Note: this event is 21+
Pianist, producer, DJ and all round musical maverick Mark de Clive-Lowe blends cutting-edge electronics, live beat-making, classic funk, and global influences with a distinctly jazz-inspired approach.
‘Heritage is a legacy we receive from our ancestors to pass on to future generations. It’s the thread that holds us together in lineage and cultural identity.ʼ This is the intention with which Mark de Clive-Lowe creates and share this music.
Heritage is about identity and oneʼs place in the world. It sees the half-Japanese half-New Zealander, sharing new compositions inspired by childhood folk stories, the mythology of his motherland and his own personal experiences in japan, all wrapped up in his blend of jazz and sample culture influences. In addition to his own compositions, he interprets traditional Japanese folk songs, one on each of his two Heritage albums. Each track on the albums and in the shows, have a specific story behind its name and intention.
De Clive-Lowe explores his culture-rich journey throughout Heritage, showcasing his breadth of skill as a producer, composer and instrumentalist. An artist who is as indebted to the jazz greats as much as hip hop, house and experimental music icons, de Clive-Lowe challenges us to leave our preconceptions at the door and follow him down the path on a journey of his own discovery. Like his peers Kamasi Washington, Makaya McCraven and Robert Glasper, de Clive-Lowe isnʼt content to simply play the jazz lane and he purposefully reaches across a diverse palette of genres and influences to create something quite unlike anything else.
“Heritage is what gives our relatively short lives context and meaning in the bigger picture of generations past and future. We are the new ancestors, and with that in mind, itʼs important that we act — and contribute — accordingly. This is my identity search and journey to better understand where Iʼve come from, what ancestry means to me and where Iʼm going to.”
A mainstay of the Chicago jazz scene and an active recent addition to the New York scene, Jaimie Branch is an avant-garde trumpeter known for her “ghostly sounds,” says The New York Times, and for “sucker punching” crowds straight from the jump off, says Time Out. Her classical training and “unique voice capable of transforming every ensemble of which she is a part” (Jazz Right Now) has contributed to a wide range of projects not only in jazz but also punk, noise, indie rock, electronic and hip-hop. Branch’s prolific as-of-yet underexposed work as a composer and a producer, as well as a sideman for the likes of William Parker, Matana Roberts, TV on the Radio and Spoon, is all on display in her debut record Fly or Die — a dynamic 35-minute ride that dares listeners to open their minds to music that knows no genre, no gender, no limits.
