Brandon Seabrook is a NYC-based guitarist and banjoist. His music fuses a wide range of traditions: punk rock, jazz, pop, and metal. As a guitarist his work feeds off tactile sensations; rapid tremolo picking, contorted clusters, and extreme physicality. He has released nine albums of original material and has performed throughout the U.S., Europe, and South America.
https://brandonseabrook.bandcamp.com
Andy Clausen is a Brooklyn-based trombonist, composer, arranger, and educator. Best known as a founding member of genre-bending brass quartet The Westerlies, Andy is also a frequent collaborator with a wide range of artists including Fleet Foxes, Aoife O’Donovan, Haley Heynderickx, Conrad Tao, Nico Muhly, and Dave Douglas, and a prolific composer for visual media, audio storytelling, and concert music. 2024 marks the debut of Andy’s solo project “Few Ill Words: Solo Trombone at The TANK,” recorded in the profound reverberation of an abandoned railroad water silo in rural Colorado. More info at: andyclausen.com.
“A melody from Andy Clausen is pure moonlight. It’s lovely and magical, full of warmth, and it can brighten up the room. But moonlight also is a source of mystery, with ominous overtones and an electric tension” – Bandcamp Daily
“folk-like and composerly, lovely and intellectually rigorous” – NPR
“Chamber music with bracing melodies and, crucially, an undeniable sense of fun” – L.A. Times
“an alluring, whimsical, and just-plain-cool mix of jazz, classical, and experimental music. Challenging music that doesn’t shy away from also being pretty.” – eMusic
“sleek, dynamic large-group jazz, a whirl of dark-hued harmony and billowing rhythm…The intelligent sheen of Mr. Clausen’s writing was as striking as the composure of his peers…It was impressive, and not just by the yardstick of their age.” – The New York Times
Schoenbeck/Horvitz
The Sara Schoenbeck and Wayne Horvitz duo navigate through original tunes and improvisatory
soundscapes. With feet firmly planted in a genre-less zone, electronics and an ever-expanding textural
palate serve to deepen the feel of a shared melodic language.
Sara Schoenbeck and Wayne Horvitz first met as improvising musicians at the 4 day, “company” style
“Time Flies” festival (Vancouver B.C.) in 2000. In 2004 Horvitz formed the Gravitas Quartet with
Schoenbeck, Ron Miles (Trumpet) and Peggy Lee (Cello). This quartet recorded two CDs and
performed throughout Europe and North America. In 2015 Horvitz fused his ensemble Sweeter Than
the Day with the Gravitas Quartet to create a septet performing compositions based on the poems of
Richard Hugo. “Some Places Are Forever Afternoon” resulted in a CD, touring throughout the US,
and an episode of NPR’s “Jazz Night in America”, hosted by Christian McBride. In addition,
Schoenbeck and Horvitz had performed in numerous improvised collectives, special projects, and the
occasional duo concert.
In 2018, the duo Schoenbeck/Horvitz was created, with subsequent concerts in NY, Vancouver,
Seattle, Portland, Ann Arbor, Sacramento, Northampton, Bellingham, Edmonton, Los Angeles, San
Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, and Detroit. Their first CD, entitled “Cell Walk”, was released on the
Songlines label in May 2020. Since the pandemic the duo has presented concerts in the United States,
Canada, and Europe.
No Blood Relation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BTcHh84pIk
Link to Bandcamp:
https://battlehymnsandgardens.bandcamp.com/album/conversations-with-love-and-death
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/battle_hymns_and_gardens/
Battle Hymns & Gardens was originally formed in 2007 as a free-improvisation ensemble and
has evolved over time into one of the more compelling units on the Portland scene. Their
original compositions by Cunningham and Wallsmith are reminiscent of Don Cherry, Ornette
Coleman and Loft Jazz-era giants like Sam Rivers with spacious, lyrical landscapes, a la Paul
Motian and Roscoe Mitchell with a strong influence of folk-forms and a healthy dose of
conversational interplay and humor. Battle Hymns & Gardens have shared bills and/or
collaborated with Tim Young, Allison Miller, Lucian Ban, Mike Gamble, Elina Duni, The Tiptons,
and Elliott Sharp among others. Most recently, the group performed at the Seaside Jazz & Blues
Festival and at the 2024 Montavilla Jazz Festival. Their CMG performance will feature the
expanded sextet playing music from “Conversations with Love and Death,” their recently
recorded album, featuring trombonist James Powers and guitarist Dan Duval and exploring new
compositions by Cunningham and Wallsmith.
Lineup: Reed Wallsmith, alto saxophone and compositions; Joe Cunningham, tenor saxophone
and compositions; James Powers, trombone; Dan Duval, guitar; Jon Shaw, bass; Tim DuRoche,
drums & little instruments
Monday 10.28 Jack London Revue Peter Epstein Sam Minaie & Matt Mayhall $15 8pm
A decades-long musical relationship born in Reno, NV culminates with the music on Corduroy – drummer Matt Mayhall’s third album as a leader and his first for PJCE
Records since relocating to Portland from Los Angeles – has the urgency of a first meeting, and
indeed serves as a document of the first time Mayhall, saxophonist Peter Epstein and bassist
Sam Minaie convened in a studio as a trio.
The chemistry of the trio is evident throughout. The tunes are varied in their approach, but the
depth in the level of communication between the three master musicians remains constant.
Epstein, Minaie, and Mayhall are all adept at improvisational music that floats and flows like it
does on the opener, “Waltz” and their unique interpretation of Ellington’s classic, “Come
Sunday.” But they also display a knack for grooving as they do on numbers like the
easy-swingin’ “Petrichor” and the hypnotic “Dumb Melody.” The musicians push and pull together in such a way that it is clear the rapport and shared musical language on Corduroy
has been in the making for quite some time.
Mayhall and Minaie have been based on opposite coasts for most of their careers, but they
were both raised in Reno, NV and spent their formative years as a package deal rhythm team.
The two were students in music at the University Of Nevada Reno in 2001 when they took a
summer trip together to New York City to attend an intensive workshop hosted by The School
for Improvisational Music. There they met Epstein, a founding member and instructor at SIM. A
year later, Epstein found himself in Reno as the new instructor of jazz saxophone at UNR after a
whirlwind 10 years on the Brooklyn scene.
Epstein began his career in 1984 in Portland, where he apprenticed with many of the region’s
top jazz artists until relocating to Los Angeles to study at California Institute Of The Arts and
eventually landing in Brooklyn, NY. Epstein is known for his work with artists like Brad Shepik,
Ralph Alessi, Bobby Previte, James Carney, Joao Paulo, Jim Black, Scott Colley, Ravi Coltrane,
Medeski, Martin, & Wood, Peter Erskine, and many others. He has recorded eight critically
acclaimed albums as a leader/collaborator.
With Epstein as their mentor, Mayhall and Minaie were introduced to a brand of improvising and
on-the-bandstand training most would assume could only be found at an East Coast
conservatory. Inspired by Epstein and the rich musical landscape he inhabited, Mayhall and
Minaie were eventually accepted into the renowned MFA program in Jazz Studies at Cal Arts
founded by the legendary bassist Charlie Haden. Each have since gone on to play and record
with some of the most revered figures in improvised music.
Matt Mayhall has been characterized by Modern Drummer Magazine as an artist who “rolls his
diverse skills into one, untidy, rumbling package.” He has performed and/or recorded with an
eclectic range of world-renowned artists, including Jeff Parker, Chris Speed, Aimee Mann, Ethan
Iverson, Ted Leo, Fred Armisen, and Charlie Haden. He now calls Portland home after nearly 20
years of work in Los Angeles.
Sam Minaie is based in New York City. He has toured and recorded with Tigran Hamasyan,
Kneebody, Donny McCaslin, Dhafer Youssef, Jeff Ballard, Nate Wood, Mark Guiliana, Patti
Austin, Melody Gardot, Tootie Heath, Jean-Michel Pilc, Ari Hoenig, Shai Maestro, Ben Wendel
and numerous others. As a producer and post production engineer, Sam has mixed and
mastered dozens of records and is the founder of birdFood Studio in NYC.
After talking about making a record for almost twenty years, these three old friends finally came
together for two sessions over two days in New York at Minaie’s home studio, and the result is
an album each player considers among their best work to date.
Sunday 10.27 Fixin To Chris Corsano Mike Watt Joe Baiza / Ilyas Ahmed $20 8pm
A new trio to deliver a mix of free improvisation and punk, all of it wild-eyed and fierce as hell. Guitarist Joe Baiza (Saccharine Trust, Universal Congress Of) and bassist Mike Watt (Minutemen, fIREHOSE, Stooges) both need no introduction, but if you insist: they’re defining figures of the 1980’s California hardcore/post-punk scene and did as much as anyone to expand the music into something beyond categorization, pulling things in from all over the imaginary genre-map, including free jazz’s improvisation and exploratory fervor. Drummer Chris Corsano (Rangda, Björk, Bill Orcutt) came up in a world heavily indebted to Baiza and Watt, fully embracing the ethos of “Punk is whatever we made it to be.” He’s brought that approach to free improvisation/experimental/etc. since he came on the scene in the late ’90s. Flash forward to late 2023 when the trio first met out in the Mojave Desert. They cut an album for Yucca Alta records (due out in September), followed by a pair of SoCal shows. Now they’re embarking on a West Coast tour.Or, as Watt puts it: “this is mike watt’s reckoning of what this is: late last year drummer chris corsano was put w/me for a gig in the joshua tree desert parts(by derek monypeny) and his first suggest was to get joe baiza which I was way into. we did that gig: totally improvised instrumental music. we did it sitting down: chris sitting down, me and joe baiza are sitting down. for me, it’s was a very interesting conversation to be involved in and I got big time fuckin excited.”
https://corsanobaizawatttrio.bandcamp.com/album/corsano-baiza-watt-trio
Ilyas Ahmed has been releasing records as a solo & collaborative artist for almost 20 years. His most recent solo album A Dream of Another was released in 2023. He is also a member of the experimental rock band Grails whose last record Anches En Maat was released in 2023 as well. Records forthcoming on all fronts in the next year. Ilyas lives and works in Portland Oregon.
Thurs 10.24 Portland Arts Collective Company Night $15 8pm
Company Nights at Portland Arts Collective
Based loosely on Derek Bailey’s free improvisation group Company, whereby musicians and artists, poets, dancers, et al, who may not normally have the chance to work together, can come together for a night, or even a “Company Week,” or mini festival of improvisation.
We aim to have a rotating cast of local musicians for our house band.
Next, we include an artist, or group of artists from out of town, and we mingle, with the hope of informing one another, about our differing perspectives, experiences and abilities, in the moment of spontaneous acts of creation.
Aurora Josephson
Aurora Josephson is a musician and visual artist who currently resides in Portland, Oregon. Building on the foundation of operatic training and a BA and an MFA in Music Performance from Mills College, she has forged a bold vocal style that is uniquely her own. To unleash the limitless range of sonic possibilities in the voice, Josephson employs a variety of extended and unconventional techniques drawn from the worlds of contemporary composition, improvisation, and rock. She has performed and recorded with Alvin Curran, Gianni Gebbia, Henry Kaiser, Joelle Leandre and William Winant, and musical groups Big City Orchestrae, Flying Luttenbachers, Orchestri di Pazzi,, ROVA Saxophone Quartet, T.D. Skatchitband and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
Saturday 10.26 Leaven Community Center Lisa Mezzacappa Trio / Integer $15-30 8pm
Integer
Todd Marston – keys/compositions
Andrew Jones – bass
Dae Bryant – drums
Integer began in 2018 as a Portland-based piano trio with Todd Marston (compositions/piano), Andrew Jones (acoustic bass) and Micah Hummel (drums). Through the years, the foundational solidity of this rhythm section has allowed Marston to explore a variety of larger iterations of the group. In 2021, Integer Septet released Solidarity Themes, and more recently Integer Quintet has recorded an album to be released in 2024. Integer Collaborative Ensemble has been assembled specifically for the 2024 residency at Doe Bay as a way of unlocking the compositional gifts of all of its members.
Friday 10.25 Leaven Community Center Mat Maneri & Lucian Ban / Lisa Mezzacappa vs. The CMG All-Star Improviser’s Orchestra
Lisa Mezzacappa vs. The CMG All-Star Improviser’s Orchestra
Bay Area bassist and composer Lisa Mezzacappa visits with new music for a large ensemble that explores graphic notation, game pieces, conducted improvisation and compositions that traverse a vast terrain from noisy abstraction to gnarly grooves and austere lyricism. Mezzacappa will workshop with a stellar ensemble of Portland improvisers over two days to craft bespoke versions of her large ensemble music for this special CMG festival concert.
Aurora Josephson, vocals
Maxx Katz, flute
Logan Strosahl, tenor saxophone and clarinet
Emily Warden, alto saxophone
Noah Simpson, trumpet
Chris Shuttleworth, trombone
Timmy Barnett, viola
Alex Callenberger, guitar
Shao Wey Wu, acoustic bass
Lisa Mezzacappa, acoustic bass
Dana Reason. piano
Alex Meltzer, electronics
John Niekrasz, drums
Berkeley-based composer, bassist, bandleader and producer Lisa Mezzacappa has been active in the San Francisco Bay Area music community for more than 20 years. Her activities as a composer and ensemble leader include ethereal chamber music, electro-acoustic works, avant-garde jazz, music for groups from duo to large ensemble, and collaborations with film, dance, and visual art. Recent projects include Cosmicomics, a suite for electro-acoustic jazz sextet based on Italo’s Calvino’s stories about the origins of the cosmos; Organelle, a chamber work for improvisers grounded in scientific processes on micro and cosmic scales; Glorious Ravage, an evening-length song cycle for large ensemble and films drawn from the writings of Victorian lady adventurers; Touch Bass, a collaboration with choreographer Risa Jaroslow for three dancers and three bassists; and the serial audio opera The Electronic Lover. She is a recipient of the Pauline Oliveros New Genres Prize from the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM), and has been commissioned by the San Francisco Girls Chorus and Del Sol Quartet. With Jordan Glenn, she runs the Do-Over Music series at Shapeshifters Cinema in Oakland.
Videos:
Mat Maneri & Lucian Ban
On their second ECM duo album Romanian pianist Lucian Ban and US violist Mat Maneri find fresh inspiration as they follow the trail of Béla Bartók, revisiting the folk music that spurred the imagination of the great Hungarian composer who, in the early 20th century, collected and transcribed numerous pieces from Transylvania. For the duo these songs have become “springboards and sources of melodic material” for arrangements “that capture the spirit of the original yet allow us to improvise and bring our own world to them. If you go deeper into the source material, new vistas open up. These folk songs teach us many things.” (Steve Lake, album liner notes). Recorded live in October 2022 in the context of the Retracing Bartók project in Timișoara, these performances also bear testimony to the finely attuned understanding that Lucian Ban and Mat Maneri have achieved in their long-running musical partnership.
Watch Lucian Ban & Mat Maneri in concert at INSOMNIA HERE
LUCIAN BAN & MAT MANERI
More than a decade since they started working together as a duo, Lucian Ban and Mat Maneri are renowned for their amalgamations of Transylvanian folk with improvisation, their mining of 20th Century European classical music with jazz, and for their pursuit of a modern chamber jazz ideal. The two musicians first worked together in 2009 in the Enesco Re-Imagined octet that was conceived as a celebration and a contemporary jazz re-imagination of the works of the great Romanian composer George Enescu. Featuring an A list of jazz musicians – Ralph Alessi, Tony Malaby, John Hebert, Gerald Cleaver, Mat Maneri, Albrecht Maurer and Indian tabla legend Badal Roy – the album was recorded live at the 2009 Enescu International Festival in Bucharest and won multiple BEST ALBUM of the YEAR Awards from Jazz Journalists Association and worldwide press coverage, followed by concerts in major venues and festivals. JAZZ TIMES said “Enesco Re-Imagined is visionary third-stream music . . . this recording places Ban and Hébert among the great 21st-century interpreters.” The Guardian hails the album’s “rare combination of uninhibited but coherent solo and collective improv, shrewd arrangement and dazzling thematic writing”. In 2013 ECM Records releases Maneri & Ban duo album Transylvanian Concert that was widely acclaimed for “its original voice and unorthodox beauty “ (The Guardian) and spanned worldwide touring. It was followed by a trio with European avant-garde icon Evan Parker (Sounding Tears, 2018), by Mr. Maneri’s own microtonal quartet Dust (2019, a ROLLINGSTONE Best of the Year) and Ash (2022, Wall Street Journal feature) and in 2020 by their radical recasting of the Transylvanian folk songs from the Bela Bartok Field Recordings with legendary reed player John Surman. By year’s end Transylvanian Folk Songs ends up on NPR 2020 Jazz Critics Poll , on Balkan World Music Charts, New York City Jazz Record BEST OF 2020 and more. In 2023 Ban and Maneri released on Sunnyside Records Oedipe Redux their radical take on George Enescu’s Oedipe opera featuring a cast of international celebrated contemporary jazz & improvisers – Jen Shyu, Theo Bleckmann, Tom Rainey and renowned French bass clarinet player Louis Sclavis. In 2024 Sunnyside will release Blutopia, a co-lead quintet by baritone saxophonist Alex Harding and Lucian Ban and featuring Mat Maneri, Brandon Lewis and tuba master Bob Stewart.
The duo first appearance on ECM, Transylvanian Concert was in 2013 when Lucian Ban and Mat Maneri joined up for a concert in an opera house in Targu Mures in the middle of Romania’s Transylvania region, and recorded Transylvanian Concert, an album featuring a program of self-penned ballads, blues, hymns and abstract improvisations, the whole informed by the twin traditions of jazz and European chamber music. The music was, as Jazz Times puts it, “as close as it gets to Goth jazz” and won critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, including several Best Album of the Year awards, and spawning continuous touring ever since. Transylvanian Concert @ ECM Records
MAT MANERI over the course of a twenty-five year career, Mat Maneri has defined the voice of the viola and violin in jazz and improvised music. Born in Brooklyn in 1969, Maneri has established an international reputation as one of the most original and compelling artists of his generation, praised for his high degree of individualism, a distinctive marriage of jazz and microtonal music, and his work with 20th century icons of improvised music. All About Jazz considers
”Mat Maneri has changed the way the jazz world listens to the Violin & Viola.” As young musician, Maneri was influenced by the sounds of his childhood home. His father, saxophonist and composer Joe Maneri, was on faculty at the New England Conservatory, and colleagues like Ran Blake and Gunther Schuller were frequent visitors. Important influences on Maneri’s work – in addition to all the major forces of jazz – include Baroque music (which he studied with Juilliard String Quartet co-founder Robert Koff), Elliott Carter, and the Second Viennese School of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, which was also of central importance to his father, the late, great saxophonist, clarinettist, composer and educator Joe Maneri. Of his studies with Koff, Mat Maneri has said: “Studying Baroque music helped me to find my sound. [Koff] brought me into the world of contrapuntal playing and a way of using the bow that sounded more like a trumpet, like Miles, to my mind.” Jazz writer Jon Garelick has written in Boston Globe of Maneri’s distinctive style: “Maneri’s virtuosity is everywhere apparent – in his beautiful control of tone, in the moment-to-moment details that unfold in his playing, in the compositional integrity of each of his pieces, in what visual artists might call the variety of his ‘mark-making’: spidery multi-note runs, rhythmically charged double-stops and plucking, subtle and dramatic dynamic shifts.” Maneri posses an immediately recognizable sound and approach which marries the distinct worlds of jazz and microtonal music in a fluid, remarkably expressive fashion which The Wire dubbed “endlessly fascinating.” In 1990, Mat co-founded the legendary Joe Maneri Quartet with his father, drummer Randy Peterson and bassists Ed Schuller and John Lockwood. The quartet’s recordings for ECM Records, Hatology and Leo Records were widely acknowledged by critics and fellow musicians as among the most important developments in 20th century improvised music. Maneri’s 1999 solo debut on ECM Records marked his emergence as a musician with a singular, uncompromised voice, reflecting a growing consensus of Maneri as a central figure in American creative music. Since then, the long list of musicians with whom he has worked includes icons such as Cecil Taylor, Paul Bley, Paul Motian and William Parker, as well as influential bandleaders such as Joe Morris, Vijay Iyer, Matthew Shipp, Marilyn Crispell, Joelle Leandre, Kris Davis, Tim Berne and Craig Taborn. More info at Mat Maneri @ ECMLUCIAN BAN Called “A name to watch” by The Guardian and ”one of the most gifted pianists to move to New York” (B. Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery), LUCIAN BAN is a Romanian born, NYC based pianist & composer known for his amalgamations of Transylvanian folk with improvisation, for his mining of 20th Century European classical music with jazz, and for his pursue of a modern chamber jazz ideal. His music has been described as “emotionally ravishing” (Nate Chinen, New York Times/WBGO), a “triumph of emotional and musical communication” (All About Jazz), “Unorthodox but mesmeringly beautiful”(The Guardian) and as holding an “alluring timelessness and strong life-force” (Downbeat Magazine). Ban was raised in a small village in northwest Transylvania, in “the region where Bartok did his most extensive research and collecting of folk songs” and studied composition at the Bucharest Music Academy while simultaneously leading his own jazz groups, and notes that his approach to improvisation has been influenced by “the profound musical contributions of Romanian modern classical composers like Aurel Stroe, Anatol Vieru and of course Enesco”. Desire to get closer to the source of jazz brought him to the US, and since moving from Romania to New York in 1999 his ensembles have included many of New York’s finest players. The Enesco Re-Imagined third stream extravaganza octet celebrated the music of the great Romanian composer George Enesco and won multiple BEST ALBUM OF THE YEAR Awards. His second album with ELEVATION quartet “Songs from Afar” featuring Abraham Burton (ts), John Hebert (b) and Eric McPherson (dr) won a DOWNBEAT “5 star” review and BEST ALBUM OF THE YEAR in 2016. His duet with violist Mat Maneri “Transylvanian Concert” was released by ECM Records in 2013 and won critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, including several Best Album of 2013 awards. The 2020 Transylvanian Folk Songs a trio featuring Mat Maneri and legendary John Surman re-imagining the Bela Bartok Field Recordings is an NPR Album of the Year and wins critical acclaim anc international coverage. 2022 sees the release of his first piano solo album, Ways of Disappearing, a mesmerizing collections of improvisations and originals that is reviewed glowingly in The Wall Street Journal, Downbeat and New York City Jazz Record . He has recorded 20 albums as a leader for labels such as Sunnyside, ECM, Jazzaway, etc. More info at www.lucianban.com
Wed 10.23 TurnTurnTurn Xylyn’s Congregation / Mike Lockwood’s Safe Travels/ Ryan Miller & Grant Pierce $15 8pm
xylynhathaway.bandcamp.com
“Xylyn Hathaway has become a conduit of vulgar-beauty-jazz music that sinks teeth into the space it fills. They paint canvas into composition and wield an upright bass like bazookas, exploding hearts open peeled backwards into one bouquet of manic laughter from the pit of your chest.
Xylyn is a cherished figure and friend in our jazz community; born on Earth, one stone’s throw west from the palpitating heart of downtown Portland, Oregon.
A forager for chanterelles, they were raised on the farm in Newberg with Grandma. When Grandma died, they lost the old farmhouse, red and white and alive in the decaying cherry walnut orchards. Grandma lives in Noble Pioneer Cemetery now, Xylyn in Northeast Portland.
As a band leader, Xy’s musical visions unfold and sprout behemoth architecture dimly lit, oozing spirits from the gills as it gasps for its first breath beneath thumps quantized in fractals. They propel a soloist or a broken poet off cliffs into Jupiter’s hurricane eye.
They play with cats like George Colligan, like Ron Steen, like anybody making big nasty music to be hurt and healed by in this wet-crow city. Xylyn Hathaway’s heart and music exude peace and play and oozing spirits, dancing between us, around us, below the violent ocean dismembered by big old stones.”
This will be a showcase of fresh improvisation-heavy music that comes from the Black American
tradition. Original compositions and jazz standards approached in an unorthodox manner,
casting spells of laughter, darkness, love, and spiritual-togetherness. Major influences include
titans like Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Coltrane, and Henry Threadgill. Come and join the
Congregation!
Wyck Malloy – saxophone
Paul Moyer – piano
Xylyn Hathaway – bass
George Colligan – drums
xylynhathaway.bandcamp.com
Drummer/Composer Mike Lockwood will be debuting an original cyclical drone piece after years of conceptualization, musician wrangling and many attempts to wrest the time away from the flow of life. The band includes Noah Bernstein on alto sax, Mike Gamble on guitar, Andrew Jones on upright bass, Ryan Miller on guitar, Noah Simpson on trumpet, and Barry Walker on pedal stee
ryanalbertmiller.com
ryanamiller.bandcamp.com
usco.bandcamp.com
tentremors.bandcamp.com/album/held-radiant
ambitionsound.bandcamp.com/releases
Ryan “Ry” Albert Miller is a forward-thinking guitarist, composer, and improviser with a captivating new sound. Ryan is an active member of Portland’s thriving creative music scene; uniquely fusing through-composition and improvisation.
Ryan “Ry” actively performs and composes music for solo guitar and for the longstanding trio U Sco. PRESS:
“Whoever thought prog and punk would be so suited for each other? Certainly the possibility of a compromise occurred to Robert Fripp (look no further than Red-era King Crimson for an example of early prog-punk-rock, which was one of his better ideas). Ryan Miller, guitarist in the Portland-based progressive, experimental, post-whatever band U Sco, has also combined the two almost contradictory styles with ambiguous and riveting results. It’s essentially aggressive progressive rock, but stripped of (most) of the unpleasant excesses and regurgitated medieval allusions associated with the genre. In other words, it’s restless and exciting as hell, while still containing elements that will stimulate your classically trained friend’s ears.”
-Morgan Troper, The Portland Mercury
“Ryan Miller’s conception of technique and musical structure is wholly unique. The intensity in his performances moves in tandem with the humility and lyricism that actually propel the soul of his work.” -Sam Adams, Musician
“…I hate referencing Don Caballero twice in one week but there it is; also Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (old solo stuff), Upsilon Acrux; you know, the regulars. I figured Mick Barr would be a good call as a reference, guitar-wise, though Miller plays his six-string closer to the vest, investing in linear riffs and breaks while fulfilling his rhythmic duties aptly.”
-Grant Purdum, Tiny Mix Tapes
“Ryan Miller’s interpretation of the guitar fretboard is boundless and exhilarating, and drummer Phil Cleary commands the kit with both restraint and frenzy. Treffpunkt teeters on the edge of chaos, tip-toeing on the brink of abstraction, while keeping rooted in its composition. Their creativity is tireless and the tracks pass too quickly, a difficult feat considering their intricacies. While every song on Treffpunkt is unique, they blend into the same style, which makes it difficult to single out a favorite, although “Iguana House” is notably scathing. Simply put, every track has something fantastic to offer.” -Aaron Maltz, Invisible Oranges
“It’s not all that hard to be different, but different with a purpose and a lot of contemplation and musicianship behind it is almost always a rare treat. Ryan A. Miller’s Atrophy Torque Fly thrives in its uniqueness.”
-Victor Aaron, Something Else!
Grant Pierce is a drummer and songwriter living in Portland, Oregon. His music explores jazz, folk song, and heavier noise. He is a member of Halfbird, Young Hunter, June Rose, Stalwart Young, SPCJMRZ, and Not Bitter. Thank you!
Mon 10.21 Havalina Matt Mayhall & Andy Clausen $15 6pm
Andy Clausen is a Brooklyn-based trombonist, composer, arranger, and educator. Best known as a founding member of genre-bending brass quartet The Westerlies, Andy is also a frequent collaborator with a wide range of artists including Fleet Foxes, Aoife O’Donovan, Haley Heynderickx, Conrad Tao, Nico Muhly, and Dave Douglas, and a prolific composer for visual media, audio storytelling, and concert music. 2024 marks the debut of Andy’s solo project “Few Ill Words: Solo Trombone at The TANK,” recorded in the profound reverberation of an abandoned railroad water silo in rural Colorado. More info at: andyclausen.com.
“A melody from Andy Clausen is pure moonlight. It’s lovely and magical, full of warmth, and it can brighten up the room. But moonlight also is a source of mystery, with ominous overtones and an electric tension” – Bandcamp Daily
“folk-like and composerly, lovely and intellectually rigorous” – NPR
“Chamber music with bracing melodies and, crucially, an undeniable sense of fun” – L.A. Times
“an alluring, whimsical, and just-plain-cool mix of jazz, classical, and experimental music. Challenging music that doesn’t shy away from also being pretty.” – eMusic
“sleek, dynamic large-group jazz, a whirl of dark-hued harmony and billowing rhythm…The intelligent sheen of Mr. Clausen’s writing was as striking as the composure of his peers…It was impressive, and not just by the yardstick of their age.” – The New York Times
https://www.instagram.com/aclausent/
Matt Mayhall has been characterized by Modern Drummer as an artist “who rolls his diverse skills into one untidy, rumbling package.” Over the past two decades he has worked with an eclectic range of world-renowned performers in jazz, improvised music, singer-songwriter, folk, indie rock, indie pop, American roots music and performance art. He has worked with many internationally-known improvisers including Jeff Parker, Chris Speed, Brad Shepik, David Binney, Todd Sickafoose, Anthony Wilson, and Tim Lefebvre. He has also toured with Aimee Mann, Ted Leo, Liz Phair, Susanna Hoffs, and Dar Williams.
Mayhall has released two critically acclaimed albums as a bandleader, receiving favorable reviews in publications such as Downbeat, Bandcamp Daily, and Stereogum. He currently resides in the Pacific Northwest and co-leads the Sound Creation Trio, a collaborative ensemble with Portland-based guitarist Mike Gamble and bassist Andrew Jones. “Matt Mayhall’s drums burn with a self-contained fury; at other times, he develops a rhythmic chatter that accentuates the poetry of the beats… [His music] shows just how strong subtlety can resonate, and how nuance can be the driving force of creative vision.” – Bandcamp Daily
“Matt Mayhall’s music harbors a softly psychedelic vibe… A dreamy soup stressing group composition over individual exhibition.” – Downbeat
“Mayhall sets up a dancing, strutting beat somewhere between Ed Blackwell and Zigaboo Modeliste.” – Stereogum
