Fall Workshop, October 2 – 6, 2017

Mary Halvorson, guitarist, composer, bandleader

Guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson has been called “NYC’s least-predictable improviser” (Howard Mandel, City Arts), “the most forward-thinking guitarist working right now” (Lars Gotrich, NPR.org) and “one of today’s most formidable bandleaders” (Francis Davis, Village Voice). Ms. Halvorson is best known for her longstanding trio, featuring bassist John Hébert and drummer Ches Smith, and more recently for her solo guitar project, Meltframe. She has several other projects as a bandleader including a quintet, septet and octet. Collaborative projects include a chamber-jazz duo with violist Jessica Pavone, the avant-rock band People and the collective ensembles Thumbscrew (with Michael Formanek and Tomas Fujiwara) and Secret Keeper (with Stephan Crump). Ms. Halvorson is also an active member of bands led by Anthony Braxton, Taylor Ho Bynum, Trevor Dunn, Tomas Fujiwara, Ingrid Laubrock, Joe Morris, Tom Rainey, Mike Reed and Marc Ribot, among others. 

Billy Martin, percussionist, educator, visual artist 

Above all else, Billy Martin believes in the power of unguarded expression to capture glimpses of the truth – sometimes only fleetingly, sometimes for extended, intoxicating stretches. He pursues the ecstatic and the insightful from a variety of vantage points: as a drummer and percussionist, as a composer, as a filmmaker, sculptor, visual artist, and even as a carpenter. To varying degrees, each endeavor is marked by Martin’s dearly held belief that unfettered improvisation and an honest commitment to the moment at hand can bring about new levels of understanding, new perspectives, new sonic textures, and a more profound emotional impact. “In any circumstance, any medium,” he reflects, “you need to be sincere with yourself and with your audience. This is who you are, and you’ve got to be trying as hard as you can to create something for the situation that’s new and fresh. There are going to be some mistakes, it may not be perfect, but you’ve got to be willing to take that chance at any given moment.”

While Billy Martin’s own creative journey has had innumerable forks and bends, he is best known to music enthusiasts as one-third of the indescribable Medeski Martin & Wood. About to enter their twentieth year as a performing and recording aggregation, Medeski Martin & Wood are an entirely unique instrumental ensemble, able to apply principles from a staggering range of traditions (from free and modern jazz to classic R&B and well beyond) while remaining eminently accessible. Via fifteen albums, tireless touring (performing everywhere from jazz clubs to jamband festivals), and collaborations with the likes of John Scofield and John Zorn, the trio has united audiences from disparate corners of the musical universe who react with equal awe and enthusiasm to the band’s infectious grooves and undiminished exploratory zeal.

Few if any major acts are able to simultaneously function so successfully – both artistically and commercially – as a laboratory as Medeski Martin & Wood have, and their work exemplifies many of Martin’s ideals and principles as an improvising composer/performer. Forever refining and rediscovering his own signature sound, Martin vividly explores these notions of creative identity, of surrendering to the moment, of developing one’s own artistic voice, in Life on Drums, his feature-length directorial debut, which will be released on DVD by Vongole Films on October 8th, 2010. Sumptuously filmed in a disused New Jersey radio station, both informative and atmospheric, Life on Drums combines conversations with solo and group performances (some improvised, some composed) to create an engrossing portrait of Martin’s evolving musical aesthetic.

“Life on Drums is my reaction to all the bad instructional videos I’ve seen,” Martin elaborates. “Much of what’s out there tends to put a lot of focus on technique, but most creative things don’t come from technique. I want the viewer to see this and come away with the idea that they can be an artist – you don’t need this full spectrum of technique before you can start thinking creatively.” Accompanying Martin on this voyage is Allen Herman, Martin’s first drum teacher. The two converse about matters both practical and artistic, and it is their easy yet insightful rapport that helps to illuminate even the most elusive ideas. “It’s this strange kind of karma, this nurturing feeling I get from him,” Martin continues. “We first met in 1974, when he was my teacher. He has been in and out of my life a few times since then. He even stopped playing drums for a while. But now he’s turned it around, saying I am the one who is nurturing him. He is ecstatic to be back in the drumming world…

When Martin first began studying with Herman, he was an energized, precocious teenager, residing in New Jersey – having relocated from Manhattan at age ten. His father, a classical violinist, photographer, and audiophile, ensured that Martin was surrounded by music for as long has he can remember. When recorded music wasn’t blasting from the ample sound system in the basement, the Martin home was alive with rehearsals and young Billy’s growing percussive prowess – initially sparked by the discovery of his older brother’s abandoned trap set. By high school, Martin’s musical obsessions began to flower: he was writing percussion cadences for the school marching band, performing with the student jazz ensemble, and had his first garage band – a power trio whose repertoire ranged from George Benson to Van Halen. He even subbed for Herman in the pit band of the Broadway show Bob Fosse’s Dancin’.

Upon graduation from high school, Martin bypassed full-time college, electing to make a go at being a professional musician in New York City. His arrival there in 1981 coincided with the emergence of a downtown music scene that dovetailed perfectly with Martin’s own sensibilities, holding equal reverence (or irreverence) for free improvisation, classic jazz, film music, and even the kitschiest of pop culture. Embracing every possible opportunity, Martin performed alongside such luminaries as John Scofield, Bob Moses, Bill Frissel, Cyro Baptista, Dave Liebman, Jerome Harris, and more. He went on his first tour as a member of Moses’s ensemble, and indulged his fascination with Brazilian rhythms by co-founding the group Batucada, who were a fixture on New York’s Brazilian scene for two years. After touring and recording with Chuck Mangione for two years (1987-1989), Martin reinvested himself in the downtown scene, participating in John Zorn’s Cobra improvisational game pieces and performing with John Lurie’s Lounge Lizards.

Medeski Martin & Wood first convened in 1991, embarking on their remarkable journey, which continues to this day. By then, Martin was a formidable musician, armed with a rich cultural understanding of rhythm and a vast, tastefully deployed technical vocabulary. Over the past ten years, he has begun to impart unique musical philosophy in instructional contexts ranging from master classes to private instruction to his book, Riddim: Claves of African Origin, released in 2006. “I think that teaching can be as creative as performing and composing,” he explains. “I believe strongly that creativity and individual style is important. I feel so strongly about that, and the only way to be active or push people in that direction is to offer my teaching. Hopefully that will have a little ripple effect on the next generation of musicians.”

When not performing with Medeski Martin & Wood, Martin continues to collaborate with other musicians in improvisational projects, many of which are documented on his own Amulet Records imprint, which he founded in 1995. He also records and performs solo – with results ranging from the exploratory to the downright funky, as heard on his triple-LP/CD breakbeat extravaganza illy B Eats – and has taken an increased interest in composing for both percussion and chamber ensembles. An album of Martin’s chamber works, Starlings, was released by John Zorn’s Tzadik label in 2006. “My way of composing is to write sketches out to musicians,” he explains, “and to then let them work in a way that allows them to improvise based on the limitations I have given. Even when I work with my students and my percussion ensembles, there is always a little room for them to interpret my compositions. It’s exciting to me because you never know exactly what’s going to happen – it’s more rewarding for me and for the listener.”

Parallel to his musical adventures, Martin is an accomplished visual artist, whose drawings have been featured on album covers and in gallery exhibitions. His burgeoning interest in filmmaking has resulted in several music videos and short subjects, with Life on Drums being his first feature-length project. “Making videos and films – the whole idea of images moving along in a time frame: that’s very musical and rhythmic,” he reflects. “Whether it’s music or films or my drawings, I take the same approach: I improvise. I do have conceptual ideas I try to realize, but I think the best stuff comes out of improvisation. It comes from the same place, the same creative part of myself in the moment.”

With so many outlets existing for his creative energies, Martin is always in the midst of multiple projects. Even now, as he is helping to formulate Medeski Martin & Wood’s upcoming 20th anniversary celebrations, he is working to bring to light recently-recorded chamber compositions for a bass clarinet quartet, a documentary of the making of Medeski Martin & Wood’s Shackman album from recently-recovered videotape footage, and a sculpture project that combines composition with visual arts via graphically notated scores welded to oversized metal canvases. “It’s all more complicated than ever,” Martin concludes, “because now I have two boys, who are going to turn seven and ten soon. Handling the family life and home life with my work and creative projects is a delicate balance – but I have a studio-slash-shed in my backyard that I can use to get away and still be home. Honestly, I try not to keep everything too separate: it’s all creative living, it’s all satisfying. It feels good with each little thing I accomplish. I just have to give myself the time to improvise, to experiment. Usually I find the meaning later, after I’ve created it.”

Omar Tekbilek, multi-instrumentalist, educator
Omar Faruk Tekbilek is now one of the most sought-after Turksish musicians, whose work transcends political boundaries while maintaining traditional sensibilities in a way few artists can manage.

Omar Faruk was a musical prodigy. He was born in Adana, Turkey to a musical family who nurtured his precocious talents. At the age of eight, he began his musical career by developing proficiency on the kaval, a small diatonic flute. His musical interests were being nurtured by his older brother and by a sympathetic uncle who owned a music store and who provided lessons. Omar Faruk learned the intricate rhythms of Turkish music, how to read scales and eventually he mastered several other instruments; ney (bamboo flute), zurna (double-reed oboe like instrument with buzzing tone), the baglama (long-necked lute), the oud (the classic lute), as well as percussion. By the age of twelve he began performing professionally at local hot spots. At the same time he studied religion with thoughts of becoming a cleric, or Imam.

In 1967, upon turning sixteen, he moved to Istanbul where he and his brother spent the following decade as in-demand session musicians. Omar Faruk stayed true to his folkloric roots, but during this period of frenetic session work in the metropolitan music scene, he explored Arabesque, Turkish, and Western styles and the compositional potential of the recording studio. In Istanbul he also met the Mevlevi Dervishes, the ancient Sufi order of Turkey. He did not join the order, but the head Neyzen (ney player), Aka Gunduz Kutbay, became another source of inspiration. Omar Faruk was profoundly influenced by their mystical approach and fusion of sound and spirit. During that time he was introduced to Hatha Yoga and eventually to Tai Chi, which he continues to practice daily.

Omar Faruk’s skills in the studio blossomed in Istanbul playing with some of the leading Turkish musicians of the day including Orhan Gencebay, flute and saxophone player Ismet Siral and percussionist Burhan Tonguc to name a few. After establishing himself as one of the top session musicians in Turkey, he began touring Europe and Australia. By 1971 at the age of 20, he made his first tour of the United States as a member of a Turkish classical/folk ensemble. It was while touring in the US that he met his future wife, Suzan, and in 1976 he relocated to upstate New York to marry her.

Omar Faruk found very few options for a Turkish musician in the US, so he formed a band called the Sultans with an Egyptian keyboardist, a Greek bouzouki player, and his brother-in-law on percussion. It started as a pop band but very quickly turned into a sort of Pan-Near Eastern ensemble. They began to attract some attention within the circle of Middle Eastern dance fans. They managed to record five albums during this time, but Omar Faruk was still unknown outside his local musical community. This was all about to change with the fateful meeting with Brian Keane in 1988. In the following years, he and Keane would produce another six recordings together, launching Omar Faruk boldly into the world music scene.

Omar Faruk Tekbilek has since established himself as one of the world’s foremost exponents of Middle Eastern music. A multi-instrumentalist par excellence, he has collaborated with a number of leading musicians of international repute such as keyboard player Karl Berger, ex-Cream rock drummer Ginger Baker, Youssou N’Dour, Ofra Haza, Yasmin Levy, Simon Shaheen, Hossam Ramzy, Glen Velez, Bill Laswell, Mike Mainieri, Peter Erskine, Trilok Gurtu, Omar Sosa, Enrique Morente, Kodo (Japan), Tomatito, Jai Uttal and Steve Shehan among others. He has contributed to numerous film and TV scores and to many recordings including world sacred music albums, and has been touring extensively throughout the Middle East, Europe, Australia, North and South America.

Omar Faruk’s music is rooted in tradition, but has been influenced by contemporary sounds. He views his approach as “cosmic” and his commitment to music runs deep. The four corners of his creativity emanate mysticism, folklore, romance, and imagination. Like Omar Faruk himself, his music symbolizes diversity-in-unity.

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Karl Berger, PhD: Composer / Arranger / Conductor / Pianist / Vibraphonist / Consultant

Founder and director of the nonprofit Creative Music Foundation, Inc., and creative leader of the legendary Creative Music Studio, Karl Berger is dedicated to the research of the power of music and sound and the elements common to all of the world’s music forms. In addition to his composing and playing, Karl is known around the world for educational presentations through workshops, concerts, recordings, and with a growing network of artists and CMS members worldwide.

Karl Berger is a six time winner of the Downbeat Critics Poll as a jazz soloist, recipient of numerous Composition Awards (commissions by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, European Radio and Television: WDR, NDR, SWF, Radio France, Rai Italy. SWF-Prize 1994). Professor of Composition, Artist-in- Residence at universities, schools and festivals worldwide, PhD in Music Esthetics.

Karl Berger became noted for his innovative arrangements for recordings by Jeff Buckley (“Grace”), Natalie Merchant (“Ophelia”), Better Than Ezra, The Cardigans, Jonatha Brooke, Buckethead, Bootsie Collins, The Swans, Sly + Robbie, Angelique Kidjo and others; and for his collaborations with producers Bill Laswell, Alan Douglas (“Operazone”), Peter Collins, Andy Wallace, Craig Street, Alain Mallet, Malcolm Burn, Bob Marlett and many others in Woodstock, New York City, Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, Paris and Rome.

He recorded and performed with Don Cherry, Lee Konitz, John McLaughlin, Gunther Schuller, the Mingus Epitaph Orchestra, Dave Brubeck, Ingrid Sertso, Dave Holland, Ed Blackwell, Ray Anderson, Carlos Ward, Pharoah Sanders, Blood Ulmer, Hozan Yamamoto and many others at festivals and concerts in the US, Canada, Europe, Africa, India, Phillippines, Japan, Mexico and Brazil.

His recordings and arrangements appear on the Atlantic, Axiom, Black Saint, Blue Note, Capitol, CBS, Columbia Double Moon, Douglas Music, Elektra, EMI, Enja, Island, JVC, Knitting Factory, In&Out, MCA, Milestone, Polygram, Pye, RCA, SONY, Stockholm, Vogue and others.

Ingrid Sertso: Vocalist, Poet

Through her work with such avant-jazz musicians as Don Cherry and Karl Berger, Ingrid Sertso established herself as a captivating, adventurous vocalist, capable of blending jazz, African, South American and other worldbeat influences into a distinctive, hypnotic sound.

Although Sertso didn’t become well-known until the release of Dance with It in 1994, she spent over 20 years honing her art. During the late ’60s, she lived in Europe, leading her own trios and performing with the likes of Eric Dolphy, Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, Karl Berger and Leo Wright; she also worked as a music teacher at several institutions in Europe. In 1972, she became a permanent resident of the United States and she released her first album, We Are You, on Calig Records. Over the next few years she taught, while she performed in North America and Europe with the likes of Cherry, Ed Blackwell, Lee Konitz, Sam Rivers, Jimmy Giuffre, Bob Moses, Dave Holland, Perry Robinson and Jumma Santos. In 1974, she released Kalaparush on Trio Records in Japan. It was followed in 1975 by Peace Church Concerts on India Navigation/CMC Records.

In 1975, Sertso became a faculty member at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. She stayed there through 1975 and 1976, before moving to the Banff Centre of Fine Arts in Calgary, Canada. She had two residencies at Banff before moving to the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, New York, where she became the co-director. While working at the Creative Music Studio, she began singing in the Art of Improvisation with Berger and David Inzenon. In 1979, she toured major European cities as a solo artists, supported by the Woodstock Workshop Orchestra. She also released an album on MPS Records that year.

During the early ’80s, Sertso remained a co-director at the Creative Music Studio, while continuing to record and perform with a variety of musicians, including such mainstays as Don Cherry and Karl Berger, as well as Paulo Moura, Nana Vasconcelos, Steve Gorn, Dan Brubeck and Mike Richmond. In 1984, she performed with the Music Universe Orchestra at the Kool Festival in New York and released a duet album, Changing the Time, with Berger on Horo Records in Italy. She also toured Europe twice during this time and she also toured West Africa with Olatunji and Aiyb Dieng.

Sertso’s career picked up momentum during the latter half of the ’90s. She held a series of concerts and workshops in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and she regularly tour the US on club and festival circuit. Sertso also toured Europe twice and sang solo vocals on Berger’s orchestral ballet, The Bird. She was one of the co-leaders of Rhythm Changes, who released the Jazzdance album on ITM Records. During these five years, she also performed and recorded with a variety of artists, including Pauline Oliveros, Lee Konitz, Frank Luther, Anthony Cox, Leroy Jenkins, Jimmy Cobber, Linda Montano and Karl Berger.

In 1990, Sertso catapulted back into the mainstream jazz spotlight through her version “Until the Rain Comes” on Don Cherry’s Multi Kulti album. Shortly afterward, she began working on a new album, but she became sidetracked by collaborating with Karl Berger and guitarist Paul Koji Shigihara. The trio blended original compositions with Sertso’s poetry, improvisations and interpretations of traditional tune. Sertso also regularly performed poetry readings at the Tinker Street Cafe in Woodstock and the Knitting Factory in New York, and she also regularly played clubs along the Northeast coast. In 1994, she released her comeback album Dance with It, which earned postitive reviews. —Stephen Thomas Erlewine (All Music Guide)

Ken Filiano: bassist

Bass player, composer, improviser, Ken FIliano has been performing throughout the world for thirty years, collaborating with leading artists in multiple genres, fusing the rich traditions of the double bass with his own seemingly limitless inventiveness. Ken leads two quartets, Quantum Entanglements, and Baudalino’s Dilemma (Vinny Golia, Warren Smith, Michael TA Thompson), and is a co-leader of The Steve Adams/Ken Filiano Duo and TranceFormation (Connie Crothers, Andrea Wolper.) His extensive discography includes a solo bass CD, subvenire (NineWinds), and Dreams From a Clown Car (Clean Feed), which presents his compositions for his quartet, Quantum Entanglements (Michael Attias, Tony Malaby, Michael TA Thompson). Ken has performed and/or recorded with Karl Berger, Bobby Bradford, Anthony Braxton, Connie Crothers Quartet, Bill Dixon, Ted Dunbar, Giora Feidman Quartet, Vinny Golia ensembles, Taylor Ho Bynum, Jason Kao Hwang, Joseph Jarman, Raul Juanena, Joelle Leandre, Frank London, Tina Marsh, Warne Marsh, Dom Minasi, Barre Phillips, Roswell Rudd, ROVA Saxophone Qt., Paul Smoker, Fay Victor Ensemble, Pablo Zielger, and many more. Ken is on the teaching roster at the New School in New York, and is a guest artist lecturer at School of Visual Arts and Hunter College (New York). He teaches master classes in bass and improvisation, and has a private bass studio in Brooklyn.

Maria Kim Grand: saxophonist, composer 

Saxophonist, composer, and educator María Grand was born in Switzerland in 1992, to a Swiss mother and an Argentinian father. Upon her moving to New York in 2011, she quickly became the protégée of legendary musicians such as Billy Harper, and Antoine Roney, as well as NEA Jazz Master Von Freeman; in just a few years, she became one of the few fresh and unique voices on her instrument. María recently completed her first orchestral work; she has composed for saxophone quartet as well as numerous pieces for her ensembles. She has lead her group DiaTribe at venues such as The Jazz Gallery; Seeds; Three Concentric Sections; Shapeshifter Lab; the Cell; in New York, and AMR Jazz Club and The Walden in Switzerland. She released her first opus “TetraWind” in February 2017. In recognition of her emerging talent, she was awarded one of three of the 2017 Jazz Gallery Commission Residencies, along with young masters Adam O’Farrill and Joel Ross; her new work will be premiered in June 2017.

As a sideman, she has toured extensively with MacArthur Awardee Steve Coleman and his small ensemble, the Five Elements, as well as Steve Coleman and the Council of Balance and Steve Coleman and Natal Eclipse. She is a regular member of free funk/avant-garde jazz drummer, composer, poet, producer and professor Doug Hammond’s Quintet and of mridangam artist and scholar Rajna Swaminathan’s RAJAS. She also performs with Grammy Award winner Román Filiú in his groups Ouroboros and Quartería. María can be heard on Steve Coleman’s latest and critically acclaimed album, Synovial Joints.

As an educator, she regularly teaches private students. She has co-led “The Science of Jazz” at Lincoln Center with physicist Stephon Alexander; she has taught and helped teach workshops all over Europe, South America, and the United States, in institutions such as The Logan Center in Chicago, the Conservatory of Bologna in Italy, the Blue Whale in Los Angeles, as well as teaching informal improvisation workshops in Cuba and Colombia.