Mark Dresser + Thollem McDonas + Patrick Shiroishi + Brandon Seabrook
October 20, 2024 @ 8:00 pm – 10:30 pm
Doors open at 7:30pm
First Set at 8:00pm
part 1 – Mark Dresser – s0l0 bass
part 2- Thollem McDonas – solo piano and electronics
Second Set at 9:15pm
part 1 – Patrick Shiroishi – solo sax
part 2 – Brandon Seabrook – solo guitar & Banjo
Brandon Seabrook is performing in support of his new solo album ‘Object on Unknown Function’ to be released on October 18 2024 on Pyroclastic Records.
Mark Dresser is performing in support of his new solo album ‘In the Shadow of a Mad King’ recently released on Tzadik Records.
Thollem McDonas will be playing selections off his two new ESP-Disk releases Infinite Sum Game (solo piano) and Worlds In A Life (solo electric sextet).
Mark Dresser
Mark Dresser is a Grammy-nominated, internationally renowned bass player, improviser, composer, and interdisciplinary collaborator. At the core of his music is an artistic obsession and commitment to expanding the sonic, musical, and expressive possibilities of the contrabass. He has recorded over one hundred forty CDs, including three solo CDs and a DVD.
From 1985 to 1994, he was a member of Anthony Braxton’s Quartet, which recorded nine CDs and was the subject of Graham Locke’s book Forces in Motion (Da Capo). He has also performed and recorded music with Ray Anderson, Jane Ira Bloom, Tim Berne, Anthony Davis, Dave Douglas, Osvaldo Golijov, Gerry Hemingway, Bob Ostertag, Joe Lovano, Roger Reynolds, Henry Threadgill, Dawn Upshaw, and John Zorn.
Dresser’s most recent and internationally acclaimed new music for jazz quintet, Nourishments (2013), marks his re-immersion as a bandleader. Since 2007, he has been deeply involved in telematic music performance and education. He was awarded a 2015 Shifting Foundation Award and a 2015 Doris Duke Impact Award. He is currently a Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego.
“Calling contrabassist Mark Dresser a virtuoso is like saying Albert Einstein was good at math.”
– San Diego City Times
https://mark-dresser.com/
Brandon Seabrook
Brandon Seabrook is a NYC-based guitarist and banjoist whose music fuses a wide range of practices and traditions: punk rock, jazz, pop, and metal. As a guitarist, his work feeds off tactile sensations, characterized by rapid tremolo picking and extreme physicality. Described by the New York Times as “a man apparently hellbent on earning the title of World’s Least Rustic Banjo Player,” he has been devoted to transforming an instrument largely associated with country and bluegrass into a tool for rebellious exploration.
As a composer and bandleader, Seabrook has released ten albums. His ensemble music leans on a wide range of variance: jump cuts, improvisation, humor, and extreme dynamics. Rolling Stone Magazine noted, “The fiercely dexterous musician has launched a number of bands combining serious chops with manic intensity and a left-field compositional vision.” Brandon is an accomplished solo artist, named Best Guitarist in New York City by the Village Voice. His 2014 solo release, “Slyphid Vitalizers,” paired his 1920 Bacon and Day tenor banjo with the blasting beats of a 1980s Oberheim drum machine, bridging epochs with ambient tranquility and brutal prog. He has presented his solo work at Pioneer Works, Constellation, Secret Project Robot, NK Berlin, Lima Jazz Festival, The Smell, The Stone, ESS, and Boston Hassle Fest. In October 2024, he will release his new solo record, “Object of Unknown Function.”
He has collaborated with Joey Arias, Anthony Braxton, Mike Watt, Cecile McLorin Salvant, David Byrne, Ghost Train Orchestra, Frank London, Nels Cline, and Ingrid Laubrock. He has been profiled in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Premier Guitar, Rolling Stone Magazine, The Fretboard Journal, Bandcamp Daily, and The Wire.
Patrick Shiroishi
Patrick Shiroishi is a Japanese-American multi-instrumentalist and composer based in Los Angeles who is perhaps best known for his extensive and incredibly intense work with the saxophone. Over the last decade, he has established himself as one of the premier improvising musicians in Los Angeles, playing solo and in numerous collaborative projects. Shiroishi may well be considered a foundational player in the city’s vast musical expanse.
He has presented work and performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Natural History Museum, and the International Museum of Surgical Sciences. Shiroishi has toured around the world in various solo and band configurations, including The Armed, contemporary classical ensemble Wild Up, and Upsilon Acrux.
https://www.patrickshiroishi.com/
Thollem McDonas
Thollem is a pianist, keyboardist, composer, improviser, singer-songwriter, activist, author, and teacher. He has toured throughout North America and Europe as an itinerant artist for two decades, performing, teaching, and collaborating in myriad situations across the idiomatic spectrum. Thollem is known in concentric circles as an acoustic piano player in the free jazz and post-classical worlds, as the lead vocalist for the Italian agit-punk band Tsigoti, and as an electronic keyboardist through a multitude of projects. His lifelong interest has been to work with people from all walks of life, bringing artists and communities together in ways that may create something uniquely valuable to everyone involved. He is currently focused primarily on his multimedia collaboration with New Mexican visual artist ACVilla, his solo piano work Infinite-Sum Game, and workshops on the collaborative process.
Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Thollem began playing the piano, composing, and improvising as a child, absorbing the sounds of his culturally diverse upbringing. As an adult, he has continued to incorporate the breadth of music he has experienced on his extensive travels. Since 2005, he has played over 3,000 concerts throughout North America and Europe, releasing more than 100 albums on 26 different vanguard labels.
A very brief cross-section of his many collaborators includes William Parker, Pauline Oliveros, Stefano Scodanibbio, Nels Cline, Sara Lund, Rob Mazurek, Michael Wimberly, Mike Watt, and Carmina Escobar. Thollem is a published author on art, politics, and his travels in NewMusicBox, The Anthology of Essays On Deep Listening, Full Moon Magazine (Prague), and First American Art Magazine.