Jan

13

presented by 2016 NYC Winter Jazzfest presented by 2016 NYC Winter Jazzfest

Wed January 13th, 2016

8:00PM

Main Space

Minimum Age: 18+

Doors Open: 7:00PM

Show Time: 8:00PM

Event Ticket: $20

Day of Show: $25

event description event description

The kick-off concert on Wednesday January 13th celebrates collective creativity as a whole, featuring three groups that don’t have a designated leader. The Ex travel from Amsterdam on the shoulders of a 30+ year career of musical evolution, from the punk world and gathering experience and influences from Ethiopian funk to improvised jazz. Bill Laswell and Colin Stetson have their own rich histories as solo performers and ensemble members, and at this show their minds, fingers and breaths will meet as one. Happy Apple were born in the late 90’s in Minneapolis, and feature WJF artist in residence Dave King, as well as saxophonist Mike Lewis and bassist Erik Fratzke, coming back together for a rare New York / planet Earth appearance.
 
2016 Winter Jazzfest 5 Day Festival Pass (includes admission to WJF events from Jan 13-17th)
$125 early bird 5 day festival pass (until October 22nd) // $145 5 day festival pass (Click here to purchase)
 
$20 advance
$25 day of show
 
This is a general admission, standing event.

the artists the artists

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The Ex

The adventurous, innovative Dutch band The Ex just celebrated its 33⅓ year anniversary with a series of festivals. Not merely retrospective but primarily forward-looking and adventurous. Among the many guests invited were young as well as seasoned experimental, improvising and other exciting musicians from Amsterdam, Berlin, New York, Chicago, Ethiopia, Scandinavia and Great Britain.
 
The Ex have defied categorization ever since they started playing in 1979. Born out of the punk explosion, when anything and everything was possible, the band have still managed to retain both curiosity and passion for their music. Using guitars, bass, drums and voice as ther starting point The Ex have continued to musically explore undiscovered areas right up to the present day: the early 1980s saw collaborations with jazz musicians and an Iraqi-Kurdish band. In the 90s the group found a myriad of partners from varied musical and non-musical backgrounds including Kamagurka, Tom Cora, Sonic Youth, Han Bennink, Jan Mulder, Shellac and Wolter Wierbos. In 2002 The Ex set up a lively musical exchange with Ethiopia, which eventually led to two CD recordings and hundreds of concerts with the legendary saxophonist Getatchew Mekuria.
 
After 33⅓ years, more than 25 albums and around 1800 performances the band continues to work as they did in when they began, completely independent of record companies, managers or roadies. Because of this ‘do it yourself’ work ethic The Ex is still a great example for other forward-thinking bands and musicians.
“Staying a bird, staying independent, free if you will, for three decades, that takes skill and something else, something more like heart.”
Music journalist John Corbett on The Ex.
 
CURRENT LINEUP…
TERRIE HESSELS – guitar, baritone guitar
ARNOLD DE BOER – vocals, guitar, sampler
ANDY MOOR – guitar, baritone guitar
KATHERINA BORNEFELD – drums, vocals
 
The Ex official site
The Ex on Facebook

Bill Laswell

Over the course of some three decades, visionary bassist-producer Bill Laswell has been one of the most prolific and restlessly creative forces in contemporary music. A sound conceptualist who has always been a step ahead of the curve, he has put his inimitable stamp on nearly 3,000 recording projects by such artists as Mick Jagger, Yoko Ono, Iggy Pop, Laurie Anderson, Brian eno, Bootsy Collins, Motorhead, Peter Gabrielf, The Ramones, George Clinton, Pharaoh Sanders, and most notably Herbie Hancock, who collaborated with Laswell for the pivotal 1983 smash-hit single “Rock-It,” which introduced scratching to the mainstream, inspired a generation of turntablists and gave the great jazz pianist instant street credibility among the burgeoning hip-hop cognoscenti.
 

Mod Technologies
Bill Laswell database
Means Of Deliverance

Colin Stetson presents SORROW, a reimagining of Gorecki’s 3rd Symphony

COLIN STETSON PRESENTS: SORROW – A REIMAGINING OF GORECKI’S 3RD SYMPHONY
RELEASED APRIL 8TH on 52Hz VIA KARTEL MUSIC GROUP – CD / 2LP / DIGITAL
 
Symphony No 3, composed by Polish composer Henryk Górecki in 1977, became one of the biggest sellers of classical music of all time, when Elektra Nonesuch’s 1992 recording of the ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’ was released. The symphony is centred on three texts – including a prayer inscribed by a teenager on a cell wall of a Gestapo headquarters – which the composer turned into haunting laments, backed by simple, slowly churning surges of beautiful music. ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’ sold over 1 million copies and topped classical charts in the USA and Britain. This popular acclaim did not generate wide interest in Górecki’s other works, and he pointedly resisted the temptation to repeat earlier success, or compose for commercial reward. Górecki died in November 2010 aged 76.
 
Colin Stetson is an American saxophonist and multireedist. ‘SORROW’, led by Stetson, is a re-imagining of Henryk Górecki’s most famous piece.
 
“We all have those moments when we experience a piece of music that transforms us, and this was one of those moments for me. Over the years, I went on to listen to this record countless times, always determined to absorb every instance of it, to know it throughout and fully. And this dedication to a thorough knowledge of the piece eventually gave way to a need to perform it.
 
“The concept was simple, and true to the original score. I haven’t changed existing notation, but rather have worked with altering instrumentation, utilizing a group consisting heavily of woodwinds, synthesizers, and electric guitars, as well as retaining an element of the orchestral in a string section of violins and cellos, which features prominent and decorated Canadian musicians Sarah Neufeld (Arcade Fire, Bell Orchestre) and Rebecca Foon (Saltland, Esmerine).
 
“My approach was “additive”, in that I imagined certain sounds or parts, though not present in the original, were (to me) extensions of the emotional core of the piece. For example, the instrumentation is rounded out by the most extreme of those sonic/timbral/musical additions, the drum set. Performed inimitably here by NYC drummer/percussionist, Greg Fox (Liturgy, Guardian Alien, Z’s). My background and education in classical concert music is here, as well as a focus on group improvisation. The arrangement draws heavily from the world of black metal, early electronic music, and from my own body of solo saxophone music.
 
“The result is an intact rendition of Henryk Górecki’s 3rd Symphony, though one which has been filtered through the lens of my particular musical aesthetic and experience.” – Colin Stetson, 2015
 
Colin Stetson official site
Colin Stetson on Facebook
Colin Stetson on Twitter

Happy Apple

Named after a child’s toy from the 1960s, jazz trio Happy Apple was formed in Minneapolis, MN, in 1996 by saxophonist Michael Lewis and drummer David King, with bassist Erik Fratzke joining soon after.
 
Their clever and melodic small-combo improvisations have been termed “jazz punk,” but Happy Apple has a grasp of the entire history of jazz, and the trio’s elegant free-bop compositions are full of haunting melodies, delightful flashes of humor, and intelligent, coherent construction. Led by Lewis’ amazingly lyrical tenor sax playing and solid melodies written by all three members, Happy Apple keeps out of the fusion trap by implying rock dynamics without actually surrendering to them, giving the group a fresh, bright, and totally unique sound.
 
Things can get hot and searing, certainly, and there is no aversion to sonic and free jazz experimenting, but the band always retains a strong melodic center. Happy Apple has released four independent albums, Blown Shockward and Crash Flow (1997), Part of the Solution Problem (1998), Body Popping, Moon Walking, Top Rocking (1999), and Please Refrain from Fronting (2001).
 
Youth Oriented, the group’s first commercial album, was released in 2003 by Universal Music and is distributed in the U.S. by Sunnyside Records. Happy Apple tours regularly and continues to use Minneapolis as a home base. (by Steve Leggett, All MUsic)
 
Happy Apple official site

presented by 2016 NYC Winter Jazzfest

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