Event
Improvisations Now
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.
