Hello and thanks for coming to my website.

Today, October 7, there is an article by Ben Ratliff in the New York Times called “New Pilots at the Keyboard” in which he writes about four younger jazz pianists who are playing a great deal around New York: Fabian Almazan, Kris Davis, David Virelles, and me. I feel honored to appear both in the New York Times and in the company of such great pianists. You can read it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/arts/music/four-young-pianists-on-the-rise-in-the-jazz-scene.html?_r=1&ref=music

Today is also notable for me finally putting up some new music on my ‘Music Samples’ page. There’s a good 90 minutes up there now, including some very recent performances as well as some of slightly older vintage. I hope you enjoy listening to them. Please let me know what you think!

on October 28 of this month I’m debuting a new band called Normal Remarkable Persons. We’ll be playing the piece that is mentioned in the above article. The band will include Travis Laplante – tenor saxophone, Herb Robertson – trumpet, Tyshawn Sorey – drums, and me. There will also be a possible 5th ‘mystery’ member if ‘circumstances’ ‘allow’. This will be at 10 pm at the Douglass St Music Collective in Brooklyn. The pianists Jesse Stacken and Landon Knoblock will be presenting bands earlier in the evening and I highly recommend coming for the whole thing.

other upcoming performances:

October 21 and 22
John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble plays the music of Kenny Wheeler at the Jazz Standard [NY]
sets at 7:30, 9:30 and 11:30 pm each night

November 10
Jamie Baum Septet at Symphony Space [NY] at 7:30 pm

November 11
Tim Berne’s Los Totopos at the Stone [NY] at 10 pm

November 18-20
Claudia Quintet +1 +Theo Bleckmann mini tour
11/18 – The Stone 10 pm [NY]
11/19 – The Art Alliance 8 pm [Phila]
11/20 – An Die Musik 7 pm [B-more]

Lastly but certainly not leastly, I’m pleased to tell you that I’m part of the latest Claudia Quintet recording, entitled What is the Beautiful? It features the classic Claudia Quintet lineup with me added, and the great vocalists Theo Bleckmann and Kurt Elling singing and reciting, respectively, settings of the poet Kenneth Patchen. Some of my favorite compositions of John’s are on this record and I’m very proud to be a part of it. It will be released October 11 on Cuneiform Records, which you can find here: http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/

that should do it for now. talk to you again just before December, when Tim Berne is curating the Stone!

thanks for reading.

-m

Hello everyone,

It has been an extremely busy time for me during the interval since my last update. I toured the US West Coast with John Hollenbeck’s Large Ensemble in early March, continental Europe in early April with Mr. Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet + 1, and Australia in May and June, first with Quinsin Nachoff’s Forward Motion and then with Tim Berne’s Los Totopos. To top it all off, I just returned from a very fun tour of jazz festivals in Canada and Europe with Rudresh Mahanthappa and Bunky Green’s Apex.

While my musical activity for the next couple months will be mainly NYC-centric, there still will be a lot going on:

– This Friday, July 15, I’m returning to Cornelia St. Cafe with my sextet, Central Chain. We packed the house back in February and of course hope to do so once again! This time we’ll play two sets, at 9 and 10:30 pm.

from the Cornelia St website: http://www.corneliastreetcafe.com/list2010c.asp?sdate=7/15/2011&from_cal=0
Critic’s Pick in Time Out New York: http://newyork.timeout.com/music-nightlife/music/1625907/matt-mitchells-central-chain

– The next day I play at Barbes with Matt Bauder’s Day in Pictures: http://www.mattbauder.net/calendar.html

– On July 22 I play again with Darius Jones’s quartet, at IBeam: http://ibeambrooklyn.com/calendar/

– I will be playing two sets at Cornelia once again on the 30th of July in a trio with Tim Berne and Dan Weiss:

http://www.corneliastreetcafe.com/downstairs/list2010c.asp?sdate=7/27/2011&from_cal=0

To top it all off, I will once again be a core faculty member at SIM [www.schoolforimprov.org]. I will be teaching with my friends Ralph Alessi, Chris Lightcap, and Tom Rainey at the Brooklyn branch of Long Island University from July 25 through 29, with a faculty concert at the Jazz Gallery on July 27.

There are a few exciting things in August as well.

first up in the month I will be playing again with Rudresh Mahanthappa and Bunky Green’s Apex at the Newport Jazz Festival. It could without saying that I’m excited for this, though it seems that I’ve said just that: http://www.newportjazzfest.net/index.php?pID=321&artist=192

On August 14, I play in Lisbon, Portugal, with the John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble as part of Jazz Em Agosto: http://www.kadmusarts.com/festivals/2032.html

Finally, on August 17 at 8 pm I will play at Barbes again, this time as part of a new duo with Dave King, drummer of the Bad Plus, Happy Apple, Dave King Trucking Co., etc.! We will be playing primarily music from Dave’s frighteningly cool ‘solo’ CD Indelicate, on which he plays drums AND piano. I will be playing Dave’s insane piano parts, hopefully with an appropriate level of sanity intact.

and that’s all for now! thanks so much for reading. One of these days before too long I’ll actually ‘blog’ about ‘something’ other than ‘gigs’.

peace,

-mm

Hi there.

I just wanted to quickly mention that my sextet, Central Chain, will be making it’s NYC debut tonight, February 13, at Cornelia St Cafe. I hope you Philadelphia/NYC-area locals can make it! Doors open at 8:30 pm and we start no later than 9, and we’ll play 2 different sets of music. Cover is $10 and there is a $10 drink minimum.

the band:

Tim Berne, alto saxophone
Oscar Noriega, bass clarinet
Mary Halvorson, guitar
John Hebert, bass
Tomas Fujiwara, drums

the press:

NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/arts/music/11jazz.html?_r=3&ref=music
A nice blurb from Jim Macnie in the Village Voice: http://www.villagevoice.com/events/matt-mitchells-central-chain-2365428/
and a Critic’s Pick in Time Out NY: http://newyork.timeout.com/music-nightlife/music/886819/matt-mitchells-central-chain

the venue: http://corneliastreetcafe.com/downstairs/performances.asp

Also coming up this week, two more critic’s picks from Time Out NY

Background Music at Korzo 11pm 2/15: http://newyork.timeout.com/music-nightlife/music/887181/background-music-kirk-knuffke-trio
and the debut of my duo with Dan Weiss at Barbes 2/16: http://newyork.timeout.com/music-nightlife/music/886673/weissmitchell-duo

finally, on 2/19 I fly to Columbus, OH for a gig with Rez Abbasi’s Invocation: http://www.wexarts.org/pa/index.php?eventid=5257
I just got back from a 2-night run at the Rex in Toronto with this band [with Jon Maharaj and Damion Reid playing bass and drums, respectively] that was explosively fun.

other recent things…recording and European tour with Tim Berne’s Los Totopos happened in January, West Coast tour with John Hollenbeck’s Large Ensemble coming up March 1-8, European tour with John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet April 1-9, some gigs with Shane Endsley’s Music Band this month and in April…and sometime in there I’m making a new electronics record.

thanks for reading! if you would like to be removed from the list, just hit reply and tell me.

peace,

-mm