For more than 40 years, the all-sax PRISM Quartet has redefined the artistic boundaries of its medium, with collaborators ranging from PARTCH, So Percussion, Piffaro, The Crossing, Inti-Illimani, Ethel, and BMOP to leading jazz artists Melissa Aldana, Jason Moran, Susie Ibarra, Arturo O’Farrill, Rudresh Mahanthappa, and Joe Lovano. PRISM has worked across disciplines with several dance companies, stage directors, interactive film makers, poets, and, going back to the 1980s, was the first group to play a consort of electronic wind instruments.
The group now ventures into unchartered waters with PRISM Quartet’s GUITAR HEROES, its newest project featuring collaborations with three eminent guitarist-composers representing a vast range of musical traditions: Leyla McCalla, Rez Abbasi, and Steven Mackey. PRISM has commissioned each to create a new work for guitar and sax quartet, and join the group in world premiere performances in New York City and Philadelphia....
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For more than 40 years, the all-sax PRISM Quartet has redefined the artistic boundaries of its medium, with collaborators ranging from PARTCH, So Percussion, Piffaro, The Crossing, Inti-Illimani, Ethel, and BMOP to leading jazz artists Melissa Aldana, Jason Moran, Susie Ibarra, Arturo O’Farrill, Rudresh Mahanthappa, and Joe Lovano. PRISM has worked across disciplines with several dance companies, stage directors, interactive film makers, poets, and, going back to the 1980s, was the first group to play a consort of electronic wind instruments.
The group now ventures into unchartered waters with PRISM Quartet’s GUITAR HEROES, its newest project featuring collaborations with three eminent guitarist-composers representing a vast range of musical traditions: Leyla McCalla, Rez Abbasi, and Steven Mackey. PRISM has commissioned each to create a new work for guitar and sax quartet, and join the group in world premiere performances in New York City and Philadelphia.
“Guitar Heroes is a once-in-a-lifetime project,” says Matthew Levy, PRISM’s co-founder, executive director and tenor saxophonist. “We’ve invited three strikingly original guitarist-composers to explore the infinite range of sounds that saxes and guitars can make together. In fact, these are among first pieces pairing a sax quartet with solo guitar, with Leyla’s piece also including her extraordinary voice and words. None of us are sure quite what to expect, and that’s why this project is so exciting.”
Leyla McCalla is an American classical and folk musician and songwriter. Born in New York City to Haitian emigrants and activists, and now living in New Orleans, she finds inspiration from her past and present– her music vibrates with three centuries of history and influences from around the globe. McCalla possesses a stunning mastery of the cello, tenor banjo and guitar and, as a multilingual singer and songwriter, has risen to produce a distinctive sound that reflects the union of her roots and experience. In addition to her solo work, McCalla is a founding member of Our Native Daughters (with Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah and Allison Russell) and alumna of Grammy award-winning Black string band The Carolina Chocolate Drops. Her work for and with PRISM will explore the diasporic traditions and new creative possibilities of saxophones and guitar as storytelling instruments.
Guitarist, composer, and Guggenheim fellow Rez Abbasi is interested in music’s ability to bridge traditions. He writes, “As a guitar player I’ve shaped a multi-faceted improvisational soloing style that is steeped in the Jazz canon and also influenced by both Western Classical and South Asian musics” to create “a hybrid style.” His compositions also highlight his South Asian culture in very personal and subtle ways. For his PRISM commission he states: “Texture is one of the hidden components I plan on magnifying. This would include guitar effects such as pitch-bend, delay and strong vibrato that can alter the perceived color of any of the saxophones at will. I will treat the saxophone quartet sometimes as individual instruments and sometimes as one instrument, almost like another guitar. Coupled together, we can create a larger than life harmonic world.” Abbasi has performed and recorded with Ruth Brown, Billy Hart, Dave Douglas, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Kadri Gopalnath, Marilyn Crispell, Greg Osby, and many others.
Steven Mackey is an electric guitarist and GRAMMY-winning composer whose distinctive voice (in his words) was born from “merging his academic [composition] training with the free-spirited physicality of his mother-tongue rock guitar music.” Mackey has previously composed two significant works for PRISM: Animal Vegetable Mineral (2005/concerto) and Blue Notes and Other Clashes (2016/sax and perc. quartets). Despite his formidable presence as an electric guitarist, PRISM has never performed with Mackey, until now! He writes, “I have composed several works for electric guitar and string quartet which is, in retrospect, an odd combination. The guitar and string quartet come from very different musical traditions and they have very different dynamic tendencies. I am now looking forward to composing a piece for guitar and sax quartet which, by comparison, is quite a natural combination as the instruments share a history in jazz, blues, rock and of course the saxophone like the electric guitar, has a big, robust voice.” Mackey serves on the faculties of Princeton University and the Curtis Institute. He has won several awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Kennedy Center Friedheim Award.
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