"Rob Brown (born February 27, 1962) is an American free jazz saxophonist and composer.

Rob was born in Hampton, VA. He started playing saxophone at the age of 12 or 13. His first gigs were with a local Virginia and swing band. He eventually studied at Berklee College for two years and worked privately with both Joe Viola and John LaPorta. After a year on the west coast, Brown bounced back to Boston, where he met pianist Matthew Shipp. He moved to NY in 1984 where he enrolled at New York University, earned a music degree, and studied with saxophone masters such as Lee Konitz, but the teacher who had more influence on Rob conceptually was Philadelphian Dennis Sandole. Rob took the train to Philly once a week to study with him for a year and a half.

His first issued recording was the duet with Shipp Sonic Explorations and since then has been actively leading groups or working as a sideman with Shipp, William Parker, Whit Dickey, Joe Morris and Steve Swell.

He is a 2001 CalArts/Alpert/Ucross Residency Prize winner and has received many Meet The Composer Fund grants. In 2006 Rob was awarded a Chamber Music America New Works grant."

"Born in Newark, NJ, Steve Swell has been an active member of the NYC music community since 1975. He has toured and recorded with many artists from mainstreamers such as Lionel Hampton and Buddy Rich to so called outsiders as Anthony Braxton, Bill Dixon, Cecil Taylor and William Parker. He has over 40 CDs as a leader or co-leader and is a featured artists on more than 100 other releases. He runs workshops around the world and is a teaching artist in the NYC public school system focusing on special needs children.

Swell has worked on music transcriptions of the Bosavi tribe of New Guinea for MacArthur fellow, Steve Feld in 2000. His CD, "Suite For Players, Listeners and Other Dreamers" (CIMP) ranked number 2 in the 2004 Cadence Readers Poll. He has also received grants from USArtists International in 2006, MCAF (LMCC) awards in 2008 and 2013 and has been commissioned twice on the Interpretations Series at Merkin Hall in 2006 and at Roulette in 2012.

Steve was nominated for Trombonist of the Year 2008 & 2011 by the Jazz Journalists Association, was selected Trombonist of the Year 2008-2010 , 2012 and 2014-2015 by the magazine El Intruso of Argentina and received the 2008 Jubilation Foundation Fellowship Award of the Tides Foundation. Steve has also been selected by the Downbeat Critics Poll in the Trombone category each year from 2010-2016.

Steve is presently a teaching artist through the American Composers Orchestra, Healing Arts Initiative , Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center (Bronx), the Jazz Foundation of America and Leman Manhattan Preparatory School.

Steve was also awarded the 2014 Creative Curricula grant (LMCC) for the project: "Metamorphoses: Modern Mythology in Sound and Words" which was taught in a month long residency at Baruch College Campus High School in Manhattan."

"Bassist and composer Chris Lightcap has worked with Marc Ribot, Regina Carter, Craig Taborn, Glen Hansard, Mark Turner, John Medeski, Jason Moran, Tomasz Stanko, Chris Potter, Paul Motian, John Scofield, Dave Liebman, Paquito D'Rivera, Anthony Braxton, Joe Morris, Sheila Jordan, James Carter, Butch Morris, Ben Monder and many other artists. His playing is featured on over 70 albums and as a bandleader/composer he has produced four critically acclaimed albums of original music.

Born and raised in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Chris played violin and piano before taking up the electric bass at fourteen. As a senior in high school he started to study the upright bass and the following year he enrolled at Williams College. During this period he studied bass, composition and improvisation with Milt Hinton, Cameron Brown, Robert Suderburg, Alvin Lucier, and Bill Dixon. He also had the privilege of studying and performing with master drummer Edward Blackwell shortly before his death in 1992. Upon graduating from Williams with the school's Hutchinson arts grant he moved to his current home, New York City.

Lightcap soon found work with a wide array of material and musicians. He performed weekly with the Cecil Taylor Big Band in 1995 and was invited to perform in a trio with Archie Shepp and Sunny Murray in Paris the following year. For the next two years he worked regularly throughout New York City in a trio led by saxophonist George Garzone. In 2000 Chris joined the ensemble of Regina Carter, an association that continues today. He has performed and recorded extensively with Carter throughout four continents and has been featured alongside the rest of her group with the Boston, Atlanta and Minnesota Symphonies. He has also toured and played major festivals with such bandleaders as Julian Lage, Mark Turner, Tomasz Stanko, Ravi Coltrane, Joe Morris, Ben Monder, Terrel Stafford, Ralph Alessi, and Rob Brown. Since 2013 he has played both upright and electric bass with Craig Taborn's Quartet which released its acclaimed "Daylight Ghosts" on ECM in 2017. He has played in drummer Matt Wilson's well-travelled quartet since 1998 and also worked with singer-songwriters like Glen Hansard and Ruper Orodorkia, country/rock artist Smokey Hormel and the Brazilian surf guitarist Joao Erbetta.

Throughout his performing career Lightcap has has also been a prolific composer. In 1998 he began to write for his own group, a quartet featuring Gerald Cleaver on drums and Tony Malaby and Bill McHenry on tenor saxophones. Lightcap's two recordings with this group, "Lay-Up" (2000) and "Bigmouth" (2003) were released on Fresh Sound Records. Both CDs were on CMJ's top 10 radio chart and received critical acclaim in the New York Times, Jazztimes, Cadence, the Village Voice, and All About Jazz.

In 2005 Lightcap expanded the band to include Craig Taborn on keyboards and named the group Bigmouth. He went on to released two albums with this group on the Clean Feed Label: 2010′s "Deluxe and "Epicenter" in 2015. Both records were named top releases of the year by such outlets as The New York Times, NPR, Downbeat Jazztimes the Village Voice and The Wall Street Journal. In addition to numerous US appearances, Bigmouth has performed at major festivals throughout Europe including Willisau, Saalfelden, North Sea, Porto, Ljubljana, Maribor and Edinburgh.

Recently Lightcap assembled Superette, an experimental all-electric band that explores the nexus of of harmolodics, surf, West African music, psychedelia and beyond, featuring Jonathan Goldberger and Curtis Hasselbring on guitars and Dan Rieser on drums. The group performed at the 2017 NYC Winter Jazz Fest and in 2018 will release its debut recording on Royal Potato Family Records featuring guests Nels Cline and John Medeski.

In 2011 and 2016 Lightcap was awarded Chamber Music America's "New Jazz Works" commission grants. He has also received generous composing and production grants from The Shifting Foundation. In 2006 Lightcap was comissioned to write "Wiretap" for the contemporary chamber ensemble counter)induction and he has also contributed compositions and arrangements to albums released by Regina Carter, Chad Taylor Rob Brown and others.

Notable recordings featuring Lightcap include releases by Craig Taborn ("Light Made Lighter"), Regina Carter ("Southern Comfort", "Reverse Thread", "Pagannini: After a Dream"), the Swell Season ("Strict Joy"), Matt Wilson ("Gathering Call", "That's Gonna Leave a Mark"), Chad Taylor ("Circle Down"), Gerald Cleaver ("Detroit"), and Joe Morris ("Underthru", "A Cloud of Blackbirds"(Aum Fidelity), and "At the Old Office"). He has also appeared on recordings with Tom Harrell, Dianne Reeves, Marc Ribot, Anthony Coleman, Steven Bernstein, Roy Campbell, Mat Maneri and Joshua Bell."

"Chad Taylor (b. 1973) is a composer, educator, percussionist and scholar who is a co-founder of the Chicago Underground ensembles. Originally from Tempe, AZ, Chad grew up in Chicago where he started performing professionally at the age of 16. Chad has performed with Fred Anderson, Derek Bailey, Cooper-Moore, Pharoah Sanders, Marc Ribot, Peter Brotzmann, Malachi Favors and many others. Chad leads his own band Circle down which debut recording was given a 5 star review by All music:

"What is remarkable is that there is no wasted motion, no histrionics or grandstanding, as pure emotion is translated to superlative music making on this most highly recommended recording, one for the ages." Allmusic.com

Chad has a BFA from the New School in Jazz Performance and a MFA in Jazz Research and History from Rutgers University."