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Bill Cole's 65th-Birthday Concert, Carnegie Hall, 10/11

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WHO: Bill Cole and the Untempered Ensemble

WHAT: World Premiere: “The Living Lives Not Among the Dead. Why Seek It There?"

WHERE: Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, 154 West 57th Street betw. 6th & 7th Ave's, closer to 7th Ave. New York City (take the F, N, Q, R, or W train to 57th St.)

WHEN: Friday, October 11, 2OO2, 8 p.m.

TICKETS: $2O ($15 for students and elders) from the Carnegie Hall box office, by phone at 212-247-78OO, on the Web at www.carnegiehall.org or www.shadrack.org.




ABOUT THIS PROJECT:

THE UNTEMPERED ENSEMBLE, an improvisational Jazz ensemble, was formed in 1992 as a trio and gave its first performance in the fall of 1993 at Dartmouth College. The group expanded to its current 7-musician ensemble in 1994 and that year performed at the Improvisers Collective Festival in New York. Since 1996, the ensemble has played every year at the Vision Festival in New York, in addition to performing nationally to rave reviews. The Untempered Ensemble released its first CD in 2OOO; the group's fourth CD, “Seasoning the Greens," a Boxholder Records release, is scheduled for October 2OO2.




WHAT REVIEWERS ARE SAYING:

“I'm willing to claim that this is one of the most important documents of Jazz in the past ten years. It represents a virtuosic synthesis of composition and improvisation, and of conventional and unconventional timbres." -Michael A. Parker, All About Jazz

“Stunningly designed compositions... a masterpiece of uncommon poignancy and beauty. [Cole is] an artist who has for too long operated under the radar of too many." -Derek Taylor, One Final Note

“With each performer conversant with at least one, if not more, modes of non-Western music, the overall program is as mesmerizing as it is well played. If you want to trace the intersection of world music without having to appear either condescending or trendy, then this session offers you a kaleidoscopic view of how it should be done." -Ken Waxman, Jazz Weekly

“Cole's compositions offer a purely musical arena for each ensemble member to express individual flair, but they also evoke a kind of historical and political space in which African- American struggles, triumphs, tragedies, and self-awareness can be explored and chronicled." -Michael J. Kramer, Jazziz


MUSICIANS' BIOGRAPHIES:

BILL COLE, musician, composer, educator, and writer, has organized concerts ranging from Town Hall and Symphony Space in New York to Broadway Performance in Seattle and Hopkins Center in Hanover, New Hampshire. For the last eight years, Dr.Cole has led The Untempered Ensemble and has served as Artistic Director of the organization Shadrack, Inc. He has performed and recorded with such artists as Ornette Coleman, Jayne Cortez, Julius Hemphill, Fred Ho, Sam Rivers, and James Blood Ulmer. He has written highly acclaimed compositions for large and small groups: “The Seven Cycles," “Freedom," “1863," and “Seasoning the Greens." Dr. Cole's primary instruments are Asian double reed horns, including Chinese sonas, Korean hojok and piri, Indian shenai and nagaswarm, as well as the Ghanaian bamboo flute, Tibetan trumpet, and digeridoo. Dr. Cole records for Boxholder Records. He is also the author of two biographies, “John Coltrane" and “Miles Davis: The Early Years," as well as many articles as jazz critic for “Downbeat," “Coda," and other journals. He holds Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University. Dr. Cole was a full professor at Dartmouth College's Music Department before his retirement. For more information, visit www.shadrack.org ; Dr. Cole can be contacted at [email protected] .

ATTICUS SHADRACK COLE began studying music at the age of 6. His father, Bill Cole, introduced him to his colleague, Ghanaian Master drummer Abraham Adzinyah, with whom Atticus began studying West African music in the oral tradition. Atticus received private instruction from Mr. Adzinyah and became a member of the West African drumming ensemble at the age of 7. He worked extensively with the ensemble, studying song, dance and drumming techniques. He continued his studies with master drummer Hafiz Shabazz, who became his mentor, learning West African, Afro- Cuban, and Brazilian music. Atticus received a scholarship to Berklee College of Music, where he studied jazz composition. Atticus Cole's playing has supported such artists as DeLaSoul, Julius Hemphill, LL Cool J, KRS-One, Maceo Parker, SouLive, and WAR. He has worked with his father for over 2O years, meanwhile maintaining his own original Hip-hop group The Formula, and also playing with The Grace Singers, a gospel group based in Boston, MA. Atticus Cole can be contacted at [email protected].

COOPER-MOORE (formerly known as Gene Ashton) is a composer, improviser, instrumentalist, designer and builder of musical instruments, and music educator, living and working in New York City. A native of the Piedmont area of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, Cooper-Moore began studying piano at age eight. Four years later, he was listening to Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, and Thelonious Monk, and working on improvisation. Moving to New York in 1973, he took over a five-floor space at 5O1 Canal Street and transformed it into an artist's live-in / work space, making possible numerous experimentations among performing and visual artists. While his attention was focused on piano performance in New York clubs and on touring abroad, Cooper-Moore also began designing and building musical instruments, playing them in collaboration with all kinds of artist at lofts, galleries, artist spaces, and museums, and in the streets of New York City. Cooper-Moore can be contacted at [email protected] .

JOE DALEY, musician, composer, and educator, is a low brass specialist on tuba and euphonium. Mr. Daley has performed and recorded with Muhal Richard Abrams, Carla Bley, Bill Cole, Jayne Cortez, Bill Dixon, Dave Douglas, Ellery Eskelin, Gil Evans, George Gruntz, Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, Howard Johnson's Gravity band, Taj Mahal, Sam Rivers, Cecil Taylor, Assif Tsahar and the Brass Reeds Ensemble, and more. He is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Award for Music Composition and New Jersey's Outstanding Teacher Recognition Award; Joe Daley is also a MacDowell Colony and Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Fellow. Mr. Daley holds a Bachelor of Music and a Masters of Music Education degree from the Manhattan School of Music. For more information, visit www.josephdaley.com ; Mr. Daley can be contacted at [email protected] .

SAM FURNACE is a saxophonist, flautist, composer and arranger. He developed his skills through studies with master musicians such as Bill Barron, Harold Jones, Billy Mitchell, and Paul West. Mr. Furnace received several National Endowment Grants to study with jazz greats such as George Coleman, Buddy Pearson, Frank Wess, and Ernie Wilkins. Over the past two decades, he has performed with artist such as Art Blakey, Jaki Byard, Chico O' Farrill, The Four Tops, Jennifer Holliday, Abdullah Ibrahim, Wyclef Jean, Machito, Tito Puente, The Temptations, McCoy Tyner, and Randy Weston. Mr. Furnace can be heard on recordings with Bill Cole, Johnny Copeland, Craig Harris, Milt Hinton, The Jazz Passengers, The Julius Hemphill Saxophone Sextet, Fred Ho, The New York Jazz Composers Orchestra, Mongo Santamaria, and Elliott Sharp. He has taught master classes and workshops at Hunter College and the State University in Plattsburgh, New York and has appeared as guest soloist with the SUNY Plattsburgh Jazz Ensemble. An affiliated writer and publisher with BMI, Mr. Furnace is also involved in composition through use of computer music applications. Sam Furnace can be contacted at [email protected] .

WILLIAM PARKER, whom “The Village Voice" has characterized “the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time," has commanded a unique degree of respect throughout his career from fellow musicians. After entering the New York music scene in 1972 at the age of 2O, Mr. Parker quickly became the bass player of choice among his peers. Within a short time, he was asked to play with older, established musicians such as Ed Blackwell, Don Cherry, Bill Dixon, Milford Graves, Billy Higgins, and Sunny Murray. In 198O he became a member of the Cecil Taylor Unit, where he played a prominent role for more than a decade. From the beginning of his musical career, Mr. Parker has been prolific, composing music for almost every group with whom he performs. His compositional skills span a wide range comprising operas, oratorios, ballets, film scores, and soliloquies for solo instruments. He has also successfully explored diverse concepts in instrumentation for large and small ensembles. In the last two years, Mr. Parker has performed solo bass concerts with long-time associate, choreographer and dancer Patricia Nicholson and with poet David Budbill, as well as successfully leading and touring with his groups In Order to Survive and The Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra, both to critical and popular acclaim. In addition, Mr. Parker is a poet, with three volumes published thus far: “Music Is," “Document Humanum," and “The Shadow People." For more information, visit www.williamparkermusic.com ; Mr. Parker can be contacted at [email protected] .

PATRICIA SMITH is a poet, playwright, journalist, and performance artist who has performed at The Poets Stage in Stockholm, Brazil's Bahia Festival, the Sorbonne in Paris, and on tour in Germany, Austria, and Amsterdam- as well as New York City's Nuyorican Poets Cafe and St. Marks Poetry Project, Bumbershoot in Seattle, the Writer's Voice, South by Southwest Music Festival, and on tour with Lollapalooza. Ms. Smith is also four-time individual champion of the national poetry slam and featured poet on an upcoming episode of HBO's Def Poetry Jam. Her poetry has been published in “The Paris Review," “TriQuarterly," “AGNI," and other literary journals. She has performed in a one-woman show produced by Nobel Prize-winner Derek Walcott. Her poetry was featured in a performance created and choreographed by former Joffrey dancer Anthony Williams. In 2OO1, Smith was writer-in-residence at the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights' Conference. She is the author of “Africans In America" (Harcourt Brace, 1998), a companion book to the groundbreaking PBS documentary, as well as the children's book “Janna and the Kings" (Lee & Low Books, 2OO3). Currently, she is at work on a biography of Harriet Tubman and a children's book about the Great Migration. Her one-woman show “Professional Suicide" will debut off- Broadway later this year as part of The Play Company's season. Ms. Smith also recently formed the band BopThunderous with vocalist Philip Pemberton, bassist Joshua Carre, and drummer Jim Weston to explore the juncture of poetry and music; the group's self-titled CD will debut this fall. Patricia Smith can be contacted at [email protected]

WARREN SMITH, master vibraphonist, percussionist, and trap drummer, has an overwhelming history in many musics, including classical, jazz, R&B, & improvisation. Mr. Smith came to New York from Chicago in the late 195O's, studied at the Manhattan School of Music, and soon was heard playing with Gil Evans, Makanda Ken McIntyre, and Sam Rivers. Along the way, he was a staff musician at ABC-TV for three years in the 196O's, and he founded and ran Studio WIS, one of the seminal spots of the loft era. Mr. Smith has played and recorded with a vast array of musical stars in many musical languages, including Muhal Richard Abrams, Kenny Barron, Anthony Braxton, Marion Brown, Solomon Burke, Jaki Byard, John Cage, Bill Cole, Roberta Flack, Aretha Franklin, Julius Hemphill, Lena Horne, Elvin Jones, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Charles Mingus, Van Morrison, Harry Partch, Esther Phillips, Max Roach, George Russell, Jimmy Smith, Sonny Stitt, and Tony Williams. At present, Warren Smith may be heard in the orchestra of the Langston Hughes musical “Little Ham" at the John Houseman Theatre. Mr. Smith can be contacted at [email protected] .



RECAP:
Bill Cole and the Untempered Ensemble: World premiere, “The Living Lives Not Among the Dead. Why Seek It There?" at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, 154 West 57th Street betw. 6th & 7th Ave's (closer to 7th Ave), New York City. (take the F, N, Q, R, or W train to 57th St.), Friday, October 11, 2OO2, 8 p.m., $2O ($15 for students and elders) from the Carnegie Hall box office, by phone at 212-247-78OO, on the Web at www.carnegiehall.org or www.shadrack.org.

For more information contact .

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