Sound American Presents:

The New American Songbook

Name: The New American Songbook
Start: 2017-01-11T18:00:00-05:00
End: 2017-01-11T19:00:00-05:00
Location: National Sawdust

Wednesday, January 11th @ 7pm

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Tickets

About the Show

The quarterly web magazine for experimental music, Sound American, moves from the text to the sonic in order to answer the question: “What does a truly modern American Songbook sound like?” SA Editor, Nate Wooley, attempts to answer this question by asking three of America’s most iconoclastic musicians to collaborate on the first volume of the national songbook beyond Tin Pan Alley. “Volume 1” features Mary Halvorson on guitar, Ron Miles on cornet, and Greg Saunier of Deerhoof on drums playing original arrangements of music by Annette Peacock, Elliott Smith, and more in this premiere performance.

www.soundamerican.org

About the Artists

Mary Halvorson

One of improvised music’s most in-demand guitarists, Mary Halvorson has been active in New York since 2002, following jazz studies at Wesleyan University and the New School. Critics have called her “a singular talent” (Lloyd Sachs, JazzTimes), ”NYC’s least-predictable improviser” (Howard Mandel, City Arts), “one of the most exciting and original guitarists in jazz—or otherwise” (Steve Dollar, Wall Street Journal), and “one of today’s most formidable bandleaders” (Francis Davis, Village Voice).

(Photo by Peter Gannushkin)

Ron Miles

Ron Miles is an unsung hero of contemporary American music and jazz. Residing in Denver, where he was born and raised, his soft, lyrical and vocal sound on the cornet has spawned a new generation of trumpet players that follow his highly individual model. His playing came to prominence through his continuing work with Bill Frisell, and his earth-shattering recordings on Gramavision Records in the 1990s. He is a current member of the award-winning bands of pianist Myra Melford and trumpeter Nate Wooley. He has released two recordings with his own trio featuring Frisell and drummer Brian Blade.

Greg Saunier

Greg Saunier is a musician, producer, and composer best known as the drummer of Deerhoof. Rolling Stone included Saunier alongside Brian Chippendale (Lightning Bolt) and Zach Hill as together composing “a generation of trailblazing 21st-century avant-rock percussionists”.Saunier graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1991. In 1995, Saunier moved to New York with two suitcases and has said that he does not own many possessions. As a drummer, he says, things he touches tend to break. Outside of Deerhoof, Saunier’s bands include Mystical Weapons (a duo with Sean Lennon) and a collaboration with Brian Chippendale, about which a documentary, Checking in at 20, was produced. He also formed Nervous Cop with drummer Zach Hill and harpist Joanna Newsom and bands with members of Erase Errata and Rainer Maria, composed the soundtrack to a film by Martha Colburn, and collaborated with Xiu Xiu.