Monday, November 17 | 8pm
Ben Ratliff's The Jazz Ear
featuring Orrin Evans

International House Philadelphia
3701 Chestnut Street

Free Admission

Event Description:
Please join Ars Nova Workshop for the book release celebration of The New York Times critic Ben Ratliff's new book The Jazz Ear (Times Books/Henry Holt & Company). For this special event, Mr. Ratliff engages critically-acclaimed Philadelphia pianist Orrin Evans on those recordings most influential to him.

About The Jazz Ear:
Jazz is conducted almost wordlessly: John Coltrane rarely told his quartet what to do, and Miles Davis famously gave his group only the barest instructions before recording his masterpiece “Kind of Blue.” Musicians are often loath to discuss their craft for fear of destroying its improvisational essence, rendering jazz among the most ephemeral and least transparent of the performing arts. In The Jazz Ear, the acclaimed music critic Ben Ratliff sits down with jazz greats to discuss recordings by the musicians who most influenced them. In the process, he skillfully coaxes out a profound understanding of the men and women themselves, the context of their work, and how jazz—from horn blare to drum riff—is created conceptually. Expanding on his popular interviews for The New York Times, Ratliff speaks with Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, Branford Marsalis, Dianne Reeves, Wayne Shorter, Joshua Redman, and others about the subtle variations in generation, training, and attitude that define their music. Playful and keenly insightful, The Jazz Ear is a revelatory exploration of a unique way of making and hearing music.

Ben Ratliff has been a jazz critic at The New York Times since 1996. The author of Coltrane and The New York Times Essential Library: Jazz, he lives in Manhattan with his wife and two sons.

Pianist Orrin Evans has been described by The New York Times as "a poised artist with an impressive template of ideas at his command", a quality undoubtedly recognized by the legendary saxophonist Bobby Watson who engaged Evans as piano chair for his band, a position he has held for six years. Evans has recorded with Watson on Live and Learn (Palmetto Records), and Quite as it’s Kept (Red Records). He has been performed with the Charles Mingus Big Band for the past seven years, and has also toured with such diverse talents as Wallace Roney, Stefon Harris, Branford Marsalis, Common, Will Calhoun, Ralph Peterson, Sean Jones, Pharoah Sanders and Antonio Hart. For Orrin Evans, however, the greatest joy is playing his own band which, at different times, has included such notables as Sam Newsome, Ralph Bowen, Nasheet Waits, The Bad Plus' Reid Anderson, John Swana, Tim Warfield and Duane Eubanks. Besides touring and recording, Evans is also a teacher and musical commentator, having conducted workshops, clinics and master classes both in The United States and abroad.

Books provided by Joseph Fox Bookshop.

Tuesday, November 25 | 8pm
Andrea Parkins + David Watson
with
Andrea Parkins, accordion/electronics
David Watson, bagpipes/electronics

The Rotunda
4012 Walnut Street

Free Admission

Event Description:
Originally from New Zealand, David Watson has lived and worked in New York City since 1987. An internationally respected musician and composer, he is a singular voice in experimental music. His groundbreaking work on Highland bagpipes has been featured in Matthew Barney’s “Cremaster 3”, and he has an ongoing trio “Glacial” with Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo. Critics have described his work as “psychedelic bagpipe minimalism” and “brain-rearranging massive walls of constantly shifting drone”. Recently he released “Throats,” with vocalists Makigami Koichi and Shelley Hirsch, on Ecstatic Peace; and a double disc “Fingering an Idea,” on XI records. In addition, Watson is known for his collaborations with Ikue Mori, Kato Hideki, Shelley Hirsch, Chris Mann, Christian Marclay, Tony Buck, Eugene Chadbourne and John Zorn.

Andrea Parkins is a downtown New York City-based composer, sound/installation artist, and electro-multi-instrumentalist, acclaimed for her dynamic timberal explorations on electronically-processed accordion and inventive use of live generative sound processing. Together, her laptop electronics and Fender-amped accordion create a gestural sonic language of lush harmonics, noisy disruption, and soaring electronic feedback. She appears on more than 40 recordings; and performs world-wide as a solo artist, ensemble leader, and in wide-ranging colllaborations with such artists as Nels Cline, Otomo Yoshihide and David Watson, among many others. Her compositions and sound art works include solo electro-acoustic pieces, electronic chamber works, audio installations and multiplatform pieces. This work has been presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art and The Kitchen in New York City, and at intermedia festivals/contemporary art venues throughout Europe, and in Mexico and Asia.

This winter, Important Records will  release faulty objects (broken orbit), a CD featuring a new hour-long piece by Andrea, scored for amplified objects, feedback and processed instruments.  Other ongoing projects include a collaborative ensemble with Wilco guitarist Nels Cline that has released 2 CDs to date, and The Skein, her duo with vocalist/composer Jessica Constable, which will release a CD on Henceforth in January 2009. She continues to develop/perform her series of interactive sound/image/object works inspired by Rube Goldberg’s circuitous contraptions. Andrea’s work has received support from Meet the Composer, American Composers Forum, New York State Council on the Arts, Harvestworks Digital Art Center, and the Cultural Board of Hamburg, Germany.

Sunday, December 7 | 8pm
The Flatlands Collective
with
Jorrit Dijkstra, alto sax/lyricon
James Falzone, clarinet
Jeb Bishop, trombone
Fred Lonberg-Holm, cello
Jason Roebke, bass
Frank Rosaly, drums

International House Philadelphia
3701 Chestnut Street

$12 General Admission
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Event Description:
The Flatlands Collective brings together the remarkable Dutch alto saxophonist and composer Jorrit Dijkstra with some of Chicago’s most interesting improvisers. In Chicago, one of the most important musical cities in the US, he found a common ground in a more trans-national way of improvising, using open forms, and a looser interpretation of the American jazz tradition. Dijkstra says: ”I believe that the landscape in which you grow up has an effect on how your music sounds. This is what’s so interesting about jazz: musicians in New York, Barcelona, Moscow, Shanghai or Addis Ababa play this music, but there is always a distinctive local interpretation.” And he adds: “I called this group The Flatlands Collective after the landscape heritage I share as a Dutchman with the Chicago players.”

Dijkstra provides most of the compositions, in which he strives towards a balance between composed material, clear guidelines for musicians to improvise, and openness for the most adventurous kinds of improvisations. The group has developed a way of improvising that blends Chicago-style free jazz, texture-based minimalism, and melodic layering into an eclectic yet organically coherent repertoire. Dijkstra’s use of the Lyricon (a vintage analog wind synthesizer from the 1970s) and Fred Lonberg-Holm’s amplified cello adds an electronic touch to the rich variety of ideas, structures, and textures of the group sound. The Flatlands Collective has released their debut CD Gnomade in December 2006 on Skycap records, which has received 4 stars from Downbeat Magazine, and much critical acclaim by the international press. Their second CD Maatjes will be released on Clean Feed Records in the fall of 2008.

Thursday, December 11 | 8pm
mi3
with
Pandelis Karayorgis, Fender Rhodes + piano
Nate McBride, bass
Curt Newton, drums

Philadelphia Art Alliance
251 S. 18th Street

$12 General Admission
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Event Description:
Born in Athens, Greece in 1962, Pandelis Karayorgis studied with Paul Bley, Jimmy Giuffre, George Russell, Dave Holland and Joe Maneri. He has studied and performed extensively the music of Thelonious Monk and Lennie Tristano and in 1991 compiled a collection of all of Monk's compositions. In the last twenty years mostly led or co-led groups whose recordings have often been voted into reviewers' top-10 lists in magazines such as Coda, Cadence, Jazz Times and Jazziz. He has performed and recorded with Mat Maneri, Joe Maneri, Ken Vandermark, Tony Malaby, Michael Formanek, John Lockwood, Randy Peterson and Guillermo Gregorio, among many others. In the past few years toured and recorded in duo format with Ken Vandermark and also with Guillermo Gregorio (with whom there are two previous HatArt collaborations). He has performed recently with Dave Rempis, Josh Abrams, Jeff Parker, Jeb Bishop, Daniel Levin, Frank Rosaly, Charlie Kohlase, Charles Waters and the TILT Brass band.

Bassist Nate McBride was raised in Seattle and lived there until moving to Boston to attend college in 1990. While working on degrees in English and music- including bass studies with Cecil McBee and Donald Palma- he gained extensive performance experience in Boston’s jazz and improvised music scene. This period saw the beginning of several long-running collaborations which would prove critical to his development as a musician, including those with drummer Curt Newton, guitarist Joe Morris, pianist Pandelis Karayorgis and reedist Ken Vandermark. Among his musical influences are Charles Mingus and Duke Ellington, the flexible and propulsive music of blues guitarists such as Skip James and Fred McDowell, the energy and DIY ethos of punk rock, Baroque music, and the forward thinking approach of the AACM. In late 2004, Nate relocated to Chicago, and performs on an ongoing basis with his own Boston-based Quartet; the Pandelis Karayorgis Trio; the mi3; Tripleplay; Spaceways, Inc.; FME; and Bridge 61. As well as those musicians already cited, he has appeared on record or in concert with a variety of other improvisers, including Mat Maneri, Joe McPhee, Paal Nilssen-Love, Jim Hobbs, Charlie Kohlhase, Allan Chase, Satoko Fujii, James Rohr, and Hamid Drake.

Boston-based drummer and percussionist Curt Newton has been playing uncompromising original music since 1986. A highly versatile ensemble player and soloist, he integrates innovative sounds and extended techniques with the jazz and rock drumset traditions. He has worked with Ken Vandermark, Joe Morris, Nate McBride, Pandelis Karayorgis, Charlie Kohlhase, and Debris; performed across the United States, Canada, and Europe; and appears on CDs released by leading independent labels like Okkadisk, Boxholder, Soul Note, Music and Arts, Buzz, and Rastascan. He has worked since 1986 with Chicago saxophonist and composer Ken Vandermark, releasing three acclaimed CDs; their most recent project is the group Tripleplay with bassist Nate McBride. He also plays with leading musicians including Hans Poppel, Joe Morris, James Rohr, Greg Kelley, and Jorrit Dijkstra.

Friday, December 12 | 8pm
Ron Horton Sextet performs Andrew Hill's Passing Ships
with
Ron Horton, trumpet/flugelhorn
Tony Malaby, tenor saxophone
Scott Robinson, baritone saxophone
Ben Allison, double-bass
Frank  Kimbrough, piano
Tim Horner, drums

Settlement Music School
416 Queen Street

$15 General Admission
Seating is very limited.

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Event Description:
Since 1982, trumpeter Ron Horton has been an integral part of New York's flourishing jazz scene and he stands out both as an exemplary instrumentalist and as a highly progressive composer and arranger. Whether called upon as a sideman or as a leader of one of his own ensembles, he shows that he is committed to further expanding the existing perimeters of jazz. Horton has had many long musical associations with leaders such as saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom (1983-2000) and pianist Andrew Hill. He was a member of Hill's sextet from 1998 until 2003, and appears on the group's critically acclaimed cd, Dusk (Palmetto 2000). He was also musical director and co-arranger for Hill's big band, and is featured on the cd, A Beautiful Day (Palmetto 2002).

Horton has also had an integral collaboration with New York's Jazz Composers Collective, going back to its inception in 1992, and appears on several cds by the other members of the group, such as Ben Allison and Michael Blake, as well as the collective's Herbie Nichols Project. He is an original member of the HNP, a group co-led by Frank Kimbrough and Allison, that is dedicated to performing known and unknown compositions of the late, great pianist. In 1995, Horton went to the Library of Congress and uncovered over three dozen of Nichols' songs that had never been recorded. Several of these works appear on the three cds released by the HNP on Soul Note and Palmetto. Through his work with the JCC, Horton has received composing grants from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust and Meet the Composer.

This concert has been funded by The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, through the Philadelphia Music Project.

This performance is part of ANW's Free/Form: Composer Portrait series.

Sunday, December 14 | 8pm
Kieran Hebden + Steve Reid
with
Kieran Hebden, electronics
Steve Reid, drums

International House Philadelphia
3701 Chestnut Street

$25 General Admission
$17.50 Students
$20 IHP Members + Senior
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3 Concert Subscription
$42 Students
$48 IHP Members + Seniors
$60 General Admission
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Presented with International House Philadelphia

Event Description:
Percussionist Steve Reid first recorded with Motown’s Martha & Vandella`s at age 17, working in the Apollo Theatre house band, under the direction of Quincy Jones. Following a formal education, Reid relocated to Africa for three years, performing with various African bands such as Guy Warren, Fela Kuti, Alpha Jazz Band and Leone Starrs. Reid has performed and recorded with an overwhelming array of exceptional jazz and R&B artists including Freddie Hubbard, Jackie McLean, Dionne Warwick, T-Bone Walker, Archie Shepp, Dexter Gordon, James Brown, Martha Reeves, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Sam Rivers, Peggy Lee, Fats Domino, Henry Threadgill, Miles Davis, Sun Ra, among many others.

Best known for his post-rock band Fridge as the sole member of Four Tet, Kieran Hebden's abstract work incorporates elements of hip hop, electronica, techno, jazz, and folk music with live instrumentation, balancing organic and programmed sounds. His first full-length was 1999's Dialogue, which was noticed by experimental dub pioneer Pole (Stefan Betke), leading to a collaboration between the two. Alongside recording his own material, Hebden has also performed remixes for a number of artists including Aphex Twin, Radiohead, Matthew Dear, Battles, Steve Reich and Black Sabbath.

This concert has been funded by The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, through the Philadelphia Music Project.

Thursday, December 18 | 8pm
Mr. Trumpet
with
George Colligan, trumpet, etc.
Ralph Alessi, trumpet, etc.
Shane Endsley, trumpet, etc.

+ Tony Malaby's Cello Trio
with
Tony Malaby, tenor saxophone
Fred Lonberg-Holm, cello
John Hollenbeck, drums

International House Philadelphia
3701 Chestnut Street

$12 General Admission
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Event Description:
George Colligan, an award-winning composer and player, draws fans with his zesty sideman work with players like Cassandra Wilson, Don Byron, Buster Williams, and Lonnie Plaxico, both on the bandstand and in recording sessions (with over 70 sideman credits). He is also prolific as a leader with 16 recordings full of his intelligent writing and impressive technique. His latest CD on the Criss Cross label is entitled Past Present Future. He also has a new CD entitled Realization (Sirocco) featuring his organ trio called Mad Science.

Tony Malaby's Cello Trio project features three great improvisers working with Malaby's fascinating melodies and structures to create highly integrated, multi-faceted avant jazz. The textures are diverse but complementary: Malaby's unmistakable blustery tenor and gorgeous, full-bodied soprano are offset by Lonberg-Holm's looped cello tactics and Hollenbeck's ambidexterous percussion. The music combines freedom and discipline, openness and density, beauty and harshness in very personal ways. The audiophile recording and especially the multi-channel mix convey the music's expressive range and depth.