Fay Victor - voice
Myra Melford - piano
Lisa Mezzacappa - double bass

These three stellar composer/performer/improvisers team up for the first time as a trio, though they've performed each other's work in other contexts and were all part of Lisa Mezzacappa's Glorious Ravage.  

This evening, they will perform, the music of Fay Victor, Lisa Mezzacappa and Myra Melford.

They will also be joined by members of Melford's Current Trends in Improvised Music class and the Berkeley Nu Jazz Collective on an improvisational piece created for the occasion.



“She’s essentially invented her own hybrid of song and spoken word, a scat style for today’s avant-garde.”

-Giovanni Russonello, The New York Times

Brooklyn, NY based sound artist/composer Fay Victor hones a unique vision for the vocalist’s role in jazz and improvised music regarding repertoire, improvisation and composition. Her ‘everything is everything’ aesthetic brings in references that span the globe. Victor sees the vocal instrument in itself as full of possibilities of sound exploration. The voice a direct and powerful conduit for language and messages in an improvising context. All of these ideas aim to push the vocal envelope to forge greater expressive possibilities. Victor's nine critically acclaimed albums as a leader has been hailed in media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York & The Huffington Post. Victor’s latest release is Wet Robots (ESP Disk, July 2018) with her SoundNoiseFUNK project featuring Joe Morris (guitar), Sam Newsome (sop. saxophone) & Reggie Nicholson (drums). Wet Robots received 4.5 stars in Downbeat Magazine and placed #4 in the Jazz Vocal Category for the NPR’s Jazz Critic’s Poll 2018.

Berkeley-based composer, improviser and bassist Lisa Mezzacappa has been an active part of California’s vibrant music community for more than 15 years. Her activities as a composer and ensemble leader include ethereal chamber music, electro-acoustic works, avant-garde jazz, music for groups from duo to large ensemble, and collaborations with film, dance, and visual art. Recent projects include Cosmicomics, a suitefor electro-acoustic jazz sextet; Organelle, a chamber work for improvisers grounded in scientific processes on micro and cosmic scales; Glorious Ravage, an evening-length song cycle for large ensemble and films drawn from the writings of Victorian lady adventurers; and Touch Bass, a collaboration with choreographer Risa Jaroslow for three dancers and three bassists. She co-leads the duo B. Experimental Band, and is working on a new opera for the digital age, in collaboration with writer Beth Lisick.  www.lisamezzacappa.com

The pianist, composer, bandleader and University of California, Berkeley, professor Myra Melford—whom the New Yorker called “a stalwart of the new-jazz movement”—has spent the last three decades making original music that is equally challenging and engaging. She’s explored an array of formats, among them ruminative solo-piano recitals, deeply interactive combos and ambitious multidisciplinary programs, probing the space shared between dynamic small-group jazz and contemporary chamber music. Since debuting on record as a bandleader in 1990, she’s built a discography of more than 25 albums as a leader or co-leader, and has been awarded numerous DownBeat poll placings, a 2000 Fulbright Scholarship, a 2012 Alpert Award in the Arts for Music and, between 2013 - 2016, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Doris Duke Artist Award and the Doris Duke Residency to Build Demand for the Arts. The Other Side of Air, the most recent release by her quintet Snowy Egret, was named one of the best jazz recordings of 2018 by the New York Times and one of NPR Music’s 50 Best Albums of 2018. “This is music with an endless capacity for elasticity and surprise,” NPR wrote, “along with an affirming spirit of coherence.”

 

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Wednesday, October 2, 2019, 8:00pm to 10:00pm
1750 Arch St.
Berkeley, CA
94709
US
General Price
$10.00
Senior Price
$5.00
Student Price
$5.00