PRESS RELEASE
PARTY OF TWO @ BEAST: LIVE JAZZ IN THE BACK ROOM

Jazz violinist Zach Brock will appear in performance with guitarists Jonathan Kreisberg, Ben Monder, and Nate Radley at Beast Restaurant, located at 638 Bergen Street in Brooklyn's Prospect Heights neighborhood at 8PM on February 16, 23, and March 2 respectively.  There is no cover charge or drink minimum and seating is limited.  Call 718-399-6855 to make a reservation.

About Zach Brock:  Zach Brock has been heralded by Blue Note artist and MacArthur Grant recipient Patricia Barber as "the one on whom to place your bets in jazz" and lionized as "the great bright hope for jazz violin" by the Chicago Tribune.  Brock's first band, The Coffee Achievers, progressed from a circuit of Midwest jazz clubs to Carnegie Hall and the Tudo e Jazz Festival in Brazil. They also produced three recordings on Brock's own label, Secret Fort Records.  Brock has performed with an impressive roster of artists including Stanley Clarke, Patricia Barber, and Bob Dorough, as well as Alice Coltrane, George Cables, Jeff "Tain" Watts, Kurt Elling, Dennis Chambers, John McLean, Grazyna Auguscik, The Mahavishnu Project and Eastern Blok.  In 2009 Brock will make his international film debut as part of "Passion," a documentary about forgotten jazz violin pioneer Zbigniew Seifert.

February 16, Jonathan Kreisberg: Jonathan started playing guitar at the age of ten. At 16 he was admitted to the New World School of the Arts in Miami, where his jazz studies took center stage.  Intensely dedicated to the instrument, he was featured in Guitar Player and DownBeat while still in his teens.  He won a scholarship to the University of Miami, where he held the guitar chair in the acclaimed Concert Jazz Band, touring Brazil and performing with Joe Henderson, Michael Brecker, and Red Rodney.  In Miami he also performed with the New World Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas. Since returning to New York City in 1997, Jonathan has worked in the bands of many greats including Joe Locke, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Joel Frahm, Greg Tardy, Roy Nathanson, Donald Edwards, Jane Monheit, Ari Hoenig, Yosvany Terry, and Lenny White.  He has also led groups of various instrumentations featuring artists such as Bill Stewart, Larry Grenadier, and Scott Wendholt.  He has recorded five CDs as a leader, including Unearth (2005), his first release on Mel Bay Records.

February 23, Ben Monder: A musician in the New York area for 25 years, Ben Monder has performed with a variety of artists, including Jack McDuff, Marc Johnson, Lee Konitz, George Garzone, Tim Berne, and Kenny Wheeler. He is a regular member of the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra and the Paul Motian Octet, as well as many other projects. He has conducted clinics and workshops around the world, and served on the faculty of the New England Conservatory from 2002-2005. Ben continues to perform original music internationally with his own quartet, trio, and in a duo project with vocalist Theo Bleckmann. He has appeared on over 100 CDs as a sideman, and has released 4 as a leader: Oceana (Sunnyside, 2005), Excavation (Arabesque, 2000), Dust (Arabesque, 1997), and Flux (Songlines,1995).

March 2, Nate Radley: Nate Radley was born in Concord, NH and studied music at New England Conservatory, in Boston, MA.  He has recorded and performed with a variety of jazz artists including Rick Margitza, Mark Turner, Donny McCaslin, Greg Osby, Chris Potter, John Hollenbeck, Billy Hart, Seamus Blake, Cuong Vu, Matt Wilson, Antonio Sanchez and George Garzone. Nate has performed throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, at jazz festivals including the North Sea Jazz Festival and the Montreal International Jazz Festival, and can be heard on recordings for the Steeplechase and Fresh Sound/New Talent record labels. In 2005, Nate was named one of the winners of the ASCAP young jazz composers competition. He currently leads his own trio, and performs with a variety of bands based in New York.

About Beast Restaurant: Beast opened its curved, medieval-looking doors in February of 2005, offering a non-traditional, American spin on Mediterranean tapas, served up in a unique atmosphere. Since its opening in 2005, Beast has won acclaim, particularly for its unique menu, including a Top Pick in The New York Times, inclusion in the Top 5 Brunch Spots in New York City from New York Magazine, and was nominated in the Reader's Choice Awards for Best New Brooklyn Restaurant in Time Out New York.  Go to www.brooklynbeast.com for more information.

Since Jazz music has become so marginalized in today's media and culture, I'm not surprised to have noticed a glaring lack of commentary referring to its undeniable and significant contributions to this historic moment. Of course, the contributions to which I refer include championing social equality and tearing up the roots of racism, but the method of this social revolution is what I'm more preoccupied with. Jazz music's thesis would indicate that this election is not so much a momentary triumph of justice over injustice as it is the long-awaited arrival at an inevitable destination.

Several years ago I participated in a concert and lecture series called "The Jazz Age In Paris." I must confess that until I was under deadline to submit a written proposal I hadn't done much scholarly research on this era. The Wikipedia entry, while lacking in many respects, can provide the gist of what some scholars say concerning this topic. By definition, it was the first time in history that the rest of the world, in a mainstream sense, was introduced to American Jazz.

People were in a state of shock after WWI. The aftermath of a new, 20th century-style mechanization of mass slaughter (i.e., land mines, chemical warfare, tanks, and air assaults) following a seemingly isolated terrorist incident had shaken many people's belief in humanity and had laid waste to the romantic aesthetics of the last century: enter Schoenberg, Ives, Ernst, Picasso, Stein, Joyce, etc. While the old-world racism, sexism, and homophobia of European and American culture were very much in full effect, there was also a palpable sense that "what once was, is no longer." Seem familiar?

It is easy to cast aspersions on the world's fascination with the "exoticism (code word)" of American Jazz, but regardless of unrighteous motivations, Jazz also became the dominant "pop culture" theme around the world. People were responding to a new social openness that wasn't welcomed at the opera, museum, university, or church. People were also responding to a new musical style that combined the well-known with the unknown; both rebellious and nostalgic.

Since then, Jazz has been in everyone's lives, woven into the fabric of American (and international) culture, actively and indiscriminately assimilating every other form of music that it encounters. It has provided a universal context for its practitioners and enthusiasts to work together, relate to one another, and to express things with one another that go beyond one's individual background.  Jazz is an antidote to beliefs that assert an intrinsic superiority as their claim to power, and it is a paragon of cultural inclusion.

I am in no way implying that people practicing and admiring Jazz were somehow sheltered from the ills of society or that, within the jazz community itself, people have existed in an egalitarian, multi-cultural utopia. It's too easy to conjure the images of Miles Davis holding a handkerchief to his bloodied head after being assaulted by a cop outside one of his own gigs, or to recall the domestic terrorism that set the precedent for John Coltrane's "Alabama," or, years earlier, the sickening reality conveyed by the lyrics of Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit."