Joe McPhee With Strings at VBI Theatre at Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center

“McPhee is highly fluent on all his instruments...and critics just as often have lauded McPhee for his gorgeous touch and tone. McPhee never gives less than his best...With McPhee, it's the heady mixture of outside and inside, of experimentation and tradition, and of technique and imagination, which gives his music its character. Clearly, McPhee can do it all—and with style, wit, passion and grace."
— Bill Tilland, BBC

Elysium Furnace Works is thrilled and honored to kick off its 2024 season in the Hudson Valley with a rescheduled concert, presenting a legendary multi-instrumentalist in his hometown leading a truly historic ensemble in performance: Joe McPhee with Strings. For this momentous event, the lineup will include (N.B.: the lineup has changed from the original concert in 2023):...

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“McPhee is highly fluent on all his instruments...and critics just as often have lauded McPhee for his gorgeous touch and tone. McPhee never gives less than his best...With McPhee, it's the heady mixture of outside and inside, of experimentation and tradition, and of technique and imagination, which gives his music its character. Clearly, McPhee can do it all—and with style, wit, passion and grace."
— Bill Tilland, BBC

Elysium Furnace Works is thrilled and honored to kick off its 2024 season in the Hudson Valley with a rescheduled concert, presenting a legendary multi-instrumentalist in his hometown leading a truly historic ensemble in performance: Joe McPhee with Strings. For this momentous event, the lineup will include (N.B.: the lineup has changed from the original concert in 2023):

Joe McPhee: saxophones, spoken word, conducting
Michael Bisio & Hilliard Greene: basses
Daniel Levin & Aliya Ultan: cellos
James Keepnews & Billy Stein: guitars
Melanie Dyer & Mat Maneri: violas
Rosi Hertlein & Gwen Laster: violins

The history of "instrumentalists with strings" in jazz is one that goes back over a century, with early examples like bandleaders Jean Goldkette and Paul Whiteman employing strings in their groups in the 1920s, and clarinetist Artie Shaw recorded with a string quartet in 1936. Come the mid-1940s, bands with string sections included those of Harry James, Stan Kenton, Glen Miller and Tommy Dorsey. But it was the immortal Bird With Strings sessions by Charlie Parker in 1950 and 1952 that made the use of strings a key concept in postwar jazz. Parker's sessions proved so innovative and so commanding that various major jazz artists have subsequently explored this approach to ensemble orchestration, including Clifford Brown, Chet Baker, Wes Montgomery, Stan Getz, Arthur Blythe and many others. To this august list, we can now add the Poughkeepsie-based legend Joe McPhee.

Joe McPhee with Strings will perform at the VBI Theatre of Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center, located at 12 Vassar St. in Poughkeepsie, NY, on Saturday, March 16 at 8 PM. Advance tickets are on sale now at https://joemcphee.eventbrite.com/.

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