Evento

Merrimans' Playhouse Jazz Performance Series presents Steven Lugerner Quartet

Steven Lugerner, multi-reedist, will be joined by pianist Myra Melford (who recently was the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship & the Doris Duke Artist award), trumpeter Russ Johnson & drum-extraordinaire Michael Sarin on the drum kit.

Multi-instrumentalist /Composer, Steven Lugerner maintains an active bi-costal schedule between San Francisco & New York City. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Steven Lugerner is the product of a multicultural, artistically nurturing family. In his youth, Lugerner performed on clarinet, oboe & saxophone with college orchestras & professional pit orchestras while simultaneously organizing and performing local jazz performances. In 2006, Lugerner moved to New York City to attend The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music where he graduated with honors four years later. Since relocating to Brooklyn, NY in 2010, Lugerner has maintained an active schedule recording & performing throughout the country with ensembles under his own name as well as being a touring member of experimental-pop group In One Wind, jazz-trio-collective CHIVES & post-core quartet killerBOB.

As a band leader, Lugerner has released multiple albums to critical acclaim - Narratives (2010) These Are The Words (2010) & Live at The Bunker (2012). In 2013, Lugerner will begin performing his Gematria-based music as solo act in addition to usual performances with his quartet. The solo act will consist largely of pre-recorded stems from the original For We Have Heard sessions plus other sessions Lugerner has been a part of over the past three years of living in New York City.

Brooklyn based trumpeter Russ Johnson is an active performer in the jazz, improvised, and contemporary classical music scenes throughout the U.S. and abroad. In addition to leading his own groups, and co-leading The Other Quartet and New Math, Russ is currently touring as a member of Lee Konitz' new nonet and the Steve Swallow/Ohad Talmor "L'Histoire du Clochard" sextet, and has toured with the Michael Musillami Trio. In addition, Russ has performed with a long list of musical heavyweights including; Kenny Wheeler, Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano, Richie Beirach, Mark Ribot, Charles Earland, David Liebman, Joe Maneri, The Jazz Passengers, Oliver Lake, Myra Melford, Anthony Davis, Mick Rossi, Elvis Costello, Debbie Harry, Michael Bublé, Curtis Fowlkes, Roy Nathanson, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Brian Blade, Dick Oatts, Aretha Franklin, Tony Malaby, Jenny Scheinman, and Mat Maneri.

Russ is also active as an educator/clinician, having taught at colleges and universities across the U.S. and in Europe. He is currently teaching at The Center for Preparatory Studies in Music (CPSM) at Queens College, and is a member of the faculty at the Maine Jazz Camp.

Over the course of a career spanning more than two decades, Myra Melford, pianist, has crafted a singular sound world that harmonizes the intricate and the expressive, the meditative and the assertive, the cerebral and the playful. Drawing inspiration from a vast spectrum of cultural and spiritual traditions and artistic disciplines, she has found a "spark of recognition" in sources as diverse as the writings of the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi and the Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano; the wisdom of Zen Buddhism and the Huichol Indians of Mexico; and the music of mentors like Jaki Byard, Don Pullen, and Henry Threadgill.

Melford moved to the east coast in 1982 and began performing in New York City's thriving Downtown scene, making her recorded debut as a leader in 1990; she has since released more than twenty albums as a leader or co-leader and appeared on more than 40 releases as a side-person. In 2000, she spent a year in North India on a Fulbright scholarship, immersing herself in the region's classical, devotional, and folk music. Melford relocated to the west coast in 2004, joining the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley as an associate professor of contemporary improvised music. There, she engages students in the theory and practice of improvisation, employing diverse creative strategies.

Her work has earned Melford some of the highest accolades in her field. In 2013 alone, she was named a Guggenheim Fellow and received the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's Performing Artist Award and a Doris Duke Residency to Build Demand for the Arts for her efforts to re-imagine the jazz program at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. She was also the winner of the 2012 Alpert Award in the Arts for Music. She has been honored numerous times in DownBeat's Critics Poll since 1991 and was nominated by the Jazz Journalists Association as Pianist of the Year in 2008 and 2009 and Composer of the Year in 2004.

Over the past twenty years, Michael Sarin has been at the center of New York genre-bending jazz and improvisation community. His versatility and musical wit helped forge long associations with forward-looking artists Thomas Chapin, Dave Douglas, Myra Melford, Ben Allison, and David Krakauer.

Since moving to New York in 1989, Michael's unique style and approach to the drum set has been highly sought after by NYC and European musicians looking to expand the definitions of jazz and improvised music. He has contributed to recordings by the aforementioned artists as well as those of Frank Carlberg, Anthony Coleman, Mark Dresser, Marty Ehrilch, Mark Helias, Denman Maroney, Simon Nabatov, Mario Pavone, and Ned Rothenberg - recordings found on numerous music critics Top Ten CD year-end lists.

Michael performs all over the world in major and minor festivals, concert halls, famous and infamous, big and small. He can be heard on recent recrdings of Ben Allison, Frank Carlberg, Erik Friedlander, and David Krakauer.