Event
Improvisations Now
An experience of music imagined and created in real time. A journey with preconditions through waves of sonic discovery.
Check out the entire series here.
Daniel Carter – Tenor & Alto Sax
Daniel Carter is an American free jazz musician who plays the saxophone, trumpet, and the flute. Carter has recorded and performed with many distinguished musicians, including William Parker, Federico Ughi, The Negatones, Thurston Moore, Yo La Tengo, Soul-Junk, Anne Waldman, Cooper-Moore, Matthew Shipp, and scientist/musician Matthew Putman, among others. He is a member of the cooperative. free jazz groups Test, and Other Dimensions in Music.
Michael Wimberly – Drums
Michael Wimberly is a percussionist performing in the soul, funk, rock, jazz, and classical music genres. A drummer and percussionist, Michael Wimberly is also a triple threat: he is a composer of note and has written for prestigious New York dance companies (Alvin Ailey Dance Theater and Joffrey Ballet). Although his percussive repertoire is replete with traditional rhythms, Michael is known for playing cutting-edge music involving a meld of visuals and audio, not to mention a penchant for contemporary jazz.
As a composer and sound designer, Wimberly’s compositions have been performed by dance companies Urban Bush Women, Joffrey Ballet II, Alvin Ailey, Ailey II, Philadanco, Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, Joan Millers Dance Players, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Ballet Noir, Alpha Omega, Purelements, and The National Song and Dance Company of Mozambique. Film scores include As An Act of Protest by Dennis Leroy Moore, and Atlantic City Lights by Brent Owens for HBO. Sound design for theatre includes Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Classical Theatre of Harlem, Saint Lucy’s Eyes by Bridgette Wimberly for the Women’s Project & Cherry Lane Theatre, and Iced Out, Shackled and Chained for the National Black Theatre for which Wimberly received two Audelco nominations.
Jamie Saft – Piano
Jamie Saft is an American keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist and composer. He has performed and recorded with an eclectic variety of artists including John Zorn, Wadada Leo Smith, Iggy Pop, Steve Swallow, Bobby Previte, and Marc Ribot. He has also written several original film scores including Murderball and God Grew Tired of Us; selections from these were released by Tzadik Records as A Bag of Shells. The same label has released several of Saft’s recordings.
Joe Morris – Bass
“Joe Morris is the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” –DownBeat Magazine
“One of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.” – Wire Magazine
Morris was born in New Haven Connecticut in 1955. He began playing guitar at the age of 14 first playing rock music, progressing to blues, then to jazz, free jazz and free improvisation. He released his first record Wraparound (riti) in 1983. He has composed over 200 original pieces of music. Morris has performed and/or recorded with many of the most important contemporary artists in improvised music including, Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker, John Zorn, Ken Vandermark, Mary Halvorson, Tyshawn Sorey, Tomeka Reid, Fay Victor, Tim Berne, William Parker, Sylvie Courvoisier, Agusti Fernandez, Peter Evans, David S. Ware, Joe Maneri, Dewey Redman, Fred Hopkins, Sunny Murray, Wadada Leo Smith, Leroy Jenkins, Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris, Marshall Allen, Barre Phillips, Barry Guy, Matthew Shipp, Gerald Cleaver, and many others.
Morris is featured as leader, co-leader, or sideman on more than 200 commercially released recordings on the labels ECM, ESPdisk, Clean Feed, Hat Hut, Aum Fidelity, Avant, OkkaDisk, Not Two, Soul Note, Leo, No Business, Rogue Art, Relative Pitch, Incus, RareNoise, Fundacja Sluchaj, and his own labels Riti and Glacial Erratic. Morris has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe as well as in Brazil, Korea and Japan.
He has lectured and conducted workshops on his own music and on improvisation in the US, Canada, and Europe including at Princeton University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Bard College, University of Alberta, and University of Guelph. He was the recipient of the 2016 Killam Visiting Scholar Award at University of Calgary. He has been on the faculty at Tufts University, Southern Connecticut State University, Longy School of Music of Bard College, and New School. Since 2000, he has been on the faculty in the Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation Department at New England Conservatory. Morris is the author of the book, Perpetual Frontier: The Properties of Free Music (Riti Publishing 2012).
