Grex: A Retrospective (part of
Robert Lopez Residency at TAC)
An intimate evening with Bay Area art rock/post-jazz trio Grex, featuring the group's first and only full duo set in several years, plus the debut of several new duo and trio pieces. Expect a mix of rarely heard originals (including the three part "Suite: Extinction") and bizarre reworkings of pieces by Tim Smith, Mongezi Feza, and Don Cherry.
Set #1: Duo (
Karl Evangelista/Rei Scampavia)
Set #2: Trio (Evangelista/Scampavia +
Robert Lopez)
Bio:
Grex is an Oakland, California-based art rock/post-jazz trio composed of
Karl Evangelista (guitar/vocals), Rei Scampavia (keys/vocals), and
Robert Lopez (drums). In biological terms, a “grex” is an entity composed of several smaller organisms. Grex (the band) was formed as a way to explore the meeting point between popular song and experimental jazz, creating a new music that both epitomizes its influences and moves in fresh, staggeringly new directions.
The band has been called “completely original” (Eugene Weekly), a "near- seamless blend of modern jazz, indie rock, and blues rock" (Tiny Mix Tapes). The band's fun, endlessly surprising sound has drawn comparisons to English avant rock (Robert Wyatt, The Cardiacs), free jazz (Ornette Coleman, Sonny Sharrock), and noise rock (Sonic Youth, The Velvet Underground).
Grex has worked with numerous leaders in modern music, sharing bills with Fred Frith (Cosa Brava), Kronos Quartet, Tony Levin (King Crimson), Zeena Parkins, Hafez Modirzadeh, Ben Goldberg, Jon Jang, and Vinny Golia, and studying under veteran improvisers Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, William Winant, and Myra Melford. The band has performed on stages as diverse as the Great American Music Hall (San Francisco, CA), the Switchboard Festival (SF), the United States of Asian America Festival (SF), the Sonic Circuits Festival (Washington, DC), Fire Museum Presents (Philadelphia, PA), and Spectrum (New York, NY).