Join us for a live taping and listening-room concert for Atlas Maior! Joshua Thomson - Alto Saxophone Joshua Peters - Oud Josh Flowers - Upright Bass Gray Parsons - Drums Atlas Maior creates original music that combines elements of Progressive Jazz, Middle Eastern, Latin, and Indian music traditions. Band members Joshua Thomson (alto saxophone, flutes), Josh Peters (oud, lavta), create a unique sound that balances intimate moments of sincerity with powerful melodies and incendiary rhythmic passages. The group writes original melodies exploring maqamat (Middle Eastern modal system) and harmonic progressions found in American jazz. Atlas Maior composes with a variety of rhythms & instrumentation including Indian tablas, kanjira, & Chinese hulusi. Lauded internationally, Atlas Maior is presenting a culmination of their creative work from 2020-2024 with their very first vinyl release Hadal Deluxe Edition. The new record is due out on June 7th, and will be celebrated at their record release party at The Monks Jazz Club, Austin, TX! Hadal Deluxe Edition vinyl is reflective of Atlas Maior’s highly collaborative nature and features original and cross-cultural collaborative compositions. Reflecting back on a career of musical journeys, Atlas Maior comments, “The group continues to elevate voices, and highlight cultural music traditions within Austin, and abroad that are often marginalized, and underrepresented from the music mainstream. It is our intention to highlight these music and cultural differences with the goal of ourselves learning from them, while also creating something new together.” 

L.C. Franke - Vocals Paulo Santos - Saxophone Ross Margitza - Piano Ryan Hagler - Bass JJ Johnson - Drums First Show: Doors at 7:45pm, Show at 8pm. Second Show: Doors at 9:45pm, Show at 10pm. Easy listening for anxious times, torch songs for a world on fire, orchestral pop for the algorithm age: this is the twilit milieu of L.C. Franke, whose debut album Still In Bloom, releasing July 19, builds a bridge between twentieth-century nostalgia and our modern alienation. Across ten tracks of pure mood-indigo music, inspired by the jazz-club savoir faire of artists like Frank Sinatra, Scott Walker, and Ella Fitzgerald, Franke’s barstool croon smolders against a backdrop of woodwind trills and string quartet swells. It’s a musical tonic that pairs equally well with gin and general malaise—light on the ears, heavy on the heart. Still In Bloom is the sound of midlife crisis turned spiritual rebirth. Recorded live in the room with an actual orchestra, and completed over just three weekend sessions, it’s both musically rich and emotionally direct. On “You’re Not Alone,” Franke takes your hand and leads you from a shadowy alley, toward a shimmering skyline that’s swirling with flutes and the simple reassurance, “Worst case / It’ll pass.” The mood takes a slightly more sinister turn on “Wish the World,” a sardonic tango about a soured relationship that’s underscored by spy-movie violins and vibraphone. And the album finds its bruised thematic heart on the title track, “Still In Bloom,” where a pensive piano melody and wintry strings provide the stripped-down bed for Franke’s late-night ruminations on the everyday struggle to find resilience amid the ruins. These are spellbinding, smoke-gets-in-your-eyes songs, rendered as sharp as a custom-cut suit, evoking lonely subway rides past abandoned automats, and those halcyon days before the Brill Building housed a CVS. ------ “Music You Should Know” - Rolling Stone “a cunning crooner and composer. This album had me instantly with its ambitious originality and shrewd songwriting, singing and arrangements” - Jazz Wax “Smoldering, sophisticated jazz-pop” - KUTX “smart lyrics that seek to pierce the heart of darkness” “rich melodicism and sophistication” - No Depression “ a salve of nostalgia mixed for modern anxiety, a balm between Scott Walker and Richard Hawley… an immaculately suave debut album” -Austin Chronicle 

Join us for a live taping and listening-room concert for the Azmaris! Jason Frey - Tenor Saxophone, Electronics/EFX Carolyn Trowbridge - Vibraphone Mario Castellanos - Upright Bass Andy Beaudoin - Drums Beginning as an Ethio-Jazz offshoot of Austin Afrobeat band Hard Proof, the Azmaris have evolved into their own. Playing in the style of Mulatu Astatke and his use of Ethiopian tonality in a jazz combo setting, the group incorporates jazz instrumentation and psych sensibility to create moody introspective narrations. 

Join us for a live taping and listening-room concert for the Brian Donohoe Quartet! Brian Donohoe - Tenor saxophone Andy Langham - Piano Ryan Hagler - Bass Adam Jackson - Drums As a keyboardist, saxophonist, composer, arranger, and producer, Brian Donohoe has worked on recordings and concerts around the world and across a bewildering variety of genres. From Bruno Mars and the Black Pumas to early works of Snarky Puppy and his own funk-fusion band, Progger, Brian has contributed to countless performances and productions in jazz, funk, soul, R&B, rock, hip-hop, and ambient electronic music. A disciple of the avant-garde jazz and fusion movements of the 1960s and 1970s, Brian will be performing a relatively rare acoustic set at Monks featuring music by his strongest musical influences, including Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, along with music of his own. 

Join us for a live taping and listening-room concert for Eli Menezes Quartet! Eli Menezes - Guitar Tony Bray - Saxophone Ryan Hagler - Bass Daniel Watson - Drums Eli Menezes is a Brazilian multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer based out of Austin and New York City. His talent began at the early age of 12 while playing guitar, bass and keyboards in church and local bands in Rio de Janeiro. Since moving to NYC in the Spring of 2000 he’s been to over 60 countries and has worked with a diverse spectrum of artists and musicians from every style such as: Lauryn Hill, Richard Bona, Rita Ora, Faith Evans, Common, Ashanti, Estelle, Thalia, Fred Hammond and David Bisbal among many others. Eli currently lives in Austin, TX and is deeply involved in the Austin recording and live music scene where he often plays with Austin based artists such as David Grissom, Andrea Magee, JoJames, The Kill Tony Band, Gina Chavez and also FORQ from Snarky Puppy’s ground up music label. 

Join us for a live taping and listening-room concert for the Dayne Reliford Quartet! Lineup TBA Dayne Reliford is a pianist, arranger, and composer from Houston, Texas. His musical journey started at the age of 4 when his grandparents enrolled him in lessons after watching him gravitate to their upright piano as a toddler. In December of 2020, Dayne graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Jazz Studies from Texas State University in San Marcos, TX. Now, he serves as a freelance musician in Austin and has shared the stage with artists such as Brannen Temple, Robin Mckelle, Delfayo Marsalis, Andre Hayward, Michael Malone, Hannibal Lokumbe, and others.