"Michael Adkins is an emerging saxophonist and composer, currently living in New York City. His latest recording entitled Rotator, released on HATHUT records has been selected as THE WIRE magazine's Jazz&Improv Album of the year 2008. Michael's new release features Paul Motian on drums, Russ Lossing on piano, and John Hebert on bass.

The result of this new release Rotator on HatHut records is a collection of 8 original compositions from Adkins that lay bold melodies over driving and precise underpinnings. Chris May says, "An important new voice has arrived." Duncan Heining of JAZZ WISE magazine calls it, " A remarkeably mature and confident set featuring eight self-penned tunes, all of which confirm the saxophonist as a jazz composer to watch." Brian Morton of The WIRE magazine says it's, "the best hour of contemporary jazz I've heard this year." From the insistent sonic thrust of the opening track, to the echoing chime of the final cut, this new release on Hat Hut records traverses a musical landscape in which washes of sound surge under melodies, punctuated by moments of raw energy. Paul Motian's incredible artistry and deep openness make its legendary presence felt on the entire recording. Since neither bassist or drummer function in a conventionally rhythmic sense and with the support of pianist Russ Lossing providing immense chordal harmonies, the band members were given tremendous room in which to improvise and to interact.

Saxophonist Michael Adkins grew up in Sarnia, Ontario. A small town on the Michigan Ontario border in close proximity to Detroit. He moved to New York in 1999 from Boston. His formative years were spent sessioning with the top musicians and experimenting with forms of twelve tone composition, metric modulations incorporated into altered song and standard forms, and jazz harmonic structures. In 2005 he released his debut album entitled infotation and soon after began several long-standing musical relationships with some of New York's most original creative musicians. This subsequently led to his current album release Rotator for HatHut records featuring the legendary Paul Motian on drums. Michael was also featured in performance with Paul Motian's group at the Village Vanguard, with Larry Grenadier, Masabumi Kikuchi, and Bill McHenry."

"Russ Lossing (born 1960) is an American jazz pianist, composer, improviser, arranger, educator, scholar.

Early life

Lossing was born in Ohio in 1960, and is from Columbus, Ohio. He had classical piano lessons from the age of 5 and began studying jazz aged 13 in Columbus at the Jazz and Contemporary Workshop with Dave Wheeler. After high school Lossing went on the road with a wide variety of bands including jazz, funk, rock, pop and country music for four years before attending university. He obtained a Bachelor of Music in piano at Ohio State University in 1986. In the early 1980s meetings with composer John Cage had a big effect:

We only had two occasions to get together and talk, but any time spent with him was utterly valuable. He read through my scores we played piano together. His thing was creating, not emulating: don't copy; trust YOURSELF. I was already going in this direction but this experience, listening to Cage's concepts and philosophy in this setting, made so much sense.

Later life and career

Lossing has been part of the New York jazz scene since 1986. In 1988 he earned a Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music. He has led or co-led numerous bands, including: his own trio with Masa Kamaguchi and Billy Mintz; Three-Part Invention with bassist Mark Helias and trumpeter Ralph Alessi; and duos with saxophonist Tim Berne, drummer Gerry Hemingway, and guitarist Ben Monder. Others are: trio with Paul Motian and Ed Schuller (Dreamer and As It Grows); trio with Mat Maneri and Mark Dresser (Metal Rat); trio with John Hebert and Jeff Williams (Phrase 6); quartet with Loren Stillman, John Hebert and Eric McPherson (Personal Tonal); King Vulture with Adam Kolker, Matt Pavolka and Dayeon Seok; and duos with saxophonist Loren Stillman, bassist John Hebert (Line Up,Hatology), and saxophonost Michael Adkins.

Lossing played with drummer Paul Motian over a period of 12 years and recorded Drum Music, a solo piano tribute album to him in 2011. The JazzTimes reviewer of Drum Music commented that "his two-fisted takes on 'Fiasco', 'Dance' and 'Drum Music' capture the great drummer's unpredictable and audacious rhythmic pulse. Lossing's stark re-imaginings of [... other Motian pieces] all vibrate with a new spirit of exploration." Swiss newspaper Der Sonntag wrote that "Drum Music is a stunning improvisational solo recital, a convincing plunge into 10 Motian compositions. This is music in between contemporary jazz and up to date tonal concert music."

Lossing has performed in some of the world's leading jazz festivals including the London, Vienna, Harlem, Cully (Switzerland), Toronto and Venice (Italy) Jazz festivals to name just a few. He has also performed in jazz clubs in New York and Europe including The Village Vanguard (with Paul Motian), Blue Note NYC, The Jazz Standard, Birdland, Porgy and Bess (Vienna), Unterfahrt (Munich), Jazz Club Ferrara (Italy) and many more over a span of 25 years.

In February 2016, Lossing was invited by John Zorn to do a week long residency at The Stone NYC in which he presented 12 of his ensembles over 6 nights.

Lossing has composed over 400 pieces of music in many genres including jazz, contemporary classical (solo piano works, string quartets, orchestral works and song cycles), song writing in various styles, pop, rock, funk, fusion (in early life), film scoring (30+ films).[citation needed] In 2015, he founded the record label Aqua Piazza."

"Stephen Paul Motian (March 25, 1931 - November 22, 2011) was an American jazz drummer, percussionist, and composer. Motian played an important role in freeing jazz drummers from strict time-keeping duties.

He first came to prominence in the late 1950s in the piano trio of Bill Evans, and later was a regular in pianist Keith Jarrett's band for about a decade (c. 1967-1976). Motian began his career as a bandleader in the early 1970s. Perhaps his two most notable groups were a longstanding trio of guitarist Bill Frisell and saxophonist Joe Lovano, and the Electric Bebop Band which featured the drummer working mostly with younger musicians doing interpretations of bebop standards.

Motian was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. He is of Armenian descent. After playing guitar in his childhood, Motian began playing the drums at age 12, eventually touring New England in a swing band. During the Korean War he joined the Navy.

Motian became a professional musician in 1954, and briefly played with pianist Thelonious Monk. He became well known as the drummer in pianist Bill Evans's trio (1959-64), initially alongside bassist Scott LaFaro and later with Chuck Israels.

Subsequently, he played with pianists Paul Bley (1963-64) and Keith Jarrett (1967-76). Other musicians with whom Motian performed and/or recorded in the early period of his career included Lennie Tristano, Warne Marsh, Lee Konitz, Joe Castro, Arlo Guthrie (Motian performed briefly with Guthrie in 1968-69, and performed with the singer at Woodstock), Carla Bley, Charlie Haden, and Don Cherry. Motian subsequently worked with musicians such as Marilyn Crispell, Bill Frisell, Leni Stern, Joe Lovano, Alan Pasqua, Bill McHenry, Stéphan Oliva, Frank Kimbrough, Eric Watson and many more.

Later in his career, Motian became an important composer and group leader, recording initially for ECM Records in the 1970s and early 1980s and then for Soul Note, JMT, and Winter & Winter before returning to ECM in 2005. From the early 1980s he led a trio featuring guitarist Bill Frisell and saxophonist Joe Lovano, occasionally joined by bassists Ed Schuller, Charlie Haden, or Marc Johnson, and other musicians, including Jim Pepper, Lee Konitz, Dewey Redman and Geri Allen. In addition to playing Motian's compositions, the group recorded tributes to Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans, and a series of Paul Motian on Broadway albums, featuring original interpretations of jazz standards.

Despite his important associations with pianists, Motian's work as a leader since the 1970s rarely included a pianist in his ensembles and relied heavily on guitarists. Motian's first instrument was the guitar, and he apparently retained an affinity for the instrument: in addition to his groups with Frisell, his first two solo albums on ECM featured Sam Brown, and his Electric Bebop Band featured two and occasionally three electric guitars. The group was founded in the early 1990s, and featured a variety of young guitar and saxophone players, in addition to electric bass and Motian's drums, including saxophonists Joshua Redman, Chris Potter, Chris Cheek, and Tony Malaby, and guitarists Kurt Rosenwinkel, Brad Shepik, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Steve Cardenas, Ben Monder, and Jakob Bro.

In 2011 Motian featured on a number of new recordings, including Live at Birdland (with Lee Konitz, Brad Mehldau and Charlie Haden), Samuel Blaser's Consort in Motion, No Comment by Augusto Pirodda, and Further Explorations with Chick Corea and Eddie Gómez. Bill McHenry's Ghosts of the Sun was released - by coincidence - on the day of Motian's death. Motian's final album as bandleader was The Windmills of Your Mind, featuring Bill Frisell, Thomas Morgan and Petra Haden.

Motian died on November 22, 2011 at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital of complications from myelodysplastic syndrome."