Quinn’s proudly presents one of the most forward-thinking groups in jazz today, the Deep Ecology Trio. DET features Cristian Amigo on guitars and percussion) J.D. Parran on winds and percussion, and Andrew Drury on drums and percussion.
No cover, donations requested. Conceptual/biographical details follow below.
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Cristian Amigo wrote the following to describe his concept of Deep Ecology Music:
“Deep Ecology Music (DEM) is based on the premise that art is an extension of the creative principal in nature expressed in the human domain. In DEM, the musicians transform images about nature’s processes and ephemera into expressions in sound. This is not programmatic music describing a simple pastoral scene, but rather a meditation on nature from quanta (material reality underneath human experience), through the material level where humans experience reality (including ourselves as community and individuals), and into the macrocosm of space and time beyond human experience. Not art imitating nature but art as nature. This is our riff.
DEM is, as the name implies, is inspired by the Deep Ecology movement that seeks a new understanding and interaction with the earth’s natural ecology in the hope that it, including humans, survive the human-produced ecological crisis the world finds itself in. This is the real-life political reference, inspiration, and reason for our making DEM.
In terms of sound, I believe that the listeners’ usual expectations of how music works have to be bracketed in order to appreciate the small and larger sound relationships expressed by the musicians. This is a music with multiple and simultaneous temporal planes, images, goals reached and abandoned, tiny and large sounds, waves, and organic expressions. The usual musical touchstones of melody and harmony are mostly abandoned in favor of rhythm, color, and density. There is nothing to get and nowhere to go, it is like Zen meditation, a music of dwelling—like walking through a garden and noticing every flower and animal, hurtling through space like Major Tom, or dancing on a jetty.
Please don’t be put off by my egghead description of DEM (I really did aim for clarity)— ultimately it’s just sound. I hope you like the sound and the experience of listening to it. Please turn off your cellphones. LOL.
Cristian Amigo”
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Known as an acoustic and electric guitarist, and improviser, New York City-based composer/producer/ educator/musician Cristian Amigo performs his music in various groups including Deep Ecology Trio (with JD Parran and Andrew Drury) and Kingdom of Jones. Amigo’s music is characterized by the use of both freely tonal and extended techniques. Other musical characteristics include a foregrounding of timbre and dynamics, and free movement between multitemporal planes including psychological time. A musical polyglot, Amigo describes himself as, “mostly a post-bop blues guitarist with a fuzz pedal.” Amigo’s awards include a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in music composition, and the Van Lier Fellowship from Meet the Composer. He has a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from UCLA. The 2012 New Grove Dictionary of American Music (Oxford Press) contains an entry on Amigo and his music. Recent performances include the NYC Latin FreeJazz Festival, Vision Festival, NYC Alternative Guitar Festival, and The World Festival of Sacred Music (LA). He is currently composer-in-residence at INTAR Latino Theater in New York City and teaches music at Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning.
He has performed/collaborated with hundreds of musicians and artists including Elliott Sharp, Miguel Frasconi, Du Yun, jill sigman/thinkdance, Wadada Leo Smith, Carlos Hayre, Jason Kao Hwang, Mary Rowell, Juan Felipe Herrera, Migdalia Cruz, Eve Beglarian, Gelsey Bell, Corey Dargel, Royce Vavrek, Gustavo Aguilar, Bern Nix, Jack Quartet, Steve Swell, Izzi Ramkissoon, William Hooker, Ras Moshe, Hans Tammen, Hans Zimmer, Angela Babin, and others.
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J. D. Parran is an American multi-woodwind player, educator, and composer specializing in jazz and free improvised music. He plays the soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, and bass saxophone, as well as the E-flat clarinet, clarinet, alto clarinet, bass clarinet, contra-alto clarinet, flute, piccolo, alto flute, bamboo flute, Native American flute, bamboo saxophone, and nagaswaram. Parran possesses a virtuosic technique and mastery over a number of extended techniques for these instruments.
Parran has recorded with Stevie Wonder and John Lennon. For fifteen years he was a member of the experimental woodwind trio New Winds (with Robert Dick and Ned Rothenberg), and is a longtime member of Anthony Davis‘s Episteme ensemble. He also performs and records with Anthony Braxton‘s ensembles and has collaborated with Leroy Jenkins, Hamiet Bluiett, Douglas Ewart, John Lindberg, Peter Brötzmann, and the free improvisation group Company, which included Derek Bailey, Jon Corbett, Hugh Davies, Jamie Muir, Evan Parker, Vinko Globokar, and Joëlle Léandre.
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Andrew Drury began drumming in the sixth grade band at his school on Bainbridge Island, Washington. After spending a summer digging a basement under his parents’ house with a shovel and pick he bought a drum set and began taking lessons from Seattle drummer Dave Coleman, Sr. He later studied with Ed Blackwell, Bill Lowe, Bill Barron, and the writer Annie Dillard at Wesleyan University. He is a self-taught composer. In addition to groups that he leads and frequent encounters with improvisers from various parts of the world he plays regularly with Jason Kao Hwang, Jessica Lurie, Reuben Radding, the Rat Race Choir, the Steve Swell Trio, TOTEM>, Nate Wooley, Jack Wright, and others.
Since 2002 much of Drury’s music has been characterized by an exploration of new materials and techniques, and by the use of texture as a central organizing element. He frequently performs using one drum, scraping the head with wood slivers and fingernails, manipulating drum head tension and harmonic patterns with bells, using the drum as an acoustic filter and amplifier for vibrations produced on other objects, and using the drum as a wind instrument.
