The Skerries Sextet has emerged from two bands: the 17-piece Bill Horvitz Expanded Band and The Skerries, a trio. The Skerries Sextet has included the trio of Bill along with Scott Walton on bass along with Tom Hayashi and now Zach Morris on drums. The other three members are part of the Expanded Band:
Steve Adams on saxophones and flute,
Cory Wright on saxophones, clarinet, and flute, and Hal Forman on trumpet and Flugelhorn. Bill says: “In 2006, I started the Expanded Band and composed a suite of pieces for my late brother, Philip. Since then that band has performed in the SF Bay Area and in NYC and released a critically acclaimed recording, The Long Walk (2013). In early 2011, I began The Skerries with Scott and Tom and performed with them for four years. Our recording, The Catch, is coming out in the latter part of 2016. The sextet gives me an opportunity to create pieces for a larger group with more possibilities for harmonies, colors, solos, and just plain fun! The music I write includes tightly arranged material along with improvising by soloists, duos, trios, and at times larger groups. All of these players have been performing and recording for decades and are superb musicians and improvisers. As we’ve been playing together, there has been an immediate communication and understanding among us, creating a potent chemistry that makes for marvelous listening!”
BIOS:
Bill Horvitz has been composing, performing, collaborating, and recording in a wide range of styles for nearly 40 years. He has composed works for solo guitar and ensembles ranging in size from duo to big band. His long and varied experience has resulted in an entirely original compositional voice, one that is forceful and innovative, yet always intelligently accessible. His music has been described as “meditative, sizzling, earthy, funky, joyous, brooding, gorgeous, serene, and kinetically charged.” Between 1978 and 1988, he lived and worked in New York City, where he extended the sonic range of the guitar and worked in numerous bands. He has performed and recorded with a wide range of musicians, notably Butch Morris, J.A. Deane, Joseph Sabella,
Steve Adams, Elliott Sharp, John Zorn, Jon Raskin, Bobby Previte, Shelley Hirsch, Denman Maroney, Herb Robertson, Sara Schoenbeck, Harris Eisenstadt, Alex Cline, Richard Dworkin, David Hofstra, George Cartwright, Phillip Johnston, Vincent Chancey, Jason Hwang, Ken Filiano, Marcus Rojas, Marty Ehrlich, Wayne Horvitz, Robin Holcomb, Myra Melford, Dave Sewelson, and Walter Thompson.
Horvitz currently also leads the trio, The Skerries, with Scott Walton, bass and Zach Morris, drums. Since 2004, he has sung and played guitar, banjo, and ukulele with TONE BENT, a duo with his wife, composer, musician, and singer Robin Eschner. Their CD, Say What You Will, has been described as “a roaring ride through the heartland of human experience.” In 2013, they released their second CD, Angels In the Kitchen. He is also a part of the 9-member band Take Jack, and with Take Jack was recently part of Robin Eschner’s Crazy Cold Beautiful. In addition, Horvitz has composed music for theater, film, spoken word, and art installation.
Steve Adams plays saxophones, flutes, and electronics and composes music in Oakland, CA. He’s best known as a member of the ROVA Sax Quartet, with whom he’s been for over twenty five years. Steve is also a member of the Bill Horvitz Expanded Band, the Hanes/Adams electronic duo, the Matt Small Ensemble, and the Vinny Golia Large Ensemble, as well as leading his own projects including a duo with bassist Scott Walton. He lived in Boston in the 70s and 80s, where he was a member of Your Neighborhood Saxophone Quartet, Birdsongs of the Mesozoic and Composers in Red Sneakers, among others. Steve received a California Arts Council Fellowship in 2000 and teaches at Mills College.
Reeds player
Cory Wright, educated at Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Southern California, has been involved in both the jazz and creative music worlds for the past 20 years, including time spent in New York, Los Angeles and his current home in the San Francisco bay area. His recent projects reflect his interest in blurring the distinction between composed and improvised material and in combining the harmonious with the atonal, and groove with the arrhythmic. Cory has played in ensembles lead by Anthony Braxton, Vinny Golia, Eddie Gale, Adam Rudolph and Yusef Lateef. He is currently a member of bay area groups Bristle, Wiener Kids, and the Nathan Clevenger Group, as well as leading his own projects Green Mitchell and the
Cory Wright Outfit.
Hal Forman
Hal Forman has been playing the trumpet for over 40 years, having begun studying at age 10. Although he is classically trained, his leanings from an early age were in the direction of jazz and popular music, having grown up with a father with a great passion for jazz, and a huge collection of jazz records. He has performed in a wide range of styles over the years, from rock to straight-ahead jazz to Afro-Cuban and Brazilian jazz to the avant-garde. He has performed with a diversity of artists, ranging from the Temptations to Cecil Taylor. In addition to his music, Hal also works as a psychotherapist, and has a private practice in Sebastopol, CA.
Scott Walton is a bassist and pianist whose music negotiates the terrain between jazz, free improvisation, and the classical avant-garde. He has performed in festivals and venues throughout North America and Europe with groups he co-leads, and in a host of collaborative contexts, and has recorded with Alex Cline, Vinny Golia, Bill Horvitz, Myra Melford,
Steve Adams, Nels Cline, Tim Perkis, Jeff Gauthier, Michael Vllatkovich, George Lewis, Anthony Davis, and Bobby Bradford, among many others.
Drummer Zachary Morris grew up in Northern California along the pacific coast and in the mountains. He fell in love with drumming at an early age and used to practice in an attic above his garage when not skateboarding or getting into general mischief. Some of his early influences and inspiration for music include Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, Black Sabbath and Johnny Cash. Soon Zachary began picking up tapes and records from record shops when venturing into Santa Rosa and soon discovered hip-hop, rock and roll, heavy metal, classical, jazz, world, electronic, funk, and avant-garde music. Zachary has performed countless times during his 20 plus years as a working drummer and percussionist. Some notable concerts include “A Tribute to Sun Ra” with trumpeter and ambassador of Jazz from San Jose California, Eddie Gale, and opening for Run-DMC, The Black Eyed Peas and Hieroglyphics at the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma Ca. Zachary attended California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles from 2004-2006 and received his BFA in Jazz Drums and Performance. At Cal Arts he studied with jazz giants Charlie Haden, Joe LaBarbera, Vinny Golia, Miroslav Tadic, Aron Serfaty and Wadada Leo Smith. Zachary also has studied Afro-Cuban percussion and world music as a catalyst for his style of playing the drum-set. His passion is in improvisation, composition and musical conversation with other musicians who strive to push boundaries in sonic explorations and craft.
Cost: $15 to $20 sliding scale