This is a powerful quartet featuring Bob Sweet on drums, Tad Weed on piano, Andrew Bishop on saxophones,flute, and clarinet, and Kurt Krahnke on bass. Expect high energy, unpredictable improvisation, and a diverse and eclectic mix of compositions.
Andrew Bishop is a formidable multi-instrumentalist, as well as an educator and scholar. He has played with Geri Allen, Karl Berger, Sandip Burman, Kenny Burrell, Eugene Chadbourne, Ray Charles, Gerald Cleaver, Robert Hurst, John Lindberg, The Either Orchestra, Mat Maneri, The Manhattan Transfer, Tony Malaby, Ben Monder, Jeremy Pelt, Craig Taborn, Clark Terry, Matt Wilson, and John Zorn, amomg many others. Andrew is an associate professor of jazz and contemporary improvisation at the University of Michigan.
Kurt Krahnke has been one of the most in-demand bassists in the State of Michigan–-and beyond-–for decades. After getting a solid foundation at Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music, he toured the east coast with Ron Levy for two years and then went on play with Wendell Harrison, Phil Lasley, Jimmy Giuffre, Joe Henderson, Sonny Fortune, Pinetop Perkins, Russell Green, and Leon Thomas. He is, for very good reason, one of the busiest bassists around.
Bob Sweet has been on the Detroit and Southeast Michigan scene since the seventies, playing in a variety of soul, pop, blues, and jazz ensembles. He was part of Roy Brooks’ Aboriginal Percussion Choir and played for a number of years with Detroit favorites the Sun Messengers, as did Kurt Kranke. His connections with the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, New York, have placed him in performance and workshop situations with Karl Berger, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Jack DeJohnette, Kirk Knufke, Ed Blackwell, and many other leading improvisers from around the world
Tad Weed has played with Charles Lloyd, Carmen McRae, Woody Herman, Mundell Lowe, John Patitucci, Vinny Golia, Richie Cole, Teddy Edwards, and Dick Berk. He’s currently the associate professor of jazz piano at the University of Toledo. Leonard Feather, in his Encyclopedia of Jazz, said that Tad “displays a very rare ability to cross over from dashing bop lines to rich impressions, he has all of the bases covered from funky blues to the border of the avant-garde.”
[Photo credit, Andre Thomas]
