THE DANNY FOX TRIO
featuring pianist Danny Fox, bassist Chris van Voorst van Beest, and drummer Max Goldman, is a true working band hailed for reinventing the classic piano trio format with genre-defying, uniquely personal original music. Whether holed up in a Queens basement rehearsing or touring around the country crammed into a sedan, the trio has spent countless hours developing a rapport that's immediately palpable in their music. Described as a modern Ahmad Jamal Trio, the band mixes tight ensemble playing with highly interactive, attuned improvisation. dannyfoxmusic.com

BRYAN AND THE HAGGARDS

WEST VIRGINIA NATIVE BRYAN MURRAY, NOW LIVES IN BROOKLYN AND LEADS BRYAN AND THE HAGGARDS - NEW YORK’S MOST DECORATED AVANT-COUNTRY INSTRUMENTAL MERLE HAGGARD COVER BAND. THE BAND FEATURES THE SAME LINE UP AS JON LUNDBOM AND BIG FIVE CHORD BUT HERE THEY PUT THEIR OWN SPIN ON THE MERLE HAGGARD AND STRANGERS SONG BOOK.

JON LUNDBOM & BIG FIVE CHORD

Guitarist, composer, and bandleader Jon Lundbom lives in Austin, TX.
He leads Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord, with which he has released
seven albums over thirteen years. Jon’s music – described as “Hardbop + Zeppelin + Schoenberg” (Dave Madden, ‘SLUG’) – is a showcase for his “intense phrasing and mind-altering solo spots” (Glenn Astarita, ‘All About Jazz’), a “boundary-shattering shot of adrenaline that screws with your head and messes with your soul” (Jordan Richardson, ‘The Seattle PI’).  Jon has been called “an idiosyncratic genius harboring boundary-stretching notions in his musical make up” (CJ Bond, ‘JazMuzic.com’); “hopefully Lundbom will start getting more attention for his fresh perspective, both as a writer and player” (Mike Shanley,‘ShanleyOnMusic’), “[Jon’s playing brings] new ideas to what jazz guitar can be” (Paul Acquaro, ‘Free Jazz Blog’); “Big Five Chord, individually and collectively, is one of the most important [ensembles] around today” (Gregory Applegate Edwards, ‘Gapplegate Guitar and Bass Blog’). “Olympic-caliber guitar gymnastics” (Bob Gendron, ‘Downbeat’). "A guitarist" (The New York Times).

SAM KULIK

"Write a Song Together!"  With this simple advertisement posted nationwide on craigslist, songwriter Sam Kulik solicited poems from America's great latent poets and began setting them to music. 
The result is Escape from Society, a cycle of new song-poems on topics ranging from lost love to baseball nicknames to Native American dwarfs to the creative process.  Kulik's lazy deep-voiced drawl becomes the voice of a bizarre nation and his trombone its authentic conscience.  Also escaping society with Kulik are Matt Nelson (tenor sax; tUnE-YarDs), Kyle Forester (bass and piano; Crystal Stilts, the Ladybug Transistor), and Ian Antonio (drums; ZS, Yarn/Wire).

JON IRABAGON

“Saxophonist Jon Irabagon is a subverter of the jazz form,” declares Martin Longley in his Irabagon feature in the August issue of The New York City Jazz Record. “He’s a revolutionary who’s secretly messing with the changes. He might be dismantling the music’s mechanics from the inside, but from the outside he can frequently persuade a crowd that he’s an old- school practitioner. There are few players who can so deftly stride from postbop to free improvisation, avant country to doom metal and then wander from chaotic collage-spraying to sleek-blowing fluency.”