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New CD/DVD from Tom Abbs

On January 24th 482 Music will releaseTom Abbs & Frequency Response's The Animated Adventures of Knox, a two-disc set featuring a DVD movie and its CD soundtrack.

A combination of avant-jazz and avant-cinema, this project was produced, directed and edited by New York-based multi-instrumentalist/filmmaker Tom Abbs and is based on his narrative and video graphic score. This is Frequency Response's second release, and features Abbs, violinist Jean Cook, cellist Okkyung Lee, multi-reedists Oscar Noriega and Alex Harding, and drummer/vibraphonist Chad Taylor.

Abbs plays a number of instruments (including dijeridoo, cello, violin, and flute), but critics have singled him out as a “force of nature on the bass and tuba” (Time Out-New York) capable of being “exceptionally tasteful and supportive” (Chicago Reader), “a field of energy that feeds the group” (Cadence) and “a virtual mountain of polyrhythmic bedrock” (One Final Note). In the liner notes for a recent release, acclaimed bassist William Parker called him “a link to the future and the past...a living, growing musician who only reminds me of one other musician and that is Tom Abbs.” Abbs has performed and recorded since age eleven, and attended the New School's Jazz and Contemporary Music Program before embarking on a full-time performing career in 1992.

His sideman credits include work with Lawrence “Butch” Morris, Charles Gayle, Daniel Carter, Cooper-Moore, Steve Swell, Roy Campbell Jr., Sabir Mateen, Ori Kaplan, Jemeel Moondoc, Assif Tsahar, Borah Bergman, Billy Bang, Andrew Lamb, Warren Smith and many others. He is currently a member of the collective groups Triptych Myth, Yugnaut and Transmitting, and in addition to leading Frequency Response tours with his solo multi-media project, Multifarious. Along with his performing career, and artist residencies though the New York public school system, he is the founder of Jump Arts, voted “Best Arts Collective in New York City” in 2000 by New York Press.



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