Bio information: THE MICROSCOPIC SEPTET

Title: LOBSTER LEAPS IN (Cuneiform Rune 272)

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http://www.cuneiformrecords.com FILE UNDER: JAZZ

“Oh, how we’ve missed the Microscopic Septet! Back in the early 1980s, when jazz, on all aesthetic levels, seemed to be resolidifying its connection with its heritage, these wild and wooly virtuosos leapt into the breach between “outside” and “inside” jazz and made a cheerful shambles. They were as clever as the Beatles, as subversive as Captain Beefheart, as antic as Spike Jones.

Did I mention that they were – and are – more fun than any other well-dressed jazz ensemble in the western world? …fans still light candles for their return. …Hurry back, fellows, won’t you? The uptown neoclassicists still have a lot to learn from you downtown pranksters.” – Gene Seymour, Newsday: The Long Island Newspaper, June 13, 2000

“Posterity is going to remember the Microscopic Septet as one of the best bands of the 1980s.” – Frances Davis, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug. 25, 1988

"The Micros project the fun and liveliness of early jazz of early jazz, but also the harmonic and rhythmic adventurousness of modern music." – Terry Gross of NPR's Fresh Air

Originally active for a dozen years, from 1980-1992, the Microscopic Septet were widely recognized as "New York's Most Famous Unknown Band." The group started with a basic reeds-and-rhythm texture (soprano, alto, tenor and baritone sax, piano, bass and drums) that was sonically similar to the sound of the Swing Era. However, they employed these textures to address a widely eclectic range of styles, from free-form music to R&B, rhumbas and ragtime. The result was a brilliant blend of fresh-sounding orchestration and inspired soloing. Beloved in New York, where they generally drew capacity crowds, "The Micros" were one of the most celebrated of the many cutting-edge units associated with experimental music's best-known venue, the Knitting Factory, during the peak years of the "Downtown" music movement in the mid 1980s onward.

In 2006, Cuneiform released two double-CD sets containing all four of the Micros albums. The Micros reunited to play a few shows and had such a good time doing so, that they decided to make the Micros a 'occasional regular thing'. After two well-received weeks in Europe, the band returned very well-rehearsed to New York where they recorded Lobster Leaps In, their first new album in 20 years!

The music of The Microscopic Septet is the sound of jazz in 20th century America: all of it, from Ellington to Ayler, bebop to Zorn, Dixieland to experimental, captured in a microcosm. It distilled the essence of jazz as a popular music into a sound that swung, a music that was intelligent, sometimes smart-aleck, and always good fun.

The Microscopic Septet was founded in 1980 by Phillip Johnston, a composer, soprano saxophonist, and improviser on NYC’s Lower East Side. Largely self-trained as a musician, Johnston was influenced by a pantheon of jazz and avant-rock greats that included Steve Lacy, Thelonius Monk, Duke Ellington, Captain Beefheart, and more, as well as by popular music in myriad forms. Johnston was playing in a quartet and septet led by composer and pianist Joel Forrester. Johnston recruited musicians from these and other bands to assemble a saxophone-quartet-plus-rhythm-section jazz band. He brought Forrester on as co-leader, sharing half of the composing responsibilities.

The team-up of Johnston and Forrester as the Micros’ composers proved to be magic; their compositions became the band’s stars. Called “the boldest and most gifted pair of composers to have joined forces in one group since Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman of the Art Ensemble of Chicago” [Philadelphia Inquirer], the two had known each other since the early 70s, and shared the same musical aesthetics, humor, and similarly skewed world views. Humor would play a role in the Septet, emerging in Johnston’s and Forrester’s compositions and in their onstage banter. The Micros would prove that technically sophisticated music could also be funny, and fun.

Johnston and Forrester were prolific composers; by the time the Micros disbanded, in 1992, it had a songbook of over 180 tunes. Only 34 of those were recorded and released in the band’s lifetime and some of these unrecorded-yet-familiar tunes, many of them audience favorites that just happened not to be recorded, is the material the band recorded used to make Lobster Leaps In.

MICROSCOPIC SEPTET BAND MEMBER BIOS:

Phillip Johnston (soprano saxophone, compositions) - Phillip has written music for films, including Henry Bean’s Noise, Paul Mazursky's Faithful, Philip Haas' The Music of Chance, and Money Man, Doris Dörrie’s Paradise & Geld and Henry Corra’s Umbrellas. He has also written for silent film including Tod Browning's The Unknown, The Georges Méliès Project, Teinosuke Kinugasa’s Page Of Madness, and F.W. Murnau’s Faust, which premiered at the New York Film Festival in 2002, and has subsequently toured worldwide. His theatre composition credits include Young Goodman Brown with Richard Foreman, Venus with Suzan-Lori Parks, Measure For Measure, Comedy of Errors & Wars of The Roses, for the Bell Shakespeare Company, Drawn To Death: A Three-Panel Opera with Art Spiegelman. Dance credits include Karole Armitage's The Predators' Ball and Keely Garfield’s Minor Repairs Necessary for which he won a “Bessie” in 1999. During the 1980's, Phillip performed with the Microscopic Septet, and in the '90's, Big Trouble & The Transparent Quartet. Among his recordings are “Tales From The Cryptic” with Guy Klucevsek, “Rub Me The Wrong Way” (Innova) & “Pork Chop Blue Around The Rind” (Cuneiform) with Fast ‘N’ Bulbous: the music of Captain Beefheart, which he co-leads with Gary Lucas.

Joel Forrester (piano, compositions) Joel Forrester has authored nearly 1500 musical works. These include the 8-hour piano solo "Industrial Arts", the off-Broadway show FASCIST LIVING, and the theme to National Public Radio's "Fresh Air with Terry Gross". As a young man, he composed music for the early films of Andy Warhol. He studied composition with and received the personal encouragement of Thelonious Monk. Currently, he maintains a quintet in New York (Joel Forrester and THE TRUTH) and a quartet in Paris (featuring Steve Potts). His former band PEOPLE LIKE US has a recent release on the Ride Cymbal label, entitled "Ever Wonder Why". Forrester is an acclaimed improvising accompanist to silent film ("Simply stated, the best in the world!"---Paris Free Voice) with regular performances at the Louvre, the Centre Pompidou, and the Forum des Images. Over the last four months, he's done concerts with film at the University of Chicago, the town hall at Thonon-les-Bains on Lake Geneva, and the Stuart Opera House in Nelsonville, Ohio.

Don Davis (alto saxophone) - Has performed and/or recorded with The Waitresses, Toots and the Maytals, LL Cool J, Swollen Monkeys, NY Gong, Material, Carla Bley, Karl Berger, Marc Black, Michael Mantler, Dr.Nerve, Danzig, Peter Apfelbaum ,Rusted Root, Rooster, Larry Simon and Groove Bacteria. Currently teaching in New Hampshire and performs with "Davis and Deleault", Poet F D Reeve, the New Hampshire Jazz Orchestra, and the Don Davis trio among others.

Mike Hashim (tenor saxophone) – Has performed with Cab Calloway, Doc Cheatham, Muddy Waters, Nancy Wilson, Dizzy Gillespie, Jo Jones, Sonny Greer, Roy Eldridge, Skitch Henderson and the NY Pops, Ruby Braff, Madeline Kahn, Bob Wilber, Joe Williams, Panama Francis, Gatemouth Brown, Sammy Price, The Duke Ellington Band and Benny Carter. His own recordings feature, among others, Jimmy Rowles, Claudio Roditi, Mike LeDonne and Kenny Washington, and include special projects devoted to the works of Fats Waller, Billy Strayhorn & Kurt Weill.

He currently leads the 15-piece Billy Strayhorn Orchestra, performs in duo with Judy Carmichael, and tours the world regularly both as a leader and as a sideman. As such he has performed in the US, Europe, Asia and South America. His most recent record as a leader is “Green-Up Time,” featuring the Axis String Quartet, on Hep Records.

Dave Sewelson (baritone saxophone) Sewelson has played and/or recorded with the 25 O'Clock Band, Jemeel Moondoc's Jus Grew Orchestra, Noise R us, Mofungo, Freedomland, The Fazely Brothers, The President, Konk and Illuminati. He was a founding member of the Microscopic Septet and played with Wayne Horvitz, Bill Horvitz, Robin Holcomb, Saheb Sarbib, John Zorn, Roy Campbell, Elliot Sharp, Dee Pop, Frank Lowe, Pat Place, Billy Bang, Walter Perkins, Bobby Radcliff, Clayton Thomas, Kyosuke Otsuka, Norah Jones, and so many more.

Sewelson is currently involved in several projects, among them William Parker's Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra and Fast 'N' Bulbous. He leads The Daves, Sewelsonics, and is a member of Two Sisters Inc (two baris, one mind...and a bass

Dave Hofstra (bass/tuba) has played, toured, and recorded extensively in jazz, rock, blues, klezmer, and New Music. He has performed with Marc Ribot, Marshall Crenshaw, Bobby Previte, Lou Grassi, Bobby Radcliff, Grady Gaines, John Zorn, Wayne Horvitz, Robin Holcomb, Debbie Davies, Elliot Sharp, David Rosenbloom, Tom Cora, Guy Klucevsek, Bill Frisell, Toshi Reagon, Jaki Byard, Joel Forrester, William Parker, Nora York, Luka Bloom; with Philip Johnston's Big Trouble, Microscopic Septet, and Transparent Quartet; Rachelle Garniez's Fortunate Few & Twilight Time; Casselberry & DuPree; The Contortions; The Raybeats; The Waitresses; The Metropolitan Klezmer Orchestra, and The Klezmatics.

Richard Dworkin (drums) currently performs and records with Alex Chilton & Fast ‘N’ Bulbous. He has played with Richard Hell, James White, Bobby Radcliff, Billy Bang, Wayne Kramer (MC5), John Zorn, Edwin Hawkins, Carol Doda, Bill T. Jones, and the ROVA Saxophone Quartet.