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Music for Wing Walkers is a monthly concert series hosted by Threes Brewing featuring innovative music defying labels. Join us on Thursday, March 10th for the Yuhan Su Quintet at 8pm, Empyrean Atlas at 9pm, and the Wing Walker Orchestra featuring Michaël Attias at 10pm!
Music for Wing Walkers is a monthly concert series hosted by Threes Brewing featuring innovative music defying labels. Join us on February 11th for Brandon Lewis Trials at 8pm, Timo Vollbrecht: FLY MAGIC at 9pm, and the Wing Walker Orchestra at 10pm!
Music for Wing Walkers is a monthly concert series showcasing innovative music from both established and emerging artists. Join us at Threes Brewing on Thursday, January 14th featuring RED REITER at 8pm, Benje Daneman's Search Party at 9pm, and the Wing Walker Orchestra at 10pm.
Join us at Threes Brewing on Tuesday, December 1st with the Chris Misch-Bloxdorf Dectet, Materials and Their Destiny, Wing Walker Orchestra, and the release of our new MIXTAPE VOLUME 3!
Join us at Threes Brewing on Wednesday, November 4th for Nadje Noordhuis & James Shipp at 8pm and the Wing Walker Orchestra at 9:30pm! More info HERE.
We’re excited to be back at Threes Brewing on Tuesday, October 6th with new music from Cowboys and Frenchman at 8pm and the Wing Walker Orchestra at 9:30pm! More info here.
Join us on Wednesday, September 2nd from 9pm-Midnight for the first of our Music for Wing Walkers series to be hosted at Threes Brewing. More info here.
JASON MEARS, from Alaska, is a saxophonist, clarinetist, composer, improviser, and educator who is currently living in New York City. As well as being a member of the the highly acclaimed Empty Cage Quartet, Jason’s most recent projects include Anthony Braxton’s Trillium E Orchestra, Wadada Leo Smith’s Silver Orchestra, and Harris Eisenstadt’s Canada Day Octet. Jason's 20 TON BRIDGE will be performing this Saturday, June 20th from 8:30-10:30pm at IBeam, 168 7th St, Brooklyn, NY 11215 -- with Quentin Tolimieri - keyboard, James Ilginfritz - bass, Andrew Drury - drums.
imaginative structures and forms music encourages risk-taking not perfection ensembles are fluid voices/orchestration/group dynamics can/do change instantaneously rhythmic elasticity instantly recognizable tones balancing on the edge where composition and improvisation meet myriad influences coalesce ensemble realization and exploitation of unique moments during performance multi-directional multi-dimensional
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Both of these records are like having these masters in your living room playing whatever tunes come to their mind. Wow. Bob Dylan - World Gone Wrong
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A jazz singer and new music composer of eclectic tastes and prodigious gifts, GRAMMY® nominated Theo Bleckmann makes music that is accessibly sophisticated, unsentimentally emotional, and seriously playful, leading his work to be described as “from another planet” (New York Times), as “magical, futuristic,” (AllAboutJazz), “limitless” (Citypaper, Philadelphia) “transcendent” (Village Voice) and “brilliant” (New York Magazine). Theo Bleckmann will be performing June 16-21 in residence at The Stone in New York City. For more information visit: http://www.thestonenyc.com/calendar.php
Also be sure to check out the newly released Julia Hulsmann Quartet with Theo Bleckmann recording "A Clear Midnight: Kurt Weill and America," which just received this great review on JazzTimes.com.
I was a bit shocked to see that I had listened to Judee’s Sill song “Jesus was a Cross Maker” 1123 times. And it’s still not enough. She’s probably the biggest secret of any singer-songwriter out there. The lovely folks of Kneebody brought her music to my attention. A few years back we collaborated on a Judee Sill project that we performed only a few times.
Her writing, singing and lyrics are easily on the level of, lets say, Joni Mitchell. Her all too short life (she died in 1979) and her even stranger CV certainly have to potential to make her a cult figure. Why isn’t she more known? Perhaps because she only put out two records? But let’s get back to the actual music, which is deeply influenced by Bach and his forms. Her lyrics speak of Christianity and redemption but somehow don’t come off as proselytizing or missionary to me. He beautifully simple, straightforward singing serves the music and content and there is nothing superfluous or distracting in her delivery - no false emoting. Listen to “The Donor” with its many tracks of male and female overdubs of echo-y voices singing Kyrie Elision, recorded way before looping or that kind of layering were common practice. More than a trailblazer in studio work, her music works in the context of her own recording and as stand-alone compositions. Check out her live studio recording of “The Kiss” on YouTube, shot at the BBC in 1973: Mesmerizing.
Johánn Johannsson - Miners’ Hymns
Obsessed with Johannsson’s music for a while, this might be his crown jewel. The orchestration and performance of these pieces is lush and thick and despite the ambient and repetitive character of his music it never seems to wear off. Or as Brian Eno says: Repetition is a form of change. Miners’ Hymns is the soundtrack to a beautiful and equally epic film by Bill Morrison about the ill-fated coal mining communities in Northeast England. The film has no dialogue, so Johannsson’s music serves as the story teller. I can highly recommend both, as a night of visual and aural immersion.
One of the most interesting (jazz) singer-composer-lyricists comes from Melbourne Australia. I have been listening to this collection of songs since Gian gave me an advance copy three years ago, and it’s been a staple in my listening rotation ever since. Besides her impeccable musicianship, intonation and improvisational skills, her depth really knocks me over each time. She gets to an emotional truth through actual content in her writing and singing. I love Gian’s use of metaphors and images in her lyrics.
“I’m my own worst enemy
And the friend I really need
Take advice that I would give”
In another song (unfortunately not on this record) she sings:
“ I’d like someone who is tall as a tower
who doesn’t move an inch when the wind blows.
With concrete skin, unshakable power, don’t let nobody in through your front door.
But here you go defender of so and so
You stand on your pedestal tall watching them all down below.”
Gian’s voice is light and precise. There is such sweetness and innocence in her pure and clear sound, and yet her lyrics can sometimes be dark or mysterious; a wonderful contradiction that lures you in when you least expect it to.
Peter Garland - The Days Run Away
John Hollenbeck played this record for me over 10 years ago and I am still listening to these solo piano pieces with the same excitement and wonder as I did when I first heard them. The writing on this record has deeply influenced my own writing. The combination of Satie and Mal Waldron in this music shimmers with detail and mystery. The pieces take their time to unravel and I appreciate the calmness and steady pace at which they move. They often feel more like sculptures than music. This is a record that always makes me stop whatever I am doing and truly listen.
Michael Oien is a bassist and composer who lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife Kim. His debut record And Now (Fresh Sound/New Talent) will be released on June 2nd (but is available now on iTunes). The record also features Matthew Stevens (guitar), Nick Videen (alto sax), Jamie Reynolds (piano), Eric Doob (drums), and Travis Laplante (tenor sax). The album release show for And Now will be at Barbès (376 9th st Brooklyn, New York) on July 21st at 7PM.
When attempting to explain my record, I often say that it is a collection of music that I wrote during the last 10 years living in New York. There are quite a few albums that stuck with me over that time period, but these five stuck out to me the most as music that was seemingly always playing on my CD player, computer, or iPod. There won’t be much musical analysis here.
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Bob Dylan – The Times They Are A Changin’
I was super late to the game on Bob Dylan compared to most people and didn’t begin my Dylan-obsessed period until I was maybe 23 and moving to the city. I got into his music during what I would call the “honeymoon phase” of living in New York. During this time I spent my gig-less, jobless, days wandering the Village, going to bars and cafés where Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, Dylan Thomas etc. would frequent. I really became enamored with Bob Dylan’s gift for melody, but more than anything his poetry. I also embraced our Midwest connection as Bob Dylan was born not too far from where I grew up. I think that I have always felt we shared the feeling that we were outsiders growing up in the upper Midwest, yet didn’t identify as New Yorkers either.
St._Vincent_-_Marry_Me
Annie Clark was a student at Berklee at the same time that I was there. The first time that I heard her music under the St. Vincent moniker I fell in love with her/the band on a musical level, not knowing it was someone who had at one point been a classmate of mine at music school. What great songwriting and what a great record. My roommate at the time (and stellar guitarist) Sasha Brown turned me on to this album and it continues to be something that I revisit.
Highviolet
I used to see these gentlemen hanging out at Sycamore in Brooklyn all the time and was well aware of them by name because people would always point them out to me. At some point I finally decided to check out their music, and this was the album that I bought. Their lyrics remind me of Bob Dylan's and Adam Duritz’s, in that they paint such beautiful non-literal pictures. The stories that these great lyricists tell are collections of haunting non-sequiturs that eventually and inevitably make sense as a whole. It’s music, but it's also the art of storytelling.
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The Bad Plus – The Rite of Spring
I had to write a paper on Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring my sophomore year at the University of Minnesota for music history class, which really gave me some insight into how great it is as both a composition and a ballet. I drove from Brooklyn to my hometown of Ashland, Wisconsin last summer and I will never forget listening to The Bad Plus’ condensed piano trio version over and over while driving through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Attempting to do justice to such a great work of art with only piano, bass, and drums takes a lot of nerve. But Ethan Iverson, Reid Anderson, and Dave King absolutely hit it out of the park here.
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Punch Brothers – The Phosphorescent Blues
Although I admit I am not a big fan of this album title, I absolutely love this record. I cannot claim it to be an influence on my upcoming release (And Now – June 2nd - check it out!) since that was all finished before The Phosphorescent Blues was released, but right now I just can’t stop listening to this music. Chris Thile is a virtuosic Mandolin player and I think that he and this great band are helping to set a new standard for improvisation that defies genre. Perhaps too many of our great improvisers are bound by the jazz world. I think that should change.
