Directions In Music Making By Asian American (+1 Canadian) Improvisers V at Sky Cafe

September 7: The Sky Unit Meets Du Uy (Francis Wong, Chris Trinidad, Carrie Jahde) featuring Danny Cao. Drummer Carrie Jahde and bassist Chris Trinidad met on a gig with trumpeter and vocalist Danny Cao’s Du Uy Quintet and together they’ve been Danny’s rhythm section for the past few years. It just so happens that they are also the rhythm section for The Sky Unit with saxophonist Francis Wong! It seems like a natural pairing to bring Francis and Danny together to play with familiar rhythm section mates!

September 14: Vernaculars: Roots and Beyond featuring guitarist Karl Evangelista, saxophonist Francis Wong, bassist Chris Trinidad, percussionist Jimmy Biala. For this installment of the series, the ensemble will explore shared histories in the music from jazz and creative music to urban and tribal vocabularies, leading to inspirations for flights into the future....

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September 7: The Sky Unit Meets Du Uy (Francis Wong, Chris Trinidad, Carrie Jahde) featuring Danny Cao. Drummer Carrie Jahde and bassist Chris Trinidad met on a gig with trumpeter and vocalist Danny Cao’s Du Uy Quintet and together they’ve been Danny’s rhythm section for the past few years. It just so happens that they are also the rhythm section for The Sky Unit with saxophonist Francis Wong! It seems like a natural pairing to bring Francis and Danny together to play with familiar rhythm section mates!

September 14: Vernaculars: Roots and Beyond featuring guitarist Karl Evangelista, saxophonist Francis Wong, bassist Chris Trinidad, percussionist Jimmy Biala. For this installment of the series, the ensemble will explore shared histories in the music from jazz and creative music to urban and tribal vocabularies, leading to inspirations for flights into the future.

September 21: The Zen of Glenn: Glenn Horiuchi Legacy Project with The Sky Unit (Francis Wong, Chris Trinidad, Carrie Jahde) featuring Erika Oba and Helen Palma. Horiuchi was a pioneer in the Asian American creative music movement with a foundational legacy in compositions, recordings, and major international performances. A Zen Buddhist practitioner, he is the author of Zen of Glenn, a collection of writings published after his untimely death. Celebrated flutist, pianist, and composer Erika Oba will join the band to render a program of Horiuchi’s musical works and readings of his essays.

September 28: Chants and Psalms for Peace with The Sky Unit featuring saxophonist Francis Wong, bass guitarist Chris Trinidad, and drummer Carrie Jahde. Chants and Psalms for Peace with The Sky Unit featuring saxophonist Francis Wong, bass guitarist Chris Trinidad, and drummer Carrie Jahde. With repertoire ranging from neo-Gregorian chant melodies for Catholic liturgies, Buddhist hymns, and spirituals from the Black American church traditions, The Sky Unit explores how to bring about peace through improvised music. With all of the conflict taking place in the world, the group asks a poignant question: How might we give voice to the voiceless, and how might we encode the lived experiences of those who have been forgotten or marginalized through the power of sound?

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