The Music of Sun Ra and Stockhausen:
The Respect Sextet
JACK Quartet
Bio:
Formed in 2001, The Respect Sextet is a powerhouse ensemble dedicated to performing a wide variety of improvisational musics. Relying on their explosive energy, rare telepathy, outstanding musicianship, and a deep friendship, Respect pieces together free improvisations, original compositions, free jazz classics, television commercial jingles, text pieces, jazz standards, game pieces and more into “a whirling collage,” shouts Exclaim! Magazine, “that ransacks and reshapes the entire jazz tradition, from New Orleans march to Misha Mengelberg, Sun Ra to Charlie Parker.”
Their forthcoming studio album, Sirius Respect (mode records, 2009), brings together the music of Sun Ra and Karlheinz Stockhausen. In Respect’s inimitable style, pieces ranging from Stockhausen’s “Tierkreis” to Sun Ra’s “Saturn” are juxtaposed, layered, deconstructed and re-assembled.
The group comprises Josh Rutner (reeds, radio), Eli Asher (trumpet), James Hirschfeld (trombone), Malcolm Kirby (bass), Red Wierenga (piano, keyboard, accordion) and Ted Poor (drums). After releasing three limited-edition live CDs, (respect.), (respectacle.), and mini-CD (respookt.), Respect introduced The Full Respect, a studio mélange in which “all those outlandish musical gestures and experiments,” as critic Chad Oliveiri wrote, “are distilled into a frighteningly efficient package.” The Full Respect was named 3 Jazz CD of the Year by Jazz 90.1FM, and music from the album was featured in the short film Who’s Your Daddy?, an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival, 2004.
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Praised for its “powerhouse playing” by the Chicago Sun-Times, the JACK Quartet maintains a steady appetite for today’s most demanding string quartet repertoire. Comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Ari Streisfeld, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Kevin McFarland, the quartet has given high-energy performances in Europe and North America including appearances at Carnegie Hall, La Biennale di Venezia, the Lucerne Festival, and the Festival Internacional de Música Contemporánea de Michoacán. The members of the quartet met while attending the Eastman School of Music, where in addition to learning standard and contemporary repertoire they pursued period, non-western, and popular performance styles. The quartet has studied with the Arditti Quartet at the Pro-Bio Foundation Summer School for Contemporary Quartet Music, the Kronos Quartet at the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, and members of the Ensemble Intercontemporain at the Lucerne Festival Academy. The commissioning and performance of new works for string quartet is integral to the JACK Quartet’s mission, leading them to work closely with composers Helmut Lachenmann, Wolfgang Rihm, Matthias Pintscher, Aaron Cassidy, Aaron Travers, Roberto Rusconi, Cristian Amigo, Robert Wannamaker, Randall Woolf, Kirsten Broberg, Alexandra du Bois, and Samuel Adler. The quartet has worked with composition students at Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and in Italy for the Intrasonus Project. In addition to working with composers and performers, the JACK quartet seeks to broaden and diversify the potential audience for new music through educational presentations designed for a variety of ages, backgrounds, and levels of musical experience.
Video:
The Respect Sextet