2015 Fully Altered Media APAP & Winter Jazz Fest Showcase Information

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Listen to Early Tracks from 2015 Fully Altered Clients

NYC-Based Saxophonist & Composer
Anna Webber Releases Simple (Skirl Records),
Music Written in Solitude,
On Bowen Island in Her Native British Columbia,
Featuring Pianist Matt Mitchell &
Her Mentor, Drummer John Hollenbeck

Chicago Bassist & Composer Matt Ulery
Releases His Second Chamber-Jazz Opus,
In The Ivory (Greenleaf Music),
With The Help of His Core Trio Plus 3-time GRAMMY-Winning New Music Ensemble, eighth blackbird, 
Violinist Zach Brock, Vocalist Grazyna Auguscik 

During the summer of 2013, saxophonist, composer, and flautist Anna Webber left her adopted home of Brooklyn, NY and retreated to Bowen Island, a remote spot off the coast of British Columbia. On Bowen Island, Webber’s view changed from a constant stream of people and endless concrete, to the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. In complete solitude, her days were punctuated by the rhythm of the tide, the daily ferry schedules and passing boats. The isolation of Bowen Island allowed Webber to find a cohesive thread in her compositions that had eluded her in New York City. Given the space to breathe, themes emerged naturally in the writing, and her album Simple was born. Webber found perfect partners to execute the complexities of her compositions: pianist Matt Mitchell (Tim Berne’s Snakeoil) and drummer John Hollenbeck (The Claudia Quintet).

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Sperrazza’s kindred-spirit New York quartet on Apocryphalfeatures Loren Stillman (alto saxophone), Brandon Seabrook (electric guitar) and Eivind Opsvik (double-bass)

Record Release Shows on Sunday September 14that Barbès, Brooklyn and Thursday, September 18th at Cornelia St. Cafe 

Vinnie Sperrazza – a drummer of both swing and color, one whose “tones travel on and on,” according to The New York Times – releases Apocryphal, his fourth album as a leader or co-leader, on Sept. 9, 2014, via Loyal Label. Apocryphal, a masterpiece of art-house jazz that blends cinematic atmosphere and rock edge, features a kindred-spirit quartet of Brooklyn-based musicians, with the drummer-composer joined by tartly lyrical alto saxophonist Loren Stillman, very electric guitarist Brandon Seabrookand deeply musical double-bassist Eivind Opsvik, all notable figures on the 21st-century New York creative music scene. The Brooklyn studio sessions were recorded by top indie-rock engineer Bryce Goggin (who has been behind the board for artists from Pavement to Antony & the Johnsons) and produced by Geoff Kraly, a member of rock duo Paris Monster as well as a longtime friend and musical collaborator of Sperrazza. Opsvik, who runs the Loyal Label, mixed the album. The music of Apocryphal has such far-flung touchstones as Tony Williams and Paul Motian, Frank Zappa and Spalding Gray, not to mention plainchant and post-rock, jazz chops and studio manipulation, buried secrets and revealed truth.

The word “apocryphal” hints at a sense of mystery, given the term’s popular derivation from the Apocrypha, non-canonical books of the Bible considered possibly “untrue.” Sperrazza was drawn to the concept as a metaphor for the hidden web of allusions behind an album of pure, abstract music. About the title, Sperrazza says: “That word has a nexus of meanings regarding secrets hidden away. The story of those books of the Bible fascinated me, even though my Catholicism is strictly of the lapsed, ironic variety. There are elements of this record that are unstated or secret in a sense, with a couple of songs subject to studio art. In the title track, for instance, a drum performance from one take was inserted into the band performance of another take. This album pushes against my default classic jazz aesthetic of going for one great take and that being the track. Then there’s Brandon Seabrook’s atmospheric guitar playing, which is very non-jazz and takes the music to a weirder, more amorphous place where you don’t know quite where you are – and that’s very exciting to me.”

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(photo by Michael Wilson)

Riding the wave of success and critical acclaim from 2013, pianist MyraMelford has continued to flourish in 2014. Last year, Melford was a recipient of both the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and the Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as a two year residency with the prestigious San Francisco cultural center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

In the coming months, Melford will showcase current projects such as her newest ensemble Snowy Egret which features cornetist Ron Miles,guitarist Liberty Ellman, bassist Stomu Takeishi, and drummerTyshawn Sorey. Snowy Egret has recorded an album which will be released on ENJA/Yellowbird with an expected release date in early 2015. OnAugust 29th, Melford and Snowy Egret will play in Chicago as part of theChicago Jazz Festival at 7:10 PM in Millennium Park. 

Myra was recently awarded an Australian Art Music Award for “Excellence In Jazz” for a recent album of piano duets, Everything Here is Possible, in which Melford played alongside the inventive Australian pianist Alister Spence. Everything Here is Possible documented the first meeting of the two pianists, and it was recorded in the midst of a tour that Melford was on with her band Trio M, with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Matt Wilson.

Additionally, Melford’s duo with Bay-Area clarinetist Ben Goldberg, “Dialogue”, will tour on the East Coast and in South America this Fall, through a grant from United States Artists International. They will record an album with an expected, mid-2015 release date.

 (Watch a video of Melford’s Snowy Egret performing in Paris, June 2013)

On June 1, 2015, Melford will play a rare concert with two of Chicago’s most reputed improvisers, cellist Tomeka Reid and drummer Mike Reed, at the Chicago Symphony’s MusicNow Series. This concert is one of four concerts which feature jazz artists collaborating with musicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This engagement will feature Melford as both performer and composer.

Upcoming Tour Dates & Events:

In a recent, extensive review of Singular Curves (Auand)–the new record from the trio of bassist Steve Swallow, saxophonist Ohad Talmor and drummer Adam Nussbaum–