Fred Frith/
Darren Johnston CD Release Concert, + The Holly Martins
This is a special CD release concert in celebration of a brand new duo release, "Everybody's Somebody's Nobody" by
Fred Frith and
Darren Johnston on the Clean Feed label.
Fred FrithThough the point of reference for many remains the iconic band Henry Cow, which he co-founded in 1968 and which broke up more than 30 years ago,
Fred Frith has never really stood still for an instant.
In bands such as Art Bears, Massacre, Skeleton Crew, Keep the Dog, Tense Serenity, the
Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, Eye to Ear, and most recently Cosa Brava, he has always held true to his roots in rock and folk music, while exploring influences that range from the literary works of Eduardo Galeano to the art installations of Cornelia Parker.
Darren JohnstonSince settling in San Francisco in 1997, Canada-born trumpeter/composer/songwriter
Darren Johnston has collaborated and recorded with an extremely diverse cross-section of artists. His interests rotate around composing instrumental music, writing songs, and performing all styles of jazz, experimental and purely improvised music, as well as traditional music of the Balkans, Greece, Macedonia, Turkey, and the Arab world. These interests have coalesced into his primary ensemble of late,
Darren Johnston’s Broken Shadows.
Fred Frith, electric/prepared guitar
Darren Johnston, trumpet
The Holly Martins
Named after the main character in the classic postwar film, The Third Man, The Holly Martins is a trio of Bay Area musicians dedicated to exploring the boundaries of jazz-infused improvised music, but without the trappings of a traditional "rhythm section". This configuration (guitar, sax, voice), requires each individual to simultaneously take on multiple roles typically assigned individual players (soloist versus accompanist), thereby promoting more open-ended explorations of the material. As to said material, The Holly Martins often construct mutations of normal jazz standards, transformed from their more familiar forms in the time domain. Likewise, their original compositions are often "jazz-like", but with twists and turns such as asymmetric harmonic rhythms, cycling rhythmic and pitch patterns, etc.
Kasey Knudsen, alto sax
Lorin Benedict, voice
Eric Vogler, guitar
DOORS AT 9:30PM, SHOW AT 10:00PM