Photogallery
Detail Performers
Chris Potter´s Underground
11.07.2009 Saturday 23:00 – 24:00 Stage Dodo Šošoka
Chris Potter (sax), Craig Taborn (klávesy), Adam Rogers (gitara), Nate Smith (bicie)
Chris Potter
Absolutely the best jazz musician, saxophone player Chris Potter was born in Chicago. Later, he moved to Columbia, South Carolina. When he was ten, he took the sax in hand for the first time. In his thirteen he had his very first performance. When he was eighteen years old, he moved to New York where he started studying at Manhattan School of Music. There he met his lifelong friend, professor Kenny Werner. After finishing the school, he has had some concerts with many top musicians such as Mingus Big Band, Paul Motion, Ray Brown, Jim Hall, James Moody, Dave Douglas, Mike Manieri… He has cooperated with Steely Dan formation and has taken the part on their Two Against Nature album tour (gold Grammy award nominee) as a co-performer in 1994. This tour was recorded on Alive in America CD. Potter himself was nominated Grammy award for the best instrumental jazz solo on Joanne Brackeen Pink Elephant Magic album. He has also been the youngest winner of Danish Jazzpar Prize award. Even if he played many performances as a member of great bass-player and composer Dave Holland formations, Potter has traveled all around the world with his own bands since the Gratitude album in 2001. He has performed in Europe (including Paris, London, Florence and the North Sea Festival, then Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver festivals) and also in many American top clubs and on Monterey festival. After finishing Steve Swallow Trio formation tour in December 2001, he recorded Traveling Mercies album and made a tour with his own quartet in February 2002. In March and April, he concerted with Holland and Dave Douglas bands and made another big tour with his band across the United States and Europe in the fall. He has established the Underground band, which goes in for improvisation and composition. With this band Potter is about to perform on Dodo Šošoka Festival. Even though Underground is young relatively, it belongs between the most wanted formations on today’s jazz scene. Their new Follow the Red Line record shows the band in its element during the famous Village Vanguard performance. It also resumes their previous record called Underground (Sunnyside 2006).
Craig Taborn
Jazz pianist and organist Craig Taborn began working professionally in the 1990s in a variety of musical contexts, ranging from more straight-ahead jazz to more outside music, with young jazz musicians, seasoned veterans, and even techno artists. In his hometown of Minneapolis, Taborn studied piano, composition, and music theory with area university professors before going away to college. Before he graduated from college, Taborn had already performed on three recordings as a member of the James Carter Quartet. After graduating with a liberal arts degree from the University of Michigan in 1995, DIW released Taborn's first date as a leader, The Craig Taborn Trio. He then moved to N.Y.C., and by the close of the '90s, he performed on two more Carter releases; Roscoe Mitchell's 1999 ECM release, Nine to Get Ready; Detroiter Carl Craig's techno-jazz project, Innerzone Orchestra; and on Hugh Ragin's Afternoon in Harlem. At the beginning of 2000, Taborn was active performing along with drummer Tom Rainey in Tim Berne's latest project, Quiksand. He has worked with many musicians including Chris Potter, Nate Smith, Gerald Cleaver, Lotte Anker, Drew Gress, James Carter, David Binney, Wayne Krantz, Adam Rogers, Tim Berne, members of The Bad Plus and also was in the Susie Ibarra Trio. He leads his own trio, as well.
Adam Rogers
Adam Rogers was born and raised in New York City. He studied jazz guitar with Barry Galbraith, Howard Collins and John Scofield. During his four years at the Mannes Conservatory of Music he studied Classical Guitar with Frederic Hand. Since the beginning of his professional career he has played on over Two Hundred commercially released recordings and toured extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, South America, The Middle East and Russia. Adam has been enthusiastically reviewed in the New York Times, Downbeat, Jazz Times, The Village Voice, Newsweek, Jazz Hot, The Chicago Sun Times and Tower Pulse Magazine among numerous other periodicals worldwide. For eleven years he co-led the innovative and critically acclaimed group Lost Tribe, which has toured nationally and internationally, releasing three albums. Adam has also been featured performing, touring and recording with artists such as Michael Brecker, Cassandra Wilson, Norah Jones, Walter Becker ( of Steely Dan ), Regina Carter, John Zorn, Randy Brecker, Laurie Anderson, The Mingus Orchestra, Terence Blanchard, Simon Shaheen, The Gil Evans Orchestra, John Pattitucci, Ravi Coltrane, Bill Evans, Lizz Wright, The Brecker Brothers, Jacky Terrasson, Kenny Barron, George Russell, Brian Blade, Eliane Elias, Alana Davis, David Krakauer, The Neptunes, Giora Feidman, Jack Mcduff, Larry Coryell, Chris Potter and Ronald Shannon Jackson among others, as well as playing music for the theater with The Great Lakes Theater Company, Joseph Papp's Public Theater and The Metropolitan Opera. In the summer of 1999 he was the featured soloist with the Dresden Symphony Orchestra performing John Mclaughlin's “Apocalypse”. He has also maintained a presence in the N.Y.C. studio world having played on the soundtracks of numerous films and television commercial jingles. Recently, Adam has been focusing more on recording and performing original music with his own groups. His debut CD on Criss Cross Records, “Art of the Invisible”, featuring Edward Simon-Piano, Scott Colley-bass and Clarence Penn-Drums, was released in 2002. The follow up, “Allegory”, in 2003, is with the same rhythm section plus Chris Potter on Saxophone. Featuring the group from “Allegory”, his third release, “Apparitions”, was released in April 2005. A new trio record, “Time and the Infinite” with Scott Colley and Bill Stewart was released in February of 2007.
Nate Smith
Born in Norfolk, Virginia, Nate's musical journey began at age eleven when, after watching his older brother play for years, he decided to seriously take up the drums. His earliest influences were rock and funk music, a diverse pool of artists like the Police, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Quincy Jones. The true breakthrough however, came when he heard the legendary Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers Album of The Year at the age of sixteen. After graduating high school in 1992, Nate decided to pursue his musical studies at James Madison University. In his third year, Nate's small group was chosen to play at the International Associiation of Jazz Educators conference in Atlanta, Georgia. It was there that he met the legendary jazz singer Betty Carter and was invited to be a part of her esteemed Jazz Ahead program which has produced a seminal who's who of jazz alumni that includes among others: Cyrus Chestnut, Jason Moran, Gregory Hutchinson, Andre Hayward and Jacky Terrason. Later that year, at the age of 20, Nate was on stage with Betty at the Blue Note club in New YorkCity. He was also featured with Carter on BET”s “Jazz Central” and CBS “Sunday Morning”. After college, Nate was offered a scholarship to pursue graduate studies as a part of Virginia Commonwealth University's “Carpenter Fellowship” program. It was there that he met legendary jazz bassist and composer Dave Holland. Over the next few years he occasionally performed with Dave, finally joining his quintet in September of 2003. In addition to being a fine drummer, Nate is an accomplished composer, songwriter and producer. He has composed scores for several broadcast documentaries for both “The Discovery Channel” and “The Learning Channel”.and has worked with such R&B and smooth jazz artists as Marcus Johnson, Moifah, Jareed Arosmana and Alyson Williams among many others. Nate's work can also be heard on the song “Heaven Can Wait” on the Michael Jackson CD “Invincible”. He has recently formed a production company, Water Baby Music, Inc.
www.drummerworld.com/drummers/natesmith
