Colter Frazier

Date/Time/Cost

Michael Mull, Alto Saxophone

Tim Fischer, Electric Guitar

Emilio Terranova, Acoustic Bass

Colin Woodford, Drums

http://www.timfischermusic.com

Pianist/composer Motoko Honda marries classical, jazz, avant-garde and Pacific-Rim textures with 21^st-century technology and emerges with musical soundscapes as profound as they are all-encompassing. Whether solo or in collaboration, live or in-studio, a Honda "comprovisation" is sound- and shape-shifting at its most thrilling and immediate.

A native of Sendai, Japan, Honda was a child prodigy who began transcribing musical scores by ear at age four and writing pop and folk arrangements for her school ensembles at age 10. After receiving numerous music awards in her home country, including the prestigious JPTA national competition, Honda emigrated to the U.S. in 1995, where she earned degrees from Bethany College and the California Institute of the Arts. Honda's musical virtuosity, coupled with a firm grasp of the multimedia arts, has taken her to European concert halls as well as jazz clubs and underground music venues in Seattle, New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Minneapolis and her adopted hometown of Los Angeles.

The Roberta Piket Trio, featuring extraordinary drummer Billy Mintz, sets a new standard for modern piano jazz. In addition to performing originals by all three band members, the trio play rarely performed compositions by Bill Evans and Herbie Hancock, several underplayed standards from the popular American songbook, and a polymetric arrangement of The Fifth Dimension's "Up, Up and Away" that has become a "special request" among the trio's fans. Every performance is filled with spontaneity and creativity.

Roberta Piket has played professionally as a sidewoman with David Liebman, Rufus Reid, Michael Formanek, Lionel Hampton and the BMI/New York Jazz Orchestra and has twice been a featured guest on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz, on National Public Radio. Roberta, who holds a B.S. in Computer Science, turned away from a future as a software engineer after a year in that field to pursue what now seems an inevitable path in creative music. A gifted composer, Roberta placed second in the 1993 Thelonious Monk-BMI Composers' Competition. She has six CDs released as a leader on various independent labels.

In an extraordinary career spanning nearly 40 years, Billy Mintz has played with some of the biggest names in the jazz world including Lee Konitz, Eddie Daniels, Harold Danko, Mose Allison, Mark Murphy, Bobby Shew, Charles Lloyd, Vinny Golia, and the
Alan Broadbent Trio. Mr. Mintz has written two books: Different Drummers, originally published by Aamsco Music Publishing and Advanced Sticking and Sight-Reading (BM Publications). In recent years, Mr. Mintz has taken on new roles as a bandleader and a
composer, performing his own compositions with various ensembles. He also performs solo drumset concerts with increasing frequency.

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One of Southern California's most exciting up-and-coming bands, PLOTZ! blends the sounds of Eastern European folk music with creative jazz improvisation and progressive rock. The six members of PLOTZ! have backgrounds in many different styles of music, including jazz, world-percussion, classical, rock, metal, experimental, and many others. Dedicated to a unified and harmonized world-view, PLOTZ! draws inspiration for original compositions from styles, stories, and experiences from all over the world, from ancient Greek mythology and Iceni history to the experience of modern city life and surfing. Bringing rock-god energy and intensity to every performance, PLOTZ! explodes off the stage in a jubilant musical celebration of life!

With Daniel Rosenboom on trumpets, Gavin Templeton on saxophones, Brian Walsh on clarinets and saxophones, Jake Vossler on guitars, Orest Balaban on bass, and Austin Wrinkle on drums, PLOTZ! is made up of some of California's most accomplished and innovative young musicians. Each member of PLOTZ! is a composer in his own right, and each has been trained at some of America's most respected musical institutions, including the Eastman School of Music and California Institute of the Arts.

Formed in March of 2005 PLOTZ! has played all over Southern California on various stages, clubs, and colleges. In early 2007, they released their first studio album, Extraordinary Renditions on their own PLOTZ! Music Productions label. This CD won international acclaim when it received "Best International Instrumental CD" in the 2007 Toronto Exclusive Magazine Music Awards, as well as "Best Instrumental CD" and "Best Instrumental Song" (Splash, by Daniel Rosenboom) in the 2007 M.A.V.R.I.C. Awards in Ventura County, CA. PLOTZ! recently released a new album, Live 2008, in the fall of 2008. Get PLOTZ!'s albums from CD Baby, or download it from iTunes and other international digital distributors!

Colin Woodford is an award-winning composer, percussionist, instrument builder, and improviser from Los Angeles. He is a regular performer/composer at new music series', and guest artist at museums and art galleries. In addition, he has collaborated with dancers, animators, and visual artists. He all but learned phrasing from George Carlin and Victor Borge, and has played with creative music greats Wadada Leo Smith, Vinny Golia, Larry Koonse, Darek Oles, and more.

Our "Call And Response" program features me [Dottie Grossman] and improvising trombonist Michael Vlatkovich. For the Muddy Waters show, we'll have with us Rich West on drums and percussion. I read my own poems aloud; Michael and Rich instantly improvise a response on trombone and/or drums. None of us knows in advance what the others will choose to do. The format creates an appealing artistic tension in a unique way; i.e., it reaches both literary and musical audiences, while transcending the usual "jazz and poetry" formula. This format solves the problem of one medium overshadowing the other, plus it avoids the possible pitfalls of the old "jazz and poetry" trap, with its cliche-ridden stereotype of angry poets and bearded, bongo-playing beatniks. We skirt the obvious and the literal, finding a common emotional point from which to spontaneously "compose" and combine the precision of poetry with the improvisational essence of jazz. The music enhances the words without overpowering them, and vice-versa.

The late Allen Ginsberg called Dorothea (Dottie) Grossman's poetry, "clear, odd, personal, funny or wild-weird, curious and lucid." The award-winning poet lives, works and writes in Los Angeles.
Her work has appeared in numerous poetry journals and magazines. In 1988, Tango Press published her book, "Cuttings: Selected Poetry 1978-1988." "Poems From Cave 17" was published in 1996, and "Museum of Rain" was published by Take Out Publications in 2001. Her latest chapbook, The First Time I Ate Sushi, was published by Zerx Press in January, 2008. The CD, "Call And Response," on the pfMentum label, features her in live performance mode with Vlatkovich. Her poems were featured in a live performance at Wichita State University in 2006, in a piece commissioned by the school for theater arts majors, singers and musicians under the direction of flutist Ellen Burr. In August, 2006, she was invited to exhibit poems at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions Galleries as part of a FLUXUS salute called "Broom Events: Sweepings."  She was a featured poet in the March 2010 issue of Poetry Magazine.  Dottie and Michael Vlatkovich have also just released a new cd entitled "Call & Response & Friends."

Michael Vlatkovich, trombonist, composer and arranger, tours extensively in the United States, Canada, and Europe. In addition to leading his own ensembles, Vlatkovich has performed and recorded with a variety of singers and instrumentalists, including Peggy Lee, Brian Setzer, ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Bryan Adams, Bobby Bradford, Gerry Hemingway, and Rob Blakeslee.

The magazine, "JAZZIZ" has called Vlatkovich, "...one of the most extraordinary improvising trombonists in this country as well as overseas. Also a gifted composer and arranger, Vlatkovich is one of the leading talents among Los Angeles improvisational players. Working from the Left Coast since 1973, he is well known for tireless touring, bringing his music all over the United States, Canada, and Europe. A daring and emotionally charged performer, Vlatkovich takes delight in blending a broad variety of jazz and world music styles into his own brand of engaging and unpredictable music. His approach manages to express a raw power and beauty within a minimally structured format that allows extensive group improvisations to lead the way."

As part of the Southern California scene, Rich West regularly collaborates with players such as the Ventura trumpeter, bandleader, and composer Jeff Kaiser, whose album Nothing Is Not Breath: Music for Double Quartet presents some of West's finest drumming. West has been a regular accomplice of scat-singing experimental vocalist Bonnie Barnett and in the mid-'90s made several albums with the Mooseheart Faith Stellar Groove Band. He also played on the Mike Watt opus Ball-Hog or Tugboat? during this period. One of the most interesting meeting points for this region's punk rock and free jazz scenes was the SST Mojack album, which presented West as the drummer in an ensemble fronted by guitarist Greg Ginn of Black Flag fame. There are many listeners who feel this album predicts the later activities of that guitarist's instrumental band named Gone. West's projects as a bandleader have included appearing at the late, much lamented Berkeley new music venue Beanbenders fronting the Richie West Quartet, featuring his old bandmate Graham Connah on piano, Elliot Kavee on cello, and guitarist Alex Candelaria; or in duo with guitarist David Kwan. The coordinator of this series, composer and multi-instrumentalist Dan Plonsey, described West's percussion style accordingly: "His vocabulary derives from traditional jazz drumming, but he has so re-ordered the syntax, that one may get the impression that he is not from this planet at all." The drummer's compositions written for these engagements have been compared to the work of Thelonious Monk, but it might have more to do with the stuff West picked up on accordion as a kid, and at least he's not stage-diving anymore. In 2001, he took part in an Ojai recording session under the dual leadership of Jeff Kaiser and his guitarist partner, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, also featuring fellow percussionist Brad Dutz, trombonist Scot Ray, and the excellent bassist Jim Connolly.   His accordion work adds a welcome addition to the Call & Response format of Grossman & Vlatkovich.