July 24th, 2017
Doors At 7. Music At 7:30pm
Boston-based percussionist Curt Newton returns to Chicago after a long hiatus, performing a set of solo drum set improvisations and a first-meeting duo with cornetist Ben LaMar Gay. (photo of Curt Newton by Rob Miller)
Boston-based percussionist Curt Newton coaxes whispers from drum sets and swing from old tin cans, weaving various musical traditions together in the spirit of serious playfulness. Over the past three decades, he’s performed jazz and improvised music across the U.S., Canada and Europe, and recorded dozens of CDs with the likes of Ken Vandermark, Joe Morris, Nate McBride, Pandelis Karayorgis, Charlie Kohlhase, Eric Hofbauer, and Dave Bryant. Curt studied drum set with Bob Gullotti and Jazz Performance at New England Conservatory, neither of which bears any responsibility for his 1997 solo drum set arrangement of Lutoslawski's String Quartet.
Ben Lamar Gay is a composer who deals with many components of sound through various folk traditions past, present and future. Ben continues a long Chicago tradition of forward thinking musicians brought into existence by visceral dexterity and by the virtuosos of the
Association of the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), which he himself is a member.