$10 cover

8pm showtime

JC Sanford:

Trombonist/composer/conductor JC Sanford is a musician of rare breadth, deeply rooted in the traditions of Jazz and Classical music, yet constantly pushing at their boundaries. Equally at home in many roles, Sanford works regularly as a composer, performer, arranger and conductor. A disciple of the legendary composer/trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, Sanford has had his works performed by Danilo Pérez, Dave Liebman, John Abercrombie, Ingrid Jensen, Lew Soloff, and others. His jazz orchestra CD Views from the Inside garnered international acclaim and received the coveted Aaron Copland Fund Recording Grant. The ensemble has also been recognized as a "Rising Star Big Band" in DownBeat Magazine's Critic's Poll the past 4 years. As a conductor, he is a member of the twice-Grammy-nominated John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, and also conducts the Alan Ferber Nonet +Strings, the Frank Carlberg Large Ensemble, John Ellis' Ice Siren, and conducted the Alice Coltrane Orchestra featuring Ravi Coltrane, Charlie Haden, and Jack DeJohnette before her death. He also curated the Brooklyn-based creative large ensemble series known as "Size Matters" for over 4 years. He was a member of the BMI Jazz Composers' Workshop led by Jim McNeely and longtime contractor for the BMI/New York Orchestra. In  2017, Sanford founded the Twin Cities Jazz Composers’ Workshop alongside his wife, composer Asuka Kakitani, with whom he also co-leads the Twin Cities-based Inatnas Orchestra. He was recently awarded a 2018 McKnight Composers Fellowship and a 2019 MN State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant to record his quartet. In 2019 he took over as musical and artistic director of the JazzMN orchestra.

Triocracy:

Triocracy was formed in 1998 in Boston and continued to evolve through JC Sanford’s 16 years in New York City. The unconventional “chamber jazz” trio of trombone and 2 saxophones performs JC’s original works, collective improvisations, and often arrangements of music by diverse artists such as Stevie Wonder, Steven Sondheim, George Frideric Handel, Gerry Mulligan, and Billy Joel. Their most recent CD, Pyramid Scheme, was released in 2019 on Shifting Paradigm Records.

JC Sanford - trombone
Brandon Wozniak - tenor sax
Bruce Thornton - alto and bari sax, clarinet 

Real Bulls:

Dave King - drums
JT Bates – drums

Born 1970 in Minneapolis MN, Dave King studied piano and drums as a young person. He moved out east for a moment in 1989 when NYC still had barrel fires burning in lots that now house the American Apparel flagship store next to a place you can get a $7.00 espresso. After a stint in L.A. until the 1994 earthquake, Dave King moved back to Minneapolis and co-founded the bands Happy Apple, Love-Cars, Halloween, Alaska and joined 12Rods. In 2000 co-founded The Bad Plus in NYC and has performed music in 75 countries and 6 continents and appeared on over 50 recordings.

Minnesota based drummer JT Bates is currently involved with Big Red Machine (Justin Vernon/Aaron Dessner/Bradley Cook), Bonny Light Horseman (Anais Mitchell/Eric D Johnson/Josh Kaufman), and Bon Iver & TU Dance’s “Come Through”, which has most recently performed at the The Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and in 2018, at The Hollywood Bowl. Growing up in a musical family gave him an early start into sound and rhythmic exploration. While playing in his father’s big band with his two older brothers as a teen, Bates began the path to becoming a working musician. Remaining steeped in creative and improvised music scenes (both as performer and presenter) in addition to the working aspects led to the 2015 release of his first recording under his own name “Open Relationships” (Totally Gross National Product). The result is a slightly left of center take on minimal electronics and beats, utilizing chopped up feedback and gates to create broken landscapes.