modern creative jazz Archives - Cliff Bell's

The Michael Malis Quartet

admin — Thu, 11 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Recently named one of Detroit’s most important young jazz musicians by the Detroit Free Press, avant garde jazz composer and pianist Michael Malis leads his quartet with piano, upright bass, drums & trumpet. Malis is known for his loose and spontaneous free expressions of music, bridging very technical compositions to spontaneity. Of his latest composition “Head and Heart,” he explains how his music represents both: “I hope that it models a measured and thoughtful approach to living; an approach where we buttress our emotional cores with contentiousness and care. In this sense, head and heart can be complimentary, interdependent, and mutually supportive.” In August 2017, his duets with saxophonist Marcus Elliot on the recording Balance were praised by the Detroit Metro Times as “contemporary jazz of the highest order, a benchmark for where the genre can go.” The two were last year’s Chamber Music Society of Detroit Artists-in-Residence in the public schools. His repertoire will be originals and modern standards.

MM — piano
Josef Deas — bass
Jon Taylor — drums
Kris Johnson — trumpet

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Talking Ear

admin — Fri, 19 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Talking Ear is a five-piece progressive music ensemble based out of the Midwest, committed to providing a unique experience for listeners through composition, collaboration, and improvisation. The band consists of vocalist Estar Cohen, guitarist Daniel Palmer, pianist Benjamin Maloney, bassist Aidan Cafferty, and drummer Travis Aukerman. Each musician has a distinct voice as an accomplished composer and performer, contributing to an exciting and versatile, yet particularly cohesive sound.

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Rod Williams Quartet

admin — Sat, 14 Apr 2018 01:00:00 +0000

Pianist/Composer Rod Williams was born in Detroit April 15, 1954 and studied with the great pianist Kenny Cox. In the summer 1981 he was playing with the Sam Sanders’ group “Visions” at the Detroit Jazz Center as an opening act for Air (Henry Threadgill, Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall), Henry Threadgill strongly encouraged him to move to New York and in the fall of 1981, he did so, which is where he currently resides.

“Pianist-composer Rod Williams’ typically stimulating original “Home Sweet Home” opens his fine 1989 LP “Hanging in the Balance” (Muse). It would certainly be an appropriate piece for the Detroit-born Williams to include when he returns to the Motor City. Williams made his reputation working with a range of left-of-center voices, among them David Murray, Henry Threadgill, Dewey Redman and Lester Bowie. He has also proven to be an alert accompanist for vocalist Cassandra Wilson early in her career. But like most Detroiters, Williams retains an essential versatility, and there’s not much across the post-bop landscape you could throw at him that he can’t handle. His improvisations alternate between a scampering kind of percussive rumble with a smoother, more pianistic touch, and his compositions reveal a personal approach to melody and structure”( Mark Stryker, Detroit Free Press June 17, 2015).

He will perform with two generations of Detroit Jazz musicians- Kasan Belgrave, Kayvon Gordon and Marion Hayden. He will also be celebrating his 64th birthday.

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Jon Taylor Trio

admin — Thu, 22 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Jon Taylor is a Detroit-based drummer, improviser, composer, and educator. A tireless collaborator, he co-leads a number of original projects around town. He has performed alongside such luminaries of creative music as Wadada Leo Smith, Dave Liebman, Karl Berger, and Michael Formanek, and is a founding member of Polyfold, a musical arts collective. His compositions have been described as “A balance between form and freedom” and “music for the head and heart” (All About Jazz). His trio, featuring master bassist Jaribu Shahid and pianist Michael Malis, explores the stunning breadth of American music with original compositions influenced by everything from the tight-knit arrangements of Ahmad Jamal to the polyrhythmic trances of Steve Coleman to the spontaneous power of the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
Jon earned a BFA in Jazz and Contemplative Studies from the University of Michigan, where he studied improvisation with Geri Allen and Ed Sarath, composition with Andrew Bishop and Evan Chambers, and performance with Sean Dobbins, Ellen Rowe, and Michael Gould.

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Chris Speed Trio

admin — Thu, 29 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Since arriving in New York in the early 1990s, reed player Chris Speed has been one of the most vital improvising musicians on the scene. His work has always ranged widely, moving from a jazz base out through various forms of folk, classical and rock music. With the formation of this excellent trio with drummer Dave King (The Bad Plus) and bassist Chris Tordini he’s sort of reversed direction. The is a group returning from other explorations to work deep within the jazz tradition, bringing everything else they’ve learned back in. What is most compelling about this music is the incorporation of early jazz styles in a way that is direct and deeply felt. The music is joyful and generous and Speed has an uncanny knack for coming up with tunes that can create a whole world of emotions and formal possibilities behind an often catchy melodic surface.

The Chicago Reader tagged their debut album “Really OK” as “one of the best jazz records of the year” and noted the trio “seamlessly connecting their abiding love and respect for jazz tradition with an inherent interest in pushing the music forward.”

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Kayvon Gordon & NKW

admin — Thu, 04 Jan 2018 01:00:00 +0000

Kayvon is one of our top young drummers on the scene and he is bringing an equally hot young band with saxophonists Steve Grady & Kasan Belgrave, bassist Andy Peck and visiting from LA, the excellent pianist Glenn Tucker–these musicians are among the freshest voices of their generation.

This group encompasses spellbinding intuition, with an absolute commitment to the spirit of discovery.

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