Lucas Gillan's Many Blessings, Tom Gullion Quartet

media release: Blue Stem Jazz Presentation

Lucas Gillan Quartet - Freedom and order. Lyricism and abstraction. Sensitivity and raucousness. Lucas Gillan’s Many Blessings, a Chicago-based jazz quartet, finds comfort in the space between these opposites. Gillan, the drummer and bandleader, composes music that hooks listeners with insistent grooves and memorable melodies even while subverting expectations with outré harmonies and freewheeling improvisations.

An Arizona native, Gillan formed Many Blessings after moving to the midwest to pursue music more seriously. The group served as a creative outlet for his ideas about jazz composition and group interplay. Initially inspired by the chordless quartets led by Ornette Coleman and Gerry Mulligan, Many Blessings developed a distinct style over the past decade that draws on a much broader array of musical influences: punk and indie rock from Gillan's childhood, soul music from his time with national act The Right Now, and avant-garde free jazz from his years on the Chicago jazz scene.

Tom Gullion Quartet - The quartet features Tom Gullion, sax and flute, Dane Richeson, percussion, Mark Urness, bass and Doug White, piano and synthesizer. Together they blend free improv, original compositions and modern jazz classics in playful, dynamic conversation. Lively Latin, swing and fusion rhythms meet rich melodic and harmonic textures in jubilant and pensive songs. This performance will feature: compositions by band members Gullion, White, Cooper, and Urness; fresh interpretations of modern jazz classics by Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, and Pharoah Sanders; and spontaneously created pieces.