The Generous Exchange Book Launch at Real Art Ways

Experience music imagined and created in real-time. This series runs from September 2024 to May 2025. Check out the full schedule here!

April 13 Performance:

Matt Mitchell-piano

Matt Mitchell is a pianist and composer interested in the intersections of the various strains of acoustic, electric, and composed and improvised new music. He currently composes for and leads several ensembles featuring many of the current foremost musicians and improvisers, including Tim Berne, Kim Cass, Kate Gentile, Miles Okazaki, Ches Smith, Tyshawn Sorey, Anna Webber, and Dan Weiss.

Kim Cass-bass

Kim Cass is from an island off the coast of Maine, where he was introduced to bass playing at age 10. He quickly developed a unique style on the electric bass and began playing the upright bass at age 13. Developing this instrument in a jazz context became Kim’s passion, as did composing music featuring his upright playing.

When studying at the New England Conservatory of Music, Cass received personalized instruction from several virtuoso musicians, including George Garzone, Ran Blake, Joe Morris, and Joe Maneri. Cass currently resides in New York City. He has been featured in a wide variety of ensembles, executing music that is ever-challenging and beautifully mysterious.

Cass has performed with the likes of Matt Mitchell, Tyshawn Sorey, John Zorn, and Bill McHenry. The solo album KIM CASS, released on Table and Chairs, is a showcase of Kim’s upright bass playing and compositions.

Learn more about Kim here.

Joe Morris-guitar

Joe Morris is a composer/improviser multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, double bass, mandolin, banjo, banjouke electric bass and drums. He is also a recording artist, educator, record producer, concert producer/curator and author. His is considered to be one of the most original and important improvising musicians of our time. Down Beat magazine called him “the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” Will Montgomery, writing in The Wire magazine called him “one of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.”

He is originally from New Haven, Connecticut. At the age of 12 he took lessons on the trumpet for one year. He started on guitar in 1969 at the age of 14. He played his first professional gig later that year. With the exception of a few lessons he is self-taught. The influence of Jimi Hendrix and other guitarists of that period led him to concentrate on learning to play the blues. Soon thereafter his sister gave him a copy of John Coltrane’s OM, which inspired him to learn about Jazz and New Music. From age 15 to 17 he attended The Unschool, a student-run alternative high school near the campus of Yale University in downtown New Haven. Taking advantage of the open learning style of the school he spent much of his time playing music with other students, listening to ethnic folk, blues, jazz, and classical music on record at the public library and attending the various concerts and recitals on the Yale campus, including performances by Wadada Leo Smith. He worked to establish his own voice on guitar in a free jazz context from the age of 17, drawing on the influence of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor,Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman as well as the AACM, BAG, and the many European improvisers of the ’70s. Later he would draw influence from traditional West African string music, Messian, Ives, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Lyons, Leroy Jenkins, Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins. After high school he performed in rock bands, rehearsed in jazz bands and played totally improvised music with friends until 1975 when he moved to Boston.

Learn more about Joe here.

Experience music imagined and created in real-time. This series runs from September 2024 to May 2025. Check out the full schedule here!

March 16 Performance:

DoYeon Kim-gayageum

DoYeon Kim is a traditionally trained Korean artist who plays the gayageum, a traditional Korean string instrument, and has developed a uniquely broad approach to music, incorporating Korean music, jazz, and improvisation, among other influences. Notably, she introduced the gayageum into the improvisational music scene worldwide. Her recent collaborative projects have broadened to include dancers, actors, and visual artists.

During her traditional Korean training, she won numerous international competitions for her gayageum performances, including the Dong-A Ilbo Traditional Music Competition (Gold Prize, 2009), and the On-Nala Korean Music Competition (Gold Prize, 2011). DoYeon is also a graduate of the Contemporary Improvisation Department at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she was the first student ever admitted to the school playing any kind of Korean traditional instrument. She joined the faculty at her alma mater (2022). She also holds graduate degrees from Berklee’s Global Jazz Institute.

She has worked with numerous composers, performing several world premieres, and has been an invited guest lecturer for gayageum and Asian music at Franz Liszt Academy of Music, Universidad Nacional De Colombia, Dartmouth College, and many other universities. The Gyeonggi Sinawi Orchestra, a traditional music orchestra in Korea, has invited her as a music director (2021), and improvisation conductor (2023). DoYeon makes an effort to share a new and broader approach to music, drawing from Korean traditional music, improvisation, and development of original playing techniques.

DoYeon has performed throughout the world leading the Kim Do Yeon Band, and alongside many improvisers, including Tyshawn Sorey, Joe Morris, Agusti Fernandez, Tony Malaby and Anthony Coleman. Her first album, GaPi (2017), intimately combined traditional Korean music and jazz, and was nominated for a 2018 Korean Grammy Award in the crossover album category. The same year, DoYeon released the free improvisation album Macrocosm with Joe Morris, and performed on Jim Snidero’s Korean themed jazz album Project-K (2020), alongside Dave Douglas, Orrin Evans, Linda Oh and Rudy Royston. DoYeon Kim was recognized by Grammy.com as one of 7 Musicians Pushing Ancient Asian Instruments Into The Future (2021), and is performing projects at Roulette as a Van Lier Fellow (2023).

Learn more about DoYeon here.

Dan O’Brien-saxophone, clarinet, flute

Dan O’Brien is a woodwind player (alto sax, flute, clarinet) who was quite active in the early Contemporary period prior to the pandemic. He performed with Leap of Faith, The Leap of Faith Orchestra & Sub-Units project at Third Life Studios in Somerville, 3 of the 6 Graphic Scores for the full Leap of Faith Orchestra, Mekaniks, and Turbulence. He came to our scene along with Zach Bartolomei, also a reed player, and they performed together on most of the sets.

Learn more about Dan here.

Brad Barret-bass

“A true virtuoso of the double bass with unlimited abilities. The possibilities of Free Music afford him the challenge to operate on the frontier of music, while his great technique grounds him with precision and musicality.” – Joe Morris

Brad Barrett is a bassist, improviser, and educator. His practice engages the tools of improvisation and southern musical traditions to interrogate the complex interplay between freedom and structure. The Jazz Times has described Barrett’s style as “diced bits of Derek Bailey skronk” infused with “Delta blues twang,” and the Free Music Collective has lauded his playing as “singularly rhythmically genius.” In 2019, his first album, Cowboy Transfiguration—featuring Joe Morris on guitar and MacArthur Fellow Tyshawn Sorey on percussion—garnered critical acclaim for its distinctive sonic landscapes and virtuosity. Unlike conventional approaches to composition that place decision-making authority in the hands of a single composer, the compositional frameworks in Cowboy Transfiguration challenge players to maximize their creative freedom while adhering to rules for shared leadership. Over the past decade, Barrett has worked as an in-demand freelance musician; has performed with jazz luminaries such as Jason Moran, Sheila Jordan, Julian Lage, Evan Parker, Jerry Bergonzi, George Garzone, Taylor Ho Bynum and Rakalam Bob Moses; and has appeared on several noteworthy albums. In addition, Barrett is an award-winning educator whose innovative teaching practice has been consistently supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Barrett holds a DMA in Contemporary Improvisation and a MM in Jazz Performance from the New England Conservatory.

Learn more about Brad here.

Joe Morris-percussion, electronics

Joe Morris is a composer/improviser multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, double bass, mandolin, banjo, banjouke electric bass and drums. He is also a recording artist, educator, record producer, concert producer/curator and author. His is considered to be one of the most original and important improvising musicians of our time. Down Beat magazine called him “the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” Will Montgomery, writing in The Wire magazine called him “one of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.”

He is originally from New Haven, Connecticut. At the age of 12 he took lessons on the trumpet for one year. He started on guitar in 1969 at the age of 14. He played his first professional gig later that year. With the exception of a few lessons he is self-taught. The influence of Jimi Hendrix and other guitarists of that period led him to concentrate on learning to play the blues. Soon thereafter his sister gave him a copy of John Coltrane’s OM, which inspired him to learn about Jazz and New Music. From age 15 to 17 he attended The Unschool, a student-run alternative high school near the campus of Yale University in downtown New Haven. Taking advantage of the open learning style of the school he spent much of his time playing music with other students, listening to ethnic folk, blues, jazz, and classical music on record at the public library and attending the various concerts and recitals on the Yale campus, including performances by Wadada Leo Smith. He worked to establish his own voice on guitar in a free jazz context from the age of 17, drawing on the influence of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor,Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman as well as the AACM, BAG, and the many European improvisers of the ’70s. Later he would draw influence from traditional West African string music, Messian, Ives, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Lyons, Leroy Jenkins, Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins. After high school he performed in rock bands, rehearsed in jazz bands and played totally improvised music with friends until 1975 when he moved to Boston.

Learn more about Joe here.

Experience music imagined and created in real-time. This series runs from September 2024 to May 2025. Check out the full schedule here!

February 16 Performance:

William Parker-bass, flutes, n’goni

Learn more about William here.

Taylor Ho Bynum-cornet, flugelhorn

Taylor Ho Bynum is a musician, teacher, and writer, with a background including work in composition, performance, interdisciplinary collaboration, production, organizing, and advocacy.

His expressionistic playing on cornet and other brass instruments, his expansive vision as composer, and his idiosyncratic improvisational approach have been documented on over twenty recordings as a bandleader and over a hundred as a sideperson. Bynum enjoys playing with friends in collective ensembles like his duo with Tomas Fujiwara, Illegal Crowns (with Fujiwara, Benoit Delbecq, and Mary Halvorson), and Geometry (with Kyoko Kitamura, Tomeka Reid, and Joe Morris), and as a sideperson in Fujiwara’s Triple Double and Shizuko, Reid’s Stringtet and Septet, Jim Hobbs & the Fully Celebrated Orchestra, and Bill Lowe’s Signifyin’ Natives.

Learn more about Taylor here.

Jerome Deupree-drums, percussion

Jerome Dupree is an American musician, based in Massachusetts. He is best known as the original drummer in the alternative rock band Morphine.

Jerome started playing drums at the age of six, with the help of his two older brothers. In the early 1970s, he formed a band with his brother Jesse. After high school, he moved to Bloomington, Indiana, where he got to record for the first time. After a few years he again relocated to Santa Cruz, California, where he played with Humans, who toured with Squeeze and opened for Patti Smith and Iggy Pop.

In 1981 he moved to Boston, and has lived there since. His early Boston projects included stints in Sex Execs and Either/Orchestra.

Learn more about Jerome here.

Joe Morris-guitar, banjouke

Joe Morris is a composer/improviser multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, double bass, mandolin, banjo, banjouke electric bass and drums. He is also a recording artist, educator, record producer, concert producer/curator and author. His is considered to be one of the most original and important improvising musicians of our time. Down Beat magazine called him “the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” Will Montgomery, writing in The Wire magazine called him “one of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.”

He is originally from New Haven, Connecticut. At the age of 12 he took lessons on the trumpet for one year. He started on guitar in 1969 at the age of 14. He played his first professional gig later that year. With the exception of a few lessons he is self-taught. The influence of Jimi Hendrix and other guitarists of that period led him to concentrate on learning to play the blues. Soon thereafter his sister gave him a copy of John Coltrane’s OM, which inspired him to learn about Jazz and New Music. From age 15 to 17 he attended The Unschool, a student-run alternative high school near the campus of Yale University in downtown New Haven. Taking advantage of the open learning style of the school he spent much of his time playing music with other students, listening to ethnic folk, blues, jazz, and classical music on record at the public library and attending the various concerts and recitals on the Yale campus, including performances by Wadada Leo Smith. He worked to establish his own voice on guitar in a free jazz context from the age of 17, drawing on the influence of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor,Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman as well as the AACM, BAG, and the many European improvisers of the ’70s. Later he would draw influence from traditional West African string music, Messian, Ives, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Lyons, Leroy Jenkins, Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins. After high school he performed in rock bands, rehearsed in jazz bands and played totally improvised music with friends until 1975 when he moved to Boston.

Learn more about Joe here.

Experience music imagined and created in real-time. This series runs from September 2024 to May 2025. Check out the full schedule here!

January 19 Performance:

Jacqueline Kerrod-harp

Described as ‘exceptionally virtuosic and sensitive,’ South African harpist Jacqueline Kerrod is perfectly at home across multiple genres and performs throughout the United States and Europe.

Most recently, she has been touring internationally with composer and multi-reedist Anthony Braxton, both in duo and as part of his ZIM music ensemble. She was a founding member and co-songwriter of the pop duo Addi & Jacq, who were winners of NYC’s Battle of the Boroughs in 2015, and recently toured her show, ‘Harps Uncovered’ featuring vocalist Hannah Sumner through 12 states of the US. Currently, she is working on a solo project further exploring her love of improvisation, songwriting, and the use of electronics to augment and manipulate sound.

As a champion of contemporary music, Jacqueline has performed with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), the Argento Chamber Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Wet Ink, Alarm Will Sound, and Metropolis Chamber Ensemble. As a native South African, she is passionate about commissioning and performing music written by South African composers and has performed over a dozen works written for her. She has also performed with elite chamber groups such as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players.

Described as an ‘eclectic harpist’ by Lucid Culture, her discography includes a recently released duo with Anthony Braxton on the ‘dischi di angelica’ label. Recorded live on May 27th, 2018 at the AngelicA, Festival Internazionale di Musica at the Centro di Ricerca Musicale / Teatro San Leonardo, Bologna, Italy. Available on Bandcamp.Contemporary music, 3 self produced albums with Addi & Jacq, Greg Spears’ Requiem (New Amsterdam Records), Robert Paterson’s Star Crossing and Book of Goddesses (American Modern Recordings), and MAYA – In The Spirit(Perspectives Recordings). Other notable recordings that feature Jacqueline include Tristan Murail’s Winter Fragments (AEON), Anthony Braxton’s Trillium J, and the single Crazy in Love by Antony and the Johnsons (Secretly Canadian/Rough Trade Records). Her recording, “Candlelight Carols” with Grammy®-nominated vocal ensemble Seraphic Fire debuted at #11 on the Classical Billboard charts.

She has performed with Kayne West, Antony & the Johnsons, Jane Birkin, Rufus Wainwright, Santigold, Jónsi & Alex, to name a few.

Learn more about Jacqueline here.

Joe Morris-guitar

Joe Morris is a composer/improviser multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, double bass, mandolin, banjo, banjouke electric bass and drums. He is also a recording artist, educator, record producer, concert producer/curator and author. His is considered to be one of the most original and important improvising musicians of our time. Down Beat magazine called him “the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” Will Montgomery, writing in The Wire magazine called him “one of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.”

He is originally from New Haven, Connecticut. At the age of 12 he took lessons on the trumpet for one year. He started on guitar in 1969 at the age of 14. He played his first professional gig later that year. With the exception of a few lessons he is self-taught. The influence of Jimi Hendrix and other guitarists of that period led him to concentrate on learning to play the blues. Soon thereafter his sister gave him a copy of John Coltrane’s OM, which inspired him to learn about Jazz and New Music. From age 15 to 17 he attended The Unschool, a student-run alternative high school near the campus of Yale University in downtown New Haven. Taking advantage of the open learning style of the school he spent much of his time playing music with other students, listening to ethnic folk, blues, jazz, and classical music on record at the public library and attending the various concerts and recitals on the Yale campus, including performances by Wadada Leo Smith. He worked to establish his own voice on guitar in a free jazz context from the age of 17, drawing on the influence of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor,Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman as well as the AACM, BAG, and the many European improvisers of the ’70s. Later he would draw influence from traditional West African string music, Messian, Ives, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Lyons, Leroy Jenkins, Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins. After high school he performed in rock bands, rehearsed in jazz bands and played totally improvised music with friends until 1975 when he moved to Boston.

Learn more about Joe here.

Experience music imagined and created in real-time. This series runs from September 2024 to May 2025. Check out the full schedule here!

December 15 Performance:

Darius Jones-saxophone

“Today, there isn’t a saxophonist with a purer and more astonishing tone, one of authority and humanity.” – PopMatters

Darius Jones has created a recognizable voice as a critically acclaimed saxophonist and composer by embracing individuality and innovation in the tradition of Black music. Jones has been awarded the Van Lier Fellowship, Jerome Foundation Artist-in-Residence and Commission, Western Front Residency and Commission, French-American Jazz Exchange Award, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation Award, and Fromm Music Foundation Commission from Harvard University. Jones has received acclaim for his studio albums featuring music and images evocative of Black Futurism and his commissioned work as a composer throughout the United States and Canada.

Learn more about Darius here.

Nasheet Waits-drums

NASHEET WAITS, drummer/music educator, is a New York native. His interest in playing the drums was encouraged by his father, legendary percussionist, Frederick Waits. Over the course of his career, Freddie Waits played with such legendary artists as Ella Fitzgerald, Sonny Rollins, Max Roach, McCoy Tyner, and countless others.

Nasheet’s college education began at Morehouse in Atlanta, GA, where he majored in Psychology and History. Deciding that music would be his main focus, he continued his college studies in New York at Long Island University, where he graduated with honours, receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Music. While attending Long Island University, Waits studied privately with renowned percussionist, Michael Carvin. Carvin’s tutelage provided a vast foundation upon which Waits added influences from his father, as well as mentor Max Roach. It was Max that first gave Nasheet’s formidable talent international spotlight, hiring him as a member of the famed percussion ensemble M’BOOM. One highlight of Nasheet’s tenure with M’BOOM was the live concert performance of M’BOOM with special guests Tony Williams and Ginger Baker.

Learn more about Nasheet here.

Adam Lane-bassist

By combining a disparate set of influences into a unique improvisational voice, Adam Lane has become recognized as one of the most original creative voices in contemporary jazz. His 2006 recording New Magical Kingdom, was recently featured in the Penguin Jazz Guide 1001 Best Records Ever Made, and his most recent recording, Ashcan Ranting received a myriad of critical praise including four stars in Downbeat.

His current projects include his Full Throttle Orchestra, a nine piece ensemble formed to realize his extended jazz orchestral compositions, The Adam Lane Trio, featuring legendary reedist Vinny Golia, Four Corners, a co-lead ensemble with reedist Ken Vandermark, and an ongoing solo project that combines unique processed double bass improvisations with Lane’s original story telling. As a sideman he has performed with an eclectic mix of musicians, from tenor great John Tchicai, to alto iconoclast Richard Tabnik, to rock legend Tom Waits. Lane’s compositions have been praised for their audacity and originality.

Learn more about Adam here.

Joe Morris-guitar

Joe Morris is a composer/improviser multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, double bass, mandolin, banjo, banjouke electric bass and drums. He is also a recording artist, educator, record producer, concert producer/curator and author. His is considered to be one of the most original and important improvising musicians of our time. Down Beat magazine called him “the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” Will Montgomery, writing in The Wire magazine called him “one of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.”

He is originally from New Haven, Connecticut. At the age of 12 he took lessons on the trumpet for one year. He started on guitar in 1969 at the age of 14. He played his first professional gig later that year. With the exception of a few lessons he is self-taught. The influence of Jimi Hendrix and other guitarists of that period led him to concentrate on learning to play the blues. Soon thereafter his sister gave him a copy of John Coltrane’s OM, which inspired him to learn about Jazz and New Music. From age 15 to 17 he attended The Unschool, a student-run alternative high school near the campus of Yale University in downtown New Haven. Taking advantage of the open learning style of the school he spent much of his time playing music with other students, listening to ethnic folk, blues, jazz, and classical music on record at the public library and attending the various concerts and recitals on the Yale campus, including performances by Wadada Leo Smith. He worked to establish his own voice on guitar in a free jazz context from the age of 17, drawing on the influence of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor,Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman as well as the AACM, BAG, and the many European improvisers of the ’70s. Later he would draw influence from traditional West African string music, Messian, Ives, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Lyons, Leroy Jenkins, Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins. After high school he performed in rock bands, rehearsed in jazz bands and played totally improvised music with friends until 1975 when he moved to Boston.

Learn more about Joe here.

Experience music imagined and created in real-time. This series runs from September 2024 to May 2025. Check out the full schedule here!

November 17 Performance:

Jeb Bishop-trombone

Nate McBride-bass

Kelly Bray-trumpet

Joe Morris-drums

Experience music imagined and created in real-time. This series runs from September 2024 to May 2025. Check out the full schedule here!

October 20 Performance:

Ingrid Laubrock is an experimental saxophonist and composer interested in exploring the borders between musical realms and creating multi-layered, dense, and often evocative sound worlds. A prolific composer, Laubrock was named a “true visionary” by pianist and The Kennedy Center’s artistic director Jason Moran and a “fully committed saxophonist and visionary” by the New Yorker and the New York Times nominated her composition Vogelfrei as ‘one of the best 25 Classical tracks of 2018’.

She worked with Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richards Abrams, Dave Douglas, Kenny Wheeler, Jason Moran, Tim Berne, William Parker, Tom Rainey, Mary Halvorson, Kris Davis, Tyshawn Sorey, Craig Taborn, Andy Milne, Luc Ex, Django Bates’ Human Chain, The Continuum Ensemble, Wet Ink and many others.

Awards included the BBC Jazz Award for Innovation in 2004, a Fellowship in Jazz Composition by the Arts Foundation in 2006, the 2009 SWR German Radio Jazz Prize, the 2014 German Record Critics Quarterly Award, Downbeat Annual Critics Poll Rising Star Soprano Saxophone (2015), Rising Star-Tenor Saxophone (2018) and Herb Alpert/Ragdale Prize in Composition 2019.

Ingrid Laubrock has received composition commissions from The Fromm Music Foundation, BBC Glasgow Symphony Orchestra, Bang on The Can, Grossman Ensemble, The Shifting Foundation, The Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, The Jerwood Foundation, American Composers Orchestra, Tricentric Foundation, SWR New Jazz Meeting, The Jazz Gallery Commissioning Series, NYSCA, Wet Ink, John Zorn’s Stone Commissioning Series, and the EOS Orchestra.

She is a recipient of the 2019 Herb Alpert Ragdale Prize in Music Composition and the 2021 Berklee Institute of Gender Justice Women Composers Collection Grant.

Ingrid Laubrock is a part-time faculty member at The New School and Columbia University. Other teaching experiences include improvisation workshops at Towson University, CalArts, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, Baruch College, University of Michigan, University of Newcastle, and many others. Laubrock was Improviser in Residence 2012 in the German city of Moers. The post is created to introduce creative music into the city throughout the year. As part of this, she led a regular improvisation ensemble and taught sound workshops in elementary schools.

Born in Newark, NJ, Steve Swell has been an active member of the NYC music community since 1975.  His breadth of versatility has allowed him to tour and record with mainstream artists like Lionel Hampton and Buddy Rich in the past, as well as more contemporary artists like Anthony Braxton, Bill Dixon, Cecil Taylor, and William Parker.  He has over 50 CDs as a leader or co-leader and is a featured artist on more than 125 other releases.  He runs workshops worldwide and is a teaching artist in the NYC public school system, focusing on special needs children.

Swell has worked on music transcriptions of the Bosavi tribe of New Guinea for MacArthur fellow Steve Feld in 2000. His CD, “Suite For Players, Listeners and Other Dreamers” (CIMP), ranked number 2 in the 2004 Cadence Readers Poll. He has also received grants from USArtists International in 2006 and MCAF (LMCC) awards in 2008 and 2013. He has been commissioned three times for the Interpretations Series at Merkin Hall in 2006 and at Roulette in 2012 and 2017.

Steve was nominated for Trombonist of the Year 2008, 2011 & 2020 by the Jazz Journalists Association, was selected Trombonist of the Year 2008-2010, 2012,  2014-2021, and 2023 by the online journal El Intruso of Argentina, and received the 2008 Jubilation Foundation Fellowship Award of the Tides Foundation.  Steve has also been selected by the Downbeat Critics Poll in the Trombone category each year from 2010-2018 & 2020-2024. The New York City Jazz Record chose his recording “Soul Travelers” with Jemeel Moondoc, Dave Burrell, William Parker, and Gerald Cleaver as Album of the Year in 2016. His performance of “Kende Dreams” with Connie Crothers, Rob Brown, Larry Roland, and Chad Taylor at the 2016 Vision Festival was cited as one of the year’s best performances by the same journal. This was also one of Connie’s last performances. We miss her dearly.

Steve is a teaching artist through the American Composers Orchestra, Healing Arts Initiative, Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center (Bronx), the Jazz Foundation of America, Leman Manhattan Preparatory School, and the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music.

Steve was also awarded the 2014 Creative Curricula grant (LMCC) for the project: “Metamorphoses: Modern Mythology in Sound and Words,” which was taught in a month-long residency at Baruch College Campus High School in Manhattan.

Steve’s CD Music for Six Musicians: Hommage à Olivier Messiaen was listed in NPR’s top 50 albums for 2018.

Steve is an inaugural recipient of a Jazz Road Tours grant (SouthArts.org) begun in 2019 and received a 2020 Creative Engagement grant (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council) for performances to take place in Manhattan.

In 2021, Steve received the City Artists Corps Grant (NYC).

Hidemi Akaiwa is a Japanese pianist and composer. At 30, she shifted from a successful corporate career to focusing on jazz music. She received a full scholarship to  Berklee, where she participates in the college’s Global Jazz Institute, Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, Planet MicroJam Institute, and Interdisciplinary Arts Institute. These experiences have allowed her to study with world-class musicians, including Danilo Pérez, Kenny Werner, Terri Lyne Carrington, Kris Davis, Billy Childs, David Fiuczynski, and many others. Her passion is to create a new art form infusing the tenets of Japanese Zen with the sounds of jazz and microtonal contemporary classical music.

Joe Morris is a composer/improviser multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, double bass, mandolin, banjo, banjouke electric bass and drums. He is also a recording artist, educator, record producer, concert producer/curator and author. His is considered to be one of the most original and important improvising musicians of our time. Down Beat magazine called him “the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” Will Montgomery, writing in The Wire magazine called him “one of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.”

He has performed or recorded with Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Evan Parker, Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Wadada Leo Smith, David S. Ware, Sunny Murray, Marshall Allen, Dewey Redman, Lawrence “Butch” Morris, Andrew CyrilleJoe Maneri, Barry Guy, Tyshawn Sorey, Ken Vandermark, Mary Halvorson, Han Bennink, Barre Phillips, Tomeka Reid, Paul Rutherford, Agustí Fernández, Nate Wooley, Peter Evans, Gerald Cleaver, Rob Brown, John Butcher, Eugene Chadbourne, DKV Trio, Aaly Trio, Daniel Carter, Rashid Bakr, Wilbur Morris,, Kidd Jordan, Alvin Fielder, Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins, Tim Berne, Fred Anderson, Ivo Perelman, Andrea Parkins, Hamid Drake, Thurman Barker, Fred Hopkins, Bern Nix, Joe McPhee, Billy Bang, Lowell Davidson, Peter Kowald, Simon Fell, Roy Campbell Jr., Raphé Malik, Whit Dickey, Sabir Mateen, Mark Dresser, Gerry Hemingway, Warren Smith, Karen Borca, Malcolm Goldstein, Paul Lytton, Tim Berne, Suzie Ibarra, Mat Maneri, Sylvia Courvosier, Thurston Moore, Alex Ward, Jamie Saft and many others. He has also performed as a member of William Parker’s Organic Ensemble, Pipeline 2000, Jim Hobbs Ghost Band, Alan Silva’s Celestial Communications Orchestra, Simon Fell Orchestra, Agustí Fernández Celebration Ensemble, and in a large ensemble led by Leroy Jenkins. He currently leads various groups including Abstract Forest, a 20+ piece improvising ensemble, Go Go Mambo, Joe Morris Quartet, Mess Hall, Shock Axis, Plymouth, as well as performing solo, in duos and as a freelance guitarist and double bassist. In 2019 he began his INSTANTIATION music, recording and performing the first four parts of the multi-part work that uses the properties of free music in new ways with various ensembles.

He is featured as leader, co-leader and sideman on 150 recordings to date. Many of his recordings as a leader have been named among Writer’s Choice (best of the year) in the Village Voice, Chicago Tribune, Wire, Coda, and Jazziz, and on Free Jazz.org and All About Jazz.com.. He has recorded for the labels AUM Fidelity, SoulNote, Thirsty Ear, Ayler, Knitting Factory, Okka Disc, OmniTone, Avant, Incus, Hat Hut, ECM, Leo, Homestead, NoMore, About Time, Clean Feed, Skycap, Rogue Art, Rare Noise, ESPdisk, Bug Incision, Relative Pitch, and Cuneiform. In 2014 he founded Glacial Erratic records.

In 2019 he was nominated for a St Botolph Distinguished Artist Award. He received the 2017 Killam Visiting Scholar Award from the University of Calgary Alberta Canada. He was the recipient of a Meet the Composer grant in 2004. He was nominated for a 2001 Calarts Alpert Award. He was nominated as New York Jazz Awards Guitarist of the Year in 1998 and 2002.

In 2012 he published the book Perpetual Frontier: The Properties of Free Music (Riti, 2012). His article Encryption was included in Arcane vol 7 (Tzadik 2014). His article Perpetual Frontier appears on www.pointofdeparture.org (Pod39) May 2012. He has written numerous liner note articles on his music and for other artists for recordings on the labels Sony, Hat Hut, Aum Fidelity, RogueArt and others. His monthly column Intentional Evolution begins publication in the German magazine Jazz Podium in January 2020. He has presented workshops and master classes in a wide variety of settings throughout North America and Europe, including at Harvard University, Princeton University, Dartmouth College, University of the Arts, Berklee College of Music, University of Calgary, University of Guelph, University of Alberta, and Mannes School of Music. He has taught improvisation and/or guitar on the faculty at Tufts University Experimental College, Southern Connecticut State University and the Longy School of Music at Bard College. He is a lesson faculty member at New School Jazz and Contemporary Music. He has been on the faculty in the Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation Department at New England Conservatory of Music since 2000.

He began his work as an organizer and performance producer/curator in 1976 in Boston and continued there and in New York until 2001 when he left Boston for New Haven CT. Upon moving to Connecticut in 2001 he created the Just Play series in New Haven (2003/2004), curated the premier season at Firehouse 12 (2005), was artistic director for Hartford Jazz Society Jazz in the Park series (2008), co-founded and curated the Improvisations series at Real Art Ways in Hartford (2011–2016), and founded and co-curated the Multiplex series at State House in New Haven (2019). He was in residence at The Stone NYC for two weeks in January 2013, and for one week in June 2014, August 2016, June 2017 and May 2018. In September 2015 through June 2016, he produced the series Arcade which presented him in performance with new emerging musicians with ten performances presented in New Haven, Hartford, Cambridge, Mass., and Brooklyn, N.Y. His one-day festival Spectacle was presented at Real Art Ways in Hartford CT annually from 2013-2018. It featured emerging musicians performing in ad-hoc groupings with well-known professionals.

Experience music imagined and created in real-time. This series runs from September 2024 to May 2025. Check out the full schedule here!

September 22 Performance:

Nicole Mitchell

Nicole M. Mitchell is an award-winning creative flutist, composer, bandleader, and educator. She is perhaps best known for her work as a flutist, having developed a unique improvisational language and having been repeatedly awarded “Top Flutist of the Year” by Downbeat Magazine Critics Poll and the Jazz Journalists Association (2010-2022). Mitchell initially emerged from Chicago’s innovative music scene in the late 90s. She started with Maia and Shanta Nurullah in Samana (the AACM’s first all-woman ensemble) and as a member of the David Boykin EXPANSE. Her music celebrates contemporary African American culture. She is the founder of Black Earth Ensemble, Black Earth Strings, Sonic Projections, and Ice Crystal, and she composes contemporary ensembles of varied instrumentation and size while incorporating improvisation and a broad aesthetic expression. The former first woman president of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Mitchell, celebrates endless possibility by “creating visionary worlds through music that bridge the familiar with the unknown.” Some of her newest work with Black Earth Ensemble explores intercultural collaborations: Bamako*Chicago, featuring Malian kora master, Ballake Sissoko and Mandorla Awakening with Kojiro Umezaki (shakuhachi) and Tatsu Aoki (taiko, bass, shamisen).  As a composer, Mitchell has been commissioned by the French Ministry of Culture, the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Stone, the French American Jazz Exchange, Chamber Music America (New Works), the Chicago Jazz Festival, ICE, and the Chicago Sinfonietta. Mitchell has performed with creative music luminaries, including Craig Taborn, Roscoe Mitchell, Joelle Leandre, Anthony Braxton, Geri Allen, George Lewis, Mark Dresser, Steve Coleman, Anthony Davis, Myra Melford, Bill Dixon, Muhal Richard Abrams, Ed Wilkerson, Rob Mazurek, and Billy Childs, and Hamid Drake. She is a recipient of the Herb Alpert Award (2011), the Chicago 3Arts Award (2011), the Doris Duke Artist Award (2012) and the United States Artist Award (2020).  Mitchell is a Professor of Music at the University of Virginia and previously taught at the University of California Irvine and the University of Pittsburgh.

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Joe Morris

“The preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” – Downbeat Magazine

“One of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.” – WIRE Magazine

“The guitar revolutionary to pay attention to.” – The Boston Phoenix

Joe Morris was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1955. He began playing guitar at the age of 14, first playing rock music, progressing to blues, then to jazz, free jazz, and free improvisation. He released his first record, Wraparound (riti), in 1983. He has composed over 200 original pieces of music. Joe Morris and Real Art Ways have a longstanding creative relationship. Joe has performed multiple times since the 1980s and has organized concert series of improvisational music for years.

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