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Event
MAHOBIN (Satoko Fujii, Ikue Mori, Kappa Maki, Lotte Anker)
BUSTED BOILER = NEW VENUE AND TIME TONIGHT!
Union Congregational Church has graciously opened its space on (very) short notice due to a busted boiler at Central Presbyterian Church Of Montclair. So:
6:30 instead of 6pm
176 Cooper Ave in Montclair
Park on the street. Use the main entrance. You'll see a sign.
Experience some of the most forward-looking music that has ever been performed in The Garden State. Or any state. In any country. Earthwise.
ORIGINAL CONCERT DESCRIPTION BELOW
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[Fujii] could be the most important creative musician of our time.
- Michael Nastos, AllMusic
Fujii's sound world is a kaleidoscope, and those familiar with her work have come to expect the unexpected. If any artist can be said to meet expectations by upsetting them, she's one. - Mike Chamberlain, Coda
Seed Artists is honored and (very) excited to present the US debut of pianist/composer Satoko Fujii's riveting new quartet, Mahobin: Fujii (piano), Ikue Mori (electronics) , Kappa Maki (trumpet), Lotte Anker (sax). A night of riveting improvisation led by "the Ellington of free jazz." (Cadence) Brilliant colors, compelling rhythms, melodic beauty, otherworldly abstraction. (Mori came up with the band's name, a Japanese word for thermos that directly translates to "magic bottle.")
This is one of just two Mahobin concerts in metro NYC, Fujii's first appearance in Montclair in nearly a decade. In February, these four friends played together for the first time--a live concert recording in Kobe, Japan, right out of the gate. That recording became the eighth of Fujii's twelve releases this year--one per month to celebrate her 60th birthday--making nearly 90(!) records as leader or co-leader. Her singular body of work ranges from plaintive solo piano and duets with the great Paul Bley to five orchestras in the US, Germany and Japan, and small groups that include a Who's Who in creative music.
"We all are about the same age," Fujii says. "We are good friends. Before the show, everyone came to our place to have tea and cookies. We talked and talked, but not about music. We knew the music would be good and we let it flow without talking about it."
This is Seed Artists' first collaboration with Central Presbyterian and its Musical Director, Ed Alstrom. The church has produced or hosted many concerts of adventurous music, including debut performances of works by Alstrom and a recording by pianist/composer Diane Moser and bassist Mark Dresser.
As always, kids are FREE.
Proceeds fund Seed Artists programming. Seed is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
Call (862) 621-9761 for additional information.
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Critics and fans have hailed SATOKO FUJII as one of the most original voices in jazz today. "She's a virtuoso piano improviser, an original composer and a bandleader who gets the best collaborators to deliver," says John Fordham in The Guardian. In concert and on more than 80 albums as a leader or co-leader, she synthesizes jazz, contemporary classical, avant-rock, and Japanese folk music into an innovative music instantly recognizable as hers alone. Over the years, Fujii has led some of the most consistently creative ensembles in modern improvised music, including her trio with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Jim Black, the Min-Yoh Ensemble, and an electrifying avant-rock quartet featuring drummer Tatsuya Yoshida of The Ruins. Her ongoing duet project with husband Kappa Maki released their sixth recording, Kisaragi, in 2017. The duo's commitment to producing new sounds based on fresh ideas is second only to their musicianship, says Karl Ackermann in All About Jazz. Aspiration, a CD by an ad hoc band featuring Wadada Leo Smith, Tamura, and Ikue Mori, was released in 2017 to wide acclaim. "Four musicians who regularly aspire for greater heights with each venture reach the summit together on Aspiration," writes S. Victor Aaron in Something Else. She records infrequently as an unaccompanied soloist, but Solo (Libra), the first of her projected 12 birthday-year albums, led Dan McClenaghan to enthuse in All About Jazz that the album "more so than her other solo affairs...or any of her numerous ensembles for that matter--deals in beauty, delicacy of touch, graceful melodicism." As the leader of no less than five orchestras in the U.S., Germany, and Japan, Fujii has also established herself as one of the world's leading composers for large jazz ensembles, leading Cadence magazine to call her, "the Ellington of free jazz."
Trumpeter and composer KAPPA MAKI is internationally recognized for his unique musical vocabulary blending extended techniques with jazz lyricism. "This unpredictable virtuoso has some of the stark, melancholy lyricism of Miles, the bristling rage of late 60s Freddie Hubbard and a dollop of the extended techniques of Wadada Leo Smith and Lester Bowie," observes Mark Keresman of JazzReview.com. Throughout his career, Maki has led bands with radically different approaches. On one hand, there are avant rock jazz fusion bands like his quartet, whose album Hada Hada Peter Marsh of the BBC described this way: "Imagine Don Cherry woke up one morning, found he'd joined an avant goth-rock band and was booked to score an Italian horror movie." In contrast, Maki has focused on the intersection of folk music and sound abstraction with Gato Libre since 2003. The band's poetic, quietly surreal performances have been praised for their "surprisingly soft and lyrical beauty that at times borders on flat-out impressionism," by Rick Anderson in CD Hotlist. In addition, Maki has recorded five CDs in his ongoing duo with pianist (and wife) Satoko Fujii. Maki also collaborates on many of Fujii's projects, from quartets and trios to big bands. As an unaccompanied soloist, he's released three CDs, including Dragon Nat (2014). He and Fujii are also members of Kaze, a collaborative quartet with French musicians, trumpeter Christian Pruvost and drummer Peter Orins. "As unconventional as he may be," notes Marc Chenard in Coda magazine, "[Maki] is unquestionably one of the most adventurous trumpet players on the scene today."
Laptop musician, composer, and percussionist IKUE MORI first gained attention in the late 70s as the drummer in the seminal No Wave band DNA, with fellow noise pioneers Arto Lindsay and Tim Wright. In the mid 80s she started in employ drum machines in the context of improvised music. While limited to the standard technology provided by the drum machine, she nevertheless forged her own highly sensitive signature style. In 2000, she started using the laptop computer to expand on her already signature sound, thus broadening her scope of musical expression. Mori has released more than 20 albums as a leader or co-leader with innovative bands such as Mephista, with pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and drummer Susie Ibarra, and Phantom Orchard, with harpist Zeena Parkins. She is a frequent member of ensembles led by John Zorn, and was a featured soloist with Ensemble Modern on guitarist-composer Fred Frith's Traffic Continues (Winter & Winter). Her most recent releases are Obelisk, with Courvoisier, Okkyung Lee and Jim Black, and Highsmith, a duo with pianist Craig Taborn, both on Tzadik.
LOTTE ANKER is a Copenhagen-based saxophone player and composer working in the field between experimental jazz/improvisation and contemporary music. Her music includes both melodic (often twisted or fragmented) elements and more abstract textural material and covers a wide territory from minimal transparency to dense and dark expressionism. Her recent bands include a trio with pianist Craig Taborn and drummer Gerald Cleaver and a trio with pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and Ikue Mori. She also leads the 8-piece What River Ensemble and the septet Electric Habitat. She performs in duo with Fred Frith and Sten Sandell and was a member of a cooperative quartet with the late trombonist Johannes Bauer, bassist John Edwards, and drummer Paul Lovens. In addition, Anker has performed at major festivals and concert spaces around the world and has also played and toured with Marilyn Crispell, Tim Berne, Okkyung Lee, Paal Nilssen-Love, Joelle Leandre, Raymond Strid, Sten Sandell, Andrew Cyrille, Phil Minton, Axel Dörner, Fred Lonberg-Holm, and many others. John Fordham writes in The Guardian, "Anker's rich saxophone palette takes in skimming falsetto sounds like Evan Parkers, but she also has a soulfully desolate quaver that recalls Albert Ayler, and a sense of narrative drama that keeps her in compelling motion between ghostly impressionistic effects and brusquely percussive exclamations."
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LocationUnion Congregational Church sanctuary (View)
176 Cooper Avenue
Montclair, NJ 07043
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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