Monks Livestream's Upcoming Shows

In collaboration with the Austin Jazz Society, this performance features 5 pianists & 1 guitarist performing works from the large catalogue of compositions by the great Thelonious Monk. October 10th is Monk’s birthday, so be prepared for a party!

Pianists:

Collin Shook

JaRon Marshall

Milo Hehmsoth

Joao Carmargo

Guitarist:

Bruce Saunders

Bassist:

Chris Jones

Drummer:

Kevin Witt

Dan Thomas – Saxophone

James Suter – Double Bass

Chris Torres – Drums

Dan Thomas is an up-and-coming saxophonist and composer based in the Austin area. He began playing bassoon at age 11, before adopting saxophone full time while at the Butler School of Music at UT Austin, studying under professors John Mills and Diego Rivera. During his time at the University, Thomas has performed regularly as both an in-demand sideman as well as a bandleader. He has been fortunate enough to connect with many incredible musicians to date, having shared the bandstand with artists such as Terell Stafford, Andre Hayward, Chad LB, Steven Feifke, Danny Jonokuchi, Martina DaSilva, Dan Chmielinksi, and Mike Sailors.

Join us for a live taping and listening-room concert for Kerry Politzer Quartet!

Kerry Politzer – Piano

Joel Frahm – Saxophone

James Suter – Bass

Daniel Dufour – Drums

Kerry Politzer is a Portland-based jazz pianist, composer, and educator who tours nationally with programs of Brazilian and original jazz compositions. She has served on the music faculty of Portland State University since 2013 and has also taught at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Swing University, the University of Portland, and the Oregon Jazz Workshop. Kerry received a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Piano from the New England Conservatory of Music and a Master of Music in Jazz Studies from Rowan University. An active clinician, she has held workshops and master classes at the Reno Jazz Festival, Boise State University, the University of Kansas, and others.

Kerry has released nine albums as a leader, the most recent of which is Alternate Route (Whirlwind Recordings) featuring Kurt Rosenwinkel. Other recordings include Blue in Blue, which featured saxophonist Donny McCaslin and was termed a “first-rate jazz outing” by AllAboutJazz.com. Kerry has also been a featured sideman on albums of George Colligan, Laura Dreyer, and the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble and was featured on Sax and The City: Musical Contributions From New York’s Best Women Jazz Instrumentalists (Apria Records, 2004).

In 2019, Kerry was awarded a Regional Arts and Culture Council Artistic Focus grant to explore the music of Brazilian composer Durval Ferreira. The project culminated in the August 2019 release of Diagonal: The Music of Durval Ferreira. In 2020, she received another RACC grant to produce the first edition of Music of Brazilian Piano Masters, which can be accessed at the Music of Brazilian Piano Masters YouTube page.

Kerry leads Bossa PDX, a Portland-based Brazilian jazz and bossa nova group for which she has transcribed dozens of classic arrangements from the original recordings. With this music, she has performed around the country at venues such as Jazz Forum Arts in New York, the Black Dolphin in Kansas City, Frankie’s Jazz Club in Vancouver, BC, Chez Hanny in San Francisco, the Cathedral Park Jazz Festival. the Oregon Coast Jazz Party, and Ellenburg’s Jazz in the Valley. Her group has a monthly residency at local club The 1905.

Kerry has also headlined the Montavilla Jazz Festival and was a featured performer at the 25th Annual Gene Harris Jazz Festival in Boise, ID. Some groups she has played with include DIVA No Man’s Band, the Chuck Israels Jazz Orchestra, and the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble.

Join us for a live taping and listening-room concert for the Alan Braufman Quintet!

Alan Braufman - Alto Saxophone and Flute

Chase Baird - Tenor Saxophone

Stefan Gonzalez - Vibraphone

Mathew Frerck - Bass

Joshua Canate - Drums

For decades, alto saxophonist and flutist Alan Braufman was a cult musician whose

then-lone LP as a bandleader, 1975’s Valley of Search, offered rich, evocative, and

forthright sonic documentation of a lower Manhattan jazz scene slightly afield from the

SoHo and Lower East Side hubbub. Following the enthusiastically-received reissue of

that record forty-three years later, Braufman, who never stopped playing or writing

music, has marked several years of greater visibility with a string of consistently warm

and intense small-group recordings (and a few previously-unissued archival discs) that

feature a mix of peers and younger firebrands from the contemporary American

improvisation scene.

A necessity for this time period, the aptly-titled Anthem for Peace sees Braufman in a

quartet setting, joining forces with vibraphonist Patricia Brennan and

drummer/percussionist Chad Taylor, both of whom are returning from 2024’s Infinite

Love Infinite Tears, and bassist Luke Stewart, a familiar player marking his first

collaboration with the saxophonist. One cut, the lilting and funky “Snow in Central Park,”

is a holdover from that prior date and includes Michael Wimberly on congas and bassist

Ken Filiano. Though this record’s seven tracks are concise and clearly delineated,

programmatically they hang together, a quality recognizable throughout Braufman’s

leader discography (his debut consists of two sidelong suites), not least because his

compositions are hooky and inviting.

The opening piece, “Angels,” is anthemic, gospel-tinged, and with a martial B-section,

recalls Albert Ayler though with Braufman’s more velvety flywheel as an underpinning.

The leader’s alto can certainly peel paint, but these salvos are delivered with a patient

brightness and loquacious urgency. “In Motion” is a post-bop number in which the tart

push of Jackie McLean is audible, but contextually updated with the warped cascades of

Brennan’s electronically-augmented vibraphone, a voice that is both foregrounded and

glassily atmospheric, and the supplely driving gradient of bass and drums. Stewart and

Taylor are a telepathic pairing throughout, rock solid on the groovier numbers (dig

Taylor’s metronomic backbeat, tight enough to almost sound looped) and shimmering in

freer rubato space.

Though Braufman is the only horn (tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis has been a

frequent front-line partner), occasional and elegantly-done overdubs create interweaving

lines. On the title tune, its appealing melodic bounce is accentuated by doubling

octaves, and there’s the bamboo-like birdsong of the closing “Reflections on a Rainy

Day” with its shakuhachi-like clamber. Through the subtle linkages between songs,

improvisations, and four individual personalities, Anthem for Peace creates a highly

simpatico and positive sonic worldview that we can all get behind.