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Nicole McCabe Septet + Myra Melford’s Fire & Water Quintet
Nicole McCabe Septet + Myra Melford’s Fire & Water Quintet
November 4 @ 8:00 pm – 10:30 pm
presented in partnership with
Nicole McCabe is an upcoming saxophonist and composer living in Los Angeles. Her work ‘The Women who Shaped Me’ consists of pieces that are inspired by different female figures that have made Nicole into the person she is today. Nicole wanted to challenge herself by arranging these original compositions for a septet featuring some of the best musicians in the LA jazz scene.
9:15pm – Fire & Water Quintet
Fire and Water draws inspiration from Melford’s ongoing engagement with the iconoclastic work of the late visual artist Cy Twombly. The band’s name pays homage to the artist’s “For the Love of Fire and Water,” a series that combines his trademark vibrant scribbles and scrawled calligraphic texts
Myra Melford – piano
Mary Halvorson – guitar
Tomeka Reid – cello
Lesley Mok – drums
Ingrid Laubrock – sax
“Among other things, Myra Melford is a master in the art of wringing sound out of color and line. An insatiably inventive pianist and composer, she has always found sustenance in modern art — notably the subversive scribbly works of Cy Twombly.” – Nate Chinen, WBGO
Nicole McCabe
Preserving the warm buzz of early bebop while bravely exploring the jazz fusion of her contemporaries, LA alto saxophonist and composer Nicole McCabe is reaching beyond traditional jazz to blend a broad range of styles, making her one of the most compelling young composers and players in today’s West Coast jazz scene. Nicole has shared the stage with musicians such as George Colligan, Peter Erskine, Chuck Israels, Terri Lyne Carrington, Patrice Rushen, Bob Shepard, Jacob Mann, and Doug Webb.
A quartet leader, a music educator, a regular collaborator in George Colligan’s Theoretical Planets, and a member of many groups, Nicole quickly established herself as a freelance saxophonists in Portland while studying at Portland State University’s Jazz Studies program. Nicole’s uninhibited dynamism and ear-turning musical prowess have already earned her the attentive audience she deserves throughout the Portland music community and beyond.
Myra Melford
Throughout her life in music, the pianist and keyboardist Myra Melford has pursued a creative vision that is both wholly distinctive and all-embracing. Composition and improvisation interact seamlessly and ingeniously in her work, one side strengthening the other. Guided by that same compelling spirit, divergent idioms and eras coalesce—from jazz, blues and global folk styles to various corners of the classical tradition and the avant-garde. Extramusical influences—for instance, the poetry of Rumi or the spirituality of Indian meditation, yoga and the Huichol Indians of Mexico—have also figured into the mix. In the end, Melford’s efforts are probably best served by labels like “contemporary music,” “new music” and other tags that signify artistic freedom and daring more than any boundaries of genre.