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Edgefest 2007 Lineup

Ann Arbor’s Edgefest is back with a great lineup for the 2007 festival of creative improvised music from all over the world. It will take place October 17–20 in and around Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor.

Headliners include a trio of central figures in Chicago’s AACM: pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, and the marvelous trombonist George Lewis. The trio format works very well in the intimate confines of Kerrytown and this year there are several unique trio combinations. One is BassDrumBone with Mark Helias, Gerry Hemingway, and Ray Anderson on their respective instruments. Like the AACM trio, each one is a well-known leader in his own right. A third trio is saxophonist Matt Dariou’s Paradox Trio, which won a Grammy this year. The group fuses Balkan rhythms with an American jazz sensibility. San Francisco’s sax veteran Larry Ochs (of the Rova Saxophone Quartet) will present a trio with Asian touches. Miya Masaoka is one of the foremost improvisers on the koto, and cellist Okkyung Lee rounds out the trio. The Konk Pack trio will represent British Improvised Music with plenty of electronics.

Indian influences can be heard in altoist Rudresh Mahanthapa’s Quartet, which features the critically acclaimed pianist Vijay Iyer, who recently played Orchestra Hall in Detroit. Carnival Skin is a NYC quintet with the fabulous clarinetist Perry Robinson and an exciting new trumpeter named Peter Evans. The Gutbucket is another Big Apple band with closer links to the alternative rock scene and the Sonic Liberation Front is an adventurous septet from Philly.

Michigan’s avant scene will be represented by two saxophonists: the veteran Faruq Z Bey from Detroit and Andrew Bishop from Ann Arbor. Bey will perform with his own Project and Bishop has assembled a Curio Cabinet for the occasion.

In all, the eleventh Edgefest has something from all of the musical pallets that loosely fit under the Avant Garde label. Please visit the Kerrytown Concert House website for more information. A detailed performance schedule will be published in our October issue of the UPDATE.