Motoko Honda’s Simple Excesses Quartet – Saturday, August 17 at 8 pm
Motoko Honda’s Simple Excesses Quartet
Uncharted Sonic Adventures: Jazz, Chamber, Avant-garde, and Beyond
Motoko Honda, composition & piano
Cory Wright, woodwinds
Matt Small, bass
Jordan Glenn, drums
all compositions/arrangements by Motoko Honda
Fragmented Redolence (2024)
Murkwood (2024)
Simpler Matters (rearranged 2024)
Serpentine Skips (2024)
Ransom (rearranged 2024)
Jumping Moops
“The music of pianist and composer Motoko Honda is to mainstream jazz what Brahms’s music was to the neatly packaged forms of the Classical period…. Honda’s process has a transformative effect on listeners privy to a complex system of inter-communication and cooperative building strategies”
-Phillip Greenlief, Artforum
Featuring Northern California’s most versatile and innovative players, Simple Excesses Quartet’s exciting repertoire is sets of compositions which unify jazz, classical chamber music, improvisation and experimental soundscapes. Intricate and dynamic and often surprising, the quartet brings the music, which are like a flight in the clouds for both performers and audiences.
Read Full Review: https://www.artforum.com/columns/phillip-greenlief-on-the-music-of-motoko-honda-241895/
About the musicians:
Portrayed as a “keyboard alchemist” (Chris Barton, Los Angeles Times), and an “embodiment of a muse” (Greg Burk, Metaljazz), Motoko Honda is a critically acclaimed Japanese concert pianist, composer, and sound artist who has created a distinctive sound through her holistic approach to music, and her exceptional sensitivity in relating to other art forms and technologies. Employing a “virtuoso technique paired with her intensely imaginative mind” (Susan Dirende, L.A. Splash Magazine), and with stylistic influences ranging from jazz, world music to contemporary prepared piano with electronics, Motoko’s compositions and structured improvisations are intended to affect the skin, organs and minds of the listener rather than simple recitations of rhythmic and harmonic themes. Motoko’s music transport audiences on sonic adventures that transcend the boundaries and conventions of contemporary music.
Her collaborative performances and recordings include many acclaimed musicians such as Wadada Leo Smith, Elliott Sharp, Nels Cline, Mike Watt, Ben Wendel, Lucas Ligeti, Petra Haden, Theresa Wong, Van-Anh Vo, Larry Ochs, William Winant and more.
For her dedication and contribution to the world of new and creative music, Motoko has earned the permanent residency as an Alien of Extraordinary Ability in Music in the U.S., and currently splits her time between U.S., Europe and Japan.
Reeds player Cory Wright, educated at Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Southern California, has been involved in both the jazz and creative music worlds for the past 20 years, including time spent in New York, Los Angeles and his current home in the San Francisco Bay Area.
His recent projects reflect his interest in blurring the distinction between composed and improvised material and in combining the harmonious with the atonal, and groove with the arrhythmic.
Cory has played in ensembles lead by Anthony Braxton, Vinny Golia, Eddie Gale, Adam Rudolph and Yusef Lateef. He is currently a member of bay area groups Marches, Bristle, Wiener Kids, Daniel Popsicle, and the Oakland Active Orchestra, and leads his own projects Green Mitchell and the Cory Wright Quintet.
Matt Small, called “…so talented and innovative … a raving lunatic in the best way!” by Yo-Yo Ma, and hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as “a gifted San Francisco bassist and composer whose alluringly original music draws on a rich range of classical, jazz and indigenous music,” has been developing his own cutting-edge, multi-genre work in the Bay Area since 1997. With a deep dedication to his craft and an unrelenting spirit of curiosity, Small explores a wide variety of musical traditions while exercising “a strong aesthetic sensibility” (Down Beat Magazine). Small has found inspiration from a vast array of music, including jazz, experimental, popular, Western classical, and indigenous music styles from around the world.
To date, Small has performed at, and had his music presented by Carnegie Hall, The Monterey Jazz Festival, SF Jazz, Davies Symphony Hall, Banff’s International Music Festival, Joe’s Pub, The Knitting Factory, Yoshi’s, and The Tanglewood Music Center, along with other major venues throughout the Bay Area and on the East Coast.
“…so talented and innovative…a raving lunatic in the best way!” ~ Yo-Yo Ma (cellist)
Jordan Glenn was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. his early years involved drawing cartoons and taking dance classes from his aunt. At the age of 12 music and movies took over. Glenn studied classical percussion, jazz and made short movies with my friends during high school. During college he played a lot of dinner-jazz gigs and recorded/toured in various rock bands.
In 2006 Glenn relocated to the Bay Area and since then have been collaborating with Fred Frith, William Winant, Zeena Parkins, Roscoe Mitchell, Anantha Krishnan, Ben Goldberg, John Schott, Cory Wright, Aram Shelton, Steini Gunnarsson, Dominique Leone, Darren Johnston, Graham Connah, and the bands Jack O’ the Clock, Host Family, Efft, 20 Minute Loop, The Monolith, Beep!, tUnE-yArDs, Science Fiction, Evon, Arts & Sciences, and the Oakland Active Orchestra.
“…Glenn’s work stands out, with the grace of an acrobat and the control of a serial killer…” –Nazim Comunale