Nov

24

‘Manhattan Holiday’ – Manhattan Brass & friends ‘Manhattan Holiday’ – Manhattan Brass & friends

with Ray Anderson, trombone, Jack Walrath, trumpet, members of Erick Hawkins Dance and the D’amby Project & Manhattan Brass: Wayne du Maine, Lew Soloff, RJ Kelley, Mike Seltzer, David Taylor

Sun November 24th, 2013

9:00PM

Main Space

Minimum Age: All Ages

Doors Open: 8:00PM

Show Time: 9:00PM

Event Ticket: $13

Day of Show: $15

event description event description

Come join the party!! – Manhattan Brass celebrates the release of their latest recording, ‘Manhattan Holiday’, with a pre-Thanksgiving feast of great music, dance, and more! Grab a drink, a snack and enjoy an early and wild turkey filled romp through the holidays with Manhattan Brass & friends performing selections from the new CD – as well as a few gems not on the recording.
 
Manhattan Brass is Wayne du Maine & Lew Soloff, trumpets; RJ Kelley, horn; Mike Seltzer, trombone; David Taylor, bass trombone
 
Special guest artists include trombonist Ray Anderson, Jack Walrath on trumpet, members of Eric Hawkins Dance & D’amby Project: Katherine Duke, Christy Kowalsky, Leighann Kowalsky, Rowan Willigan, and more!
 
About the CD:
Manhattan Holiday is the latest recording from the
dynamic quintet, Manhattan Brass — a compilation of both classic and curious holiday treats, all arranged by two of the most creative artists working in music today; Carla Bley & Jack Walrath.
 
Lew was doing a big band tour with long-time friend and colleague Carla Bley. “She had two or three of the charts and asked some of us to play them for her. I loved them and later asked if we could use them to record and she said yes.” We needed more material to fill a CD; something not to be taken lightly, as there are so many holiday offerings. If we did a holiday recording, it’d need to be outstanding…special; we’d want it to be something like this.
 
To fill out the recording Dave introduced us to Jack Walrath. Jack had written many arrangements for Dave and, as with Carla, knew both Dave & Lew for years. Jack is a trumpeter and band leader who knows how to give things room to breathe…perfect for us! Jack came in with two, then ultimately five really creative and interesting charts; some very new twists on the classics and a few amazing, but more obscure “new” classics. We had found the compliment to Carla’s charts and after 5 years, we are happy to bring you our first holiday collection. It will not be the last (some of the next one’s already been recorded!)
 
The styles are all over the map…Christmas in New York is never monocultural – reggae, classical, gospel, straight ahead jazz, calypso, Italian waltz, classic ballads, etc. Composers and nods to composers include Thelonious Monk, Handel, Respighi, Mel Torme, Brubeck and more. Recorded over 4 years (and two hornists!) from 2008-11, we loosely see this as our version/snapshot of NYC in and around the holidays. Season’s Greetings from Manhattan Brass!
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TABLE SEATING POLICY
Table seating for all seated shows is reserved exclusively for ticket holders who purchase “Table Seating” tickets. By purchasing a “Table Seating” ticket you agree to also purchase a minimum of two food and/or beverage items per person. Table seating is first come, first seated. Please arrive early for the best choice of available seats. Seating begins when doors open. Tables are communal so you may be seated with other patrons. We do not take table reservations.
 
A standing room area is available by the bar for all guests who purchase “Standing Room” tickets. Food and beverage can be purchased at the bar but there is no minimum purchase required in this area.
 
All tickets sales are final. No refund or credits.
 
This event will be streamed live online through LPR’s streaming channel, beginning at 9pm.

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‘Manhattan Holiday’ – Manhattan Brass & friends

Ray Anderson, trombone

Named five straight years as best trombonist in the Down Beat Critics Poll, Ray Anderson has led or co-led an assortment of tradition-minded and experimental groups, big bands, blues and funk projects. He has recorded more than 70 of his own compositions.
 
Born in 1952 in Chicago’s Hyde Park, Anderson is the son of theologians. He took up the trombone in fourth grade, influenced by his father’s Dixieland recordings. “The sound of the trombone was appealing to me,” he says. “All the people I heard play it sounded like they were having fun.” (The artists he strongly responded to included greats Vic Dickenson and Trummy Young.) Anderson attended the University of Chicago Lab School.
 
He played in R&B bands while attending college in Minnesota and LA and funk and Latin bands while living in San Francisco. On the West Coast, he worked with members of its progressive jazz community, saxophonist David Murray and drummers Charles Moffett and Stanley Crouch (now a leading critic, newspaper columnist and author).
 
In 1973, Anderson moved to New York. He studied and played with reed player, composer and music theorist Jimmy Giuffre, joined drummer Barry Altschul’s trio and played for three years with the quartet of saxophonist Anthony Braxton. In the ’80s, he worked with collective bands including the funk-oriented Slickaphonics and the trio BassDrumBone, featuring bassist Mark Helias and drummer Gerry Hemingway.
 
On a series of acclaimed recordings, he has ranged from Ellingtonia and jazz classics to originals. Anderson also has demonstrated supportive skills on a albums by Braxton, Murray, Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, Dr. John, the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, Luther Allison, Bennie Wallace, Henry Threadgill, Barbara Dennerlein, John Scofield, Roscoe Mitchell, the New York Composers Orchestra, Sam Rivers’Rivbea Orchestra and others.
Anderson has frequently returned to his early love of New Orleans music for inspiration. Both his Alligatory Band and Pocket Brass Band, are rooted in the Crescent City. “I feel like a spiritual son of that city,” he says. “Some part of me lives down there. Dr. John, Professor Longhair, the whole thing grabs me. You get caught up in those rhythms, right at the crossroads of jazz and funk, and you can’t quit them.”
 
Anderson also heads up the blues-dipped Lapis Lazuli Band, featuring singer/organist Amina Claudine Myers, and reunites with Lewis, Gary Valente and Craig Harris in the all-star trombone quartet, Slideride.
 
He was hired as the Director of Jazz Studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2003 and has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fund for U.S. Artists at International Festivals, the Oberon Foundation and Chamber Music America. In 2001 he became a John S. Guggenheim Fellow.

Jack Walrath, trumpet

Jack Walrath’s talents have been utilized by Charles Mingus, Ray Charles, Muhal Richard Abrams, Ricky Ford, Sam Rivers, Joe Morello, Charli Persip, Miles Davis, Quincey Jones, Bill Moring, Ray Anderson, Craig Harris, Pete LaRoca, Mike Longo, Elvis Costello, Motown, Larry Willis, George Gruntz, Paul Jeffrey, Gunther Schuller, Hal Galper, the Monk Tentet, Bobby Watson, et al. He has appeared in films, TV and Radio both as a sideman and leader since 1965. He has released 22 record albums as a leader. In addition he has appeared on numerous albums with others (Mingus-14, Abrams-3,and others such as Persip, Davis, Lou Rawls, Richie Cole, Ricky Ford, the Jazz Tribe, Joe Lovano, the WDR Big Band, Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Gruntz to name a few).

members of Erick Hawkins Dance and the D’amby Project

The Erick Hawkins Dance Company, founded in 1951, has been touring the world since the 1960’s. With unwavering integrity and uncompromising working methods, Hawkins choreography is based on a collaboration of music, art, and dance. His dances are performed to live music often composed especially for each dance along with commissioned sets by artists and sculptors. Known for a fluid, effortless style of movement, each dance is energetic yet poetic, serene yet harmonious. Hawkins technique emerged from an intense examination of the principles of dance. Hawkins felt the whole approach to the principles underlying Western dance were based on erroneous concepts pertaining to how one perceives the body and its relationship to the world. Insights into Zen philosophy and the essence of Haiku poetry caused Hawkins to begin to experiment with the principle of immediacy in dance, exploring movement for the sake of beautiful movement, implicit and pure. Hawkins recognized the importance of these basic premises in determining patterns of thought and action. Influenced by Eastern philosophical ideas and kinesiology, Hawkins new beliefs about movement, nature, and man guided his search for new ways to train the body. He sought a “Normative Theory” normative meaning the best standard one can set up through intelligence and perception. Synthesizing the Eastern thought of a potentially harmonious relationship of man to nature and the value of Western scientific thought in relation to art, Hawkins felt that the quality of dance must be effortless in order to achieve a oneness of body and soul. Hawkins revolutionary “free flow” technique emphasizes awareness of weight, placement, impulse, effortless flow, and alternative possibilities of movement dynamics. Because the technique releases tension in the body, not only is more energy available to develop strength and movement flexibility, but also intellectually it frees one to think about what one is doing. Erick Hawkins understood beauty. It is the concept that underlies his technique and choreography described by Charles Reinhart at the 1988 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement as “virtuosity without effort.” The Company continues today to develop dances based on Hawkins pioneering movement theory, which harmonizes body, mind, and spirit.
 
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D’amby Project
“A unique genre, a collaborative choreographic vision that draws from traditional structures of Irish step dance and contemporary inspiration.” Quiedo Carbone, Co-Artistic Director, Ulster Ballet Company.
 
“Watching them perform will make you glad you are alive.” Elaine Colandrea
 
“…their versatility and skills are some of the best I’ve ever come across – honestly fantastic.” – Bridget Madden, Ireland-based Professional Dancer/Choreographer
 
Pronounced “dee-am-bee”, this company affords a safe, private environment and outlet for artists and all kinds of creators (photographers, videographers, musicians, dancers, painters, inventors, etc.) to hone their skills and talents, often collaborating and utilizing one another in their efforts.
 
Centered around the art of dance, The D’amby Project offers technical classes in both traditional Irish dance and Contemporary dance. Students meet anywhere from one day a week to five days a week, depending on the individual schedules of each student. We know life can be busy! And we want you to have the flexibility that you desire when becoming a member of the project!
 
Here at the Project, we host what we like to call, “freeflow sessions” which are highly advanced sessions of choreography and creation. In these sessions, each dancer hones in on their skills, perfecting their own art. Each dancer contributes to the sequences and choreography that is built, and then each dancer is encouraged to perform, with full credit to their work. We also host in equal ratio, technical classes, where we focus on the very demanding and rigorous technique that Irish dance demands, and do many drills of different movements both in the Irish and Contemporary realm.
 
Additionally, The D’amby Project hosts monthly workshops with a master in a particular field, to further the education of the students and develop their skills on working with teachers who are not their own.
 
The D’amby Project is at its core, a place where one can come to feel safe, challenged, nurtured, and above all, inspired.

Manhattan Brass: Wayne du Maine, Lew Soloff, RJ Kelley, Mike Seltzer, David Taylor

For over 20 years Manhattan Brass has been known for its innovative programming, dynamic performances, varied, eye-opening repertoire, and commitment to educating audiences of all ages about live music and the brass idiom. Hailed as a Critic’s Pick in Time Out New York magazine, the ensemble is an amalgam of individual virtuoso musicians, each bringing to the table their unique experience and vision. Comfortable in every genre from Gesualdo to jazz, the quintet is intent on taking brass ensemble playing to another level and bringing their audience with them.
 
Throughout its history the quintet has commissioned, premiered and recorded the works of a wide range of composers, including jazz greats Wynton Marsalis and Paquito D’ Rivera.
 
Their CD releases have received rave reviews; ‘Manhattan Holiday’ is a NEW RELEASE for Holiday 2013! This latest recording from the quintet is a compilation of both classic and curious holiday treats, all arranged by two of the most creative artists working in music today; Carla Bley & Jack Walrath.
 
MB’s previous recording, ‘New York Now’, is available in all international music markets on ENJA Records. This landmark recording, their second of all NY-affiliated composers (and Americans) with MB commissions by Wynton Marsalis and Daniel Schnyder’s EUPHORIA — an over-the-top jazz/world/classical tone poem, written for the group with Schnyder on soprano sax. Other composers include the premiere recording of Paquito D’Rivera’s brass quintet (Four Songs) and a total redux of Bernstein’s classic ‘West Side Story’. About the recording, Paquito D’Rivera states: “The Manhattan Brass has the right timing and sense of rhythm to give to these four pieces of mine the ideal feeling and balance. I was so happy when my old friend Lew Soloff called home to tell me they were recording my compositions.” Cited as “outstanding readings” and “off the chart” in reviews, MB’s previous CD, ‘The Music of David Dzubay’ represents a flip-side of the stylistic offerings of MB, and is available from Bridge Records (and iTunes, Amazon.com, etc.), as well as recent release ‘BRASS’ featuring music written by, as well as performed with, Daniel Schnyder, in MB’s first collaboration with the virtuoso Swiss-American jazz saxophonist. Schnyder’s music has been described by the LA Times as “never less than compelling…an intriguing interface of jazz and classical elements”.
 
In 2004 legendary trumpeter Lew Soloff and virtuoso bass trombonist David Taylor joined the ensemble (then called the Manhattan Brass Quintet), providing a new and vital drive and sense of direction. Soloff and Taylor brought a wealth of experience making music with a number of influential musicians ranging from Duke Ellington to Stokowski and back to Gil Evans and Blood, Sweat & Tears. In recognition of this boost in versatility and fresh thinking, the ensemble modified its name to the Manhattan Brass and broadened its repertoire. Time Out NY proclaimed: “The Manhattan Brass has long brought a spontaneous flash to contemporary classical music; now, with new trumpeter Lew Soloff, the group’s sound has never been jazzier.”
 
The Manhattan Brass places an emphasis on breaking down barriers between performers and audiences — the ensemble performs in venues ranging from concert halls to clubs, has been featured on National Public Radio’s ‘Performance Today’, as well as featured in recital on Japanese network NHK-TV, NY’s Caramoor & FONT Festivals, under the auspices of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, (Le) Poisson Rouge, and numerous others.
 
Manhattan Brass is Wayne du Maine & Lew Soloff, trumpets — R.J. Kelley, horn — Michael Seltzer, trombone & David Taylor, bass trombone.
 
Photo credit: Jason Brownrigg

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