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The 2007 New Languages Festival New Languages Announces its 3rd Annual Festival celebrating Jazz in New York City - May 25th through June 2nd. New Languages returns on May 25th with its largest festival yet - 14 ensembles spanning five nights over two weekends. The festival has grown every year since saxophonists Jackson Moore and Aaron Ali Shaikh produced the first New Languages festival at the Anthology Film Archives in 2005. It is becoming an annual moment of reckoning for the next generation of jazz musicians. The jazz musicians who grew up in the wake of neo-classicism are now in their twenties and early thirties; they will define what becomes of jazz in the twenty-first century. Like their predecessors, they are largely out in the trenches, beyond the purview of established institutions, assembling groups from scratch and playing as much music as possible even as they struggle to survive. The New Languages festival attempts to provide a panoramic view of this activity. The focus is on what makes the next generation different than their predecessors, and what they will do to carry the art form into the future. To answer these questions, Jackson and Aaron have cast as wide a net as possible. The stylistic diversity within the festival program, and even within a single night of the program, is remarkable. Listeners are invited to decide for themselves if there is something deeper that ties all of this activity together - a common thread, a collective groundswell, an emerging sea change, or a nascent revolution. Williamsburg is a home base with firm grassroots. It is a place where innovative young jazz musicians can perform for an edgy young audience ready to fall in love with music all over again. Away from the shadows of past masters that inhabit the venerable jazz clubs of Manhattan, the musicians take risks. At the same time, the neighborhood is easily accessible from other parts of the city. Even as commercial jazz regresses and rock grows more redundant, improvisation continues to be a wellspring of ideas and techniques that musicians turn to for inspiration. New Languages aims to cultivate that wellspring and bring the creativity, talent and innovation of its custodians to a wider audience. It is our belief that the risks and payoffs of improvised music make it the most compelling and entertaining music out there today. Friday May 25 -- The Jacob Sacks Quintet: Jacob Sacks - Piano; Jacob Garchik - Trombone; Ben Gerstein - Trombone; Dave Ambrosio - Bass; Vinnie Sperrazza - Drums. Jacob Sacks has brought a deeply personal voice to a variety of settings ranging from mainstream jazz to compositional free jazz to vamp based fusion. His own projects include the Jacob Sacks Chamber Quartet, an ensemble inspired by twentieth century classical music as well as jazz, and the Jacob Sacks Quintet, a group that explores musical freedom in a variety of ways. In addition to teaching students in private practice, Jacob is also a co-founder of the Creative Music Workshop, a non-profit school based upon helping students of all ages and levels transcend the boundaries of style to find their own voices through the creation of original works, both written and spontaneously conceived. Jacob currently resides in Brooklyn, where he is working on several recording projects and on a book for beginning pianists. Attack / Adorn / Decay: Nate Wooley - Trumpet; Matt Bauder - Tenor Saxophone; Jason Mears - Alto Saxophone; Ben Gerstein - Trombone; Loren Dempster - Cello; Christopher Hoffman - Cello; Reuben Radding - Bass; Tom Blancarte - Bass; Kris Davis - Piano; Andrew Drury - Percussion; Harris Eisenstadt - Percussion. Nate Wooley has striven to blur the demarcations between tonality and texture, extreme sound and the protracted use of silence, nervous energy and an almost painful amount of patience. At times he provokes the listener with machine-like holds/ostinatos and eruptions of charged clumsiness; at others he invites the surrounding environment to take his place while he develops the next ideas as soon as they come to mind. In his hands even the absence of events becomes dangerous. His music seems to move in an unidentifiable biological space, waddling over leaves, tripping over rocks, plopping into puddles. It's the sounds of animals that don't quite exist, with motions and moods that defy human understanding. The core of Attack/Adorn/Decay consists of Radding, Drury, and Bauder, with others joining the family depending on the composition at hand. At New Languages they will present a new composition from Nate's “V.” cycle, “flights of migratory birds to the ornithologists”. Wiley: Morgan Wiley - Keyboards; Abe Seiferth - Guitar; Ben Bromley - Bass; Guy Licata - Drums. Combining elements of classic dance and psychedelic music with improvisation and modern electronic music, this band pushes the envelope while remaining true to its song writing roots. It strives to create a sound of the future and of the past at the same time, while keeping the crowd engaged and the party moving. May 26 - Heavy Merge: Russ Lossing - Piano; Mark Helias - Bass; Randy Peterson - Drums; Heavy Merge is a collaboration between three heavyweights on the New York jazz scene. Russ Lossing straddles the line between 20th century classical music and modern jazz. In addition to being a risk-taking improviser, he has composed hundreds of notated pieces. His life long passion for music theory and analysis has resulted in a unique syntax for improvising and composing that allows him to blend written and improvised music in works with ease, and his music is bolstered by a faith in intuitive engagement with musical structure. Randy Peterson seldom plays a timekeeping role, instead thinking in terms of phrasing and psychological time. He has sensitivity to tone uncommon amongst percussionists. Mark Helias is a prolific composer and a legendary bassist. The Jackson Moore Trio: Jackson Moore - Alto Saxophone; Eivind Opsvik - Bass; Eric Mcpherson - Drums. Composer and saxophonist Jackson Moore returns to Rose with two brilliant colleagues, both of whom share his propensity for unscripted melodicism and propulsive swing. Fascinated by the degree of stability that the language of jazz has attained at the turn of the century, Jackson has dedicated himself to shaking it up. As a composer and bandleader he furnishes an environment of maximum volatility and risk - an environment where perpetual rupture creates an opportunity for fresh responses. As these exceptionally nimble improvisers rise to the challenge, expect the sound of surprise. Thursday May 31 - The Indo-Pak Coalition: Rudresh Mahanthappa - Alto Saxophone; Rez Abbasi - Guitar; Dan Weiss - Tabla; Synthesizing jazz with the astutely improvised musical forms of South Asia, the Indo-Pak Coalition transcends any preconception of Indo-jazz fusion. Led by Indian-American saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, this trio with Pakistani-American guitarist Rez Abbasi and rising tabla star Dan Weiss is already turning heads internationally in both the jazz and world music scenes. Little Women: Darius Jones - Alto Saxophone; Travis Laplante - Tenor Saxophone; Ben Greenberg - Guitar; Jason Nazary - Drums; “Little Women has a very genuine raucousness. Also though there's a gorgeous sense of structure. The band - 2 saxes, guitar and drums - works a lot with these sort of fanfare type themes, often with jagged, proggy rhythms. For the improvisations, the band atomizes, constantly splitting up into different mini groups. The guitarist Ben Greenberg...plays with a crazy snarling tone and extreme volume, giving the music a real attack feel, and the saxists just completely go for it as well. Tenor player Travis Laplante has an absolutely huge sound, with an apocalyptic-free-jazz meets R&B kind of vibe. The set ended with this amazing coda: the two saxists - the other being the excellent Darius Jones - took off their mouthpieces and just started basically ranting/moaning/emoting into their horns, using the keys to fuck with the sound. It was unsettling and beautiful.” - Hank Shteamer Friday June 1 - Liederkreiss: Judith Berkson - Vocals, Keyboards; Peter Evans - Trumpet; Jacob Garchik - Trombone; Brandon Seabrook - Guitar; Lori Bingel - Bass; John Mclellan - Drums ; Judith Berkson's experience ranges from encounters with folk legend Theodore Bikel and saxophonist Steve Coleman to renditions of the works of Milton Babbitt to collaborations with Joe Maneri and Osvaldo Golijov. As a soloist she accompanies her microtonal singing on analog wurlitzer. She currently teaches a class in microtones as well as harmony and counterpoint and in addition to performing new music she is a Cantor and teaches liturgical music at Old Westbury Hebrew Congregation on Long Island. Liederkreiss features compositions by Judith, written especially for this group of musicians, which pay homage to bebop, Webern, Eric Dolphy, and Maria Callas. Mat Maneri/Randy Peterson Duo: Mat Maneri - Viola; Randy Peterson - Drums; From childhood onward violinist Mat Maneri was entranced by father Joe Maneri's sound-world and his conviction of its importance has been unswerving. “Basically, I always wanted to play like my father. I was always fascinated by his compositions and by his improvising, by his phrasing on the saxophone.” The microtonal grammar of Joe's music - Maneri's system has 72 notes per octave - was absorbed easily and naturally by his son. This evening Mat and Randy come together to perform the first time in two years. Their shared history runs deep: a relationship that reaches back almost twenty years from the legendary Joe Maneri groups to Mat's trio and extended ensembles, these two musicians have added something profound and genuine to Jazz and American Music. As artists, they are considered to be among the most accomplished instrumentalists and improvisers. This set will be their fist duo performance in 4 years. You can hear them recorded in this setting for the No More label - the album Light Trigger - and they can also be heard on Leo and ECM recordings. Mat has recently been performing in Paul Motian's ensembles. The Dub Trio: DP Holmes - Guitar, Keys, Dubs; Stu Brooks - Bass, Keys, Dubs; Joe Tomino - Drums, Keys, Dubs; The three gentlemen collectively known as Dub Trio play drums, bass, and guitar primarily, but the “job description” for each member varies immensely. In the hands of Joe Tomino, the drums function as a section unto themselves, not just a single instrument. They can suddenly transform from machine-like sounds to a big rock assault in an instant, the pulse never wavering. Joe's inspired moment-to-moment decisions act as the foil in a three way cat and mouse game that the trio brings to the bandstand. Stu Brooks delivers the low end like a weapon swinging towards your gut one moment, and like a playful rump locked in with Joe's groove the next. Stu changes faces many times in a performance, but never loses the pocket. DP Holmes is the man who cues a response in the listener. Aggressive, dreamy, liquid, solid - there is a command of the elements in the guitar section. The medium becomes the message when the distortion kicks in. Staying away from cliched genre restrictions, Dub Trio will bring you to the dance floor, or to tears, or at least give you a peek at the three minds at work. Saturday June 2 - The Mark Taylor Quartet: Mark Taylor - French Horn, Composition; Lalo - Vibraphone; Keith Witty - Bass; Brady Miller - Drums One of the few performers to tackle the notoriously difficult french horn in jazz and improvised music, Taylor's sound has been described as “rapturous” and “golden” (Coda Magazine); “as fluid and limpid as (the) flute, and as gnarly as (the) alto.” (JazzTimes). His innovative style has won him recognition by such legendary artists as Max Roach, who said, “Mark Taylor is a virtuoso instrumentalist...there is no one dealing with the french horn or the music the way Mark is doing.” The Aaron Ali Shaikh Trio: Aaron Ali Shaikh - Alto Saxophone; Michael Formanek - Bass; Randy Peterson - Drums; Aaron Ali Shaikh is moving towards the realization of the saxophone as a true microtonal instrument, inspired by the Qawwali music of his Sindhi/South Asian heritage and the American saxophone styles of the early 1900s. In the past decade he has created a personality-based music: an interpretation of these practices via his emotional memory and life inside and outside of ensembles. He is one of the most distinctive voices of his generation - a single note is enough to know who one is listening to. This evening he is joined by a veteran and very accomplished rhythm section. This will mark their second performance as a trio. Harriet Tubman: Brandon Ross - Guitar; Melvin Gibbs - Bass; JT Lewis - Drums; Harriet Tubman explores electronics and pan-tonality to sculpt a multidimensional, interactive, sonic language in a “classic” R&B/Rock configuration of guitar, bass, and drums. Recontextualizing musical technology to create innovative compositional and cultural spaces is an important part of the African-American cultural tradition, and Tubman is dedicated to musical revelation/investigation in the ever-evolving pan-african vernacular. Harriet Tubman's music reflects a search for something greater, something incorruptible, something real and void of the empty superficiality of unexamined living. Content as liberator. Freedom.

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