“Conference Call as a whole swings with a gleeful impetuosity that's hard if not impossible to dislike," writes JazzTimes reviewer, Chris Kelsey. “Kinda sounds like what the late '60s Miles Davis band might have become had they stayed the course." Other critics have noted, “Conference Call is making some amazing music under everybody's radar" (Jerome Wilson, Cadence), “Conference Call is a quartet comprised of adventurous and versatile musicians, each of whom are also talented composers" (Scott Yanow, All Music Guide) and “the group adroitly balances elements of traditional and avant jazz, swinging and skronking with equal fluency" (Christian Carey, Signal to Noise).
A working band since 1998, Conference Call brings together the versatile Ullmann with the nearly 25-year musical partnership of Fonda and Stevens, the core of another long- standing all-star ensemble, the Fonda/Stevens Group. Six years ago, Schuller assumed the drum chair once occupied by Han Bennink, Gerry Hemingway and Matt Wilson to create Conference Call's most stable and longstanding line-up to date. Over the past decade, the group has demonstrated its distinctively democratic musical synergy, marked by compositions and solos from all four members, both on recordings and in concert all around the world. Poetry in Motion is the band's second studio recording and its fifth release overall.
2008 Fall Jazz Series Schedule:
09/19: Steve Lantner Trio
09/26: Conference Call
10/03: Ned Rothenberg's Sync
10/10: Shakers n' Bakers
10/17: Josh Roseman's Execution Quintet
10/24: Bad Touch
10/31: Magic (Joe McPhee/Dominic Duval/Jay Rosen/Mikolaj Trzaska)
11/07: George Schuller's Circle Wide
11/14: Jamie Baum Septet
11/21: Taylor Ho Bynum & SpiderMonkey Strings
12/05: The Flatlands Collective
12/12: Donny McCaslin Trio
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For more information contact Improvised Communications.
