Wednesday July 6 * 7pm * MASKS, VAX REQUIRED * TICKETS
Little Bigby is the duo project of New Orleans-based saxophonist and clarinetist Byron Asher and drummer Brad Webb. Born out of a many years-long relationship of performing and recording together in each other’s projects as well as a 4-year long stint as next door neighbors in New Orleans’ 7th ward (resulting in countless listening sessions and wanders to the coffeeshop), Little Bigby explores their friendship through composition and free improvisation augmented by synthesizers, live electronics and loops and heavily indebted to the legendary tenor saxophone and drum duos of the 60s and beyond.
Little Bigby "radiates with joy." - Offbeat Magazine
Byron Asher is a clarinetist and saxophonist and composer based in New Orleans. His practice is dedicated to exploring new sounds across genre, and he is committed to building community through assembling and participating in ensembles that bring together musicians from a diversity of training and aesthetic backgrounds. Raised in Maryland, he has performed across Europe and the US at major festivals and art centers including the Kennedy Center in Washington DC and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival as well as at dive bars and DIY spaces. As a composer, Byron’s work has been supported by MacDowell, South Arts, and A Studio In The Woods (New Orleans), among others. He leads Skrontch Music, an experimental large ensemble, and basher, a “free jazz party band,” and is an equal collaborator in Flaxan, a brass and woodwind chamber quartet, among many other projects. Also an educator, Byron is adjunct faculty in the music department at the University of New Orleans.
Brad Webb is a drummer based in New Orleans and is one of the most in demand musicians on the creative improvised music scene in that city. He is a co-leader of piano trio Extended, whose most recent Origin Records release made Offbeat Magazine's best of 2019 list. He has also released two albums as a leader with quartet Brad Webb Making Faces, and he has recorded and/or performed with a wide range of South Louisiana's top musical acts, including Terrance Simeon, Bon Bon Vivant and bassist James Singleton. A native of Lafayette, LA, Brad was raised equally digesting a strong classical percussion foundation and gigging on the very active local scene in the epicenter of Cajun and Zydeco music. He began improvising in high school and moved to New Orleans in 2011 after completing a degree in percussion performance from Boston Conservatory.
www.byronasher.com/little-bigby
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Washington DC-based ¡FIASCO! began as a collaboration between saxophonist Andrew Frankhouse and guitarist Nelson Dougherty in 2016. The group was first assembled in quintet format with a two-tenor front line, to perform a pair of concerts honoring Paul Motian at the historic Twins Jazz Club in Washington. After an enthusiastically received initial run, the group expanded its repertoire inspired by a variety of sounds including droning folk songs, jittery hip-hop grooves, grunge rock, and a variety of electronic and synthesized sounds.
‘Arson’, the group’s first studio recording, was named the top DC jazz record of 2020 by CapitolBop. Its release and reception culminated in the group's performance at the 2020 DC Jazz Festival. The equally sonically ambitious 'Post-Truth' was released in early 2021. Each encompasses a broad range of stylistic and tonal colors, equal parts contemplative and aggressive, searching and searing. Together these recordings represent nearly five years of distillation and focus of the group's musical vision, and construct a musical frame around the tragedy and absurdity of the year 2020.
Guitarist Nelson Dougherty, who pens most of the compositions, demonstrates a mastery of the guitar itself as a vertical, textural phenomenon, as well as the possibilities presented by electronics and effects. His prowess here rewards repeated listening for hidden nuances and layers, and the overlap of lead and accompaniment.
Saxophonist Andrew Frankhouse provides the lead voice for the group, with a sound focused and penetrating, warm and sensitive, and sometimes screaming and breaking up. Augmenting his tenor with electronics allows him to play a textural role unusual for a horn, often layering further upon Dougherty’s guitar, leaving the listener wondering which sounds come from whom.
Stephen Arnold’s electric bass provides a rock and roll urgency, with a keen ear for groove. Not satisfied to simply play a role, Arnold’s sound and articulation fit the needs of each composition, sometimes deep and woody, others with a punk rock distortion, pick attack, and attitude.
Drummer Keith Butler provides a breath and life to the music, attentive to the spirit the moment, patient where necessary but never afraid to play the role of bomb-thrower. He is equally adept at generating a flurry of activity without overplaying and knowing when the moment requires a single note, or nothing at all.
Drawing upon and subverting many sources and traditions, ¡FIASCO! explores a wide spectrum of sound, and their musicianship and range demands the audience and the band to keep their ears open, through near-silences and plaintive moments, and the screams, crashes, swirling delays, and dizzying obfuscations.