Mat Maneri Quartet + Ennis Harris ‘Images & Silhouettes’
October 27 @ 8:00 pm – 11:00 pm
presented in partnership with
First Set: Ennis Harris’ Images & Silhouettes
World premiere of Images & Silhouettes, a new composition commissioned by the Los Angeles Jazz Society’s Jeff Clayton’s Memorial New Note Award.
Sierra Schmeltzer – Flute
Liz Plescia – Oboe
Matt Stubbs – Clarinet
Tanner Olivas – Bass Clarinet
Rachel O’Connor – French Horn
Landon Grigsby – Trumpet
Ethan Chilton – Trumpet
Jon Hatamiya – Trombone
India Anderson – Tuba
Beau Henson – Violin
Veronika Manchur– Violin
Gloria Choi – Viola
Alex Mansour – Cello
Max Walker – Guitar
Sam Reid – Piano, Keyboard
Yafeu Tyhimba – Upright & Electric Bass
Aaron Serfaty – Percussion
Lauren Ellis – Drums
Ennis Harris – Alto Sax
Second Set: Mat Maneri Quartet
Mat Maneri – viola
Brandon Lopez – bass
Lucian Ban – piano
Randy Peterson – drums
“BEST OF 2019 – [Mat Maneri’s DUST is] a shining example of patient instrumental exchange that can sound like chamber music melting slowly off the page”
– Rolling Stone
“This is a collective music, suspenseful without being tentative, and it’s as much about listening as playing”
– Downbeat
“Images and Silhouettes is ultimately about the visceral relationship we have with imagery. Whether it’s through a photograph, a painting, a reflection, or even a memory; I’m curious about what it means to try and capture a moment, and how that moment expresses itself as time marches forward. We often fall in love with the ‘spirit of the moment’, particularly when it comes to improvisation and music. I think the positioning of an image with its silhouette side-by-side gives us insight into both the subject and the “image-taker”. And so, my approach to Images and Silhouettes is introspective in that way. I want to explore different points of view from “moments” throughout my life- their spirit, and share that with you.“
Ennis Harris
“Ennis Harris is a forward thinking and unique composer and player. His compositions have a distinct personality and sound all their own. He is someone to watch for sure!”
Bob Mintzer
Ennis Harris’ Eye In The Sky
Performed by the Thornton Jazz Orchestra
Mat Maneri
Mat Maneri, a leading improvisational voice of his generation, was born in Brooklyn in 1969. He began studying the violin at the age of five, but since borrowing a viola for a jam session at the 1998 ECM festival in Badenweiler, he has made the viola his instrument of choice. Important influences on Maneri’s work – in addition to all the major forces of jazz – include Baroque music (which he studied with Juilliard String Quartet co-founder Robert Koff), Elliott Carter, and the Second Viennese School of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, which was also of central importance to his father, the late, great saxophonist, clarinettist, composer and educator Joe Maneri. Of his studies with Koff, Mat Maneri has said: “Studying Baroque music helped me to find my sound. [Koff] brought me into the world of contrapuntal playing and a way of using the bow that sounded more like a trumpet, like Miles, to my mind.”
Photo by Antonio Porcar Cano
Ennis Harris
Ennis Harris is a Los Angeles-based composer, arranger, saxophonist, and flutist. His music seeks to blur genre and cultural boundaries through musical storytelling.
As a composer, Ennis enjoys writing for various settings. In 2023, he won the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers (ISJAC)/USF “Prize For Emerging Black Composers” for his piece Eye In The Sky written for Big Band. In 2022, his piece Portrait Poem, written for Chamber Orchestra and Jazz Septet, won the Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award. He has also been commissioned by theBABAorchestra, who premiered his piece Ruggell in the fall of that year.
As a saxophonist and flutist, Ennis has performed with artists such as The YellowJackets, The Bill Holman Big Band, Sammy Miller and The Congregation, and Brian Charette.
Photo by Lauren Desberg
