Chris Bates

Bates Update – May the Thanks be with YOU!

Greetings! A hearty and warm thank you to ALL who attended the Good Vibes trio CD release events. It was an immensely joyous occasion and an enormous honor to play for such an in tune and out-of-this-world attentive audience. Dave, Phil and I all agree it was some of our best playing as a trio and we feel a lot of it stemmed from the support we got from all of you! Once again, we see proof that the collective organism of experience known as live music connects us and binds us all. Luminous beings we are, not this crude matter.

Apologies, I’ve been binge watching Cosmos and Star Wars lately.

Good Vibes @ Icehouse
photo by Doug Opel

In the interim since the trio release I’ve been lucky to play with some world class players in Darren Barrett and Kevin Harris at the U of M Morris Jazz Festival. Check these guys out if you can. Darren won the Monk competition on trumpet several years ago and Kevin is a wonderfully creative pianist who deserves much wider recognition. I’ve been in the studio with a great group of people from MacPhail working on an Early Childhood Music CD and recording with the Duluth based duo Pushing Chain, getting their country / folk inspired songs down for their new album. I’ll keep you posted on the release info for those projects. Perhaps the most mind blowing experience amongst all of this was getting the chance to meet and hear percussionist Efrain Toro in clinic. Thanks to Mac Santiago at Jazz Central and Dave Stanoch for joining forces to bring Efrain to town. Check out www.rhythmlineinstitute.com for Efrain’s story. Suffice it to say he confirmed some of my own longstanding thoughts about music but also opened me up to a totally new universe of expression. I’m very inspired to explore Efrain’s concepts more deeply and to see what results manifest themselves into my playing and composing.

I’m excited to announce that I am one of four local improvisor’s selected to write a piece for Zeitgeist as part of their Jazz Commission’s Project! The other composer’s are Steve Kenny, Zacc Harris and Davu Seru. They are currently taking donations to help fund the project and all the details can be found in the link above. Zeitgeist is one of the guiding lights of new classical chamber music and I’m getting fired up to write a piece for them.

I recently redesigned my website’s store and launched a Bandcamp site (www.chrisbates.bandcamp.com) where you can purchase my music in hardcopy or download. Currently there are 4 albums available – Red Planet Space Dust, Framework Framework, Chris Bates’ Red 5 New Hope and the new Good Vibes trio album. I will be adding links to my Red 5 t-shirts and hopefully other items as we merch on.
Please check it out if you can. www.doublebates.com

Here are the upcoming May Shows:

Tuesday May 6th
Bill Simenson Big Band @ Jazz Central
8:30pm  $10 donation   All Ages
Bill is writing some really challenging music that pushes my skills and really needs to be heard. Come out and support this exciting band!

Monday May 12th – Special EARLY show!
8-9:15 pm @ Icehouse (pre Jazz Implosion)
Mankwe N’Dosi, DeVon Gray, Greg Schutte, Jt Bates, Casey O’Brien and Chris Bates invite Julien Desprez.
This special show has just popped up and we are going to throw down a slab of improvised spoken word and worldly melodicism with French guitarist Julien Desprez.

Tuesday May 13th
Chris Olson, Cory Healy & CB @ Black Dog
Originals and deconstructed rock from this new band.
7:30pm   donations/tips   All Ages

Wednesday May 14th
Framework @ Jazz Central
8:30pm   $10 donation   All Ages Welcome
Framework has been making music together for 18 years, or something like that. We seem to have developed a deep catalog and unique vibe with each other, spanning rock to baroque. Chris Olson on guitar and Jay Epstein on drums.

Framework @ the AQ.  Photo by Andrea Canter.

Friday May 16th
Jazz Central All Stars in Austin, MN
Jazz Central has won a MN State Arts Board touring grant and will be bringing their music and education initiatives to towns all over Minnesota. I’m excited to be involved in the first one down in Austin. Send your friends!
Doug Haining, Dave Graf, Zack Lozier, Tanner Taylor, Mac Santiago, CB

Saturday May 17th
Joel Shapira with CB & Eric Kamau Gravatt @ Loring Pasta Bar
6:00-9:00pm   FREE   FREE   FREE
I’m excited to be playing with Joel again and ecstatic to be paired with one of the unsung superheroes of drumming Eric Gravatt! As your social planner I ask you to please consider this for you dinner plans on Saturday

Monday May 19th
Atlantis Quartet & Fantastic Merlins w/ Jean Brice Godet @ Icehouse
9:30pm   $10   21+
How are we going to deal with this much creative energy and force majeure in one night?!?!? Fantastic Merlins make unclassifiable improvisations with beautiful patience and melodic virtue. Here they invite Clarinetist Jean Brice Godet. Magic will happen!
Atlantis Quartet “A vibrant and contrasting approach that envelops listeners in waves of sound… Their creative improvised music defies labels” – MPR
Zacc Harris, Brandon Wozniak, CB, Pete Hennig, Nathan Hanson and Brian Roessler

Tuesday May 20th
Andrew Walesch American Songbook Series @ Pioneer Place in St Cloud
Third and final installment of Andrew’s series this year. Duke Ellington all night.

Friday May 23rd
Good Vibes trio plays The Bridge Series @ Jazz Central
7:30pm   $10   All Ages
Come on down and enjoy the Good Vibes trio in concert with Phil Hey on drums and Dave Hagedorn on vibes. We’ll be playing music from our new release and trying out some new stuff too! “A riveting band …presenting sounds that are by turns hard-swinging, dreamy, arresting, spontaneous, soulful, lovely, deep, even witty.” – Tom Surowicz MPLS Star Tribune  http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/music/254959711.html

Saturday May 24th
Zacc Harris, Jay Epstein & CB @ Merlin’s Rest
8:30pm   FREE   21+
Swing out and catch us at Merlin’s! Loose and fun at the neighborhood pub!

Mark your calendars now for the next Red 5 show on June 11th at Jazz Central.
…and the Red Planet will rise on the cusp June!

All the best and let’s be careful out there!
-CB

Hey all you true believers! It’s WINTER. Damn. Ok – don’t let it get you down. There are a bunch of musical gifts coming your way to help get you through the season. More on that below but first let’s talk about inspiration.

One of the things all young musicians do regardless of musical genre is to identify our heroes on our respective instruments. As a way to gain confidence and develop elements of our playing we identify ourselves with a ‘guy’ or ‘guys’ that inspire us. Jaco Pastorius, Dave Holland, Geddy Lee and Ron Carter. These are my guys (and still are). I’ve listened to countless hours of their music, learned many of their songs and continually draw from this well. I have a short list of other influences (Miles, Coltrane, Mingus, Monk, Gary Peacock, Anthony Cox, Aston Barrett, Tony Levin) who remain significant and continually provide inspiration. Immersion into the music is the only way to gain that true depth.

I remember a Joe Lovano story he recounted in an interview about being on the road with Woody Herman and only having one album with him. He would listen to it over and over again. He learned every song, every solo, every bass line, every chord substitution. It drove the other guys on the band bus insane. Joe claimed that because he did that in depth, immersive work it attuned his musical ear to many subtle connections he would have never heard otherwise. That process also gave him such a depth of knowledge of those sounds that he can identify those elements in all the other music he has played. True mastery of the music. Joe’s story is a lesson in setting boundaries and limiting your content to the point where you have to go deeper because there is no other input. How many of us can claim that? I know I have a handful of albums that I’ve listened to countless times. I can sing most of the parts and even hear the key of the next song as the previous track fades out. But I can’t physically play all the information on those albums. (Ed. Note – I will be immersing myself soon and taking this lesson to heart. Watch out Miles Smiles and Invitation).

Ok I just set my inspired goal for this winter. Let me know who your ‘guys’ are and we can continue this dialogue when I see you at a show.

—————————————————————————-

This month I am playing at the Park Square Theatre for a new show by Joseph Vass. ‘Words By – Ira Gershwin and the Great American Songbook’.

We open Dec 6th and the show runs through Dec 29th.

Featuring Ari Hoptman as Ira Gershwin, Jennifer Grimm and T. Mychael Rambo on vocals w/ Joe Vass piano, Chris Olson guitar, Jay Epstein drums, CB bass.

This is a great show with fantastic insights into the musical lives of the Gershwin’s, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Kurt Weill and many others.

All details for showtimes are in the Park Square link above.

TONIGHT!!! Thursday Dec 5th (after Words By)  9:30pm  $5  @ Artists Quarter

Dean Granros trio with Kenny Horst and CB. This will be the last time I get to play at the AQ with Dean and Kenny after so many years of making music together. Dean is truly one of kind and if you have not heard him you really need to do yourself a favor and indulge in some Dean tonight.

Monday Dec 9th (doubleheader)

7pm  @ Black Dog   Free

Chris Cunningham’s Masters Recital w/ Fall of the House of Usher. FoThou is a world music inspired, saxophone driven, rhythmic colossus. Elegantly medicated outsider guitar. Chris Cunningham gtr, CB bass, Greg Schutte drums, Chris Thomson, Jon Davis, Elliot Wachs and Adrian Larkin – saxophones.

9:30pm @ Icehouse   $8   21+

Zacc Harris Group. Zacc on guitar, Bryan Nichols on keys, Jt and CB keep the rhythm.

The four of us recorded Zacc’s debut CD ‘The Garden’ together but the gigs for this band seem to be few and far between. Another great show at the Icehouse. Firebell follows us feat: Park Evans, Graydon Peterson and Jay Epstein.

Tuesday Dec 17th   7pm   $5

Atlantis Quartet @ Dakota

Come and join Atlantis for a full night of our originals. It’s Foodie night so you can get dinner and drink specials and get your cover waived if you spend more than $20.

This will be the last Atlantis show of 2014. We would love to see you.

Monday Dec 30th   9:30pm   $8   21+

Chris Bates’ Red 5 @ Icehouse

Red 5 gets in one last hit before the year ends. Jt and CB plus Zack Lozier, Chris Thomson and Brandon Wozniak. Playing all the hits plus a new tune.

Anthony Cox and Mother of Masks perform as well. This will be an awesome double bill of righteous musical adventuring.

Tuesday Dec 31st   9pm   $65 ($50 early bird deadline Dec 15th) 

New Years Eve w/ Carole Martin   @   Artists Quarter

This is it! The final knock down, drag out, juggernaut. The AQ’s swan song. I’ll be there playing bass and celebrating the amazing legacy of this club and Kenny Horst. It’s bound to get crazy and I hope to see many of you there. I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be. Worth every penny!!!!

Thursday Jan 2nd, 2014   8pm   FREE

Jt Bates, Chris Bates and Bill Bergmann @ Harriet Brewing

Come out and enjoy this trio that has a long history together but has been rarely spotted over the last decade. Very excited to be reviving this connection with Bill. He is a super underrated guitarist and possibly the 4th Bates Bro.

I hope the holiday season treats you well and that you all have safe and happy holidays and a glorious new year. I’m looking forward to making more music for you in 2014 and I hope to see you out and about! Peace and love – CB

Ever since my brother JT urged me to many years ago, I’ve taken time to try and listen to music for pleasure instead of analyzing it to death. I don’t always have time to do this because my schedule dictates that I listen to music I need to learn and perform more often than just “putting on some tunes”. As a musician I have to try to remember that I’m in a bubble of my own design when I’m playing and writing. It’s a sealed environment where I find out a lot of things about music and myself through hard work and practice. That sealed environment can get very cerebral and before too long I can end up with an overwritten piece of music in 3 keys with 2 time signatures and several sections. I’ve done it all to often and while the results may be stimulating to play and rewarding for the musicians to learn and negotiate, the audience can get lost and the music has then lost it’s way in my opinion. I think that the cerebral nature of a lot of modern jazz operates in stark contrast to the roots of the music and could be one of the key factors in this bubble effect. There are many facets to how and why this music has changed over the last 100 years but it cannot be denied that the intellectual bubble of most modern jazz is one of the biggest hurdles we have to get over as the presenters of music.

So many modern jazz composers spend their time within this bubble, developing ideas and building their language up to a point where often the only people who actually connect with their music are the players in their band and other musicians. That leaves the non-musician audience out of the loop on a certain level. Now that’s not to say that the average listener can’t enjoy this music; it just means that we as the composers and performers have to find a way to connect with our audience in new ways. Take some time to explain a little about the piece. Make references to what influenced the music. Talk about your inspiration. Let the audience feel your energy and excitement about your discovery of ‘7 over 4’ and you may find they connect with it more directly. The collective musical groove of American culture is no longer exclusively informed by classical, swing, be-bop or even blues but by rock, country, r&b, hip hop and all points in between. That’s not a criticism that’s a fact.

I work hard to write and perform within a framework that is inclusive of all the music I love and because I live in this time and not in the past my music comes from many places. To combat the bubble effect I try to pick something from my music library (CD’s, Vinyl and digital) to listen to for fun. I use this to cleanse the palate and keep my mind connected to enjoyment and flow in music. Last week it was Sting’s ‘Nothing Like the Sun’ album. I have been listening to this album for over 20 years and the whole thing still feels great. The music is mostly a combination of reggae, latin and r&b styles and the lyrics tell great stories. The playing is remarkable in it’s clarity and execution. Then again it is a rock record from 1987, likely recorded and constructed through overdubbing and editing. The core players are Manu Katche on drums, Sting on bass, Kenny Kirkland on keyboards and Branford Marsalis on sax along with many other guests. I think because I know the music so well I can turn off my analytical brain and just focus on the enjoyment side of it. The whole thing got me thinking about that Branford Marsalis quote from the Sting documentary ‘Bring on the Night’ (which documents his first solo album and tour after the Police broke up) “Jazz musicians are social critics”. I’ve always thought that was an interesting way of describing how improvised music takes on the character of the people and the times surrounding it.

Just as classical music evolved from it’s origins in the church through to it’s enshrinement in the modern concert hall, jazz has seen a shift from being the popular music of it’s heyday to being over taken in popular culture by rock and hip hop. Jazz has proved to be very resilient and has successfully absorbed many aspects of modern music. Look at Robert Glasper’s hip hop influences, The Bad Plus and their balance of rock and classical, Vijay Iyer and his Indian polyglots. These artists have strived to combine and assimilate inspiration into new forms and to engage with audiences in new ways. So many of the kids I teach have to be taught how to ‘swing’ but can effortlessly play in a rock style and that is because they don’t listen to swing. They aren’t exposed to it. Their parents grew up on Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin and Radiohead and Bjork. So do we fight against these changes or do we embrace it and work from within to influence the audience? For me the answer is still pretty simple. Embrace the change. Promote yourself and your fellow musicians. Pay attention to the flow and execute your music with excitement and joy. No one can deny it when they see a smile on your face because FUN WINS. See you this month for some awesome shows.

I’m playing 3 different nights for the Zeitgeist New Music Cabaret @ Studio Z.

$10 each night / $25 for a Festival Pass gets you 3-4 diverse sets of music. http://www.studiozstpaul.com/

Nov 7th - Red Planet @ Studio Z – Dean Magraw, Jay Epstein, CB   9:30pm

Red Planet makes music of highly organic vibrations. This is quite possibly our last show of 2013 so come on down and take a trip with us!

Nov 8th – Zacc Harris Quartet @ Studio Z – w/ Brian Ziemniak, JT & CB  9:30pm

Zacc Harris Quartet plays kinetic original compositions. We’ll be joined by Brian Ziemniak on piano who is a highly underrated jazz player here in town.

Nov 10th - Adam Meckler Orchestra @ Studio Z -  7:00pm

Adam is a great composer of modern Big Band music and this band is really connecting as a unit right now.

Nov 13th – Chris Bates and Fred Bretschger bass duo @ Jazz Central   8:30-10:30pm  $5-10 donations. Fred is a fantastic bassist formerly of the SPCO. This will be a special acoustic show of jazz and other music. Also, I turn 43 at midnight.

Nov 25th – Atlantis Quartet @ Dakota opening for Roberta Gambarini.  7-8pm  $35

Nov 25th – John Raymond Quartet @ Icehouse. W/ Bryan Nichols, JT & CB.  9:30  $8

John is a phenomenal trumpeter based in NYC. Great originals and standards.

Nov 29th – Atlantis Quartet @ Icehouse  11pm  21+  $8

A Minneapolis CD release party for the new ‘Expansion’ album. AQ is one of the tightest and most cutting edge groups I’m in. Come on now.

Live music makes it happen! See you out and about – CB

This month’s Bates update is a little more loose than some of my others. I usually edit down these newsletters quite heavily in order to bring you the most concise and direct show info. But I liked the way this more conversational approach sounded so I’m leaving it. Let me know if you like it or would prefer the more professional version by sending me feedback at www.doublebates.com. This whole update is posted over there with room for comments.

Last Sunday night I stood talking with Craig Taborn at the Dakota. He was in town playing with Dave Holland, Kevin Eubanks and Eric Harland in Dave’s new band Prism. Craig and I used to play in a Jay Epstein led project back in the mid 90’s called ‘Chemistry Lab’ and we have remained friends ever since. I consider him one of the true young masters of jazz and improvised music and it is always so great to catch up with him since he is living the dream and traveling the world playing music with some of the most innovative musicians performing today. Please check out Craig if you can. He has a brilliant trio album out on ECM called Chants.

Well, as Craig and I were talking in walks Anthony Cox who as many of you know was one of my teachers, now friends, and a huge influence on me. Craig and Anthony hadn’t seen each other in forever and it was a really nice moment seeing these two reconnect. There are few things I enjoy more in life than connecting, or reconnecting, with people from my past. I love reunions!

We all enjoyed a spectacular set of music from Dave’s new band Prism. Prism has an incredible creative energy that harkens back to the late 60’s and early 70’s jazz and rock combination we commonly call ‘fusion’ now. Not the over the top, chops for days, run on sentence style of fusion but the other kind. Music with a dialogue. Chances being taken. Experimentation being rewarded. The music unfolding unpredictably with ebullient results. Dave Holland was there at the start of this music and now he’s bringing it full circle with Prism.

Incidentally, Dave Holland is also a huge influence on my playing and some of his teaching methods and exercises were passed on to me by Anthony, who briefly studied with Dave in the early 80’s when he moved to NYC. While I’ve never studied with Dave I feel like I got a lot of the same information from Anthony and through that I was able to connect and dissect music more deeply which has led to my music reflecting those values. A lineage, if you will, from master to student.

So we finally come to my favorite part of the evening. I mentioned I love reunions right?

Dave Holland, Anthony Cox and little old me standing around talking about music. The post gig energy of inspiration and satisfaction in the air. Raw and palatable like a great meal lingering on your taste buds. It was magical to be in the presence of these two huge influences on my playing, and to know that they were reconnecting in a way they hadn’t in some time was truly a moment to savor. I have such a strong connection to my own music from the influence of Dave and Anthony that I felt like I was dreaming. I am so happy that I got to be in the same space as these two masters at the same time. I will always remember that evening.

I want to make some memories with you, humble reader, and so I kindly ask you to read on and see what is in store for this month in THE BATES UPDATE.

Friday and Saturday 10/4 & 10/5   9pm   $12   All Ages welcome

ATLANTIS QUARTET ‘EXPANSION’ CD release party! @ Artists Quarter

Atlantis Quartet has been one of my main projects for the last 5 years. We have so much fun playing together and it just keeps getting better. I am really proud of our new album Expansion. It has a great mixture of tunes on it and reflects our ever growing interests in fusing modern jazz with modern popular music in all forms. We are looking forward to a big push in 2014 with this new album. Come on out and get a copy of the new CD and a limited edition T-Shirt. We hope you can join us. V-Lo’s Taco’s on Friday! www.atlantisquartet.com   www.artistsquarter.com

Wednesday 10/8   9pm   $5-10 donation   All Ages

CHRIS BATES SOLO BASS @ Jazz Central

For the October edition of Magica Improvisado I’ll be playing a solo bass concert.

One set only. A mixture of Double Bass and Electric Bass with electronics. It has been several years since I played solo, but I’ve been practicing for this so don’t fret(less). www.jazzcentralstudios.com

Saturday 10/12   7pm   $10   All Ages

ATLANTIS QUARTET @ Studio Z

In addition to our CD release Atlantis will be playing a concert at Studio Z. We’ll do a workshop on odd meters in jazz starting at 6pm. Then a concert at 7pm. Another chance to hear this great band in an intimate setting and pick up our new CD. www.jazzatstudioz.org

Monday 10/14   9:30pm   $8   21+

CHRIS BATES’ RED 5 and FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER @ Icehouse

9:30pm: Red 5 will be back in action on 10/14. Feat: Jt Bates, Chris Thomson, Zack Lozier and Nelson Devereaux.

11:00pm: Fall of the House of Usher is a world music inspired horn band feat: Chris Cunningham, Chris Thomson, Elliot Wachs, Adrian Larkin, Jon Davis and Greg Schutte.

Come on out for this special double bill of horniness? HAHA. This will be a really fun night. Original and inspired music. Plus a limited edition Red 5 T-shirt will be on sale! www.icehousempls.com

Tuesday 10/22   9:00pm   $5   All Ages

FRAMEWORK @ Artists Quarter

Chris Olson, Jay Epstein and I have been making music for over 15 years. We always have a great time playing. We’ll be playing many originals and some Bach to prepare for our annual collaboration with the Bach Society. V-Lo’s Taco’s too!!!

Tuesday 10/29   9:00pm $10   All Ages

ADAM MECKLER ORCHESTRA @ Artists Quarter – Come hear the AMO. Super Bad!

All the best to all of you in October! Hope to see you at a show!