1709 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Tuesday October 15 – Naomi Moon Siegel & Marina Albero / Illegal Son $15-30 8pm at No Fun
Trombonist and composer, Denzel Mendoza is Illegal Son. A Filipino National born in Singapore, raised in Las Vegas, NV; studied in NYC, NY, and based in Portland, OR; Mendoza has lived in the United States for the majority of his life but yet, he continues to chase the American Dream.
Since 2004, Mendoza has been an Undocumented Immigrant. Labeled as illegal, criminal, and unwanted, Mendoza unwillingly carried that shame as a child into his years as a young adult to only then embrace those terms as strengths as the years progressed. Ironically, his achievements as a musician have outweighed his path towards citizenship; from performing nationwide with Haley Heynderickx to being awarded at The Grammy Awards for his participation with John Daversa’s American Dreamers: Voices of Hope, Music of Freedom in 2018.
Denzel Mendoza’s Illegal Son is quite simply his interpretation of life as Undocumented Immigrant through sound and music. It is deeply emotional and incredibly vulnerable. Every passing day, there is no promise of a tomorrow; there is only fear and hope. To process life under the umbrella of being Undocumented consists of improvisation, a consistent chaos of what’s to come. Everything within Illegal Son is improvisation. It’s insecure, unstable, but hopeful.
An award-winning trombonist, improviser, composer, and educator, Naomi Moon Siegel uses the trombone as a vehicle for sonic expression colored by breath, spit, and physicality. Moving beyond conventional genre norms, she allows her lyrical sound to unfurl intuitively. Her original musical vocabulary draws on the richness of a variety of global musical traditions and the sonorities of the natural world.
Siegel is touring in support of the release of her third album Shatter The Glass Sanctuary, a collection of adventurous original works that chronicles her adjustment to small-town living in Missoula, Montana, after residing for many years in Seattle, Washington. The music follows her inward journey of emotional highs and lows, propelled ever forward by a stellar sextet of acclaimed Seattle musicians including pianist Marina Albero, guitarist Andy Coe, percussionist Christopher Icasiano, trumpeter Ray Larsen, and bassist Kelsey Mines. Produced by award-winning drummer and mentor Allison Miller, Shatter The Glass Sanctuary is Siegel’s most ambitious and sweeping statement yet, and a showcase of her prowess as a composer, improviser, bandleader, and trombonist. For this tour, Siegel will be joined by the prolific pianist Marina Albero, for a stripped-down intimate version of this music.
naomimoonsiegel.com
https://www.youtube.com/@naomimoonsiegel
Marina Albero is decidedly one of the rarest improvisational artists of our time. It’s relevant in the human experience today because what reflects an awakened emotional soundscape as she engages you. It’s movement that is necessary yet strikingly a familiarity we have forgotten. The complexity of the sounds out of every key has not one identity but multiple characteristics in relation to another, it leaves you wondering what is even happening and in what genre you are listening to anymore.
