Sat

10/2/2010

4:00pm

Curtis Hasselbring’s New Mellow Edwards

Edgefest

• $20 General Admission
• $10 Students (limited availability)

• Curtis Hasselbring, trombone/composer
• Chris Speed, saxophones
• Trevor Dunn, guitar/bass
• John Hollenbeck, drums

Event Details

The Mellow Edwards has existed since 1988 when Curtis Hasselbring persuaded John Dirac and Jerome Dupree to play with him at the Middle East Cafe in Cambridge MA. The group’s repertoire consisted of hardcore versions of Don Cherry and Henry Threadgill tunes as well as Dirac’s non-autobiographical opus “the Green Haircut." Fourteen years, over a dozen musicians and many pieces of music later, Curtis took a giant leap into the future and renamed the group “The New Mellow Edwards.” He composes the majority of the group’s repertoire (with the exception of the occasional 80s rock/20s jazz cover) and plays the trombone and various odd noise-making devices. The other members of the group for the last three years have been Trevor Dunn, John Hollenbeck, and Chris Speed. Although there has also been an illustrious cast of subs (a veritable who’s who of people in Curtis’s address book), the NMEs (as they are often called) have evolved into a top-notch performing unit who leave a trail of fried PA speakers, broken folding chairs and unused half-price drink tickets....The band has released two recordings; “the New Mellow Edwards” (Skirl 003, 2006) and “Big Choantza” (Skirl 010, 2009).
www.curha.com
www.myspace.com/thenewmellowedwards

Curtis Hasselbring

Curtis Hasselbring is a trombonist, guitarist and composer who resides in Brooklyn, NY. Curtis leads the groups The New Mellow Edwards, Decoupage, and the Curha-chestra. Curha is Curtis’s frequently invoked nickname as well as his sample-based electronic project involving a stack of LPs, a wide variety of instruments and a certain eagerness for deconstructing his own music. He has spent the last 20 years playing and recording with such diverse artists as Medeski Martin & Wood, Slavic Soul Party, Golem, Bobby Previte, Josh Roseman, the Either Orchestra, Andrew D’Angelo, Mr. Dorgon, Satoko Fujii, the Jazz Passengers, Frank London, Tom Harrell, Matt Darriau, Cuong Vu’s Vu-tet, Roberto Rodriguez and Anthony Coleman, among others. Curtis appears on over 60 recordings, including two releases as a leader with the New Mellow Edwards on Skirl Records. www.curha.com

Chris Speed

Chris Speed is a saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. He studied classical piano from the age of five, and began clarinet at eleven. In high school he took up the tenor saxophone and began studying jazz. He later attended the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Speed has lived in New York City since 1992. He leads or co-leads the groups Pachora (with Jim Black, Skúli Sverrisson, and Brad Shepik); Human Feel (with Andrew D’Angelo, Black, and Kurt Rosenwinkel); yeah NO (with Black, Sverrisson, and Cuong Vu); and Trio Iffy (with Ben Perowsky and Jamie Saft). The latter two groups predominantly feature Speed’s compositions. Well-known avant-jazz groups Speed has performed with are Tim Berne’s Bloodcount (with Berne, Jim Black, Michael Formanek, and sometimes Marc Ducret); The Claudia Quintet (with John Hollenbeck, Matt Moran, Ted Reichman and Drew Gress); Jim Black’s Alasnoaxis (with Black, Sverrisson, and Hilmar Jensson); and The Clarinets (with Oscar Noriega and Anthony Burr). Chris Speed performed on the Grammy-nominated album A Blessing, by the John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble; and with Pachora contributed the track “Tirzah” to the Masada tribute album Voices in the Wilderness. He has also performed and/or recorded with Myra Melford, Mark Dresser, Susie Ibarra, Erik Friedlander, Satoko Fujii, Hank Roberts, and Dave Douglas. He has appeared on about 70-80 recordings since 1990. In 2006, Speed helped create Skirl Records, an independent record label that is described as “an artist-run collective documenting work by a Brooklyn-centered community of musicians channeling a vast array of ideas and experience into new music.” Speed appeared on two of Skirl’s initial releases (The Clarinets’ self-titled disc and Curtis Hasselbring’s The New Mellow Edwards). www.chrisspeed.com

Trevor Dunn

Guitarist and bassist Trevor Dunn is currently playing in various projects under the direction of John Zorn, Curtis Hasselbring’s New Mellow Edwards, Fantomas, various groups with harpist Shelley Burgon, his own trio-convulsant, Proof Readers–a quartet that plays the music of Ornette Coleman, and a slew of other things that come and go. Also writing music for independent films and in the midst of putting a new rock band together. www.trevordunn.net

John Hollenbeck

After receiving degrees in percussion and composition from the Eastman School of Music, John Hollenbeck moved to NYC in the early 1990’s. He has worked with many of the world’s leading musicians in jazz (Bob Brookmeyer, Fred Hersch, Tony Malaby, the Village Vanguard Orchestra, Kenny Wheeler), world music (Pablo Ziegler), and new music (Meredith Monk). He has received numerous awards and commissions, which include an NEA grant to study composition with Bob Brookmeyer in 1994 and Meet the Composer grants in 1995 and 2001. He won the Jazz Composers Alliance Composition Contest in 1995 and 2002 and was awarded the 2002 IAJE Gil Evans Fellowship and 2003 IAJE/ASCAP Commission. Hollenbeck was nominated by the Jazz Journalists Association for the following: Up and Coming Jazz Musician of the Year (2004, 2006); Jazz Composer of the Year (2006, 2007); Drummer of the Year and Large Ensemble of the Year (2007). John Hollenbeck was named as both the Rising Star Composer and the Rising Star Arranger of the Year in the 2008 & 2009 Down Beat Magazine’s Critics Poll. Down Beat magazine has in previous years recognized him as a “Rising Star” in the Composer, Jazz Artist, Arranger, Big Band, and Jazz Group (Claudia Quintet) categories. In 2007, John was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. Exceptionally creative and versatile, John’s latest CD for his Large Ensemble is “Eternal Interlude” (Sunnyside Records). John has most recently been nominated for two Jazz Journalist Awards, as Arranger of the Year & Composer of the Year, and received the ASCAP Composer Award in June 2010. www.johnhollenbeck.com