Chicago Edge Ensemble
Dan Phillips - Guitar
Avreeayl Ra - Drums
Jeb Bishop - Trombone
Krzysztof Pabian - Double Bass
Josh Berman - Cornet
Dan Phillips is an American guitarist, composer and band leader who has worked professionally in New York, Chicago, Bangkok and Tokyo as well as touring globally. Dan is the leader of the critically acclaimed Chicago Edge Ensemble, Quartet Next, Dan Phillips Trio, Dan Phillips Quartet. Dan has performed with jazz musicians such as Hamid Drake, Gerald Wilson, Danilo Pérez, Hugo Rasmussen, Avreeayl Ra, Michael Zerang, Dave Rempis, Jeb Bishop, Mars Williams, Jim Baker, Ben Street, and Ed Thigpen and many more.
Avreeayl Ra was born in Chicago on May 21st, 1947 and still lives there today. He is a renowned musician always in demand among visiting jazz artists in Chicago. Avreeayl’s father, Arthur "Swinglee" O’Neil, was a tenor saxophonist who was mentor to many young Chicago musicians, including John Gilmore, later the mainstay of Sun Ra’s Arkestra. (Avreeayl reports that John Gilmore had a crush on Avreeayl’s sister and so spent as much time as he could at the family house.) Swinglee O’Neil played in one of Sun Ra’s early Chicago bands, and Sun Ra played in one of Swinglee’s groups as well.
Avreeayl is a long-term member of the Chicago AACM, his relationship with the seminal music organization having begun with early studies with AACM co-founder Kelan Philip Cohran. Avreeayl has performed and /or recorded with Fred Anderson, Amiri Baraka, Fontella Bass, Lester Bowie, Ari Brown, Oscar Brown, Jr., Henry Butler, Henry Byrd ("Professor Longhair"), Hamid Drake, Malachi Favors, Donald Raphael Garrett, Charles Gayle, Henry Grimes, Billy Harper, Joseph Jarman, Edward “Kidd” Jordan, Nicole Mitchell, Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, Malachi Thompson, and many more.
Avreeayl considers himself greatly blessed to have come up in the richly progressive Chicago “avant-garde” jazz community. Though he has lived briefly in New Orleans and New York and has toured widely in the U.S., Canada, Europe, the Far East, and Africa, he has always returned home to live in Chicago.
Krzysztof Pabian hails from Europe as a classical-trained bassist. He began his music studies at the age of 8 on piano and switched to bass at age 14. Krzysztof moved to the U.S. in 1993 where he studied at Northwestern University to graduate with two Masters degrees in jazz and classical double bass performance. Krzysztof has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Civic Orchestra and worked in an array of ensembles under the direction of Pierre Boulez, Daniel Barenboim, Christopher Eshenbach, Zubin Mehta, George Solti, Lawrence Foster, and Pinchas Zukerman to name a few. In the area of jazz Krzysztof has performed with Danilo Pérez, Judy Roberts, Eddie Henderson, Max Roach, Ron Blake, Hamid Drake, Mars Williams, Jarek Smietana and the Lincoln Center Jazz Sextet. Krzysztof has toured throughout North America and Europe with various groups and configurations.
Jeb Bishop Trombonist/improviser/bandleader Jeb Bishop has been active in jazz and improvised music since the mid-1990s. He first emerged as a key member in the vital scene in Chicago, where he lived until 2012. From then until 2022, he was based in North Carolina and then in Boston, and was part of many collaborations and projects in both those places. He returned to Chicago in spring 2022 and is now once again active there and internationally.
Josh Berman For more than fifteen years, cornetist, improviser, composer, and music presenter Josh Berman has been an essential contributor to Chicago’s active improvised music scene. His work encompasses both developing opportunities for presenting improvised music, and performing in a variety of highly collaborative formats. He’s a co-founder of critically acclaimed Umbrella Music, and curator of the Sunday night music series at the Hungry Brain. He’s performed as bandleader of his own groups, Josh Berman Trio, Josh Berman’s Old Idea, and Josh Berman and His Gang, and as co-leader of Chicago Luzern Exchange.
In addition to his work as bandleader, Berman has performed and recorded with some of the most internationally respected musicians and composers in jazz and improvised music: Bill Dixon, Ab Baars, Keefe Jackson, Joe McPhee, Jason Adasiewicz, Mike Reed, Michael Moore, Ken Vandermark, Frank Rosaly, Rob Mazurek, Jason Stein, Jeb Bishop, Dave Rempis, Michael Zerang, Fred Lonberg-Holm, and Paul Lytton. He is also a frequent collaborator with dance artists; his collaboration with dancer Ayako Kato and musician Jason Roebke was awarded a CROSSCUT grant for New Collaborations in Sound/Movement from Experimental Sound Studio and Links Hall. Berman was named in the DownBeat critics’ poll among Rising Stars, Trumpet. He has toured the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan.
8 окт 2024
