The annual In the Flow Festival begins Thursday and founder Ross Hammond is on insight for this week's Sound Advice. The segment allows our listeners to preview some of the music from the festival line-up.
1. Nagual - Saturday, May 10, 2014
Berkeley Arts Space, 7 pm
Nagual is a Sacramento, California based group that features saxophonist Scott Anderson, guitarist Victor Contreras, bassist Paul Relvas, congero Harold Muñiz, and drummer Ron Ochoa. The members of Nagual combine their broad range of musical knowledge to create an atmosphere that not only entertains, but also explores the reaches of a wide range of musical landscapes.
This professional ensemble emphasizes creativity in an effort to encourage the listener to transcend into unexplored levels of musical appreciation. The name Nagual comes from a series of books written by Carlos Castaneda, in which Don Juan Matus provides guidance on a Pre-Columbian path of knowledge.
2. Daniel Rosenboom, Thursday, May 08, 2014
Shine Cafe, 7 pm
Daniel Aaron Rosenboom (b. 5/7/1982) is a creative and prolific trumpet artist, composer, and producer. Named the “Face To Watch” in Jazz for 2013 by the Los Angeles Times, he has been recognized with grants and awards from ASCAP, the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music, the American Composers Forum, and the Meet the Composer foundation. Rosenboom has recorded six full-length albums under his own name, and the most recent,
Fire Keeper, will be released on Orenda Records on March 18th, 2014. Additionally, he has released three full-length albums with his “hardcore-Balkan-jazz-rock” group PLOTZ!, four full-length albums with his “spontaneous composition” jazz-rock group DR. MiNT, and has appeared as a featured collaborator on albums by Vinny Golia, Harris Eisenstadt, Trevor Anderies, Dorian Wood, David Rosenboom, RootSystem, Geoff Gallegos’s NineNet, Killsonic, Got Monk?, and The Industrial Jazz Group.
3. Dwight Trible, Sunday, May 11, 2014
Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento, 6:30 pm
Many jazz musicians will tell you that they prefer not to work with singers, because most jazz singers lack the ability to improvise, have no understanding of musicianship, nor any of the other traits associated with making jazz music - one of the most interesting and exciting musical genres today. Dwight Trible is a singer who combines the best of vocal virtuosity with musicianship and improvisational skills to the delight of audiences and musicians alike.
In addition to performing with his own group, the Dwight Trible Ensemble, Dwight is the vocalist with the Pharaoh Sanders Quartet and is also the vocal director for the Horace Tapscott Pan Afrikan Peoples’ Arkestra. Not a newcomer to the music scene, Dwight has worked with such notables as Oscar Brown jr., Charles Lloyd, Billy Childs, Kenny Burrell, Steve Turre, Harold Land, Harry Belafonte, Della Reese and Norman Conners, John Beasley, Patrice Rushen, Babatunde Lea, Ernie Watts, Kahlil El Zabar, as well as contemporary soul artist like LA Reid and DJ Rogers.
Dwight’s collaborations with Horace Tapscott, Billy Higgins, Kamau Daaood and others have produced some of the finest musical moments in Los Angeles in recent years - and his best is yet to come.
4. Rent Romus' Life's Blood Quartet, Friday, May 09, 2014
Luna's Cafe, 9 pm
Life's Blood "damn well rock their Jazz" says blogger disaster amnesiac, while exploring the influences and inspirations that make the art of jazz and improvisation timeless. The ensemble pays tribute as well as brings to light, reinvents, deconstructs, and breaths life into the deeper realms of their collective body of memory.
Originally created by saxophonist Rent Romus while on tour in Northern Europe in 1999, the group currently features bassists Kim Cass, Markus Hunt and drummer/percussionist Timothy Orr. Hailed by Downbeat as having "...a bold sound, unmistakeable sincerity and conviction", Rent Romus is a force spanning over 25 years of music production curating over 80 shows a year for the new music, avant garde, and jazz communities as well as leading several groups from rolicking jazz to free abstract chamber music, to sounds tracks for film and dance. Timothy Orr studied drums with Edward Blackwell from 1985-89 at Wesleyan University.
Timothy has played with musicians in many fields, including Josh Roseman, Stephen Schwartz, Marco Eneidi, Richard Hell, Adam Lane, and many more. Kim Cass is one of the most promising jazz bass players to come out of the New England Conservatory in recent memory, possessing both a remarkably individual sound and a personal and virtuosic technique. As a freelancer in New York City he played with Bill McHenry, George Garzone, Andrew D'Angelo and Ethan Iverson among others.
Markus Hunt began his study of double bass at Howard University under Chris Sloniger, and later with Chuck Sher, Glenn Richman (Bobby Hutcherson) and Clarence Stephens (Church of Coltrane). Borrowing from 20th century European classical and American avant-garde jazz forms, his approach is both spiritual and intellectual.
