Happy Apple at Solar Myth

For over 25 years, the Minneapolis-based collective Happy Apple has delivered its own enigmatic vision of jazz and improvised music to an adoring cognoscenti of listeners. Though they’ve found favor from the jazz community at large, the trio of saxophonist Michael Lewis, bassist Erik Fratzke, and drummer Dave King remains a band of outsiders, three independent personalities with eclectic tastes and styles providing music with an obtuse Midwestern charm. Each band member leads a busy musical life: King has been a member of many well-known bands, most notably The Bad Plus and Halloween, Alaska; Lewis’s time has been mainly spent in Bon Iver’s touring band; and Fratzke was a member of prog band Zebulon Pike...

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For over 25 years, the Minneapolis-based collective Happy Apple has delivered its own enigmatic vision of jazz and improvised music to an adoring cognoscenti of listeners. Though they’ve found favor from the jazz community at large, the trio of saxophonist Michael Lewis, bassist Erik Fratzke, and drummer Dave King remains a band of outsiders, three independent personalities with eclectic tastes and styles providing music with an obtuse Midwestern charm. Each band member leads a busy musical life: King has been a member of many well-known bands, most notably The Bad Plus and Halloween, Alaska; Lewis’s time has been mainly spent in Bon Iver’s touring band; and Fratzke was a member of prog band Zebulon Pike. Breaking a nearly decade-long silence, Happy Apple’s latest album, the eclectic and spirited New York CD (Sunnyside), encompasses music that has been a regular highlight of their sets for 20 years alongside brand new compositions.

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