2013/14 Season

New Music Circle Showcase: Ingrid Laubrock and Tom Rainey Duo, Tyler Damon, Nathan Cook.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014
7:30 PM
William A Kerr Foundation
21 O’Fallon St (map)
St. Louis, MO 63102
  • Ingrid Laubrock — Tenor and Alto saxophone
  • Tom Rainey — Drums
  • Tyler Damon — Drums
  • Kevin Harris — electonrics
  • Chris Trull — guitar
  • Nathan Cook — Electronic sound
This year’s annual NMC Showcase concert will present a program featuring sets by touring, regional and local musicians. Featured artists will include the Ingrid Laubrock and Tom Rainey Duo, Tyler Damon, and Nathan Cook. Drummer Tom Rainey and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock are perhaps two of New York City’s most active jazz improvisers and sought-after collaborators, and both may be found on any given night performing with musicians such as Anthony Braxton, Tim Berne or Craig Taborn. They also perform as two thirds of an ongoing trio with guitarist Mary Halvorson. In NMC’s 2012/13 season Laubrock and Rainey gave an unforgettable performance with the Kris Davis Quintet and will return to St. Louis, this time as a duo, to explore a more stripped down approach to music making. Given Tom Rainey’s voluminous recording credits and the artistic caliber of the musicians with whom he’s performed, he could easily be placed on the A-list of drummers closely identified with the New York City modern creative jazz scene, roughly from the late ’80s onward. German-born saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock has widened the breadth of her emotional palette since her move to New York City, expressing ideas that range from a pensive melodiousness to the tough muscularity of free-jazz. She is at once capable of recalling the fierce tones of Ayler and the spontaneous melodic sequences of Eric Dolphy.Drummer Tyler Damon (Bloomington, Indiana) will also make a return to St. Louis after playing a recent concert last summer at the St. Louis Art Museum in a power-house trio with Darin Gray and Mars Williams. Tyler has been described by Darin Gray as “the up-and-coming young drummer in the midwest, and a voice that will be active for years to come.” This showcase will see Damon pairing with local guitarist, Chris Trull (Yowie, ex-Grand Ulena), and electronic musician Kevin Harris (currently exhibiting and curating a sound-art series at Contemporary Art Museum).

St. Louis sound-artist and label proprietor Nathan Cook will round out this event with a performance combining electronic, acoustic, and playback sounds. Since arriving in St. Louis in 2008, Cook has become one of St. Louis’s most prolific artists on the underground experimental scene, consistently performing and collaborating with other artists, composing sound installations (as featured this winter at Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis) and releasing two volumes to date of cassette compilations that exclusively feature local experimental acts.