Date/Time
Date(s) - 10/01/2016
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Location
Clausen Hall, Los Angeles City College
Category(ies)
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“An end of summer fixture since it’s debut … the Angel City Jazz Festival has drawn top tier talent from figures across the jazz vanguard.”
— LA Times
Vinny Golia Quartet
- Vinny Golia — woodwinds
- Steve Adams — alto saxophone
- Matt Small — bass
- John Hanes — drums
Although the words “most” and “best” rarely coincide, Vinny Golia marks a notable exception. He plays the most woodwinds (more than two dozen). He writes the most individualistic compositions. His Large Ensembles encompass the most improvising musicians (often more than 50). And for some 40 years, Golia has been not only the most influential avant-garde musician in Los Angeles, but by any measure among the best.
Golia arrived in Los Angeles in the 1970s as a painter, but soon steered his abstractionist talents in the direction of music, for which he possessed little training at the time. Noticing the strength and expressive skill of such local lights as Horace Tapscott, John Carter and Bobby Bradford, Golia enlisted in the nontraditional jazz movement and began a long association with Bradford, also forming alliances with like-minded West Coast players such as Nels Cline, Alex Cline, Michael Vlatkovich and Rob Blakeslee, and eventually with national progressive figures such as Wadada Leo Smith, Oliver Lake and Anthony Braxton.
In 1980, Golia launched his own Nine Winds Records to expose many of his favorite musicians as well as his own units, which have included duos, quintets, inventive like-instrument arrays and explosive large groups. He has performed all over the world. His bandleading experience, as well as his burgeoning technical knowledge, led naturally to work as an educator, most recently as CalArts, where he has served as mentor to working musicians such as Daniel Rosenboom, Gavin Templeton, Alexander Noice and Jeff Schwartz.
Golia’s immediately identifiable composing methods incorporate unusual melodic intervals, irregular rhythms and modern harmonies, almost always with plenty of room for improvisation. Although the novelty and difficulty of his music makes for a challenge, all his players report enormous growth thanks to exposure to him.
In tonight’s quartet, Golia’s front-line foil is Bay Area alto saxist Steve Adams (of ROVA Saxophone Quartet among others), who has shared stages and recording sessions with him for decades. Bassist Matt Small and drummer John Hanes also hail from San Francisco, where they have logged many hours with Adams.
- Ingrid Laubrock — soprano/tenor saxophone
- Tom Rainey — drums
Saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and drummer Tom Rainey are celebrating the release of their second duo recording ‘Buoyancy’ (Relative Pitch Records) by touring the West Coast. The duo’s music draws on the several years and many projects they have shared since they began working together. Their experiences of playing original compositions, free improvisations and even standard songs inform this intimate setting of improvised duets.
Originally from Germany, Ingrid Laubrock lived in London/UK from 1989 till 2008 and is now residing in Brooklyn. She leads a host of her own projects including Anti-House, Ubatuba and Ingrid Laubrock Sextet.She performed and recorded with: Anthony Braxton, Dave Douglas, Kenny Wheeler, Jason Moran, Tim Berne, Craig Taborn, Hamid Drake, Miya Masaoka, Mary Halvorson, Kris Davis, Tyshawn Sorey, Evan Parker, Luc Ex, Django Bates, The Continuum Ensemble and others. As part of the F-ire Collective, she won the BBC Jazz Award for Innovation and she was the recipient of the ‘Fellowship in Jazz Composition’ by the Arts Foundation in 2006. Ingrid won the 2009 SWR German Radio Jazz Prize and was one of the fink nominees for the Doris Duke Impact Award 2015.
She is also a prolific composer who has written for her own groups as well as for classical orchestra. Her orchestral piece ‘Vogelfrei’ has been performed by the American Composers Orchestra and the Tricentric Orchestra in 2012.
Tom Rainey was born in Pasadena, California in 1957. Since moving to New York in 1979 he has performed and or recorded with the following artists amongst others: John Abercrombie, Mose Allison, Ray Anderson, Tim Berne, Jane Ira Bloom, Anthony Braxton, Nels Cline, Ted Curson, Kris Davis, Mark Ducret, Mark Feldman, Michael Formanek, Drew Gress, Mark Helias, Fred Hersch, David Liebman, Joe Lovano, Tony Malaby, Albert Mangelsdorff, Carmen McRae, Mike Nock, Simon Nabatov, Anita O’Day, Andrea Parkins, Angelica Sanchez, Louis Sclavis, and Kenny Werner.
Current activities include performing and recording music with the Tom Rainey Trio as well as his quintet Obbligato.
The Angel City Jazz Festival – LA’s only non-commercial jazz and new music festival – was founded in 2008 by music promoter Rocco Somazzi. From 2009, Cryptogramophone’s founder Jeff Gauthier became a festival coproducer and the festival moved to the Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood. Since then the festival has grown into an essential multi day celebration of cutting edge Jazz at some of the most exciting & prestigious venues in LA, such as LACMA, REDCAT, Zipper Hall, the Blue Whale, the Moss Theatre and The Edye by the Broad Stage.
The 2016 festival is presented by Angel CIty Arts, a non-profit organization committed to cultivating and revitalizing jazz culture in Los Angeles by producing concerts by established and emerging music innovators who have achieved exceptionally high levels of musicianship and brought forward a significant contribution to the evolution of jazz and improvised music.
The Angel City Jazz Festival consistently features the most innovative and original national and international jazz musicians working today, balancing established jazz artists with emerging talent, and focusing on west coast creative jazz, past, present and future.