Birth of a band + festivities
Hi friends!
Hope you all had a solid fall all things considered. I'm writing to let you know about a couple things I'm doing to wrap up the year that I think will be full of musical cheer.
For a while now I've been deep in the sonic trenches. I've been focusing on the craft of drawing quality tone from my instruments and as a bandleader my focus has been on creating interesting sound combinations and setting up cool scenarios for more-or-less open-ended improvisation. After all this fruitful experimentation and soulsearching, I'm ready to get back to playing my compositions in a serious way.
If you're into experimental and fringe music, the idea of what a composition is can send you down a rabit hole. What I mean by compositions in this situation are instrumental songs that are hopefully a little catchy, hopefully a little dancey, and have dependable structures that inspire spirited improvisation and ellaboration by the musicians in the band.
This Wednesday December 11th my new trio with Marcos Rios (guitar) and Lyn Rye (bass) makes its debut at Clara Chicago, a great new cocktail bar and jazz venue on North Avenue in Wicker Park. We'll be playing from 8-10:30 doing a bunch of my originals, as well as some jazz standards that inspired my composing. This group is heavy yet graceful--swinging and rocking. I'd like to think we fall on the "jazzier" side of jazz fusion or jazz rock.
It feels fantastic to finally be putting all my behind-the-scenes research and practice out there with this new ensemble. This is a great move for a Wednesday night.
And then later this month Calculated Discomfort is back at the Art Institute!
After our successful gallery activation this January, Calculated Discomfort will be performing two concerts in the grand stairway at the Art Institute on the day after Christmas. We'll be doing a 1pm and a 6pm show as part of the museums holiday programming.
This special Calculated Discomfort lineup features Beau Barry (saxophones), Lyn Rye (bass), and Chicago free jazz hero David Boykin (saxophones and percussion). It's not going to be Christmas carols, but I am sneaking the overall vibe of Christmas in Chicago into the set in a very abstract and interpolated sense.
It's going to be adventurous, it's going to be fun, and dare I say festive?
Info' rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.artic.edu/events/6020/gallery-performance-tommy-carroll-s-calculated-discomfort-afternoon">Info for the 1pm performance is here. And info' rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.artic.edu/events/6021/gallery-performance-tommy-carroll-s-calculated-discomfort-evening">info for the 6pm performance is here.