VENUE CHANGE: Roscoe Mitchell Trio/Quartet/Solo, Paal Nilssen-Love Large Unit, Anders Svanoe Trio
Elvira Faltermeier
This jazz explosion is sure to blow the roof off Trinity Lutheran. The show, programmed by the Arts + Literature Laboratory, features the return of the prodigal avant-garde saxophone visionary Roscoe Mitchell. Mitchell, a founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), will play with a trio, a quartet and as a soloist. But wait! This bill also includes Norway’s Large Unit, led by drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, and Anders Svanoe Trio.
$30 advance, $40 door
7:30pm (7:00 doors)
press release: Arts + Literature Laboratory presents Roscoe Mitchell Trio, Quartet & Solo and Paal Nilssen-Love Large Unit at the Trinity Lutheran Church (note new venue) on Saturday, June 23, 2018 at 7:30pm. This is a very special opportunity to hear internationally renowned musician, composer and innovator Roscoe Mitchell and his quartet featuring Jaribu Shahid (bass), Junius Paul (bass) and Vincent Davis (drums), his trio with Nils Bultmann (viola) and Jaribu Shahid (bass), and solo. His virtuosic resurrection of overlooked woodwind instruments spanning extreme registers, visionary solo performances, and assertion of a hybrid compositional/improvisational paradigm have placed him at the forefront of contemporary music.
Roscoe Mitchell is an avant-garde jazz and contemporary music icon, currently serving as the Darius Milhaud Chair of Composition at Mills College (CA). He is a founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), the Trio Space, and founder of the Creative Arts Collective (MI). He also leads several ensembles. His oeuvre boasts hundreds of albums and compositions and the development of the Percussion Cage, consisting of instruments of worldwide origin and found objects. Mitchell’s honors include a John Cage Award (FOC), multiple grants from National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer and Mutable Music. Last year, Roscoe celebrated the AACM's 50th Anniversary with lectures, exhibitions, concerts and recordings at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, showcasing Mr. Mitchell and his peers. In 2016, Mitchell is redoubling his compositional efforts, beginning with the world premiere of “Conversations for Orchestra”, performed by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra with Ilan Volkov conducting.
Paal Nilssen-Love has been one of the world’s most prolific and active musicians to come out of Norway for the last 20 years. With thousands of gigs and hundreds of recordings under his belt, the drummer is known for bands like The Thing, OffOnOff, Ballister, Hairy Bones, Chicago Tentet, and Original Silence, as well as collaborations with musicians like Arto Lindsay, Otomo Yoshihide, Akira Sakata, Ken Vandermark, Jim O’Rourke, Peter Brötzmann, Thurston Moore, Michiyo Yagi and many others.
In 2013, Nilssen-Love decided it was time to start his own big band ensemble. Consisting of mostly younger Norwegian musicians, Large Unit manifests as an intense powerhouse force on stage, but also veers into more subtle and textural passages. The group is also fortunate to include members from the other Nordic countries; Finland, Sweden and Denmark. In other words, Nordic music at its best!
Large Unit burst into life at the Molde Jazz festival July 2013 and has since toured Norway and played at festivals all over Europe. A small taste of what to expect came with the two-track EP First Blow, but during autumn 2014, Large Unit unleashed its full load with the massive debut album Erta Ale, which was released in four different formats totaling more than two hours worth of new music. In August 2015, Large Unit expanded to 14 members, including two Brazilian percussionists. The group’s live and studio recordings resulted in the album ANA, which successfully combines Brazilian rhythms with free blowing and big band riffing.
Large Unit’s compositions are written by Nilssen-Love, but the musicians are always given great freedom to contribute their own flavors to the music. The band is stripped down to single players, duos etc and at times split into several groups. The power of the whole group is a treat in itself when in full blast. Traces of Nilssen-Love's experience from groups like Peter Brötzmann Chicago tentet, Ken Vandermark's Territory Band and Frode Gjerstad's Circulasione Totale Orchestra are also evident. There is no doubt that Nilssen-Love has taken inspiration from his years in these bands but still with the aim to create a new group with a sound of its own.
Large Unit Members Include:
Thomas Johansson (NO) – cornet and flugelhorn ; Mats Äleklint (SE) - trombone ; Kristoffer Alberts (NO) – tenor and alto saxophone; Julie Kjær (DK) – alto saxophone and flute ; Klaus Holm (NO) – alto and baritone saxophone ; Per Åke Holmlander (SE) – tuba; Kalle Moberg (NO) - accordion ; Ketil Gutvik (NO) – electric guitar ; Tommi Keranen (FIN) – electronics; Jon Rune Strøm (NO) – double and electric bass ; Christian Meaas Svendsen (NO) – double and electric bass; Andreas Wildhagen (NO) – drums & percussion ; Paal Nilssen-Love (NO) – drums & percussion; Christian Obermayer (NO) – sound engineer. Special guests: Celio DeCarvalho (BR) - percussion; and Paulinho Bicolor (BR) – cuica.