The Squid's Ear Magazine


Michael and Peter Formanek: Dyads (Out Of Your Head Records)

Since 2017 the father/son duo of double bassist Michael Formanek and woodwind player Peter Formanek have performed, recorded and toured together, here recording in the studio in 2019 with the wind player on tenor saxophone and clarinet, the familial history and life of collaboration showing in the warmth and easy discourse between the two, heard in 13 succinct improvisations.
 

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Personnel:



Peter Formanek-tenor saxophone, clarinet

Michael Formanek-double bass


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UPC: 195448588866

Label: Out Of Your Head Records
Catalog ID: OOYH 008
Squidco Product Code: 31224

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2021
Country: USA
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at Sound on Sound Studio, in Montclair, New Jersey, on December 30th, 2019, by David Amlen.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Michael and Peter Formanek started making music and improvising together before Peter started school. Regular visits to their home from friends and colleagues like Tim Berne, Jim Black, Marty Ehrlich and many others only served to normalize this as being an essential part of human interaction. During much of their time living in Baltimore and as Peter began to study music formally (first on guitar then on saxophones and woodwinds), it was just part of daily life to have musicians come by to play, rehearse, or just hang out.

This eventually turned into regular groups and collaborations that performed in local venues in and around Baltimore. For Peter's eighteenth birthday they played a night of Michael's music at the Cornelia Street Cafe with a lineup of Tim Berne and Peter Formanek on saxophones, Jacob Sacks on piano, Jim Black on drums, and Michael Formanek on bass. Peter went to University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 2013 to study with the great Andrew Bishop, and sometime after Peter's graduation in 2017 he and Michael decided to perform as a duo. They embarked on their first tour together in November 2019 spanning the upper midwest, mid-Atlantic, and northeastern US, and soon after booked a studio date to record the music presented here as Dyads."-Out Of Your Head Records


Artist Biographies

"Peter Formanek is an improvising multi-woodwind performer, composer, educator, and a lifelong student of music. Hailing from Baltimore, he recently graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Still, he's been studying music with a Ph.D.-level teacher his whole life: his father, Michael Formanek. His recent senior recital at Kerrytown Concert House drew a wide audience, but also proved he's a "musician's musician" with a number of projects featuring established Detroit area heroes Tim Flood, Andrew Bishop, and Piotr Michalowski, as well as up-and-coming musical collaborators Cory Tripathy, Tristan Cappel, Christopher Tabaczynski, Ben Willis, Jon Taylor, Kenji Lee, and more."

-Out of Your Head Records (https://www.outofyourheadrecords.com/peter-formanek)
3/27/2024

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

"One marker of bassist Michael Formanek's creativity and versatility is the range of distinguished musicians of several generations he's worked with. While still a teenager in the 1970s he toured with drummer Tony Williams and saxophonist Joe Henderson; starting in the '80s he played long stints with Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Fred Hersch and Freddie Hubbard. (As a callback to those days, Formanek recorded with hardbop pianist Freddie Redd in 2013). The bassist has played a pivotal role on New York's creative jazz scene going back to the '90s when he notably led his own quintet and played in Tim Berne's barnstorming quartet Bloodcount. Nowadays Formanek's in the co-op Thumbscrew with Brooklyn guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer Tomas Fujiwara.

Formanek is also a composer and leader of various bands. His principal recording and international touring vehicle is his acclaimed quartet with Tim Berne on alto saxophone, Craig Taborn on piano and Gerald Cleaver on drums, which records for ECM; 2010's The Rub and Spare Change and 2012's Small Places both earned coveted five-star raves in Down Beat. Formanek writes, and the quartet plays, compositions of great rhythmic sophistication that unfold in a natural sounding way - challenging music the players make sound like lyrical free expression. His occasional groups include the 18-piece all-star Ensemble Kolossus, roping in many New York improvisers he works with. Ensemble Kolossus recorded their first CD of all Formanek originals for the prestigious ECM label in December of 2014. The CD, The Distance was released in February 2016 and in addition to numerous other accolades also received a five-star review in Downbeat!

Formanek's other recordings as leader include Wide Open Spaces and Extended Animation for quintet and Low Profile and Nature of the Beast for seven players (all on Enja), and the solo album Am I Bothering You? (Screwgun). Mirage (Clean Feed) is by the occasional improvising trio of Formanek, tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin and pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn. Thumbscrew's 2014 debut is on Cuneiform Records. Michael Formanek has also made dozens of recordings as sideman, for among others Dave Ballou, Tim Berne, Jane Ira Bloom, Dave Burrell, Harold Danko, Marty Ehrlich, Tomas Fujiwara, Gary Thomas and Jack Walrath.

As composer of works for ensembles from duo to mixed jazz and classical orchestra, Michael Formanek has received institutional support from Chamber Music America, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, the Peabody Conservatory, the Maryland State Arts Council and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. As an educator, Formanek teaches bass and other jazz courses, and leads the Jazz Ensemble at Baltimore's Peabody Conservatory."

-Michael Formanek Website (http://www.amibotheringyou.com/bio.html)
3/27/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. Two, Not One 07:18

2. Wandering, Searching, Digging, Uncovering 03:44

3. After You 04:27

4. The Woods 04:40

5. Push Comes To Shove 07:32

6. How Was The Drive? 04:39

7. There's No There There 04:14

8. Hoarse Syrinx 04:39

9. Wavy Lines 05:04

10. Hurricane 05:16

11. Ballad of the Weak 06:49

12. DNA 07:58

13. That Was Then 05:54

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Stringed Instruments
Woodwinds
Recordings by or featuring Reed & Wind Players
Duo Recordings

Search for other titles on the label:
Out Of Your Head Records.


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The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

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