Studio Grand
3234 Grand Ave, Oakland
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The Steve Adams/Lisa Mezzacappa Duo started after they had shared many bandstands so they could further explore the special rapport they share. Both have contributed pieces to the repertoire, as well as bringing their distinctive improvisational flair to it. They've performed in San Francisco at the Offside Festival and the Red Poppy Art House, and in Sacramento at the Luna Cafe.

Steve Adams is active both as a composer and a performer on saxophones, flutes and electronics. Steve is best known as a member of the Rova Saxophone Quartet, with whom he has played for over twenty five years and released more than twenty five recordings. Rova has been called "one of the most daring ensembles of any instrumentation to emerge in recent years" by Downbeat magazine. He has performed with Anthony Braxton, Sam Rivers, Dave Holland, Roscoe Mitchell, John Zorn, Steve Lacy, Fred Frith, Tin Hat Trio, and Ted Nugent, as well as many other jazz, rock, dance and theater groups. Steve has appeared on more than fifty recordings, and has five recordings as leader or co-leader on the 9 Winds and Clean Feed labels. His piece Cage (for John Cage) was performed at the 1993 Bang on a Can festival, and his piece The Gene Pool was commissioned in 1993 by Meet the Composer and performed at their festival “The Works” in Minneapolis in 2002. He received a California Arts Council Fellowship in 2000, and teaches at Mills College.

Lisa Mezzacappa is a San Francisco Bay Area-based bassist, composer, and musical instigator. An active collaborator and curator in the Bay Area music community, she leads her own groups Bait & Switch, Nightshade, the Lisa Mezzacappa Trio and the Tangle Trio, and co-leads the ensembles duo B., Cylinder, the Mezzacappa-Phillips Duo, and the Caribbean folk band Les Gwan Jupons. Lisa has released her music on the Clean Feed, NoBusiness, Leo, NotTwo, Evander, Odd Shaped Case and Edgetone record labels, and has recorded as a sideperson for the Tzadik, Kadima and Porto Franco labels. She collaborates frequently on cross-disciplinary projects in sound installation, film/video, sculpture and public music/art.



Cabbages, Captain, & King was spawned in 2013 when these three musicians got together for a casual jam session. Originally, they played music by Carla Bley and other free jazz composers, but quickly shifted to originals as Wallace wanted to write compositions that specifically dealt with this unique instrumentation. The music contains influences from free jazz, post-bop jazz, modern classical music, and noise rock; it shifts sharply from cohesive ensemble playing to totally free improvisation. Many of the open sections contain elements of structure - although often opaque - that transport the players from point A to point B in the compositions. The compositions themselves cover a large territory in musical language and structure, allowing for a diverse playing field suited for each musician to contribute inimitably. For this performance they will be selecting material from their first album to be released later in 2014 and adding some new compositions into the mix as well.

Eli Wallace graduated from New England Conservatory in 2011 where he studied with Jerry Bergonzi and Jason Moran. Thereafter, he emerged as an active player in the Bay Area music community leading his own solo piano project and playing in numerous other groups that include Karl Evangelista’s Ai-Ai, Bill Noertker’s Moxie, Virtual Assembly, Inner Ear Brigade, and many others. As a composer he’s received commissions to write music for solo piano, large jazz ensemble, and studio orchestra. Recently he performed a commissioned work at Jazz at Lincoln Center with dancer/choreographer Randee Paufve.

Jon Arkin also relocated to the Bay Area after graduating from University of Miami in 1998. Since then he has led his own projects and collaborated with a who’s who list of local, national, and international artists that include Taylor Eigsti, Dayna Stephens, and Julian Lage to name a just a few. His drumming style has been sought out as much for his versatility as for his uniqueness, and his ability to to suit the music of the moment. His list of recording credits includes dozens of albums and guest appearances in a wide variety of genres. He is also known for his pedagogical contribution, and is a faculty member of the Stanford Jazz Workshop, and the Jazzschool in Berkeley.

Karl Evangelista, Filipino-American guitarist/composer, ranks among a new wave of creative musicians grounded in jazz, 20th century experimentalism, and popular song, exploring the place of multiculturalism and ethnic co-existence in an increasingly post-cultural, trans-idiomatic cultural space. As the creative force behind boundary breaking group Grex, Evangelista has been called "one of the most original instrumentalists and composers of his generation" (Signal to Noise Magazine). He’s collaborated with a remarkable number of musicians in the Bay Area that include Phillip Greenlief and Francis Wong and incessantly promotes new music.

Photo: http://www.peterbkaars.com/

Cost: $10

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