Artist Talk: Howard el-Yasin at Real Art Ways

An experience of music imagined and created in real time. A journey with preconditions through waves of sonic discovery.

Check out the entire series here.

Tony Malaby – Tenor and Soprano Saxophone

“One of the best saxophone players of their generation.” – The New York Times 

“One of the most riveting saxophone players in Jazz.” – NPR 

Tony Malaby (b. 1964) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist. He has played with several notable jazz groups, including Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, Paul Motian’s Electric Bepop Band, Mark Helia’s Open Loose, Fred Hersch’s Trio +2, and Walt Whitman project. He has also played with bands led by Mario Pavone, Chris Lightcap, Bobby Previte, Tom Varner, Marty Ehlrich, Angelica Sanchez, Mark Dresser, and Kenny Wheeler. Other collaborators included Tom Rainey, Christian Lillinger, Ben Monder, Elvind Opsvik, Nasheet Waits, and Michael Formanek. His first album as a co-leader was Cosas with Joey Sellers. 

Nasheet Waits – Drums

Nasheet Waits (b. 1971) is an American jazz drummer. Waits’s longstanding projects include Jason Moran & The Bandwagon, a trio with Moran, Waits, and Tarus Mateen, Tarbaby, a trio with Eric Revis and Orrin Evans, and his band Equality.

Waits has recorded or performed with Fred Hersch, Antonio Hart, Joe Lovano, Jason Moran, Andrew Hill, Ron Carter, Tony Malaby, Bunky Green, William Parker, Eddie Gomez, Casimir Liberski, John Medeski, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mark Turner, and Amir ElSaffar.  

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Joe Morris – Bass

“One of the most profound improvisers at work in the United States.” – Wire Magazine

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. Morris has performed and/or recorded with many of the most important contemporary artists in improvised music including, Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker, John Zorn, Ken Vandermark, Mary Halvorson, Tyshawn Sorey, Tomeka Reid, Fay Victor, Tim Berne, William Parker, Sylvie Courvoisier, Agusti Fernandez, Peter Evans, David S. Ware, Joe Maneri, Dewey Redman, Fred Hopkins, Sunny Murray, Wadada Leo Smith, Leroy Jenkins, Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris, Marshall Allen, Barre Phillips, Barry Guy, Matthew Shipp, Gerald Cleaver, and many others.

Morris is featured as leader, co-leader, or sideman on more than 200 commercially released recordings on the labels ECM, ESPdisk, Clean Feed, Hat Hut, Aum Fidelity, Avant, OkkaDisk, Not Two, Soul Note, Leo, No Business, Rogue Art, Relative Pitch, Incus, RareNoise, Fundacja Sluchaj, and his own labels Riti and Glacial Erratic. Morris has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe as well as in Brazil, Korea and Japan.

He has lectured and conducted workshops on his own music and on improvisation in the US, Canada, and Europe including at Princeton University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Bard College, University of Alberta, and University of Guelph. He was the recipient of the 2016 Killam Visiting Scholar Award at University of Calgary. He has been on the faculty at Tufts University, Southern Connecticut State University, Longy School of Music of Bard College, and New School. Since 2000, he has been on the faculty in the Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation Department at New England Conservatory. Morris is the author of the book, Perpetual Frontier: The Properties of Free Music (Riti Publishing 2012).

An experience of music imagined and created in real time. A journey with preconditions through waves of sonic discovery.

Check out the entire series here.

Ingrid Laubrock- Tenor Saxophone

Ingrid Laubrock (b. 1970) is a German jazz saxophonist, who primarily plays tenor saxophone but also performs and records on soprano, alto, and baritone saxophones. In 1998, she released her first solo album Who Is It? and was nominated for the ‘Rising Star of the Year’ award at the 1999 BT Jazz Awards. She was also nominated for the BBC Award ‘Rising Star’ in 2005 and in 2009 won the SWR Jazz Award for her recording Sleepthief, featuring pianist Liam Noble and drummer Tom Rainey (her husband). They recorded a 2011 album called The Madness of Crowds.

She has played and recorded with Brazilian singer Monica Vasconcelos’ band NÓIS and the Brazilian quartet NÓIS4 of which she is a founding member. Other musicians she has made guest appearances with include Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winstone, Polar Bear, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Scott Fields, and Anthony Braxton.

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Tom Rainey – Drums

Tom Rainey (b. 1957) is an American jazz drummer. He has played with Tim Berne, Nels Cline, Drew Gress, Mark Helias, Fred Hersch, Tony Malaby, Simon Nabatov, Tom Varner, and Kenny Werner. Rainey worked with Berne in the 1990s and 2000s in the bands Big Satan, Hard Cell, Paraphrase, and Science Friction. After thirty years as a sideman, he released his first album, Pool School (Clean Feed, 2010) in a trio with guitarist Mary Halvorson and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock.

Brandon Lopez – Bass

Brandon Lopez (b. 1988) is a composer and bassist working at the fringes of jazz, free improvisation, noise and new music. His music has been praised as “brutal” (Chicago Reader) and “relentless” (The New York Times).

Lopez has worked beside many luminaries of jazz, classical, poetry, and experimental music, including Fred Moten, John Zorn, Okkyung Lee, Ingrid Laubrock, Tony Malaby, Tyshawn Sorey, Bill Nace, Chris Potter, Edwin Torres, Tom Rainey, Cecilia Lopez, Sun Ra Arkestra, Susan Alcorn, Mette Rasmussen, and many others.

As a 2019–2020 Artist in Residence at Roulette, Lopez will play with his trio consisting of Gerald Cleaver, & Steve Baczkowski, a 4tet adding Cecilia Lopez, as well as a solo performance and duet with Greg Kelley. This continues Lopez’s work as 2018 Artist-in-Residence at Issue Project Room and 2018 Van Lier Fellow at Roulette Intermedium, Recent highlight performances include opening the 2018–2019 season of the New York Philharmonic as a featured soloist in Ashley Fure’s “Filament” and a number of works with John Zorn, including the Zorn’s 35th anniversary of “Cobra”.

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Joe Morris – Guitar

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. Morris has performed and/or recorded with many of the most important contemporary artists in improvised music including, Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker, John Zorn, Ken Vandermark, Mary Halvorson, Tyshawn Sorey, Tomeka Reid, Fay Victor, Tim Berne, William Parker, Sylvie Courvoisier, Agusti Fernandez, Peter Evans, David S. Ware, Joe Maneri, Dewey Redman, Fred Hopkins, Sunny Murray, Wadada Leo Smith, Leroy Jenkins, Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris, Marshall Allen, Barre Phillips, Barry Guy, Matthew Shipp, Gerald Cleaver, and many others.

Morris is featured as leader, co-leader, or sideman on more than 200 commercially released recordings on the labels ECM, ESPdisk, Clean Feed, Hat Hut, Aum Fidelity, Avant, OkkaDisk, Not Two, Soul Note, Leo, No Business, Rogue Art, Relative Pitch, Incus, RareNoise, Fundacja Sluchaj, and his own labels Riti and Glacial Erratic. Morris has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe as well as in Brazil, Korea and Japan.

He has lectured and conducted workshops on his own music and on improvisation in the US, Canada, and Europe including at Princeton University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Bard College, University of Alberta, and University of Guelph. He was the recipient of the 2016 Killam Visiting Scholar Award at University of Calgary. He has been on the faculty at Tufts University, Southern Connecticut State University, Longy School of Music of Bard College, and New School. Since 2000, he has been on the faculty in the Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation Department at New England Conservatory. Morris is the author of the book, Perpetual Frontier: The Properties of Free Music (Riti Publishing 2012).

An experience of music imagined and created in real time. A journey with preconditions through waves of sonic discovery.

Check out the entire series here.

Daniel Carter – Tenor & Alto Sax

Daniel Carter is an American free jazz musician who plays the saxophone, trumpet, and the flute. Carter has recorded and performed with many distinguished musicians, including William Parker, Federico Ughi, The Negatones, Thurston Moore, Yo La Tengo, Soul-Junk, Anne Waldman, Cooper-Moore, Matthew Shipp, and scientist/musician Matthew Putman, among others. He is a member of the cooperative. free jazz groups Test, and Other Dimensions in Music.

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Michael Wimberly – Drums

Michael Wimberly is a percussionist performing in the soul, funk, rock, jazz, and classical music genres. A drummer and percussionist, Michael Wimberly is also a triple threat: he is a composer of note and has written for prestigious New York dance companies (Alvin Ailey Dance Theater and Joffrey Ballet). Although his percussive repertoire is replete with traditional rhythms, Michael is known for playing cutting-edge music involving a meld of visuals and audio, not to mention a penchant for contemporary jazz.

As a composer and sound designer, Wimberly’s compositions have been performed by dance companies Urban Bush Women, Joffrey Ballet II, Alvin Ailey, Ailey II, Philadanco, Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, Joan Millers Dance Players, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Ballet Noir, Alpha Omega, Purelements, and The National Song and Dance Company of Mozambique. Film scores include As An Act of Protest by Dennis Leroy Moore, and Atlantic City Lights by Brent Owens for HBO. Sound design for theatre includes Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Classical Theatre of Harlem, Saint Lucy’s Eyes by Bridgette Wimberly for the Women’s Project & Cherry Lane Theatre, and Iced Out, Shackled and Chained for the National Black Theatre for which Wimberly received two Audelco nominations.

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Jamie Saft – Piano

Jamie Saft is an American keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist and composer. He has performed and recorded with an eclectic variety of artists including John Zorn, Wadada Leo Smith, Iggy Pop, Steve Swallow, Bobby Previte, and Marc Ribot. He has also written several original film scores including Murderball and God Grew Tired of Us; selections from these were released by Tzadik Records as A Bag of Shells. The same label has released several of Saft’s recordings. 

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Joe Morris – Bass

“Joe Morris is the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” –DownBeat Magazine

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

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. Morris has performed and/or recorded with many of the most important contemporary artists in improvised music including, Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker, John Zorn, Ken Vandermark, Mary Halvorson, Tyshawn Sorey, Tomeka Reid, Fay Victor, Tim Berne, William Parker, Sylvie Courvoisier, Agusti Fernandez, Peter Evans, David S. Ware, Joe Maneri, Dewey Redman, Fred Hopkins, Sunny Murray, Wadada Leo Smith, Leroy Jenkins, Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris, Marshall Allen, Barre Phillips, Barry Guy, Matthew Shipp, Gerald Cleaver, and many others.

Morris is featured as leader, co-leader, or sideman on more than 200 commercially released recordings on the labels ECM, ESPdisk, Clean Feed, Hat Hut, Aum Fidelity, Avant, OkkaDisk, Not Two, Soul Note, Leo, No Business, Rogue Art, Relative Pitch, Incus, RareNoise, Fundacja Sluchaj, and his own labels Riti and Glacial Erratic. Morris has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe as well as in Brazil, Korea and Japan.

He has lectured and conducted workshops on his own music and on improvisation in the US, Canada, and Europe including at Princeton University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Bard College, University of Alberta, and University of Guelph. He was the recipient of the 2016 Killam Visiting Scholar Award at University of Calgary. He has been on the faculty at Tufts University, Southern Connecticut State University, Longy School of Music of Bard College, and New School. Since 2000, he has been on the faculty in the Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation Department at New England Conservatory. Morris is the author of the book, Perpetual Frontier: The Properties of Free Music (Riti Publishing 2012).

An experience of music imagined and created in real time. A journey with preconditions through waves of sonic discovery.

Check out the entire series here.

Wadada Leo Smith – Trumpet

Finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his composition Ten Freedoms of Summers (Defining Moments in the History of the United States of America).

Was named Downbeat’s Composer of the Year in 2013.

Received the Doris Duke Artist award in 2016.

Received an honorary doctorate from CalArts.

Wadada Leo Smith (b. 1941) began his musical journey steeped in the musical traditions of the South. Smith received his formal musical education from his stepfather, composer/guitarist Alex “Little Bill” Wallace, one of the pioneers of electric guitar in Delta Blues. He was further educated through the U.S. Military band program at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri (1963); Sherwood School of Music (1967-69); and Wesleyan University (1975-76). He has researched a variety of music cultures, including African, Japanese, Indonesian, European and American.

Smith defines his music as “Creative Music,” and his diverse discography reveals a recorded history of music centered in the idea of spiritual harmony and the unification of social and cultural issues of his world. He has created Ankhrasmation, a symbolic image-based language for performers or musicians. He started his research and designs in search of Ankhrasmation in 1965, and his first realization of this language was in 1967, when it was illustrated in the recording of The Bell (Anthony Braxton: ‘Three Compositions of New Jazz’).

Smith’s Ankhrasmation language scores have been exhibited in major American museums including The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago, which in October 2015 presented the first comprehensive exhibition of these language scores. In 2016, the Hammer Museum’s ‘Made in L.A.’ exhibition featured the scores and presented Smith with the Mohn Award for Career Achievement honoring “brilliance and resilience.” His scores have also been shown at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts in Michigan, the Kadist Art Foundation in San Francisco, The Museum of Rhythm Łódź, Poland and the Clemente Gallery in NYC.

Smith has performed and/or recorded with Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman, Cecil Taylor, Steve McCall, Anthony Davis, Carla Bley, Don Cherry, Jeanne Lee, Tadao Sawai, Muhal Richard Abrams, Ed Blackwell, Kazuko Shiraishi, Han Bennink, Marion Brown, Charlie Haden, Malachi Favors Magoustous, Jack DeJohnette, Vijay Iyer, Ikue Mori, Min Xiao Fen, Bill Laswell, John Zorn, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Frank Lowe, among many others.

Smith is a member of the historic and legendary Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. He is also a member of ASCAP.

Visit his website here.

Read his artist statement here.

Joe Morris – Guitar

“Joe Morris is the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” –DownBeat Magazine

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

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. Morris has performed and/or recorded with many of the most important contemporary artists in improvised music including, Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker, John Zorn, Ken Vandermark, Mary Halvorson, Tyshawn Sorey, Tomeka Reid, Fay Victor, Tim Berne, William Parker, Sylvie Courvoisier, Agusti Fernandez, Peter Evans, David S. Ware, Joe Maneri, Dewey Redman, Fred Hopkins, Sunny Murray, Wadada Leo Smith, Leroy Jenkins, Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris, Marshall Allen, Barre Phillips, Barry Guy, Matthew Shipp, Gerald Cleaver, and many others.

Morris is featured as leader, co-leader, or sideman on more than 200 commercially released recordings on the labels ECM, ESPdisk, Clean Feed, Hat Hut, Aum Fidelity, Avant, OkkaDisk, Not Two, Soul Note, Leo, No Business, Rogue Art, Relative Pitch, Incus, RareNoise, Fundacja Sluchaj, and his own labels Riti and Glacial Erratic. Morris has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe as well as in Brazil, Korea and Japan.

He has lectured and conducted workshops on his own music and on improvisation in the US, Canada, and Europe including at Princeton University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Bard College, University of Alberta, and University of Guelph. He was the recipient of the 2016 Killam Visiting Scholar Award at University of Calgary. He has been on the faculty at Tufts University, Southern Connecticut State University, Longy School of Music of Bard College, and New School. Since 2000, he has been on the faculty in the Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation Department at New England Conservatory. Morris is the author of the book, Perpetual Frontier: The Properties of Free Music (Riti Publishing 2012).

An experience of music imagined and created in real time. A journey with preconditions through waves of sonic discovery.

Check out the entire series here.

Matana Roberts – Alto Saxophone

Named Rising Star in both Alto Saxophone and Clarinet. –  Downbeat Magazine 

Receiver of a Doris Duke Impact Award in both 2014 & 2016.

Matana Roberts (b. 1975) is an American sound experimentalist, visual artist, jazz saxophonist and clarinetist, composer and improviser based in New York City. They have previously been an active member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).

The works in their multichapter Coin Coin project have received wide acclaim: Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couler Libres named in multiple JazzTimes  critics lists; Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile  was called “stunning” by both the Chicago Reader & SPIN; and Coin Coin Chapter Three: River Run Thee was named among Rolling Stones’s best Avant Albums of 2015. Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis has garnered their greatest accolades, and was included in Pitchfork’s Best Experimental Albums, Bandcamp’s Best Jazz Albums, and the top ten of NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll in 2019.

Melanie Dyer – Viola

“An outstanding modern violist.” – The Strad 

Melanie Dyer is a violist who moves across free jazz, jazz, orchestral, and experimental music. She has studied with William Lincer, Lee Yeingst, John Jake Kella and Naomi Fellows. Recently she performed and recorded with William Parker, Henry Grimes, Tomeka Reid, Heroes Are Gang Leaders, New Muse 4tet, Women with an Axe to Grind, and other luminous musicians in the United States, Europe, and South Africa. She founded WeFreeStrings, a string/rhythm collective rooted in creative improvisation, and plays viola in Gwen Laster’s New Muse 4tet.

Joe Morris – Bass

“Joe Morris is the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” –DownBeat Magazine

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

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. Morris has performed and/or recorded with many of the most important contemporary artists in improvised music including, Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker, John Zorn, Ken Vandermark, Mary Halvorson, Tyshawn Sorey, Tomeka Reid, Fay Victor, Tim Berne, William Parker, Sylvie Courvoisier, Agusti Fernandez, Peter Evans, David S. Ware, Joe Maneri, Dewey Redman, Fred Hopkins, Sunny Murray, Wadada Leo Smith, Leroy Jenkins, Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris, Marshall Allen, Barre Phillips, Barry Guy, Matthew Shipp, Gerald Cleaver, and many others.

Morris is featured as leader, co-leader, or sideman on more than 200 commercially released recordings on the labels ECM, ESPdisk, Clean Feed, Hat Hut, Aum Fidelity, Avant, OkkaDisk, Not Two, Soul Note, Leo, No Business, Rogue Art, Relative Pitch, Incus, RareNoise, Fundacja Sluchaj, and his own labels Riti and Glacial Erratic. Morris has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe as well as in Brazil, Korea and Japan.

He has lectured and conducted workshops on his own music and on improvisation in the US, Canada, and Europe including at Princeton University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Bard College, University of Alberta, and University of Guelph. He was the recipient of the 2016 Killam Visiting Scholar Award at University of Calgary. He has been on the faculty at Tufts University, Southern Connecticut State University, Longy School of Music of Bard College, and New School. Since 2000, he has been on the faculty in the Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation Department at New England Conservatory. Morris is the author of the book, Perpetual Frontier: The Properties of Free Music (Riti Publishing 2012).