Bio
information: MICROSCOPIC SEPTET
Title:
HISTORY OF THE MICROs, VOL. 1: SEVEN MEN IN NECKTIES
Disc
1: LETÕS
FLIP
[Cuneiform Rune 236]
Disc
2:
TAKE THE Z TRAIN
[Cuneiform
Rune
237]
Title: HISTORY OF THE MICROS,
VOL. 2:
SURREALISTIC SWING
Disc
3: OFF
BEAT GLORY
[Cuneiform Rune 238]
Disc
4:
BEAUTY BASED ON SCIENCE (THE VISIT)
[Cuneiform Rune 239]
Cuneiform
promotion dept: (301)
589-8894 /
fax (301) 589-1819
email:
Cuneiform2@aol.com [publicity & promotion];
CuneiformRadio@aol.com [radio]
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,
wonÕt 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."
– Francis Davis, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug.
25, 1988
The music of The Microscopic Septet was the sound
of jazz in 20th
C. 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 clean fun. Optimistic and upbeat, full of innocent
confidence, the
Microscopic Septet captured not
only the sound of jazz, but also the sound – or soundtrack – of
20th Century
America. No wonder, then,
that
when National Public Radio (NPR) needed a new
theme song for one of
its most popular shows, "Fresh Air, with Terry Gross",
broadcast to every
home in America, it asked this
band to compose the tune and has used it ever since.
Active from
1980-1992, The
Microscopic Septet was part of New York's emerging Downtown
Music Scene, a
diverse group of artists on the
fringes of jazz, rock, and improv that would converge
in the Knitting Factory when the club opened in 1987. But while the band shared an aesthetic for breaking
down genres
boundaries with such other Downtown bands as Curlew, Massacre, and Material; shared the
goal of
creating intelligent music that could be danced to with Curlew, and
shared
stylistic surface elements (retro sound, stage costumes and attitude)
with the
Jazz Passengers and Lounge Lizards, the Micros, as the band was
familiarly
called, neither
sounded like nor
was directly comparable to any one of the Downtown bands. More
inclusive than
even the barrier-breaking downtown crowd,
the Micros shared elements with all these bands
– and more.
During the
1980s, jazz in New York
City was split into two distinct scenes. Downtown's jazz scene was unregimented,
avant in
outlook, and inclusive in scope, often merging with the rock scene and
including improvisers, the free-jazz players, and the new
jazz-funk/groove-influenced
players. Mainstream
jazz was
headquartered Uptown, where Grammy Award-winning trumpeter Wynton
Marsalis was reviving
early forms like swing
and bebop, enforcing a return to stylistic tradition, and championing jazz
as America's new classical music. As Will
Friedwald noted "While the two major strains of '80s jazz were "neo-classical" (ala Wynton
Marsalis) and the avant garde, the Micros seemed to be doing both at
the same
time." As NYU dropout and Micros' founder
Johnston said: "Break all the rules
and respect all the
saints." Like
Uptown, the Micros played swing music and quoted from the Masters. But they extended swing into the present, bringing free blowing from
the lofts
and Knitting Factory noise into the dance hall,
and introducing the radio age to TV theme songs. As
Johnston
relayed in an interview with Howard Mandel: "...our
music, if nothing else, is
definitely jazz...Jazz is something that's always
changing, so of course our
music is different than the way it was in the Fifties. It incorporates
all the
things weve experienced."
As the Micros
asserted in
interviews, jazz began in
the
1920s as a popular music, inclusive in its form. Danceable and
approachable, it
embraced the life
around it, incorporating Latin rhythm, tango, polka and more. Later jazz , whether avant
or
traditional, became a 'serious' art form, aloof
and apart. Johnston said in
interviews:
"What the Micros are
about...is that jazz went through a period of
being an entertaining, popular music as it was in the twenties,
thirties, and
forties, to bop to eventually being this serious cult art music. Jazz
for us is
more than that, it is music we love and want to have fun with, which
should not
take away from our real reverence for the music. "
In the '80s, jazz purists had frozen
traditional jazz forms in time, cast them in bronze, and confined them
to
Uptown museums. The Micros brought Uptown jazz back Downtown, where
together
they had a good time, broke all the rules, and spawned
the smiling future of the genre.
Sounding like no one else, the Microscopic Septet was the only living
jazz band
in 1980s/90s NYC that was playing traditional jazz
– swing music – and keeping it 'real',
extending it into
the future.
Ironically, while purists feared that the Micros were undermining
traditional jazz,
the band had done
the opposite. "Surrealistic Swing" –
the music of the Microscopic Septet
– was the
jazz swing music of the late 20th Century.
The Microscopic Septet was founded in
1980 by Phillip Johnston, a composer,
soprano saxophonist,
and improvisor 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. At the time he founded the Micros, he was
co-leading the Public Servants
(with vocalist Shelley Hirsch), a rock band
that combined pop,
funk, swing, Beefheart, and
avant-garde performance art, and playing in Noise R Us, a large
punk/funk band with a
four-sax front line. Johnston was also 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 Microscopic SeptetÕs
first line-up also included Dave Sewelson (baritone sax;
Noise R Us &
Public Servants), George Bishop
(tenor sax; Noise-R-Us), John Zorn (alto sax;
Public Servants), Dave Hofstra (bass; Public
Servants) and Bobby DeMeo (drums). By
the time the band played
its first show at the Lower East
Side's Ear Inn, on Feb. 22, 1981, Richard Dworkin was in the
drummer's seat, having replaced DeMeo, and John Hagen had replaced
Bishop on sax. When
Zorn left to pursue an independent career,
Don Davis joined the
Micros on alto sax. Paul Shapiro replaced Hagen
after the Micros
first lp, Take
the Z Train, was released. The band's lineup remained remarkably
stable afterwards.
The new
band's name –
Microscopic Septet
–
alluded
partially to the composers' desire to create big band
arrangements and
orchestrations for
a smaller
group. Said Johnston: "The instrumentation is enough to give
us a big range of
colors and work compositionally in a more expansive way." It
worked, Downbeat noted, as "the septet often fools
you into thinking that there are four or five more horn players hiding
under
the chairs." But the name also described their compositions,
which evoked
entire eras of music through snips of
tango or other tell-tale refrain. As the New
York Times stated: "The Microscopic Septet
stands out...primarily through its command of idiomatic detail
– the group
summons the sound of an Ellington orchestra, or the feel of a
50's
rhythm-and-blues band, with a few well-chosen phrases and
sonorities."
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. They
had met, says
Johnston, when he was living in the Bowery, and Forrester, hearing
music,
barged into his apartment, unannounced: "I was playing a Thelonius Monk tune, and a
guy I had never seen
before came walking through my door, which wasn't locked-
those were the hippie
days..." Not surprisingly, humor would play a role
in the Septet, emerging in
Johnston's and ForresterÕs
compositions and in
their
onstage banter. The
Micros would
prove that technically sophisticated music could also be funny, and fun.
For the
Microscopic Septet, Johnston
and Forrester envisioned writing music that would capture
jazz's essence: fluid
and inclusive, a popular music that was joyful and danceable (ie. a
music that
swung). They wanted to break away from then-standard head-solo-head
song
formats and instead write extended, layered jazz compositions that
segued
different themes in a single piece, as Duke Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton had done.
Their extended
compositions would assimilate the entire history of jazz, as well as other popular
music from the
soundtrack of their lives, from polkas to Latin tangos to cartoon
ditties to
klezmer to TV theme songs to New Wave. "We
all came out of the
type of music played by the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Anthony Braxton, as well as
bebop. But we were
playing standards, Dixieland
and
rock to make a livingÓ, said Johnson in various interviews. "We... grew up listening to pop. What
we try to do is get to the heart of all these different
musics." Johnston and
Forrester adhered to one stylistic rule: "It's
gotta swing, whether its Latin
or R&B or straight-ahead blowing. ÉBut swing
– thatÕs the foundation
of what we do." The Micros, asserted Johnston, "...play music that swings, that
has beautiful harmonies and melodies, and everything else is really
second to
that. The ideas that have always run through
jazz – of swinging, of telling a story, of being
real
– to me that's at the essence of everything we try
to do."
A late-20th
C. swing
band steeped in
dancehall
tradition, The Microscopic Septet thrived on live performance. "We were all
about playing," says Johnston; Òall we really
wanted to do was have a good time
and play the best music we could imagine, the best we knew
how." It played the
Downtown music scene circuit – rock clubs like CBGB, Mudd
Club,
Danceteria, Peppermint
Lounge,
Studio Henry, Acme
Bar and Grill
and more. Later, it played the Knitting Factory and such mainstream jazz clubs as
The Blue
Note, as well as
jazz festivals
worldwide (JVC Jazz
Fest). These performances
attracted a devoted cult following as much for the music –
technically
sophisticated and played by top-notch musicians – as for the
on-stage
antics. The band wore suits and ties onstage, as a respectful tip 'o the fedora
to Uptown's jazz traditionalists as well as a wink to
stylish New Wave rockers
with skinny ties. (A poster announcing the band's first show
depicted its
lineup as the seven steps to tie a necktie, and New York
Rocker would later
refer to them as "Seven
Men in Neckties" in a review.) Like the Sun Ra Arkestra, its
performances were legendary
not only for musical substance,
but also for entertainment value. Live renditions of one
favorite tune, "The Lobster Parade,"
featured
besuited Micros donning tassled fezs and parading through the audience.
Johnson 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, in a total of 4 albums, all released
on small labels to
an impressive amount of high-profile critical acclaim. The Micros'
recordings received glowing reviews in
big-city newspapers
(New York Times,
Chicago Tribune)
and alternative papers (L.A.
Reader, The Village Voice) on both
coasts, as well as in major jazz publications (Downbeat, Cadence). Op and the
subsequent Option, the bastions of
hip alternative music
in the '80s and '90s – equivalent
to today's
The Wire –
also favorably reviewed the
Micros, as did such mainstream music publications as Musician and Billboard.
Towards the
band's latter years, it
was being praised enthusiastically
in such widely-distributed general magazines as Interview, The
New Yorker, Elle, GQ:
GentlemenÕ Quarterly, and even
Vanity Fair. The Jan/Feb
1990 issue of Option, featuring
Laurie Anderson on its
cover, devoted a full article to the Microscopic Septet.
The
band's debut
LP, Take
the Z Train, came out on Press Records in 1983. Recorded Òdirect
to two-track – basically the way they did it in
the '50s...[at]
Seltzer Sound, where Eubie Blake recorded," it featured
cover art by San
Francisco artist Bill Paradise and received
an auspicious amount
of press, including 4-star
reviews
in both Downbeat
and the Rolling Stone Jazz Record
Guide. Cadence
exclaimed: "It
is as if the entire
history of improvisatory music is on parade....
recommended!"while New
York Beat called it
Òthe headiest collection of new swing music to come along in
some time. "
The following
year, the Micros did its first 6-week tour of
the
Netherlands, home
to Willem
Breuker and the ICP
Orchestra, artists
to whom some compared it.
It
recorded its only live album, Let's
Flip!, which was
released in 1985 by Dutch
label Osmosis Records with liner
notes by Richard Forman, a key figure
New YorkÕs
avant-garde theatre scene . LetÕs Flip! captured the
excitement of the band live in concert in
Rotterdam, and received glowing reviews from Downbeat, Musician, and Billboard. Option called it "Good clean fun, recorded
live." A 2nd tour of The Netherlands
generated a studio recording, Off
Beat Glory.
Released by Osmosis in 1986, Off Beat Glory contained
liner notes by American
novelist William
Kotzwinkle, author
of The Fan
Man, starred Micros
member Swelson. Downbeat remarked that "...these guys should
be more famous than they are. Their music is well-written, their
playing cooks,
and everything they do is accessible...".
Beauty
Based on
Science was the
band's 1st CD, and last recording
released during their lifetime.
Recorded in NYC, it was released on Stash in 1988, and
featured liner notes by 'New York
School' poet, Ron Padgett, CD cover art
by painter Bob Tuska, and cartoons
by Collin Kellogg. It generated
positive reviews not
only in the music press, and helped capture the interest of mainstream,
general
interest publications. Vanity Fair announced that "If they don't watch their step, the
Microscopic Septet, lovingly known as 'the best New York
band that hardly
anybody's heard of,' is going to have to change
its tune...the Katzenjammer Kids
of postmodernism have arrived."
As the 90s arrived, the Microscopic Septet was poised on the edge of mainstream success. In Jan. 1990, it recorded several versions of a new theme song for NPRÕs Fresh Air with Terry Gross, composed by Forrester, which have aired continually ever since. Also in 1990, the Micros recorded a single, "You Know What You Know", the only recorded Micros vocal tune. Francis Davis, who had championed the band from its beginning, advocated for a Micros TV show:
"When
I replace Letterman...the World's
Most Dangerous Bar Mitzvah Band has to go. The band I'm
considering as a
replacement is the Microscopic Septet, a New York saxophone quartet
(plus
rhythm) whose riff do what riffs are supposed to do: set your pulse
racing and
stick in your noggin for days on end. ... So why
aren't these guys rich and
famous, or at least universally adored by those in the know? ...on the bandstand,
their high-spirited humor is difficult to resist. This is a band that
knows how
to have fun while going deep, and one would think that, with proper
exposure,
that combination would give them widespread appeal. Somebody oughta put
these
guys on TV."– Frances Davis, Outcats, Oxford
University Press: 1990
Cuneiform's
4-CD retrospective of
the Microscopic Septet puts the spotlight back on a band that should
have never
left the stage. Called
History
of the Micros,
this retrospective is released in two parts/volumes,
each containing 2 Cds. It contains
the music on all 4 of
band's albums,
and an additional
11 tracks never released during the band's lifetime. The CD
artwork is by Pulitzer
Prize winning New York cartoonist Art Spiegelman, creator of
the graphic novel Maus.
Part 1, titled History of the Micros Volume
1: Seven Men in Neckties, covers the
band's early history,
from 1980-85. It contains 2 Cds, featuring reissues of the
band's 1st
lp, Take the Z Train; its 2nd
lp and only live album, Let's
Flip!; and
several previously unreleased tracks, including live recording done at
the same
time as Let's Flip!
and and the most common version ("Evil Twin", in
minor key) of Forrester's
theme for Fresh Air with Terry Gross.
Part 2, titled History
of the Micros Volume 2: Surrealistic Swing, covers the
years c.
1986-1990. It
features reissues of
Off Beat Glory and Beauty
Based on Science (The Visit), the
band's 3rd and 4th
release. It also
includes previous
unreleased tracks
from throughout
the band's career, including
2 tracks from an
early, recording
by the band's first lineup with John Zorn; an unreleased
single with vocals by
Paul Shapiro; the"Happy Twin" (in major key) of
Forrester's theme for Fresh
Air with Terry Gross, and a
different Fresh Air theme used during the First Gulf War of
1990-1991.
To celebrate
the
release of History of the Micros, the
Microscopic Septet are reuniting for a tour in
November and December 2006, including dates in both the U.S. and Europe.
MICROSCOPIC
SEPTET BAND MEMBER BIOS:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
PHILLIP
JOHNSTON
bio info derived from: www.phillipjohnston.com,
www.allmusic.com,
www.furious.com/perfect/phillipjohnston.html,
www.berkshireweb.com/rogovoy/thebeat/beat990826.html
One
of the most active saxophonists and
composers (theatre, dance, film scores and jazz music) in New
York's Downtown
scene, Phillip Johnston has been active as a performer and bandleader
since the
1980s, working with John Zorn, Joel Forrester, Elliott Sharp, Eugene
Chadbourne, Mikel Rouse, Wayne Horvitz, Shelley Hirsch, Walter
Thompson, Lenny
Pickett's Borneo Horns, Earl King, and Guy Klucevsek. He
founded, led and
co-led several highly acclaimed jazz groups, including the Microscopic
Septet
(1980-1993), Big Trouble (1991-1995), the Transparent Quartet
(1995-2000) and
Fast ÔN' Bulbous (his arrangements of the music of
Captain Beefheart co-led
with Gary Lucas, which released a CD on Cuneiform in 2005). Johnston
has
released more than a dozen albums under his own name and in various
groups/ensembles on a variety of prominent labels, including Avant,
Winter
& Winter, Tzadik, Black Saint, and Koch Jazz.
After
disbanding the Microscopic Septet,
Johnston focused his attention on composing film, theater and dance
scores, in
addition to doing work for radio and TV. A prolific composer, he has
scored
more than a dozen motion pictures, working with such directors
including Doris
Dšrrie, Paul Mazursky (Faithful), Philip Haas (The Music of
Chance). In
addition, he's done scores for silent movies, including F.W.
Murnau's Faust
(1927), which premiered at the 2002 New York Film Festival and has
subsequently
toured Europe and the US. Two CDs of Johnston's film scores
have been released
by Zorn: a compilation of film scores, Music for Films
(1998, Tzadik), and The
Unknown
(1994, Avant), a score for Tod Browning's 1927 silent film.
Johnston has also
collaborated with artist Art Spiegelman (Maus)
on"Drawn To Death: A
Three-Panel OperaÓ. The growing friendship between them led
to Spiegelman's
offer to contribute the cover art for the Microscopic Septet
re-releases on
Cuneiform.
Johnson's
distinctive compositions are most notable
for their defiance of genre and consistently pervasive humor. As Seth
Rogovy
wrote in the Berkshire Eagle:
"...what
distinguishes or characterizes Johnston's
work, and what makes it impossible to tame or define in conventional
terms, is
its willful perversity – its utter unwillingness to stay in
one place,
its defiance of genre, its universal embrace of the offbeat, its
celebration of
the quirky, dramatic and surprising gesture. His scores can flow
seamlessly
from cocktail jazz to horn-laced funk grooves to acoustic chamber music
to
synthesized electronics to frenzied post-bop to banjo bluegrass to rock
'n'
roll to ersatz klezmer to cartoon music to skronking metal to Asian
harp to
blues guitar riffs to blowzy polka and back to classically-styled,
string
quartet music."
In
2005, he moved with his family to Sydney, Australia, where he leads The
Coolerators, and SNAP, and writes music for film and theatre. He
continues to
perform in Europe and the US from time to time.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
JOEL
FORRESTER
bio info derived from: www.joelforrester.com,
www.allmusic.com
Pianist,
composer and arranger Joel Forrester is
one of the most prolific composers to emerge from New York's
Downtown scene and
perhaps"the world's finest improvisational
accompanist to silent films,"
according to The Paris Free Voice.
Composer of more than 1200 tunes, Forrester
co-led the critically acclaimed Microscopic Septet with Phillip
Johnston. In
addition, as the leader or member of the ensembles Private Life, The
Illustrious Others, and People Like Us, Forrester has released albums
on Ride
Symbol, Koch Jazz and Koch International. Forrester is perhaps most
widely
known for composing the theme song for National Public
Radio's"Fresh Air with
Terry GrossÓ, (recorded by the Microscopic Septet) which has
been played and
heard on American radio more often than any other jazz composition in
the last
28 years. Forrester actively performs in both New York and Paris; he
has played
in Paris at the Louvre, the American Center, the Forum des Images and
the Musee
d'Orsay and in New York at the Film Forum, the Brooklyn
Museum and the
Anthology Film Archives.
Born
in Pittsburgh, Forrester met Thelonious
Monk upon moving to New York City as a young man, who urged him to
focus on"music that hadn't been written yet.Ó
The Paris Free Voice relates
Forrester's
unique tutelage under the guidance of Monk, shortly before his death in
1982:
"...Fully
dressed, Monk would lie on top of his
bed, listening to Forrester's playing in the adjoining room. "It was the most
acute form of musical criticism I've ever
received,' recalls Forrester. ÔIf he
didn't like what I was playing, he'd just stretch
his foot off the bed and kick
the door shut!'"
Critics
worldwide have extolled Forrester's
compositional and improvisational expertise. Heather Phares of All
Music Guide
describes his"complex, often witty composition
skills,Ó while The New Yorker
lauds Forrester as"...a most agreeably eclectic
pianist, and among the most
undervalued of jazz composers. The sheer pleasure he brings to a
panoply of
styles, and to the individual way he absorbs them all, denotes comfort
rather
than scholarly erudition." A review from AllAboutJazz.com
perhaps best locates
Forrester in the school of modern jazz:
"Joel
Forrester in an undiscovered national
treasure. He is brilliant both as a pianist and as a composer. His
music is
intelligent, witty, and colorful as it looks into the jazz tradition
and
emerges as something individual and different. Millions have heard his
great
theme for the NPR show Fresh Air with Terry Gross. ...The
music is identifiably
Joel's – ever-fresh and smartly
swinging.Ó
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
DON
DAVIS
bio info derived from: www.allmusic.com
Alto
saxophonist Don Davis has been a member of
The Microscopic Septet, Dr Nerve, and NewYork Gong. Additionally he has
performed and/or recorded with: LL Cool J, MichaelMantler, Carla Bley,
Karl
Berger, Marc Black, Material, The Waitresses, Toots and
the
Maytals, Danzig, The Swollen Monkeys, Ed
Broms, and others. He is currently free-lancing in New England and
performing
with The Davis/Deleault Duo, The New Hampshire Jazz Orchestra, Larry
Simon, and
others.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
PAUL
SHAPIRO
bio
info derived from: www.paulshapiromusic.com, www.allmusic.com
Saxophonist,
flutist, composer and bandleader
Paul Shapiro has been active on the New York scene for over two
decades. He
currently leads two projects, his jazz group Midnight Minyan and his
40's
Yiddish swing project Paul Shapiro's Ribs and Brisket Revue.
As a solo artist
he has released two albums, Midnight Minyan in 2003 and It's
in the Twilight in
2006, both on the Tzadik label. He has also recorded and/or worked with
diverse
artists such as Lou Reed, Brooklyn Funk Essentials, Michael Callen,
Jay-Z, Ben
Folds Five, Steven Bernstein, John Zorn, Ofra Haza,
Naughty By Nature, Marc Anthony, Frankie Knuckles, Elliott
Sharp,
Wayne Horvitz and Queen Latifah, Majek Fashek, Khaled, and many others.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
DAVE
SEWELSON
bio info derived from: www.sewelsonics.com,
www.allmusic.com
Saxophonist
Dave Sewelson
is an active member of New York's avant jazz scene. He has
played and/or
recorded with Wayne Horvitz, Robin Holcomb, Saheb Sarbib, John Zorn,
Roy
Campbell, Mofungo, Elliott Sharp, Dee Pop, Frank Lowe, Pat Place, Billy
Bang,
Susie Ibarra, Bobby Radcliff, Dave Douglas, George Gilmore, Kyosuke
Otsuka, the
Microscopic Septet and Fast ÔN' Bulbous.
Additionally, Sewelson is currently a
member of William Parker's Little Huey Creative Music
Orchestra, as well as the
leader of Sewelsonics and The Daves.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
DAVID
HOFSTRA
bio info derived from: www.allmusic.com
Bassist
and tuba player David Hofstra has
performed on close to 100 CDs since 1980. Constantly active on the New
York
jazz scene, he has recorded with Wayne Horvitz, Bobby Previte, Michael
Callen,
Bobby Radcliff, Bill Frisell, The Waitresses, Robin Holcomb, John Zorn,
Elliot
Sharp, The Metropolitan Klezmer Orchestra, Mark Ribot, Lou Grassi, Sewelsonics, William
Parker, and many
others.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
RICHARD
DWORKIN
bio info derived from: www.allmusic.com
Drummer
Richard Dworkin has been active on the
New York scene since 1980, when he began playing with the Microscopic
Septet.
He has appeared on over 35 CDs, drumming for James Chance, Alex
Chilton,
Philip Johnston's
Big Trouble,
Bobby Radcliff, Harry Shearer, Samm Bennett,
Eric Anderson, Fast 'n Bulbous, Michael Callen, and others.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
JOHN
HAGEN
bio info derived from: www.onefinalnote.com
Appearing
in sessions with William Parker in the
1970s and the Microscopic Septet in the 1980s, saxophonist John Hagen
released
his first solo album, Segments, on Cadence Jazz Records in 2004. He
replaced
George Bishop, the original tenor player in the Microscopic Septet
early on,
and performed on Take The Z Train, and on the unreleased pre-Take The Z
Train
session.
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DANNY
NIGRO
bio info derived from: www.allmusic.com
Saxophonist
Danny Nigro has appeared on
recordings from Plant the Seed (Plant the Seed, OFMB, 2005), and The
Dalton
Gang (Last Year's Waltz, Second Step Music, 2006). He toured
Europe in 1984,
subbing for Paul Shapiro, and appears on Let's Flip!
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
JOHN
ZORN
For more
information on John Zorn, see: www.tzadik.com;
wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Zorn;
www.ejn.it/mus/zorn.htm;
www.wnur.org/jazz/artists/zorn.john/discog.html;
www.bombsite.com/zorn/zorn.html;
members.tripod.com/~JFGraves/zorn-index.html;
topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/z/john_zorn/index.html
Composer
and saxophonist John Zorn has been a
leading figure in the New York Downtown scene since the 1970s. As a key
figure
and major player in the avant scene, Zorn has been a member of Naked
City,
Cobra, and Masada, among many other bands, often recording albums at a
prolific
pace. Zorn has also recorded as a solo artist and founded the Tzadik
label,
specializing in experimental, jazz and avant-garde music. John Zorn was
the
original alto saxophonist in the Microscopic Septet, and appears on the
unreleased pre-Take The Z Train session.