crowd that night was great too – even though we played last on the 3 set night, the room was full with plenty of listeners. Not to say that we didn’t have good turn-outs the other nights, but Sunday was the best.

In all I’m very happy with what we were able to accomplish in a short amount of time and will do all I can to make sure this album comes out sometime this year.

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