Ashes & Diamonds

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Janet M. Takayama

Rob Clearfield's Ashes and Diamonds during a concert.

Rob Clearfield's Ashes and Diamonds

Released in late 2023, the album Ashes & Diamonds features one five-movement composition by pianist Rob Clearfield. It’s a thought-provoking mix of jazz and classical with many textures and moods explored by the four players, who also include saxophonist Greg Ward, drummer Quin Kirchner, and bassist Sam Weber. With native Midwesterner Clearfield now based in France, opportunities to hear the music of Ashes & Diamonds live have been scarce, but BlueStem Jazz comes to the rescue with this concert reuniting the players for one show only.

BlueStem Jazz.

media release: Pianist and composer Rob Clearfield, a Chicago native now based in France, presents his latest work Ashes and Diamonds: a five-movement suite exploring the nature of transitions from one era to another, and how cataclysmic events bring about both positive and negative changes. Borrowing its title from Andrzej Wadja's 1958 film, Clearfield's cinematic approach to composition is on full display as he blurs the lines between modern-jazz and contemporary classical vocabularies and paradigms.

Pianist, guitarist, and composer Rob Clearfield grew up steeped in music. After a childhood filled with garage bands, gospel choirs, South American guitar ensembles, and everything in between, Rob enrolled at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. During and after college, he embedded himself in the local music scene, residing in Chicago for fifteen years.

Over the course of his career, Rob has performed with artists including John Wetton, Patricia Barber, Howard Levy, Makaya McCraven, Simon Moullier, Marquis Hill, Eighth Blackbird, Grazyna Auguscik, and Itamar Borochov, among others. To date, he has released nine recordings of his original music, including co-led projects with saxophonist Caroline Davis and drummer Quin Kirchner. 

In addition to performing and recording, Rob has also received commissions to compose for theater (Purdue University), film (The Lost Remake of Beau-Guest), and from the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra. He currently resides in Marseille, France.

Greg Ward is a saxophonist and composer that was born in Peoria, IL. Currently based in Chicago, Ward has had the opportunity to perform and record with a varied group of artists like Prefuse 73, Lupe Fiasco, Tortoise, William Parker, Makaya McCraven, Linda Oh, and Mike Reed. As a bandleader, Ward has produced 6 recordings including Fitted Shards: South Side Story, Phonic Juggernaut, Touch My Beloved’s Thought, Rogue Parade: Stomping Off From Greenwood, Fitted Shards: High Alert, and Rogue Parade: Dion's Quest. As a composer, he has also received commissions from the Jazz Gallery in NYC, the Chicago Jazz Institute, the City of Chicago’s Made In Chicago: World Class Jazz Series, Peoria Ballet Company, the Jazz Coalition, and the B’Town Jazz Festival. He has also been awarded the New Music USA Van Lier Fellowship in 2012 and DCASE IAP grants in 2017 and 2018. Ward maintains an active international touring schedule with various ensembles and has recently been appointed to the faculty of the Jacob School of Music at Indiana University as Assistant Professor of Jazz Saxophone.  

Sam Weber is an acoustic and electric bassist, composer, and arranger based in Brooklyn, New York. Since his arrival in New York City in 2012, Sam has been in constant demand as a sideman, performing with an eclectic community of musicians ranging from singer-songwriters to contemporary theater artists, dancers, rappers, crooners, avant-garde improvisers, and rising stars of the NYC jazz scene. Highlights from the past year include performances at top jazz venues such as The Blue Note, Lincoln Center, Birdland, and Smalls, historic rock and folk venues such as The Grand Ole Opry, Club Passim, The Bitter End, and Cafe Wha, national and international jazz festivals, and many many others.

Originally a midwesterner (growing up in Terre Haute, IN, and Kalamazoo, MI), Sam is an alumni of Western Michigan University, where he earned both a BA in Jazz Studies (2010) and an MA in Music (2011). Sam is also active as an educator and has traveled throughout the US and internationally presenting clinics, lectures, and masterclasses, in addition to maintaining his own private studio.

Quin Kirchner is a drummer, composer, improvisor & DJ from Chicago, Illinois. He first started his musical studies at the age of 10 at the famed Academy of Movement and Music of Oak Park and later at the Merit Music Program of Chicago. His early exposure to expressive arts and dedicated practice led him to earn a Basin Street Scholarship to the University of New Orleans, led by Ellis Marsalis, at the age of 18. There, Kirchner learned under the guidance of the city’s drumming masters including Ricky Sebastian, Jason Marsalis, Troy Davis and Johnny Vidacovich and his undergraduate studies led to a B.A. in Music, Jazz Studies, and the Gregory Frederico Senior of the Year Award. After the dislocation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Kirchner moved to New York for Masters Degree studies at the Manhattan School of Music under John Riley before relocating to Chicago.

In the years since his return to his native Chicago, Kirchner has become a ubiquitous drumming force throughout the city's diverse music scene. He has led countless large & small groups, and is widely known as a popular sideman performing with such musicians and groups as Rob Mazurek, Jeb Bishop, Jeff Parker, Greg Ward, Dave Rempis, Paul Giallorenzo, Mars Williams, Ryley Walker, Nick Mazzarella, Nate Lepine, Dave Miller, Jason Stein, Matt Ulery, Health&Beauty, In Tall Buildings, NOMO & Wild Belle, among others. In 2018, Kirchner released his debut album as a leader, The Other Side Of Time, a sprawling 90-minute collage of jazz, beats & improvisations, called "the first great jazz album of 2018" by Chicago Reader's Peter Margasak. In 2020, Kirchner released the follow-up to The Other Side of Time entitled The Shadows and The Light.