Jason Mears woodwinds Kris Tiner trumpets Ivan Johnson bass Paul Kikuchi drumset/electronics
Influences
Wadada Leo Smith, Anthony Braxton, Milford Graves, Ken Wilber, Ornette Coleman, Vinny Golia, Ralph Nader, Aurobindo, minivans, Aristotle, Robert Motherwell, Kenneth Patchen, John Carter, Bobby Bradford, royal court music of Uganda, Osho, Bob Marley, Duke Ellington, Jim Jarmusch, Albert Ayler, Igor Stravinsky, Bob Dylan, Javanese gamelan, Fred Meyer, Nick Drake, Charles Ives, Billie Holiday, Ewe traditional music, Beethoven, Booker Little, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Charlie Haden, Sudanese trumpet music, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Karlheinz Stockhausen, coffee, Iannis Xenakis, Neil Young, Umberto Eco, Thelonious Monk, Skip James, John Coltrane, Morton Feldman, Charles Mingus, Aikido, Devendra Banhart, fish tacos, Robert Johnson, The Feardom Press, Joachim-Ernst Berendt, Harry Partch, Eric Dolphy, Hank Williams, C.G. Jung, Erik Satie, Doug Davis, Jelly Roll Morton, John Steinbeck, Herman Hesse, J.D. Salinger, William Faulkner, Sun Ra, Koichi Tohei, Quentin Tolimieri, John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, Coen Brothers, Stanley Kubrick, Andrea Tarkovsky, pizza, Leroy Jenkins, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Buddy T. Fish, Maurice Andre, Radiohead, Nels Cline, Beck, David Suzuki, Gyorgi Ligeti, Lao Tsu, Frank Zappa, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Parker, Max Roach, Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds, Son House, Matt Groening, Amy Mears, Bubber Miley, Kraig Grady, Don Cherry, Samuel Beckett, Jean Giono, vanwiches, Woody Guthrie, Brian Wilson, Jimi Hendrix, Soul Coughing, Olivier Messiaen...
"One of the best things in jazz to emerge in the new millennium."
-Brian Marley, The Wire
"One of the most powerful and appealing jazz units currently active."
-Rex Butters, All About Jazz Los Angeles
"What a fine young quartet this is... they follow many different musical paths, all the while maintaining a pretty stimulating group voice."
-Jason Bivins, Cadence Magazine
"One of the left coast's most underexposed treasures."
-Troy Collins, One Final Note
"Not your typical background jazz music, this local group is in your face, angular, fresh, and assertively spontaneous."
-Zach Behrens, LAist
"Wildly eclectic..."
-Adam McLean, The Santa Fe Reporter
"Of interest... a time-worn context has proven itself with new blood via the work of MTKJ."
-Clifford Allen, All About Jazz
"The MTKJ Quartet's music is the shit..."
-Gene Armstrong, Tucson Weekly
I bought Stratospheric a few weeks ago- really, really good. Good write-up in THE WIRE too...way to go! For the architecture lover in you, here's Ellay's own Frank Gehry's latest-right down the street from me.
Outsound Presents Luggage Store Gallery New Music Series 1007 Market St. @ 6th Street SF
8:00 PM Phillip Greenlief's birthday party! with solo saxophone improvisations
9pm "Duology" Michael Marcus/Ted Daniel duo CD release tour (NY)
"Duology is one of the most exciting jazz partnerships we’ve run across in a long time. On their self-titled Boxholder debut, clarinetist Michael Marcus and brassman Ted Daniel—two undersung veterans with a lengthy shared history—demonstrate a finely tuned duo concept; writing duties are shared, and the improvisations display the kind of rapport and structural logic that could arise only from years of collaboration." - Time Out NY
