Yuko Otomo is a visual artist and a bilingual (Japanese/English) writer of Japanese origin. She writes poetry, haiku, art criticism, travelogues, and essays. Her publications include Garden: Selected Haiku (Beehive Press), Genesis (Sisyphus Press), Small Poems (UDP), The Hand of The Poet (UDP), Study (UDP), Elements (the Feral Press), KOAN (New Feral Press), Frozen Heatwave, a collaboration with Steve Dalachinsky (Luna Bisonte Prods), and Envelope (Poems-For-All). She lives in New York City.
YOSHIKO CHUMA is the artistic director of the School of Hardknocks. She has created more than 60 full-length performance works for theatres and site-specific venues with her company and as commissioned works throughout the world. The School of Hard Knocks, which takes its name from the American idiom meaning to learn things the hard way, was the title of the company’s first production, for which Chuma collaborated with Alvin at the 1980 Venice Biennale. Chuma has also collaborated with Christian Marclay throughout 1979-1984. Chuma was commissioned by Tan Dun to direct and choreograph his first opera “Nine Songs” in 1989. Chuma has since collaborated with musicians/composers such as Lenny Pickett, Nona Hendrix, Mark Bennett and Marc Ribot, Chuma has collaborated with William Parker since the first Vision Festival 18 years ago, where Chuma was a special guest choreographer.
Yoshiko Chuma and Matthew Shipp | Vision Festival 20
“In my life I’ve met and worked with many jazz musicians. I discovered “So What” by Miles Davis when I was a student during the Vietnam War, and the demonstrations that I took part in. I thought that music might help. Later I discovered Thelonious Monk. Matthew Shipp’s hands on the piano brought back all of these memories. “A Piano” is an illustration of my memory of jazz.”– Yoshiko Chuma
Pianist, composer, & bandleader Mara Rosenbloom has been called “a whole hearted poet of the piano,” – she is a builder & a synthesist; a fiercely lyrical composer & improviser (All About Jazz). The New York Times has praised her penchant for “full-bore group improvising,” while The Chicago Reader has written that her ensemble “achieves an elusive chemistry and degree of spontaneous interaction that transcends mental boundaries.” With an interest in building community by encouraging honest expression and interactive dialogue through music - human connection has been a focus of Rosenbloom's work throughout the past decade, and as a result, powerful group interaction has become a hallmark of Rosenbloom's sound. Currently Rosenbloom leads both The Mara Rosenbloom Trio (feat: Sean Conly & Chad Taylor), and Flyways, a trio featuring Anais Mavïel & Rashaan Carter. Kicking off 2020, The Mara Rosenbloom Trio received The Chamber Music America Performance Plus Grant, with support from The New York Community Trust & The Doris Duke Foundation: the grant will afford The Mara Rosenbloom Trio the opportunity to develop & record new material under the mentorship of the legendary and luminary Amina Claudine Myers. Beyond her current projects as a leader, Rosenbloom is also a member of William Hooker's Quartet MOON, The Katie Bull Project, and Dawn Drake's global funk ensemble ZapOte, and continues to perform with a variety of musicians across genres, including William Parker, Cooper-Moore, Sam Newsome, Ras Moshe Burnett, Emilie Lesbros, Melanie Dyer, Oxana Chi, Layla Zami, Andrew Drury, Michael Wimberly, Vinny Golia, Ken Filiano, Devin Gray, Claire DeBrunner, Edith Lettner, Billy Mintz, Adam Lane, & Daniel Carter. Her mentors at the piano include the incomparable Cooper-Moore, and the late improvising pianist & life force Connie Crothers. Recent AFA Performances: July 29, 2020 On_Line Salon w/ Melanie Dyer & Sam Newsome Website: https://www.mararosenbloom.com/
Brooklyn, NY (USA) based sound artist/composer Fay Victor hones a unique vision for the vocalist’s role in jazz and improvised music. Victor encompasses a distinctive vocalizing, language and performing approach with the foundation of the jazz vocal idiom, now encompassing an “everything is everything” aesthetic bringing in references that span the globe. Victor sees the vocal instrument in itself as full of possibilities of sound exploration, the voice a direct and powerful conduit for language and messages in an improvising context. All of these ideas aim to push the vocal envelope to forge greater expressive possibilities. In Victor’s 10 critically acclaimed albums as a leader one can hear the through line of expansive expression leading up to Victor’s most recent release, BARN SONGS (Northern Spy Records) with her Chamber Trio featuring Darius Jones (alto saxophone) & Marika Hughes (cello) that was released in November 2019.
Recent AFA Performances: October 10, 2020 Vision Festival: Healing Soul Website: https://www.fayvictor.com/ Fay Victor's Mutations for Justice | AFA Vision Festival 23
Fay Victor’s Mutations for Justice is a rolling diary of the Trump administration using small compositional mantras or ‘memes.’..More
Hamid Drake (born August 3, 1955) is an American jazz drummer widely regarded as one of the best percussionists in jazz and improvised music. Incorporating Afro-Cuban, Indian, and African percussion instruments and influence, in addition to using the standard trap set, Drake has collaborated extensively with top free jazz improvisers. He studied drums extensively, including eastern and Caribbean styles. He frequently plays without sticks, using his hands to develop subtle commanding undertones. His tabla playing is notable for his subtlety and flair. Drake's questing nature and his interest in Caribbean percussion led to a deep involvement with reggae.
Daniel Carter and Hamid Drake | AFA Under_Line Salon 2014
Percussionist Hamid Drake and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter in performance at Arts for Art’s second ever Under_Line Salon on January 11, 2014...More
Jeff Schlanger a New York City native, graduate of Music & Art High School and ceramic art student of Maija Grotell at Cranbrook, has created public art projects on three interrelated subjects: Peace, War and Music.
musicWitness® paintings and sculpture have been part of all 22 annual Vision Festivals held each spring in New York City. In 2010-14 projections of performance paintings were integrated with live performances on stage. In 2010, a long scroll of thirty paintings was created live over eight nights of avantjazz concerts while an exhibition of paintings honoring Muhal Richard Abrams, Rashied Ali and Billy Bang was installed just outside the auditorium. musicWitness® was awarded Vision Festival Lifetime Recognition in 2014. musicWitness® was performance painter at InterPlay!Berlin 2006, at the Tampere, Finland Jazz Happening 2000—2003, 2006 & 2012, at Sons d’hiver in Paris 2004, AIMToronto in 2007 and 2010 and resident artist at the Guelph, Canada Jazz Festival 2013 and graphics artist there in 2002 & 2005. musicWitness® exhibitions have also been held at the Academy of the Arts Berlin, Hunterdon NJ Art Museum, Webster University-St. Louis, and at El Bohio, the Improvisors Collective, the Learning Alliance, Abrons Arts Center and the Orensanz Art Center on New York’s Lower East Side. Four exhibitions were integrated into the old Knitting Factory on Houston Street from 1993 to 1995 and three major works installed in the Knitting Factory on Leonard Street in New York. Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco held a solo exhibition along with two live painting-demonstration concerts and a BlueGuitar sculpture with related works were created during a live concert in Sonoma, California Art Center. A musicWitness® print exhibition was held at Philadelphia’s Painted Bride Art Center in 201. Original art from the Sonoluminescence Trio +1 tour was exhibited at Gigspace & cover art for its Live at the Record Centre LP released in Ottawa 2017. A 40 x 30-foot outdoor mural of Bob Stewart’s Tuba solo Steal Away was installed opposite the Public Library in New Rochelle, NY 2008-2014. A comprehensive musicWitness® painting and sculpture installation was presented in New York at the CUE Art Foundation in 2005 with two Witnessed live concerts in the charged space. The second concert, featuring William Parker, Oluyemi Thomas, Joe McPhee and Lisa Sokolov, is now documented on DVD as SPIRITWORLD, premiered in June 2006 in Berlin at the Academy of the Arts and in New York City at Anthology Film Archives. CHILE•NEW YORK•AfghanIRAQ, a film featuring William Parker & Roy Campbell playing in a monumental sculpture installation was screened at the Guelph Jazz Festival in 2013, at the 2014 Vision Festival in New York City and is currently available on DVD. RECORDING COVERS, produced at the request of many leading musicians, include: World Saxophone Quartet -Live in Brooklyn, Billy Bang Sextet -Live at Carlos 1, Muhal Richard Abrams & Roscoe Mitchell-Duets and Solos, Borah Bergman - The Fire Tale & The Stone House, Charles Gayle -Consecration & More Live, William Parker’s 3 Solo CDs -Testimony, Lifting the Sanctions and Live at Somewhere There 2010 and small groups: In Order to Survive, Compassion and, with Kidd Jordan & Alan Silva, Emancipation; also Invisible Wisdom with Kidd Jordan & Oluyemi Thomas and David S. Ware Live in New York. In addition, four covers were made for the late Hall of Fame musician Julius Hemphill: Trio Live, two Sextet recordings, Fat Man & The Hard Blues and Five Chord Stud, and the sound environment for Schlanger’s 42nd street ceramic sculpture installation of 400 Faces, CHILE NEW YORK. An extensive series of performance pictures are integrated into the book of William Parker’s CENTERING Box, 2012 and his WOOD FLUTE SONGS Quartet Box Centerfold, Epic Poet, 2013. The massive William Parker Sessionography book, 2014, features musicWitness® art throughout and in color on its front cover. William Parker’s 2015 Conversations II book, published by RogueArt in Paris includes 28 color reproductions of performance paintings of the musicians interviewed and William Parker’s interview with musicWitness®. A World Percussion Summit picture wraps around the cover of the Improvisation Studies Reader edited by Ajay Heble & Rebecca Caines published by Routledge in 2014. A musicWitness® picture of Cecil Taylor in performance is featured on the cover of JAZZING: New York City’s Unseen Scene and another can be found inside Thomas Greenland’s 2016 University of Illinois Press book.
Excerpt of Roy Campbell, Bill Cole, William Parker, and Michael Wimberly performing for musicWitness Jeff Schlanger’s film CHILE•NEW YORK•AfghanIRAQ MORE...
CHILE•NEW YORK•AfghanIRAQ
Ken Filiano performs throughout the world, playing and recording with leading artists in jazz, spontaneous improvisation, classical, world/ethnic, and interdisciplinary performance, fusing the rich traditions of the double bass with his own seemingly limitless inventiveness. Ken’s solo bass CD, subvenire (NineWinds), received widespread critical praise. For this and numerous other recordings, Ken has been called “a creative virtuoso, a master of technique . . . a paradigm of that type of artist. . . who can play anything in any context and make it work, simply because he puts the music first and leaves peripheral considerations behind.”
Ken composes for his quartet with Michael Attias, Tony Malaby, and Michael T.A. Thomspon; a collective with Attias and Tomas Ulrich; and for his decades-long collaborations with Steve Adams and Vinny Golia. Recent AFA Performances: June 3, 2020 On_Line Salon with Andrea Wolper Julie Ezelle Patton / Nasheet Waits / Ken Filiano / Paul Van Curen | Vision 23
“Patt'n Mouth, like cat and mouse, is a 17th Century English language idiom meaning "constant pursuit, near captures and repeated escapes stemming from a contrived action"...More
Darius Jones has created a recognizable voice as a saxophonist and composer by embracing individuality and innovation in the tradition of African-American music. With NYC as his base, Jones has toured around the United States, Canada and Europe. Jones was one of Jazz Times' Debut Artists of the Year for 2009 and was featured in the Wall Street Journal in 2011, and in 'DownBeat' in 2012. Jones' 2012 release, Book of Mæ'bul (Another Kind of Sunrise) was listed among NPR's Best Top 10 Jazz Albums of that year. Critics have called him "robustly creative" (Nate Chinen, NYT) and "one of NYC's most incisive and passionate saxists" (Time Out).
Recent AFA performance: October 11, 2020 Vision Festival: Healing Soul Website: http://www.dariusjonesmusic.com/ D.D. Jackson Bluiett Tribute Band | AFA Vision Festival 24
Performed and recorded on June 16, 2019 at Arts for Art Vision Festival 24, Roulette, Brooklyn...More
Dave Sewelson was born in Oakland, California, in 1952. There was a half-size violin kept in the closet in case he wanted to be a concert violinist. He played trumpet at the age of nine, moving to baritone horn at the age of eleven, followed by a stint on drums until settling on electric bass at thirteen, adding upright bass to the mix until the switch to saxophone at the age of twenty-one. He has specialized in the baritone saxophone since the early seventies. Sewelson arrived in New York City in the summer of 1977, settled in the East Village becoming a stalwart of the downtown scene, played in many bands of the area including the 25 O’Clock Band, Jemeel Moondoc’s Jus Grew Orchestra, Saheb Sarbib’s Multinational Big Band ,Noise R Us, Mofungo, Freedomland and Fast ‘n Bulbous. He was a founding member of the Microscopic Septet. Lifetime member of William Parker’s Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra. He has played with many wonderful musicians, including, Billly Bang, John Zorn, Peter Kuhn, Alex Cline, Roy Campbell, Sonny Murray, Kidd Jordan, Daniel Carter, Will Connell and Stephanie Stone. Current projects include, Two Sisters Inc., Sewelsonics, the MFAFWQ, Trio Dave, and Orchestra Dave and the Jesse Dulman Quartet. As well as being a guest on radio shows on such stations KPOO, WFMU and WKCR he has been heard on the theme music of shows on NPR. Dave hosts a weekly radio show on Saturdays from 2 til 5pm on WFMU’s Give the Drummer Radio Stream. Every week Dave has a guest musician/poet/artist who joins him in the air for conversation, playing records and spontaneous improvisation live on the radio. Past guests have included, Daniel Carter, William Parker, Steve Swell, Michael Moss, Steve Dalachinksy Lisa Sokolov and a host of other luminaries. Recent AFA Performances: July 8, 2020 On_Line Salon with William Parker, Steve Swell, Marvin Bugalu Smith Website: http://sewelsonics.com/ Aquiles Navarro is a New York-based trumpeter, composer and DJ of Panamanian heritage. He is also the CEO & Founder of River Down Records, a label that focuses on documenting and expanding the creative sounds and minds of Panamá. Aquiles derives his sounds from folkloric music, salsa, reggae and everything that were around. This eclectic music background, based on his upbringing in Panama has led him to collaborate with folkloric musicians, dancers, visual artists, actors, poets and really the world around him. He considers himself an improviser, coalescing his range of influences into a unified sonic vocabulary that can be incorporated across genre and medium. Navarro is a part of the liberation-oriented free jazz collective, Irreversible Entanglements. After their highly acclaimed self-titled debut album on International Anthem, Who Sent You? was released on March 20th 2020, creating a wave amongst the music world giving a voice to the times we are living in. Navarro also has a duo project with Brooklyn-based drummer Tcheser Holmes. The duo, entitled Heritage of the Invisible, merges each member’s music and life background through in real time improvisations. Having collaborated for almost a decade, the way in which they blend their rhythms and harmonies has become telepathic in nature. Heritage of the Invisible has two self-released albums, and a third one on the way. Recent AFA Performances: September 10, 2020 On_Line Salon with Luke Stewart, Devin Brahja Waldman, Tcheser Holmes Website: http://www.aquilesnavarro.com/ Irreversible Entanglements | AFA Vision Festival 23Irreversible Entanglements channels the spirit and subject of free jazz as a return to a central tenet of the sound as it was founded—to be a vehicle for Black liberation...More
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