We end an extraordinary year @exuberance fittingly—as we started—with composers’ ensemble Alchemy Sound Project.
Back in January I called them the greatest jazz band you never heard (or heard of). Since then, they’ve been making waves with two acclaimed albums of originals: Further Explorations and Adventures in Time and Space. They join us now for the world premiere of Erica Lindsay’s Meditations on Transformation, commisioned just this year by the prestigious Chamber Music America. We’re trying not to get a big head here, but the opportunity to host Erica's premiere is a distinct honor....
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We end an extraordinary year @exuberance fittingly—as we started—with composers’ ensemble Alchemy Sound Project.
Back in January I called them the greatest jazz band you never heard (or heard of). Since then, they’ve been making waves with two acclaimed albums of originals: Further Explorations and Adventures in Time and Space. They join us now for the world premiere of Erica Lindsay’s Meditations on Transformation, commisioned just this year by the prestigious Chamber Music America. We’re trying not to get a big head here, but the opportunity to host Erica's premiere is a distinct honor.
Get ready for Erica Lindsay—badass saxophonist, composer, educator, producer and recording artist. She’s performed with Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Williams, Al Grey, Mary Lou Williams, McCoy Tyner, Clifford Jordan, Oliver Lake and more. As the title implies, Meditations on Transformation contemplates change—how one thing can evolve into something else. She writes for the specific sound signatures of her comrades. The piano is central to this suite of movements.
Sumi Tonooka has a unique piano sound—lush, biting, energetic, languid, most often swinging. She’s returned to Philadelphia after many years with many accomplishments in solo and small ensemble jazz, a book of memorable compositions, and in orchestral explorations that have won critical notice and a robust fanbase.
Of David Arend, Erica notes and exploits his great arco work for this piece. Arend is working on an orchestral commission for the 2019 Bellingham Festival of Music and has performed and recorded two concertos with the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra.
Erica says she channeled her “inner Sam” in writing for Seattle trumpeter and fellow composer Samantha Boshnak. Sam leads her own quintet and her 14-piece B’shnorkestra. In 2015, Boshnack premiered “Coelacanth: In Its Own Time” with the Northwest Symphony Orchestra in honor of a 400 million-year-old species of fish threatened by extinction.
For Salim Washington, Erica took full textural advantage of his alto flute and bass clarinet skills. Based in Durban, South Africa, where he teaches at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Washington recently received a commission from the Jazz Foundation to arrange big band charts of his music and that of South African pianist Nduduzo Makhathini.
Rounding out this ensemble are Westerlies’ trombonist Willem De Koch and jazz master Victor Lewis on drums.
It’s an ensemble whose diversity of age, race and gender fulfills the inclusive aspirations of the group itself, Chamber Music America, its funder the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and @exuberance. It’s an ensemble whose alchemical magic derives from the composers' knowledge of each other’s musical uniqueness and the deep intimacy borne of shared interests and years now of close collaboration.
If you’ve auditioned their albums or seen them here @exuberance, you know what a dynamic, achingly beautiful and compelling mix this can be. If we’re lucky, we’ll get to hear the other members' compositions as well as Erica’s. In any case, this salon is this season’s big ticket. See you here...and hear.
Alchemy Sound Project
7-10pm Monday, December 10
1220 N. Mascher St. (steps away from the Girard Ave. El stop)
We contemplate a $25 donation to support the musicians and provide appropriate refreshments.
Click RSVP to this invitation to get on the guest list (https://goo.gl/forms/NfUJRdF6u8xErTy83). Invitation expires when we reach 85 attendees. Looking forward to seeing you.
Matt Yaple
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@exuberance parties at Matt’s are by invitation only to provide a dignified, comfortable and acoustically ideal setting for worthwhile art and ideas. Cellphones and other devices are to be holstered during the performances. Between sets, conviviality rules.
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