Cross Currents in Improvisation: Part IV March 21, 2010

Sunday March 21
Dana Reason, Tim DuRoche, Reed Wallsmith, André St. James

Dana currently teaches at Oregon State University and is the Founder and Director of the Between the Cracks: A Forum for Music, Arts, Science and Ideas, a cross-disciplinary initiative designed to foster a new community centered in creative, critical and cross-cultural exchange. She’s worked an extensive array of some of contemporary music’s finest innovators.

Tim DuRoche is a composer, jazz musician and artist who’s worked with an extensive array of US and European avant-garde jazz greats (including Frank Gratkowski, Perry Robinson, Toshi Makihara, Lisle Ellis and Paul Plimley) as well as with Beijing Opera musicians, Russian circus clowns, auctioneers, blues legends, performance poets, and as a composer of live soundtracks for classic silent film.

Bassist Andre St. James is a cornerstone of the rich, thriving Pacific Northwest jazz scene and works regularly with his own quintet, the Andre St. James/Roger Woods nonet, Mel Brown, Dan Balmer, Gordon Lee, Renato Caranto, Sandy Dennison, and Carlton Jackson among others. St. James' strong sense of lyricism, buoyancy and surging momentum, as well as a deep respect for both tradition and innovation, have taken him to both ends of the jazz spectrum-from torch songs and two-beat to bop and beyond.

Alto saxophonist and composer Reed Wallsmith was born in Portland, Oregon. He leads the group Blue Cranes and plays in the free jazz group Better Homes and Gardens, the trio Future X, and various other mish mashes. In 2007 he was the recipient of the Caldera residency for music composition and participated in the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music

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Improvisation nurtures “Village Practice” at TaborSpace:
Improvised music is the ultimate democratic art form. It has at its heart a strong Commons, a public square, that encourages group collaboration, co-authorship. The word “public” means the same thing as to “build a city” in the Greek and more literally means to “bring together people who need each other, yet worship different household gods.”

By bringing together a broad mix of artists of different backgrounds, this series highlights the universal language of collaboration and connection that improvisation nurtures. This is an art-form that not only sows the seeds of community, but stewards global citizenship in the process.

Official Website: http://taborspace.org