Wacky LA Big Band to Perform at Chris' Jazz Cafe January 10, 2007

Los Angeles, December 2006 – The Industrial Jazz Group (IJG), an adventurous LA-based acoustic jazz ensemble featuring the music of composer / pianist Andrew Durkin, will perform in Philadelphia, PA, on Wednesday, January 10 (8 PM), at Chris’ Jazz Café. This show -- a double bill with the popular local group, the Hoppin’ John Orchestra -- will help celebrate the recent release of the group’s fourth studio album, Industrial Jazz a Go Go! (Evander, 2006).

Go Go! has solidified the IJG’s reputation for slightly askew, genre-bending jazz: what Durkin has come to call “avant garde party music.” Scott Yanow of LA Jazz Scene, who compares the IJG to the Willem Breuker Kollektief, enthusiastically labels the work “both a crack up and a memorable musical experience.” It is, in other words, a record with broad appeal. Jazz fans will appreciate what Brian Morton at The Wire calls Durkin’s “machine-tooled modern jazz compositions of exquisite precision and strong aesthetic appeal”; but as Tom Bowden of Educational Digest explains, “Durkin [also] writes music that people who think they hate jazz would like.” The IJG’s quirky sonic stew was once described by Brandt Reiter of the LA Weekly as both “cerebral and swinging, ambitious and accessible, challengingly complex and unabashedly fun.”

Featuring up to eighteen performers (reeds, brass, rhythm, vocals, dancers, poets) at a time, the IJG has been a persistent force in Los Angeles for six years now, and during that period it has also performed throughout California (San Diego, Bakersfield, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Truckee, and Petaluma), as well as in Nevada, Texas, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. It has received numerous grants from the American Composers Forum, has been supported by the NEA and the McKnight Foundation, and has been heard on NPR and hundreds of radio stations around the world. Write-ups on the group have appeared in LA Weekly, SF Weekly, The Wire, The North Bay Bohemian, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Boston Herald, The New York Times, and numerous other publications.

Chris’ Jazz Café, located at 1421 Sansom Street, is one of Philadelphia’s leading jazz clubs.

More information on the venue: www.chrisjazzcafe.com.

More information on the Industrial Jazz Group: www.uglyrug.com.

More information on the Hoppin’ John Orchestra: www.hoppinjohn.net.

Showtime is 8 PM, and tickets are $8 ($5 for students). All ages are welcome.

Official Website: http://www.myspace.com/industrialjazzgroup