Ars Nova Workshop
presents
Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up
Brian Settles, tenor saxophone
Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet
Mary Halvorson, guitar
Danton Boller, bass
Tomas Fujiwara, drums
"Tomas Fujiwara works with rhythm as a pliable substance, solid but ever shifting. Over the last five years he has established a busy profile on the experimental end of the jazz spectrum, where such perspective is vital... His style is forward-driving but rarely blunt or aggressive, and never random. He has a way of spreading out the center of a pulse while setting up a rigorous scaffolding of restraint." -Nate Chinen, New York Times
Please join Ars Nova Workshop for this performance by Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up, featuring Brian Settles, Jonathan Finlayson, Mary Halvorson, and Danton Boller, as well as an opening performance by Ideal Bread, a quartet that performs the works of Steve Lacy.
Drummer and composer Tomas Fujiwara was born in Boston and studied under Joyce Kauffman and Alan Dawson. Over the years he has performed with Anthony Braxton, Norah Jones, Herbie Mann, Joe Morris, Roy Campbell, William Parker, Vernon Reid, Vijay Iyer, and many others. His current projects, in addition to The Hook Up, include his duo work with Taylor Ho Bynum, The Thirteenth Assembly, the Taylor Ho Bynum Sextet and Trio, Matana Roberts' Coin Coin, Ideal Bread, Red Baraat, and several others. He has released many records as both a group leader and sideman on labels like Important, hatOLOGY, Engine, Firehouse 12, Cuneiform, and 482 Music.
For The Hook Up, Fujiwara has assembled some of the best musicians who are able to navigate his shifts between composition and improvisation. Guitarist Mary Halvorson is currently working in several projects with artists like Jessica Pavone, Nate Wooley, Anthony Braxton, Daniel Levin, Reuben Radding, Ellery Eskelin, Mark Helias, Taylor Ho Bynum, Todd Sickafoose, Jenny Scheinmann, Ingrid Laubrock, Tom Rainey, Jon Irabagon, Trevor Dunn, Tatsuya Nakatani, and many others. She has appeared on many recordings, and in 2010 she has appeared on Map's Fever Dream and Tom Rainey Trio's Pool School. Upcoming records include an album with her group People and the Mary Halvorson Quintet.
Saxophonist Brian Settles studied at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, New School University, and Howard University, and currently teaches at the Washington Jazz Institute. He has appeared on records with Tom Abbs & Frequency Response, Conscription and Lost and Found, and on Revolutions with Neil Podgruski and New Fire.
Jonathan Finlayson studied music at The New School and has worked with artists like Steve Coleman, Vijay Iyer, Steve Lehman, Nasheet Waits, Drew Gress, and Dafnis Prieto. He has appeared on several critically acclaimed albums, including Steve Lehman Quintet's On Meaning and Travail, Transformation, and Flow, Steve Lehman Octet's 2009 album that placed on several album of the year lists. His most recent recording is 2010's Harvesting Semblances and Affinities with Steve Coleman and Five Elements.
Bassist Danton Boller has worked with Bennie Wallace, Alvin Queen, Anthony Wilson, Roy Hargrove, Matt Otto, Phillip Booth, Robert Glasper, and many others. Among his several recordings are Emergence by Roy Hargrove Big Band, Live in Italy by Seamus Blake, and Earfood by Roy Hargrove Quintet.
Ideal Bread: The music of Steve Lacy
Josh Sinton, baritone saxophone
Kirk Knuffke, trumpet
Pascal Niggenkemper, bass
Tomas Fujiwara, drums
Formed in 2006 by Josh Sinton, Ideal Bread is a repertory band dedicated to performing the compositions of famed soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy (1934-2004). From the beginning, Sinton sought to make a BAND with a unique group sound. He has succeeded in no small part because of the outstanding talents of Kirk Knuffke and Tomas Fujiwara who have been members of this outfit since its inception. After studies in Chicago (with Ari Brown of the AACM and Ken Vandermark) and Boston (with Steve Lacy, Jerry Bergonzi, Ran Blake and Dominique Eade), Sinton moved to Brooklyn New York where he has established himself by performing with Darcy Argue's Secret Society, the Nate Wooley Quintet and Andrew D'Angelo's big band. Kirk Knuffke is one of the rising stars of the NYC's burgeoning brass scene. After performances with Butch Morris, Kenny Wollenson and Andrew D'Angelo among many others, he was asked to join the Matt Wilson Quartet. He also leads his own quartet and trio with releases on Clean Feed Records. Ideal Bread will be joined by the formidable talent of Pascal Niggenkemper on bass. A native of Belgium, Niggenkemper has distinguished himself through performances with his own group as well as those of Tyshawn Sorey, Gerald Cleaver and Rudi Mahall.
Ideal Bread is playing in support of its newest CD Transmit: Vol. 2 of the music of Steve Lacy released in June of this year on Cuneiform Records. It has received rave reviews from the press (four-and-a-half stars in Downbeat as well as notices in Jazz Times and the New York Times). Their first CD "The Ideal Bread" is now in its second printing and available from KMB-Jazz.
Admission is FREE.