Trio recording in NYC with Damión Reid and Matt Brewer

I just finished a full day of recording with two old friends, Damión Reid and Matt Brewer, at the Samurai Hotel recording studio in NYC.  It was beautiful to see these guys bring my trio compositions to life and add the unexpected twists that made them unique to this group.  I can’t thank them enough for playing this music as well as David Stoller who captured this performance in his beautiful studio.  A big thank you to Nick Vayenas for coming out and capturing video of this date.  I can’t wait to see how it all comes together.

This session was an impromptu decision I made, knowing I would be in NYC in a months time.  Setting a deadline such as this really pushed me to I called these friends, booked the studio, wrote music, and worked around quite a few obstacles to see this through.  I’ve learned so much from the experience and it has stoked a fire to do it again and go deeper into the music.  

The connection with these musicians goes back over a decade when I met and played duos with Damión in Boston for hours at a time, day after day. I met Matt when we were roommates living in Harlem when he was still pretty new to NYC.  He sounded so amazing then that you would have thought he had been in the city for ages.

Right now I'm getting ready to see Winter Jazz Fest in NYC before heading back south.  It will be a special treat to see so many old friends that I haven’t had a chance to catch up with in years.  More about that when I write again.  Hope you all are having a great start to 2017!

New Video with Nick Vayenas

I was invited to my good friend Nick Vayenas to his new studio in Astoria, Queens to record with a few old friends from both Miami and New York.  This video features a song I had recorded with pianist Asen Doykin for a collective band called "Openended".  

 

When the Time Comes

 

This rendition features Nick on trombone, Asen on piano, Josh Allen on bass, and Evan Hyde on drums.

Hope you enjoy,

Mark

New Videos

Hello Everyone,

I've posted a few new videos on Youtube of two very different trios that I've been playing with.  The first is called Rest/Unrest, led by drummer John Yarling, is a tribute to the music of Mark Helias, NYC bassist and composer. This trio is myself on saxophone, Josh Allen on bass, and John Yarling on drums. 

The other is a collective group called the Language Trio which features Rodolfo Zuniga on drums, Josh allen and myself.  These videos are of a recent tour to Costa Rica where we performed at "El Sotano" in the capital, San Jose.

Hope you enjoy them,

Mark

with Language Trio:

"Last Time I Saw Paris" 

"Reza"

with Rest/Unrest

"Anagram" 

"Gyro"

Side project now has a home

Hello Everyone,

A project that I began last Christmas with my good friend Chris Klaxton has finally been given a home on the internet.  The project, titled VonBerwick, features mostly freely improvised music and a few loosely composed pieces from a collaborative cast of characters.  To date, the band has featured Chris on trumpet, myself on saxophone, Michael Effenberger on Fender Rhodes and effects, Sunniva Brynnel on accordion, Eric Von Oeyen on drums, and Eric Klaxton on saxophone. 

The recording was done by Kendall Moore in beautiful First Federated Church in South Berwick Maine.  Having recorded the project in this church and recently been listing to the fascinating life of Hildegard Von Bingen, we named the project with a slight nod to her.

Much of this music is as much about what the listener brings to it with their imagination as it is what we imagined one would experience.  Think of it as more of a dialogue with you than the spoon fed music that permeates the radio.  We plan to continue recording and adding new collaborators in the future.  The playlist will be ever changing from the wealth of material we have from these sessions.  We'd love to know what you think.

 

You can find us at: 

http://vonberwick.tumblr.com

http://vonberwick.bandcamp.com

 

Mark Small Music

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