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AAJ NY Presents Joe Giardullo & John Heward (5/5) Tribute To Steve Lacy at Cornelia St. Cafe 8:30 and 10pm

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May 3, 2005

To: Listings/Critics/Features From: JAZZ PROMO SERVICES Press Contact: JIM EIGO, [email protected]



THURSDAY MAY 5th, 2005 AllAboutJazz-New York Presents “1s & 2s: Music For Solo & Duo"

FEATURING:

Joe Giardullo (soprano sax) & John Heward (drums/percussion) “A TRIBUTE TO STEVE LACY"

CD release No Work Today: Nine For Lacy (Drimala Records)

at Cornelia Street Cafe 29 Cornelia Street Greenwich Village, NY 10014 Tel: 212-989-9319 Fax: 212-243-4207 Web: corneliastreetcafe.com

*8:30 and 10pm sets - $12/ (student discount $8)





Joe Giardullo

Brooklyn-born soprano saxophonist, multi-reedman, and flute player Joe Giardullo moved to the Woodstock area in the ‘66 where he played blues, rock, R&B, and straight-ahead jazz with such locals at the time as saxophonist Gene Dinwiddie (Paul Butterfield Blues Band), multi-instrumentalist Howard Johnson (Archie Shepp), and a whole segment of the original ESP Records lineup. He then moved to Amsterdam in ’77. Arriving with no connections, he found himself, on his very first night in Holland, performing with American cellist Tristan Honsinger and South African tenor saxophonist Sean Bergin- an amazing welcome. Amsterdam was alive with great music: Burton Greene, Han Bennink, Charles Tyler, Philip Wilson and a thriving local scene. After a short period, Giardullo returned to Woodstock and resumed his work in creative music, becoming involved with production work for Anthony Braxton’s Music for Four Orchestras. He continued to work on his largely theoretical large-ensemble charts based on the ideas of George Russell. A chance encounter with pianist Paul Bley led to Giardullo’s first recording as a leader, Gravity Music for Creative Chamber Group (Breeze Records, 1979), which disappeared into obscurity almost immediately though not before Down Beat’s Francis Davis gave it 4 stars calling it “intensely democratic music”, comparing it to Braxton’s Paris ensembles (he also used concepts and vocabularies from mathematics and geology to describe the creative elements).

In ‘81, Giardullo slipped into what would become a ten-year hiatus from public performance, though he continued to play in private. He met the legendary Joe McPhee in ‘91 which changed everything, as he would soon become a charter member of Joe McPhee’s Bluette, and has since been associated with him on a continuous basis. Commissions, North American and European tours and a steady stream of acclaimed recordings have followed. Collaborations with Milford Graves (drums/percussion) and Steve Lacy (soprano saxophone), and his long partnership with McPhee have drawn attention from listeners and critics alike.

Joe dedicated himself to solo soprano saxophone performances last year with his Weather (Live in Krakow) on the Polish Not Two Records label, and he continues this concept for this special performance which will be a CD release event for his latest solo soprano saxophone recording on Drimala Records - No Work Today: Nine for Lacy. He will be playing both solo and in duo (with drummer/percussionist John Heward).

“Brings to mind Albert Ayler at his most beautific."

-THE WIRE



John Heward

The Montreal-based Heward is a Montreal-based drummer as well as painter and sculptor extraordinaire. For over the past two decades, he has quietly become one of the world's leading percussionists working in the field of contemporary improvised music, new music, and avant jazz. Music luminaries including David Prentice, Glenn Spearman, Joe McPhee, Dominic Duval, Lisle Ellis, Paul Bley, and hundreds more have sought him out during their Canadian sojourns.

Born, raised, and still living in Montreal, Heward is both a visual artist and a creative musician who has always explored and expanded the boundaries of his craft. He quotes his most influential drummer as Marvin Boogaloo Smith who played with Archie Shepp, who John says, “came down on a day and we exchanged notions and he said that he always worked on the principle, gotten from Zen thinking, of working on the figure eight, a continuous circling around and joining, and that struck me. So I wasn't interested in just playing straight beat, on or behind or in front of. I was interested in being able to do it, up to a certain extent, so that there are times in the music when you want a straight beat for a while just so you could set up something so that you can break it, and that's really the principle of my drumming, to set up something so that it could be broken into something else."

Heward’s recording debut as a leader came out in 2004 on Drimala Records. Let Them Pass features his two longtime associates, Joe Giardullo (flute, tenor saxophone, and bass clarinet) and Mike Bisio (bass). His drumming opens up time into a loose lattice-like structure, working more with a subterranean force of pulse than ideas of classical rhythm, allowing for his fellow musicians to listen in a particularly concentrated manner. In his inimically subtle manner, Heward leads his trio in a music filled with thick frothy blends of reflection, tradition, and emotion from Middle East and Eastern European modal traditions to simple American blues forms, and very quietly - but powerfully in its knowledge - the trio uses these blends of musical traditions to find a new tradition uniquely their own.

“John is one of Canada's foremost improvising percussionists." –CODA

“…not the kind of player that will knock you over with brawn; rather, he proves to be both a catalyst and colorist, depending on the necessities.” – One Final Note

Next “1s and 2s": (6/2) TED CURSON/HENRY GRIMES (Ted Curson's 70th Birthday celebration!) (7/2) KATIE BULL/JOE FONDA (Cup of Joe, No Bull: The Bull-Fonda Duo CD Release concert!)

This unique series - dedicated to unaccompanied and duo jazz performances - has already featured the following highly acclaimed performances: Ray Anderson/Bob Stewart's Heavy Metal duo; Scott Robinson/Jules Thayer; Warren Smith/Kevin Norton; Karl Berger/John Lindberg; Michael Marcus/Edgar Bateman; Ken Peplowski/Greg Cohen, John Tchicai/Garrison Fewell...

*You can visit us on the web at www.allaboutjazz.com/newyork/index.html for updates.

*Curated by AAJ-NY Managing Editor, Laurence Donohue-Greene, “AllAboutJazz-New York Presents 1s&2s: Music for Solo & Duo" showcases some of the most distinct jazz voices on their respective instruments in a very intimate setting. Says Donohue-Greene, “Only a select group of instrumentalists and vocalists can carry off such a challenge of performing a set of unaccompanied music and duo performance. With the number of performance spaces dwindling for these musicians to showcase their unique talents stripped down without the backing of a group in front of an audience - this series will hopefully become a tradition unto itself for us to witness some of the most amazing improvisers amongst us."

(For more information contact Laurence Donohue-Greene direclty at [email protected] or call 212-568-9628)

For more information contact .

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