October 9th, 2017
Doors at 7. Music at 7:30pm
Double bassist Olie Brice joins two of Chicago’s finest in improvised duos
photo by Alex Bonney
Olie Brice is an improviser, double bassist and composer. He leads the Olie Brice Quintet and an improvising trio featuring Tobias Delius and Mark Sanders, and has also worked with the likes of Paul Dunmall, Ingrid Laubrock, Tony Malaby and Evan Parker.
“Olie Brice plays bass as if he’s jumped onto a bear’s back to throttle it but then tries to Greco-Roman wrestle it to the ground. It is mesmerizing because there is no way to predict who will win. His pizzicato pounds like a battering ram knocking down doors, or taps like a hammer on notes like nails. His bowing bounces and stutters, then soars and dives to rip open space” - Rick Joines, Free Jazz Blo
For more than fifteen years, cornetist, improviser, composer and music presenter Josh Berman has been an essential contributor to Chicago's active improvised music scene. His work encompasses both developing opportunities and forums for presenting improvised music - as co-founder of the critically acclaimed Umbrella Music Group and performing in a variety of highly collaborative formats - including as bandleader of his own groups, Josh Berman's Old Idea and Josh Berman and His Gang, Josh Berman Trio and as co-leader of the Chicago Luzern Exchange. Berman has been named regularly since 2010 in the annual Down Beat Magazine's Critic's Poll as a"Rising Star". In addition to his work as bandleader, Berman has performed and recorded with some of the most internationally respected musicians in jazz and improvised music. He has toured the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan.
Jason Stein was born in 1976 and is originally from Long Island, New York. Stein is one of the few musicians working today to focus entirely on the bass clarinet as a jazz and improvisational instrument. He studied at Bennington College with Charles Gayle and Milford Graves, and at the University of Michigan with Donald Walden and Ed Sarath. In 2005, Stein relocated to Chicago and has since recorded for such labels as Leo, Delmark, Not Two, Atavistic, 482 Music, and Clean Feed. Stein has performed throughout the US and Europe as both a bandleader and sideman and has amassed a discography of over 30 albums.
"Stein is exhilarating, a young master of his fiendishly difficult horn. Stein is a player to look out for."
- Chris May, All About Jazz
"Stein stands apart from the standard instrumental lineage. Whereas a player like Eric Dolphy or Michel Portal builds on wide intervallic leaps and verticality, Stein (like Michel Pilz, Rudi Mahall or John Tchicai) operates in a horizontal fashion, favoring a breadth of twists and turns more sideways than anything else, woven into a post-Ornette fabric."
- Clifford Allen, All About Jazz