The Squid's Ear Magazine


Michalowski, Piotr / Jaime Rodriguez Matos / Christopher M. Skebo: Dyads (Abzu)

A trio of Michigan creative music improvisers with wind player Piotr Michalowski, guitarist Jaime Rodriguez Matos and bassist/trumpter/percussionist Christopher M. Skebo in 3 studio and one live recording.
 

Price: $10.95



Quantity:

In Stock

Quantity in Basket: None

Log In to use our Wish List
Shipping Weight: 3.00 units


EU & UK Customers:
Discogs.com can handle your VAT payments
So please order through Discogs

Sample The Album:





product information:

Personnel:



Piotr Michalowski-soprano saxophone, alto flute, baritone saxophone, bass clarinet

Jaime Rodriguez Matos-guitar

Christopher M. Skebo-upright bass, Bb trumpet, concierge bells, bike horns


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




UPC: 884501650809

Label: Abzu
Catalog ID: abzu 006
Squidco Product Code: 15628

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2011
Country: USA
Packaging: Cardstock gatefold foldover
Tracks 1-3 recorded by Jaime Rodriguez Matos at 4th Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI on October 1st, 2011. Track 4 recorded in concert at The Kerrytown Concert House, Ann Arbor, on August 16th, 2011.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"dyads is a set of four improvised duets by three instrumentalists who currently live and play in Southeastern Michigan. The first three feature Michalowski and Rodríguez Matos; the fourth is an extended sound exploration by Michalowski and Skebo.Piotr Michalowski performs on various woodwinds; here he plays soprano & baritone saxophones, alto flute and bass clarinet. For many years he has performed alongside violinist Mike Khoury in duo and in an ensemble named Close Embrace of the Earth. Currently he can often be heard in the Dark Sounds Ensemble and in other gatherings of improvising musicians in Southeastern Michigan. He often plays with visiting improvisers such as the Polish duo Mikrokolektyw. Recent travels have taken him to Europe and to various places in the US, where he has performed with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, with woodwind players Jon Raskin and Vinny Golia as well as with percussionist Gino Robair.

Jaime Rodríguez Matos plays guitar. He is a newcomer to the Michigan creative music scene. His music is often released under the moniker Rodzmatos. The label Pandafuzz had released two collections of his work in 2011 under that name: Untimely Music and Until the Spirit New Sensation Takes Hold. His electronic work has been featured in the magazine "CNCPTN new sound by concept and design." He performs most often as part of the duo Interstitium, with keyboardist Kenn Thomas, most recently at the 2011 edition of Edgefest in Ann Arbor.

Christopher Skebo plays upright bass, Bb trumpet, concierge bells, and bike horns. He performs with equal skill on French Horn, guitar and flute. Skebo studied music with Roscoe Mitchell, Chris Brown, John Bischoff, and Fred Frith at Mills College and composition with James Hartway and Jon Anderson at Wayne State University. His musical hybrid of composition and improvisation blurs the lines between the notated and the spontaneous. A composer in many mediums, Skebo has written dance music for Wayne State University, Mills College and Rapid Decent Dance Company and has performed and led improviser groups at the Chicago Calling Festival and the Detroit Jazz Festival. In 2011, his musical activities earned him a nomination for "Outstanding Classical Composer" at the Detroit Music Awards. Skebo is the founder of Little Grey Cat Records, a record label with a focus on creative music. He currently teaches and performs in the Detroit area, appearing with his Creative Music Ensemble and often as a member of the Dark Sounds Ensemble and other groups, often in tandem with James Cornish and Piotr Michalowski."


Artist Biographies

"Piotr Michalowski grew up in Poland and moved to the United States in 1968 to earn his master's degree and Ph.D. at Yale University. After postgraduate research at Harvard and Penn, he took his first job at UCLA.

He'd been an avid jazz fan since he was a teenager -- he swore off rock 'n' roll after seeing the Jazz on a Summer's Day concert film -- but his tastes leaned more toward the old school, New Orleans-style than the new avant-garde.

In Los Angeles, Michalowski made friends with a record-store clerk who turned him onto some further-out sounds, including L.A. players the clerk also booked at the storied Century City Playhouse. There, Michalowski checked out gigs by adventurous improvisers, like John Carter, Nels Cline, and Golia, the last of whom inspired him to start playing clarinet.

"It was a fantastic scene," he says.

After a stint teaching in Philadelphia during which he didn't really play, Michalowski landed in Ann Arbor in the early '80s to work at the University of Michigan, where he continued to teach until just last year.

He took up music again at the urging of a friend and was soon playing traditional jazz, swing, and standards on alto and tenor sax, performing with David Swain's II-V-I Orchestra and jams with friends. He enjoyed the tunes, but it didn't feel right.

"I was playing 'Body and Soul' at some art place, and I just thought, 'It's totally ridiculous for me to play "Body and Soul."' I have in my head Coleman Hawkins and all these classic performers. It's almost sacrilegious for me to do it. While I love listening to that music, playing it was absurd. You could say playing as an amateur is absurd anyway, but I love doing it. That was just so crazy. I decided I was just making an ass of myself, and I just couldn't really justify it."

So, in the '90s, he turned back to his love of improvisation and found some like-minded, younger players at the University of Michigan and its Creative Arts Orchestra, who he started sitting in with. He collaborated regularly with James Ilgenfritz, Sarah Weaver, and "a whole generation" of musicians until they eventually left town to pursue their music.

Another longstanding collaborator for years was Detroit violinist Mike Khoury, with whom Michalowski has released a half-dozen or so short-run CDs. He's also continued to play with Ilgenfritz when the two are in the same city. In March, the two played as an impromptu trio with U-M music professor Stephen Rush during an Ilgenfritz show at Kerrytown Concert House, and earlier this month, Michalowski and Relyea, a mezzo-soprano vocalist, joined the bassist in Steve Swell's band for a New York performance.

Through Kerrytown and Detroit's free improvisation scene, Michalowski has made connections around the country that have developed into mini-tours with professional musicians and one-off shows in other cities when traveling for work.

He recalls one notable house show in Berkley, Calif., wiith Golia and Jon Raskin of the Rova Saxophone Quartet all playing sopraninos. "It was advertised as a very squeaky evening," he says.

When pianist Thollem McDonas was recruiting musicians to perform with at Kerrytown last summer, he asked Michalowski and Ann Arbor cellist Abigail Alwin to join him. McDonas recorded the session, which is now posted to Bandcamp as part of a 15-album series produced while touring."-Christopher Porter

-Ann Arbor District Library (https://aadl.org/taxonomy/term/106916)
10/2/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Dyad One 10:32

2. Dyad Two 11:02

3. Dyad Three 9:36

4. Dyad Four 15:46

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Trio Recordings

Search for other titles on the label:
Abzu.


Recommended & Related Releases:
Other Recommended Releases:
Michalowski, Piotr / Damon Smith
How To Ripen In Ice
(Balance Point Acoustics)
Taking their titles from the avant poetry book "Tent Posts" by author Henri Michaux, this concert of collective free improv at Ziggy's Ypsilanti in Michigan between double bassist Damon Smith and reed & wind player Piotr Michalowski is an active and impressive set of dialogs, Michalowski switching between bass & contralto clarinets, sopranino & soprano saxophones, and Japanese Shinobbue flute.



Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought:
Bi-Ki?
Quelque Chose Au Milieu
(BeCoq)
The alto sax duet of Jean-Baptiste Rubin and Sakina Abdou sculpt sound material that draws on the acoustic resources of the space within which they play, captured here in various locations in Northern France by the keen ear of saxophonist/conceptualist Jean-Luc Guionnet.
Miimo
Miimo 5
(Amorfon)
The alternative dub steelpan trio of Yoshio Machida (steeldrums, voice, percussion, electronics), Tatus (bass, voice & electronics) and Norihide Saji (drums, laptop & electronics) for 10 tracks of embraceable tunes including a cover of Miles Davis "All Blues".
Ensemble Hodos
Lifework : A Unity - Ensemble Hodos plays Philip Corner (Vol. 1)
(Umlaut Records)
Saxophonist Pierre-Antoine Badaroux and double bassist Sebastien Beliah formed Ensemble Hodos in 2008 to perform the music of composers who wrote scores that include freedom and/or improvisation for the players, here performing the music of Philip Corner.
Chrysakis, Thanos / Chris Cundy
Music for Chamber Organ & Contra Bass Clarinet
(Aural Terrains)
Electroacoustic improviser Thanos Chrysakis performing on the chamber organ at the University of Gloucestershire, UK in a collaboration with Chris Cundy on contra bass clarinet, for a subtle, mysterious and uncompromising four-part improvisation.
Kawng, Goh Lee / Julien Ottavi
Pukul Berapa?
(Herbal International)
Goh Lee Kwang performing on no-input mixer meets Julien Ottavi on TamTam, bass drum and a computer running Puredata and Apodio 10 for an album of electronic improvisation recorded in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Nantes, France, balancing aggressive and meditative sound.
Barriere, Lali / Miguel A. Garcia
Espejuelo
(Nueni)
The duo of Miguel A. Garcia on electronics and Lali Barriere on objects and no-input mixer for an album of investigative, detailed improvisation that's well paced and calmly complex.
Janas, Gene / Vinnie Paternostro / Jay Reeve / Other Matter
United Slaves #2~3
(Improvising Beings)
Recorded in Brooklyn and Paris, this quintet crosses the threshold between jazz, rock and electronic sound with a somewhat dark intent, using guitar & sitar, organs, syths, pianos, drums, bass and sounds to evoke thick and extended psychedelic environments.
Beequeen
Time Waits For No One
(Herbal International)
A reissue of the 1995 album from the duo of Frans de Waard and Freek Kinkelaar, electronic sound work in a Zoviet France mode, using looping structures but also freeform improvisation to create dark and alluring audio environments with beautiful sonic elements.
Dollshot
Dollshot
(Underwolf)
An unusual and thickly strung album bridging dark rock and improvised music from saxophonist Noah Kaplan, bassist and prepared bassis Giacomo Merega, bassist and prepared painist Wes Matthews, and vocalist Rosalie Kaplan.
Lauzier, Philippe / Eric Normand
Not the Music / do
(Tour de Bras)
The Canadian duo of reedist Philippe Lauzier and bassist Eric Normand freely improvise in sound environments that are both introspective and precarious, using subtle and aberrant approaches to playing that evoke unusual aspects of their instruments in oddly refined dialog.
Machinefabriek
Loos
(self-released)
A live performance at Ephemere, Studio Loos in The Netherlands from Rutger Zuydervelt, AKA Machinefabriek, in a set that mixes his sources with recordings from the room, creating a dynamic and vibrant recording that ranges from subtle near-silence to thick electronic excitement.
Day & Taxi (Gallio / Jeger / Meier)
Artists [2 CDs]
(Percaso)
Balancing jazz and contemporary music, the Swiss trio of Christoph Gallio (saxes), Silvan Jeger (double bass) and David Meier (drums), continues the history of this touring band that started in 1989, here in their 8th release of excellent modern jazz.
Chrysakis / Slaven / O'Sullivan / Wigens
Zafiros en el Barro
(Aural Terrains)
Intricate and beautifully paced electroacoustic improv from the quartet of Thanos Chrysakis (laptop, synth & radio), Ken Slaven (berimbu, autoharp, violin), James O'Sullivan (guitar) and Jerry Wigens (clarinet & mandolin).
GGRIL (Grand Groupe Regional d'Improvisation Liberee)
Combines [VINYL]
(Tour de Bras)
The GGRIL is a Canadian ensemble of musicians who experiment with various forms of interactions possible in an orchestra without a conductor, bringing together a dozen musicians from different backgrounds.
Houle, Francois Trio
Schizosphere
(Red Toucan)
An early album from Vancouver clarinetist Francois Houle with frequent collaborators Tony Wilson (guitar) and Dylan van der Schyff (drums & percussion), performing original compositions and a unique version of Duke Ellington's "Frustration."
Blur, Rosco
Stable Chaos
(Red Toucan)
Rosco Blur's groove-based jazz album with a great set of players including Paul Plimey (piano), Dylan van der Schyff (drums), spirited music with the occasional sung-spoken lyric, an album that harkens to the world of Roland Kirk with a modern edge.
Chemical Composition
Uttered Fast But Without Haste
(Chemical Composition)
The New York improvising trio Chemical Composition with pianist Constance Cooper, percussionist John Cacciatore, and electric guitarist Tom Desisto, free improvisation steeped in jazz traditions.
Bent Spoon Duo
With & Without Allison Cameron
(Bug Incision Records)
Chris Dadge and Scott Munro (aka the Bent Spoon Duo) recorded this album at Weeds Cafe in Calgary in 2012 as a duo, extending their set to a trio with the compatible style of Allison Camera on amplified & mangled banjo and kalimba.
Lenoci, Gianni / Gianni Mimmo
Reciprocal Uncles
(Long Song Records)
The Italian duo of pianist Gianni Lenoci and soprano saxophonist Gianni Mimmo using extended and unusual techniques through eight improvisations mixing melody, timbre and tone.
Hobson's Choice
Of The Waves
(Barnyard)
Canada's songwriting Hobson's Choice has developed into a tightly knit ensemble embracing elements of jazz, chamber, and singer-songwriter traditions, with sound-worlds ranging from midnight deep-woods marimba ballads to sunny cicada-sung anthems.
Chrysakis, Thanos / Wade Matthews
Numen
(Aural Terrains)
The duo of Thanos Chrysakis on laptop and electronics, Wade Matthes on digital synthesis and field recordings, in an album of improvisations where synthetics and real-word sounds combine and collide in intriguing ways.
Anderson, Fortner
Solitary Pleasures
(&Records)
The 35 poems found on Fortner Anderson's "Solitary Pleasures", performed with Michel F Cote, Sam Shalabi and Alexandre St-Onge, speak of the obsessions, phantasies and encounters of Anderson's life.
Lord Tang

(Gigante Sound)
Producer and Gigante co-founder, Dominic Cramp, moves his plunderphonics into more melodic and beat driven territory with crumpled beats and fractured dubs over rolling hills of heavyweight bass.
Barnyard Drama
Christmas Singalong Volume 6
(Barnyard)
Toronto's Xmas series with an amazing lineup Jean Martin, Christine Duncan, John Southworth, Tania Gill, Kyle Brenders, Justin Haynes, Julia Hambleton, DB Boyko, &c. &c.
Clockwork + Poprawski
Myopic
(Clockwork Jazz)
Clockwork is the Polish duo of drummer Maciej Wrobel and bassist Szymon Orlowski, who for the last two years have worked with saxophonist Lukasz Poprawski (Urszula Dudziak, Michal Urbaniak, &c) here in their first album together.



The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

© 2002-, Squidco LLC