2013 Canadian Festival Tour

Jun 20
Ottawa Jazz Festival
Thu, Jun 20, 2013, 8:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Brookstreet Hotel, 525 Leggett Avenue, Ottawa.

Jun 21
Winnipeg Jazz Festival
Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 8:00 PM – 9:30 PM
Cinematheque, 100 Arthur Street, Winnipeg.

Jun 23
Winnipeg Jazz Festival
Sun, Jun 23, 2013, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
West End Cultural Centre, 586 Ellice Avenue, Winnipeg.

Jun 24
Victoria Jazz Festival
Mon, Jun 24, 2013, 8:30 PM – 11:00 PM
Herman’s Jazz Club, 753 View Street, Victoria.

Jun 25
Vancouver Jazz Festival
Tue, Jun 25, 2013, 1:30 PM – 3:30 PM
Performance Works, 1218 Cartwright Street, Vancouver

Jun 26
Edmonton Jazz Festival
Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 8:00 PM – 10:30 PM
Yardbird Suite, 11 Tommy Banks Way, Edmonton.

Jun 27
Medicine Hat Jazz Festival
Thu, Jun 27, 2013 10:30 PM – 12:30 AM
Esplande Studio Theatre, 401 First Street SE, Medicine Hat.

Jun 29
National Music Centre
Sat, Jun 29, 2013, 8:00 PM – 10:00 PM
National Music Centre, 134 11th Avenue, Calgary.

Jul 11
Halifax Jazz Festival
Thu, Jul 11, 2013, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
The Carleton Music Bar & Grill, 1685 Argyle Street, Halifax.

Jul 12
Halifax Jazz Festival
Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM
Main Festival Tent, Lower Water at Salter Street Extension, Halifax.

Jul 13
St. John’s Jazz Festival
Sat, Jul 13, 2013, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
LSPU Hall, Victoria Street, St. John’s.

The Greenwich House on May 30th, 2013

“Alto-saxist Curtis Macdonald presents his groovesome, rhythmically complex postbop in the company of pianist David Virelles, bassist Harish Raghavan and drummer Adam Jackson.” -TimeOutNY

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Saxophonist Curtis Macdonald’s Quartet, Featuring Pianist David Virelles, Adam Jackson and Harish Raghavan – Performs live at Greenwich House Music School.

“Curtis Macdonald… a fearless artist who is willing to break free of the shackles of expectations.” — All About Jazz

The Sound It Out series presents the Curtis Macdonald Quartet at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 30, 2013, at the Greenwich House Music School in New York City’s West Village  (46 Barrow Street, NYC). Saxophonist-composer Curtis Macdonald’s foursome features rising-star pianist David Virelles along with Harish Raghavan on double-bass and Adam Jackson on drums. In the words ofThe New York Times, it’s “a sleekly modern band,” one that plays music as accessible as it is intricate, as kinetic as it is cerebral. Macdonald’s 2011 album Community Immunity, released by Dave Douglas’s Greenleaf Music label, earned rave reviews. The New York Jazz Record said: “Community Immunity is much more than your average modern jazz album…  It is a study in compression and expansion, compositional detail and improvisational freedom.” DownBeat called it “a dynamic effort that succeeds in opening more doors with each listen.” Macdonald, Virelles and company followed up earlier this year with the EP Twice Through the Wall, showing once again why All About Jazz said, “Curtis Macdonald stands apart from the rest

Macdonald, a New Yorker originally from the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, will lead his quartet in selections from Community Immunity and Twice Through the Wall at Greenwich House, along with debuting new material crafted especially for this concert. He says: “Many of the recent pieces that I’ve been writing are based on lucid dreams I’ve been having, so there’s a dreamscape element to much of the music – with an aspect of chance and risk.” Macdonald has been the copyist for Henry Threadgill on the master composer’s past couple of projects, and other influences have ranged from psychological studies on lucid dreaming to field recordings from around the world, from ancient Tibetan texts to Sufi mysticism, from vortex math to chance processes. Macdonald’s band mates are “so open-minded and game for whatever I throw at them – they’re such stimulating musicians to interact with.” As for what the audience takes away from the music at Greenwich House, Macdonald says: “A lot of lucid dreaming includes a feeling of flying, so I hope there’s an uplifting quality to this music – and listeners leave the concert feeling lighter, even inspired.”

Twice Through The Wall – 2013

“Twice Through The Wall has a bursting immediacy… this great-sounding EP leaves you wanting more while satisfying as a self-contained work.”
-JazzTimes

“Ensemble-wise, the language picks up right where Community Immunity, the leader’s excellent 2001 debut, left off… But rather than stretch wildly, [Macdonald] focuses on the lyrical…”
-The New York Jazz Record

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“Twice Through The Wall” is a new EP, released on February 12th, 2013.  It heavily features Adam Jackson on drums, Chris Tordini on bass, Jeremy Viner on tenor sax, and David Virelles on piano.

The title, “Twice Through The Wall” is a metaphor for overcoming barriers. It’s inspired by a series of recurring lucid dreams I’ve had—I would see myself in a maze or labyrinth or some other strange structure with lots of staircases and hallways. Thinking that I didn’t need to be bound by these obstacles, I realized that I was dreaming and began to fly through the walls. Each piece’s title is a metaphor for a different kind of barrier: “Social Inheritance,” “Comic Fortress” and “Physical Memory.” The record has a total playing time of 21 minutes, which is rather long for dream-time. Thanks for listening!

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Saxophonist & Sound Artist CURTIS MACDONALD RELEASES THREE SONG EP
TWICE THROUGH THE WALL, February 12, 2013

Canadian-born jazz composer and sound artist Curtis Macdonald’s new EP, Twice Through the Wall, explores the hidden potential of everyday experiences and the way those experiences can be altered and fine-tuned through metaphysical disciplines, such as classical yoga, meditation and lucid dreaming. “While I was making Twice Through the Wall, I began to realize that surrender and deep listening are essentially the same,” Macdonald says. “The music I make takes form from many angles.”

As a composer, alto saxophonist, sound artist and production engineer, Macdonald favors intertwining textures and concepts to create sonic arrangements that hinge on surprise and unexpected movements. His 2011 debut album, Community Immunity (released under Grammy-nominated trumpeter Dave Douglas’ Greenleaf Music label), is a mosaic of rhythms and competing ideas and aesthetics. In Twice Through the Wall, Macdonald draws inspiration from various Eastern and Western philosophies as well as more technical disciplines—namely fractal geometry, rhythmic algorithms and chance operations. He approaches the material with the soloist’s reliance on intellect, intuition and refinement, but he’s more interested in watching his band mates translate and reshape his ideas than he is in producing a static product. The result is an EP heavily arranged in concept, but relaxed in its execution, and it’s through this interchange that Twice Through the Wall achieves a near perfect compositional balance.

The now firmly established Curtis Macdonald Group includes virtuoso Cuban-born, New York-based pianist David Virelles (Steve Coleman, Ravi Coltrane, Wadada Leo Smith), the highly sought-after bassist Chris Tordini (Becca Stevens Band, Yaron Herman, Matt Mitchell, Tyshawn Sorey), the multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Viner (John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, Rafiq Bhatia) on tenor saxophone, and R&B drummer Adam Jackson (Laura Izibor, Jose James, Frank McComb). The group has a growing fan base both at home and abroad. In the recent past, they have toured across the U.S., Canada and Europe and been well received by listeners and critics alike.Macdonald says of the group, “They inspire such an unbelievably ferocious and fearless conviction in my music. Sometimes it feels like I’m assembling a band of musical gangsters. I love that feeling of ‘I’m holding you at the edge.’”

In addition to his role as a saxophonist and bandleader, Macdonald also composes solo sound works and has collaborated with artists in other fields. His projects have ranged from solitary (elaborate arrangements for player pianos) to deeply collaborative, including an original score he composed for the modern dance company Aszure Barton & Artists, who will be performing the piece across Europe and the U.S. for the next two years.

“The exchanges I have with musicians, choreographers, filmmakers, sculptors, mathematicians and digital artists continually influence the music I produce,” Macdonald says.

Like the title of the opening track, Twice Through the Wall gives listeners their own “Social Inheritance” and demonstrates the range and depth an artist is capable of producing even in a short-play format.

Track Listing:

1. Social Inheritance
2. Comic Fortress
3. Physical Memory

Credits:

Adam Jackson, drums
Curtis Macdonald, alto sax
Chris Tordini, acoustic bass
Jeremy Viner, tenor sax (tracks 1 & 3)
David Virelles, piano (tracks 1 & 3)

All tracks produced, performed and composed by Curtis Macdonald.

hearing reality

“An average man can ‘grab’ the things of the world only with his hands, or his eyes, or his ears, but a sorcerer can grab them also with his nose, or his tongue, or his will, especially his will.  I cannot really describe how it is done, but you yourself, for instance, cannot describe to me how you hear.  It happens, that I am also capable of hearing, so we can talking about what we hear, but not about how we hear.  A sorcerer uses his will to perceive the world. The perceiving, however, is not like hearing.  When we look at the world or when we hear it, we have the impression that it is out there and that it is real.  When we perceive the world with our will we know that it is not ‘out there’ or ‘as real’ as we think.”

-don Juan Matus

From “A Separate Reality”
by Carlos Castaneda

Photo by Johannes G.