MILK & JADE by Dana Leong and Universes October 15, 2008

A Night of Jazz, Hip-Hop and Poetry
featuring..
MILK & JADE by Dana Leong
and UNIVERSES
The Players Theatre
Wednesday, Oct. 15th at 8pm
Tickets $20
by phone: 212-352-3101
or online at https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/66792

MILK & JADE by Dana Leong, featuring Dana Leong (cello/trombone/laptop), Aviv Cohen (drums), Adam Platt (keyboards), and Core Rhythm (MC/rap vocals), has an incredible musical chemistry that combines live grooves, electronically charged tracks, rhyme and reason. Bandleader Leong uses a laptop both onstage and in the studio to create soundscapes of electronic beats and to manipulate the sound of instruments through real time processing. The result is a unique fusion of computerized instrumental hip-hop funk rhythms and rock propulsions.
In 2007, the band was selected for The Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad Program, produced in conjunction with Jazz at Lincoln Center and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Designed to foster cultural exchange in areas with limited access to American music and culture, the band completed its tour of eight South East Asian countries, culminating in a home coming concert at New York City’s Dizzy’s Coca-Cola Club in April 2008.
The New York Magazine praised the recent performance by the band at BAMcafé as “hands down excellent,” describing its diverse crowd the band got moving as “a mix of gray curls, flowing caftans, dapper Fonzworth Bentley–style suits, and quite a few zip hoodies.” A popular addition to the festival and college music circuit, MILK & JADE by Dana Leong has recently performed at The Rochester Summer Arts Festival, Huntington Arts Festival, UCLA, The Knitting Factory Main Space, Franklin & Marshall College, and The Grosvenor Auditorium at National Geographic Society in Washington, DC, and has appeared on WNYC, MNN TV among others. During the 08-09 season, the group will appear at The Duke Ellington Jazz Festival and tour Serbia, Sweden, Italy, Germany and Finland.
Also a Jazz at Lincoln Center Rhythm Road alumni, UNIVERSES is a National/International ensemble Company of multi-disciplined writers and performers who fuse Poetry, Theater, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Politics, Down Home Blues and Spanish Boleros to create moving, challenging and entertaining theatrical works. The group breaks the bounds of traditional theater to create their own brand, inviting old and new generations of theater crafters as well as the theater goers and new comers to reshape the face of American Theater. www.universesonstage.com

Official Website: http://www.danaleong.com