Monday, October 29, 2007

Ton Duo & Trio Oakland to Santa Cruz

My latest working group is Ton Trio with Kurt Kottheimer on bass and Sam Ospovat on drums. I've written some new music for this group with a focus on melodic content which is interchangeable. Some pieces use the material in a more traditional head format while in others the material is explored more by each player, rearranging the parts simultaneously to create new harmonic relationships.
Our first two dates were at the cusp of September and October, 9/30 at 21 Grand in Oakland and October 1 at Cafe Pergolesi in Santa Cruz. The date in Oakland got switched a few times with the result being a Ton Duo show with myself and Sam. I liked playing the music in this context - we were able to explore the parts with alot of freedom rhythmically, as the harmonic thing was obviously less important. The next night in Santa Cruz I drove down with Kurt and we met Sam at Cage Pergolesi. Apparently there's a "heavy-hitter" jazz club down there that was just a half block from Pergolesi - Dave Douglas was playing there the same night. I'm feeling good about this new group although we've not played many dates yet - Sam and Kurt both seem real into playing working on the music.
Here's one of the pieces, entitled "Internal Frame":

I made this music playlist at MyFlashFetish.com.