Ches Smith is a master drummer of the new generation, a self-styled improviser who has studied jazz and modern percussion and is open to alternative rock, noise and metal as well. This wealth of styles characterizes his music for These Arches, the band with which he brings four brilliant New York avant-jazz musicians to Trafó: Tim Berne and Tony Malaby on saxophones, Mary Halvorson on guitar and Andrea Parkins on accordion and electronics.
‘Smith’s writing is breathlessly episodic, with his tunes constantly morphing into fresh melodic schemes, rhythmic feels, and harmonies’ (Chicago Reader).
‘Smith and his sonic buccaneers blow, wheeze, bang and skronk away with merry glee and abandon. But there’s order to Smith’s liberating madness—a deliberate and articulate structure to compositions based in an avant-garde rock aesthetic… the drummer toes the lines between planned and chaotic, tension and looseness, harmony and discord, soul and blues. Underlying humor informs most of the hard-driving work. As does Smith’s familiarity with cartoon music and its spasms of furiousness, movement and zany plot.’ (Downbeat, ****½ review of the album Hammered by Ches Smith & These Arches).
Tim Berne –alto saxophone
Tony Malaby –tenor saxophone
Mary Halvorson - electric guitar and effects
Andrea Parkins –electronic accordion and electronics
Ches Smith – drums
Ches Smith
Born in San Diego, CA and raised in Sacramento, Ches Smith came up in a scene of punks and metal musicians who were listening to and experimenting with jazz and free improvisation. He studied philosophy at the University of Oregon before relocating to the San Francisco Bay area in 1995. After a few years of playing with obscure bands and intensive study with drummer/educator Peter Magadini, he enrolled in the graduate program at Mills College in Oakland at the suggestion of percussionist William Winant. There he studied percussion, improvisation, and composition with Winant, Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros and Alvin Curran. One of Winant’s first “assignments” for Ches was to sub in his touring gig at the time, Mr. Bungle (here he met bassist / composer Trevor Dunn who would later hire him for the second incarnation of his Trio-Convulsant). During his time at Mills, Ches co-founded two bands: Theory of Ruin (with Fudgetunnel / Nailbomb frontman Alex Newport), and Good for Cows (wtih Nels Cline Singers’ Devin Hoff). He currently performs and records with Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog, Xiu Xiu, Tim Berne's Los Totopos and Secret Chiefs 3. He has also performed with Jandek, Terry Riley, Iggy Pop, John Zorn, Annie Gosfield, Wadada Leo Smith, John Tchicai, Fred Frith, and Nels Cline. He also leads a quartet called These Arches (with Mary Halvorson, Tony Malaby, and Andrea Parkins), and a solo percussion project called Congs for Brums. He currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Andrea Parkins
Andrea Parkins is a New York-based electroacoustic multi-instrumentalist, composer and sound/installation artist internationally acclaimed for her uniquely gestural, textural approach on her electronically-processed accordion and customized live electronics. Described by The New York Times Steve Smith, as a “sound-ist” and beyond category as a performer and musician, her laptop electronics and Fender-amped accordion create an intense and visceral sonic world, full of lush harmonics, noisy concretized disruption, and soaring electronic feedback.
Parkins performs and records as a solo artist and in collaborations across genre with sonic innovators including Fred Frith, John Butcher, Marc Ribot, Butch Morris, Peter Evans, Mary Halverson, Satoko Fujii, Joe Morris, Rova Saxophone Quartet, Otomo Yoshihide, David Watson, Nate Wooley, and many more. Her collaborative trio featuring Wilco guitarist Nels Cline and drummer Tom Rainey has performed at FIMAV-Victo in Quebec, Music Unlimited in Austria and Jazz im Augusto in Lisbon, and she is a member of Ellery Eskelin’s seminal avant-jazz trio with Jim Black. Parkins appears on more than 50 recordings on labels such as hatology, Atavistic, Important Records, Victo, and others.
As a sound artist and composer, Parkins creates electroacoustic solo and ensemble pieces, scores for dance and film, electronic music works, and multi-diffusion performance installations featuring amplified objects that are found or made. This work has been presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Kitchen, Diapason, and Experimental Intermedia, and worldwide at festivals/venues such as Unsound in Krakow; Next in Bratislava, and Sonic Circuits in the US. Recently awarded composition commissions include live performance/scores/sound design for dance for Lisbon-based choreographer Vera Mantero, and The Body Cartography Project in the US.
Throughout 2011, Parkins will tour in support of her recently released CD on Important Records, Faulty (broken orbit)- a through-composed work for amplified objects, accordion feedback and processed instruments. Other recent recordings include Downpour (Victo) and Ash and Tabula (Atavistic) with Cline and drummer Tom Rainey. On an ongoing basis, Parkins develops and performs a series of interactive audio/visual works inspired by Rube Goldberg's machines, and this year she has formed a new electroacoustic ensemble featuring trumpeters Peter Evans and Nate Wooley, and percussionist Ches Smith. Parkins’ work has received support from American Composers Forum, Meet the Composer, New York State Council on the Arts, Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center in NYC, and the Frei und Hanseastadt Hamburg Kulturbehoerde in Germany.
Tony Malaby
Originally from Tucson, Arizona, Tony Malaby has been permanently based in New York since 1995 and has been a member of many notable jazz groups including Charlie Haden’s Liberation Orchestra, Paul Motian's Electric Bebop Band, Mark Helias' Open Loose, Fred Hersch's quintet and Walt Whitman project, Michell Portal's Birdwatcher, various projects with Daniel Humair and bands led by Mario Pavone, Tim Berne, Chris Lightcap, Kris Davis, Angelica Sanchez, Michael Attias and Marty Ehrlich.
His debut cd "Sabino"(Arabesque) made the NY Times and Philadelphia City Paper's top ten jazz lists for 2000. He has a brand new release: "Tamarindo" with bassist William Parker and Nasheet Waits on drums. It is available on the Clean Feed label. His other releases include: "Adobe" available on Sunnyside in the US, featuring Drew Gress and Paul Motian; Apparitions" on the Songlines label featuring Tom Rainey, Mike Sarin, and Drew Gress; and "Alive in Brooklyn Vol. 1 and 2" featuring Angelica Sanchez and Tom Rainey.
Tony leads several projects of his own including: APPARITIONS featuring: Drew Gress, Tom Rainey and Mike Sarin. The Tony Malaby CELLO TRIO, featuring Chicago cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and percussionist John Hollenbeck. The quartet PALOMA RECIO(Loud Dove) with Ben Monder, Eivind Opsvik and Nashhet Waits. The trio TAMARINDO featuring bassist William Parker and Nasheet Waits on drums. Tony co-leads the Malaby Sanchez Rainey Trio.
‘Smith’s writing is breathlessly episodic, with his tunes constantly morphing into fresh melodic schemes, rhythmic feels, and harmonies’ (Chicago Reader).
‘Smith and his sonic buccaneers blow, wheeze, bang and skronk away with merry glee and abandon. But there’s order to Smith’s liberating madness—a deliberate and articulate structure to compositions based in an avant-garde rock aesthetic… the drummer toes the lines between planned and chaotic, tension and looseness, harmony and discord, soul and blues. Underlying humor informs most of the hard-driving work. As does Smith’s familiarity with cartoon music and its spasms of furiousness, movement and zany plot.’ (Downbeat, ****½ review of the album Hammered by Ches Smith & These Arches).
Tim Berne –alto saxophone
Tony Malaby –tenor saxophone
Mary Halvorson - electric guitar and effects
Andrea Parkins –electronic accordion and electronics
Ches Smith – drums
Ches Smith
Born in San Diego, CA and raised in Sacramento, Ches Smith came up in a scene of punks and metal musicians who were listening to and experimenting with jazz and free improvisation. He studied philosophy at the University of Oregon before relocating to the San Francisco Bay area in 1995. After a few years of playing with obscure bands and intensive study with drummer/educator Peter Magadini, he enrolled in the graduate program at Mills College in Oakland at the suggestion of percussionist William Winant. There he studied percussion, improvisation, and composition with Winant, Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros and Alvin Curran. One of Winant’s first “assignments” for Ches was to sub in his touring gig at the time, Mr. Bungle (here he met bassist / composer Trevor Dunn who would later hire him for the second incarnation of his Trio-Convulsant). During his time at Mills, Ches co-founded two bands: Theory of Ruin (with Fudgetunnel / Nailbomb frontman Alex Newport), and Good for Cows (wtih Nels Cline Singers’ Devin Hoff). He currently performs and records with Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog, Xiu Xiu, Tim Berne's Los Totopos and Secret Chiefs 3. He has also performed with Jandek, Terry Riley, Iggy Pop, John Zorn, Annie Gosfield, Wadada Leo Smith, John Tchicai, Fred Frith, and Nels Cline. He also leads a quartet called These Arches (with Mary Halvorson, Tony Malaby, and Andrea Parkins), and a solo percussion project called Congs for Brums. He currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Andrea Parkins
Andrea Parkins is a New York-based electroacoustic multi-instrumentalist, composer and sound/installation artist internationally acclaimed for her uniquely gestural, textural approach on her electronically-processed accordion and customized live electronics. Described by The New York Times Steve Smith, as a “sound-ist” and beyond category as a performer and musician, her laptop electronics and Fender-amped accordion create an intense and visceral sonic world, full of lush harmonics, noisy concretized disruption, and soaring electronic feedback.
Parkins performs and records as a solo artist and in collaborations across genre with sonic innovators including Fred Frith, John Butcher, Marc Ribot, Butch Morris, Peter Evans, Mary Halverson, Satoko Fujii, Joe Morris, Rova Saxophone Quartet, Otomo Yoshihide, David Watson, Nate Wooley, and many more. Her collaborative trio featuring Wilco guitarist Nels Cline and drummer Tom Rainey has performed at FIMAV-Victo in Quebec, Music Unlimited in Austria and Jazz im Augusto in Lisbon, and she is a member of Ellery Eskelin’s seminal avant-jazz trio with Jim Black. Parkins appears on more than 50 recordings on labels such as hatology, Atavistic, Important Records, Victo, and others.
As a sound artist and composer, Parkins creates electroacoustic solo and ensemble pieces, scores for dance and film, electronic music works, and multi-diffusion performance installations featuring amplified objects that are found or made. This work has been presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Kitchen, Diapason, and Experimental Intermedia, and worldwide at festivals/venues such as Unsound in Krakow; Next in Bratislava, and Sonic Circuits in the US. Recently awarded composition commissions include live performance/scores/sound design for dance for Lisbon-based choreographer Vera Mantero, and The Body Cartography Project in the US.
Throughout 2011, Parkins will tour in support of her recently released CD on Important Records, Faulty (broken orbit)- a through-composed work for amplified objects, accordion feedback and processed instruments. Other recent recordings include Downpour (Victo) and Ash and Tabula (Atavistic) with Cline and drummer Tom Rainey. On an ongoing basis, Parkins develops and performs a series of interactive audio/visual works inspired by Rube Goldberg's machines, and this year she has formed a new electroacoustic ensemble featuring trumpeters Peter Evans and Nate Wooley, and percussionist Ches Smith. Parkins’ work has received support from American Composers Forum, Meet the Composer, New York State Council on the Arts, Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center in NYC, and the Frei und Hanseastadt Hamburg Kulturbehoerde in Germany.
Tony Malaby
Originally from Tucson, Arizona, Tony Malaby has been permanently based in New York since 1995 and has been a member of many notable jazz groups including Charlie Haden’s Liberation Orchestra, Paul Motian's Electric Bebop Band, Mark Helias' Open Loose, Fred Hersch's quintet and Walt Whitman project, Michell Portal's Birdwatcher, various projects with Daniel Humair and bands led by Mario Pavone, Tim Berne, Chris Lightcap, Kris Davis, Angelica Sanchez, Michael Attias and Marty Ehrlich.
His debut cd "Sabino"(Arabesque) made the NY Times and Philadelphia City Paper's top ten jazz lists for 2000. He has a brand new release: "Tamarindo" with bassist William Parker and Nasheet Waits on drums. It is available on the Clean Feed label. His other releases include: "Adobe" available on Sunnyside in the US, featuring Drew Gress and Paul Motian; Apparitions" on the Songlines label featuring Tom Rainey, Mike Sarin, and Drew Gress; and "Alive in Brooklyn Vol. 1 and 2" featuring Angelica Sanchez and Tom Rainey.
Tony leads several projects of his own including: APPARITIONS featuring: Drew Gress, Tom Rainey and Mike Sarin. The Tony Malaby CELLO TRIO, featuring Chicago cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and percussionist John Hollenbeck. The quartet PALOMA RECIO(Loud Dove) with Ben Monder, Eivind Opsvik and Nashhet Waits. The trio TAMARINDO featuring bassist William Parker and Nasheet Waits on drums. Tony co-leads the Malaby Sanchez Rainey Trio.
