Sunday September 22 * 7pm * $10-25 * TICKETS

TRIPLE DIP
Samuel Blaser - trombone
Russ Lossing - piano
Billy Mintz - drums

Swiss trombonist and composer Samuel Blaser regularly returns to the structural principle experimented with in various orchestral formulas by the great Paul Motian, namely to dispense with the double bass, making this vacant space both the driving force and the paradoxical pivot for the elaboration of an authentically collective discourse. Accompanied by New York pianist Russ Lossing and drummer Billy Mintz, SB presents a series of themes based on this dynamic of emptiness, in a melodic, highly colorful music full of contrasts that links the abstract, lyrical chamber jazz of Jimmy Giuffre, with its sense of improvisation, and a harmonic vocabulary drawn from various sources of 20th-century art music, both European and American.

Cutting Ceremony is a new improvised music trio. The members are:

----- Pete Dennis (they/he), a musician, improviser, composer, visual artist, and teacher. Living in West Philadelphia, Dennis is inspired by their beautiful community and the future. Other ever present inspirations include William Parker, the works of Octavia E. Butler, their partner Abigail, and the knowledge that all vibrations carry the potential to transmit the truths of life and death. Dennis’s recorded creations are released using the project name Search for the Infinite Light and include but are not limited to: Killing a Dixie Hummingbird (2019), World’s End Welcoming Committee (2021), and pastē (2022). They believe that sound is the foundation of healing and would like to acknowledge all master improvisers of the past, present, and future;

----- Tracy Lisk (she/her), a percussionist who mainly performs on drum set, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Ms. Lisk’s history as a painter and background in Brazilian percussion inform the substance of her improvisations which contain references to rhythmic structures while maintaining a fluid, suspended continuity. She has collaborated with William Parker, saxophonist Gary Hassay, Andrea Pensado, dancer Ryuzo Fukuhara (JP, SI), and Mia Zabelka (AU), cellist Helena Espvall (PT), among others;

----- and Abe Mamet (he/him), a French horn player from Denver, Colorado and living in Mt. Rainier, MD. Abe's main artistic motive as a composer and instrumentalist is to use considered composition and rigorously practiced improvisation to more honestly ground himself, his fellow musicians, and his audiences within the spaces they occupy daily. Abe is further interested in expanding the use of the French horn in groove-oriented improvised music (aligned with and informed by jazz/creative music/BAM), and expanding the technical and theoretical limitations of that instrument.