A new recording released earlier this month on the New Haven Improvisers Collective’s label, NHIC Records, will be celebrated with a Dec. 3 performance at Firehouse 12.
The CD, nhic: atlas, “is a journey through a varied landscape of music and sound at the edge of jazz. This is exploratory open jazz with its feet on the ground giving the listener plenty to hold onto along the way,” according to a press release issued by the New Haven Improvisers Collective.
The press release describes the musicians on the recording as “an open jazz group built with the strength to explore new sonic spaces. It is informed by a wide breadth of musical history with a special charge from jazz, classical, rock, new art music, and echoes of R&B.”
Guitarist and New Haven Improvisers Collective founder Bob Gorry said the Atlas project evolved out of the organization’s monthly workshop series, in which “different ways of approaching improvisation” are explored. The six musicians featured on the CD performed at a New Haven Improvisers Collective event at Never Ending Books in September 2010.
“It was a very powerful group,” Gorry said of that performance, one he felt needed to be recorded—which it was when the ensemble played at Firehouse 12 last year.
Atlas’ lineup for the Dec. 3 Firehouse 12 performance will differ from that on the CD. The group’s performance will be followed by a set featuring another New Haven Improvisers Collective ensemble, Electric NHIC.
Atlas, as it appears on nhic: atlas, is saxophonist Steve Asetta, cellist Nathan Bontrager, Gorry, bassist Jaime Paul Lamb, clarinetist Adam Matlock, and percussionist Steve Zieminski. The lineup at Firehouse 12 will include Asetta, Gorry, Matlock, bassist Pete Brunelli, violist Gabrielle Castelle, and drummer Michael Paolucci.
The Electric NHIC lineup includes Brunelli, Gorry, guitarist Jeff Cedrone, saxophonist Paul McGuire, and drummer Peter Riccio.
As pointed out in the organization’s press release, “NHIC members form the core of many of New Haven’s most adventurous and quality groups including: Dr. Caterwaul’s Cadre of Clairvoyant Claptraps, Prester John, Goodnight Blue Moon, Dr. Dark, Greylyng, Afro-Semitic Experience, Broadcloth, the Sawtelles, and many more.”
For more information about nhic: atlas, visit this web page. For details about the Dec. 3 performance at Firehouse 12, visit the venue’s event page.