“Burton Greene is ‘making the big music.’ His extraordinary output and creative capacity is rendering him indispensable to the history of vanguard music.”

— Lyn Horton, Jazz Times

Jazz at Atlas is proud to present as part of its live music series a rare U.S. appearance by the renowned, 80-years-young expatriate pianist Burton Greene. Burton will be leading a quartet featuring Joe Giardullo on soprano saxophone, Adam Lane on bass and Tani Tabbal on drums. The Burton Greene Quartet will perform on Saturday, October 28 at 8 PM at Atlas Studios. General admission will be $15 at the door. Atlas Studios is located at 11 Spring Street in Newburgh, NY. Ample onsite parking is available.

Burton Greene was born in 1937 and spent his early years in Chicago, Illinois. He had seven years of classical music training with Isadore Buchalter of the Fine Arts Building. Burton studied jazz theory and harmony with Dick Marx, and continued his music education in the “School of the Streets” of the mid 1950’s from such luminaries as Billy Green and Ira Sullivan. He arrived in New York in 1962 and formed what has been called the first spontaneous composition group with bassist Alan Silva in ’63: The Free Form Improvisation Ensemble. He joined the Jazz Composers Guild in ’64 (organized by Bill Dixon and Cecil Taylor) and formed his first recorded quartet in ’65 which included Marion Brown and Henry Grimes. He performed in New York in the 1960’s with such people as Sam Rivers, Rashied Ali, Albert Ayler, Patty Waters, Byard Lancaster, Gato Barbieri, etc. Burton was involved with the New Music Concert Series in Town Hall and YMHA organized by Max Pollikoff which included panel discussions with Morton Feldman and Earle Brown.

Burton moved to Europe in 1969–first to Paris and then to Amsterdam. Since that time he has toured and recorded extensively in both Western and Eastern Europe with occasional tours in America. Mr. Greene has recorded over 60 records and CD’s of his compositions in many and varied contexts. As an eclectic composer and performer, his works are involved with jazz, contemporary classics, electronics, and a great variety of folklore musics.

Burton has collaborated with many musicians; among them are John Tchicai, Johnny Dyani, Archie Shepp, Anthony Braxton, Willem Breuker, Han Bennink, Keshavan Maslak, Sunny Murray, Steve Tintweiss, Shelly Rusten, Frank Wright, Sean Bergin, Paul Stocker, Theo Loevendie, Maarten van Regteren Altena, Martin van Duynhoven, Clarence Becton, Perry Robinson, Roswell Rudd, Tjitze Vogel, Raoul van der Weide, Tom Jones, Tobias Delius, Michael Moore, Akki Hak, Lou Grassi, Wilber Morris, Roy Campbell, Mark Dresser, Adam Lane, Paul Smoker, Russ Nolan, Ed and George Schuller, among many others.

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Joe Giardullo is a soprano saxophonist/ composer whose work encompasses avant jazz, new complexity, indeterminate and new music genres. Although he began his music studies in elementary school, he is primarily a self-taught instrumentalist, with isolated studies with Don Cherry and Leo Smith. However, in 1967 he began his study of Indian music .Those studies, over a period of seven years, became primarily focused on rhythm. At the conclusion of those studies Joe began intensive private study of the Lydian Chromatic Theory of Tonal Organization as developed by composer George Russell. In 1976, Joe began composing what he considered to be “experimental” works; those pieces remained unplayed for 2 years. A chance meeting, however, with pianist Paul Bley, resulted in a recording of those compositions, collectively called GRAVITY (1979), works for Creative Chamber Ensemble. That recording met with both commercial indifference and critical acclaim. At the same time, unknown to Joe, his Indian music teacher sent copies of the Gravity scores to Nadia Boulanger, her former teacher. Madame Boulanger responded by inviting Joe to attend her classes at the Paris Conservatoire. However, Joe’s circumstances prohibited him from attending. From 1977 to 1980, Joe divided his time between New York and Europe, working on his Gravity compositions in private and publicly performing as an avant jazz instrumentalist. He became involved with the composer Anthony Braxton, doing pre-production work on Braxton’s MUSIC FOR FOUR ORCHESTRAS (Arista) and through his association with Braxton, became familiar with the work of Stockhausen and Berio, among others. Joe received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1979, sponsored by Mr. Braxton.Joe retreated from public performance in 1981 and did not emerge again until 1991. During this time, he played privately and the evolution of his Gravity compositions for Creative Chamber Ensemble continued. It was again a chance meeting, this time with the internationally known multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee that brought Joe back to performance, and also introduced his music to composer Pauline Oliveros. Ms. Oliveros has commissioned 2 works from Joe and she has performed numerous of his compositions in the last 20 years. A series of residencies, commissions, recordings and international performances have followed. As an instrumentalist, Joe has performed throughout the US, Canada and Europe, and with artists Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, The Deep Listening Band, Joe McPhee, Steve Lacy, Carlos Zingaro, Milford Graves, Bill Dixon, Marilyn Crispell, Vinny Golia, Bobby Bradford, Thomas Buckner, and Lori Freedman, among many others, including Lester Lanin and Peg Leg Bates. In 2009, Joe launched SOPRANOPLANET.COM, a website for his new work as a designer of custom mouthpieces for soprano and sopranino saxophones. Almost 2,000 soprano saxophonists a month visit Sopranoplanet now and Joe’s mouthpieces are being played by professionals worldwide, by both jazz and classical players. Read what players are saying at http://www.Sopranoplanet.com.

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By combining a disparate set of influences into a unique improvisational voice, Adam Lane has become recognized as one of the most original creative voices in contemporary jazz. His 2006 recording New Magical Kingdom, was recently featured in the Penguin Jazz Guide 1001 Best Records Ever Made, and his most recent recording, Ashcan Ranting received a myriad of critical praise including four stars in Downbeat.

His current projects include his Full Throttle Orchestra, a nine piece ensemble formed to realize his extended jazz orchestral compositions, The Adam Lane Trio, featuring legendary reedist Vinny Golia, Four Corners, a co-lead ensemble with reedist Ken Vandermark, and an ongoing solo project that combines unique processed double bass improvisations with Lane’s original story telling. As a sideman he has performed with an eclectic mix of musicians, from tenor great John Tchicai, to alto iconoclast Richard Tabnik, to rock legend Tom Waits. Lane’s compositions have been praised for their audacity and originality.

Sam Prestiani of Jazziz says of Lane’s writing: “His confidence and confrontational prowess as well as his abiding sense of lyricism and heavy-groove power place him in the lineage of forward-jazz adventurism.” And Bill Meyer writes in Downbeat, “Lane’s music is genuine, accessible, fun. The music is deeply in touch with the essential pleasures of earwig-worthy tunes, fat bluesy grooves, and sheer tonal beauty.” (Downbeat Jan 2011)

Lane studied composition at Wesleyan University with Anthony Braxton, and at California Institute of the Arts with Wadada Leo Smith. In 1996 he received a Paternings Scholarship for study at the Darmstadt School for New Music where he studied double bass with Steffano Scodanibbio, and attended master classes in composition with Karlheinz Stockhausen.

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Tani Tabbal began playing drums professionally as a teen, performing with Oscar Brown Jr., Phil Cohran, and Sun Ra and his Arkestra.

Tabbal has recorded, performed and toured with a wide range of musicians, including Roscoe Mitchell, David Murray, Geri Allen, Cassandra Wilson, James Carter, Karl Berger, Dewey Redman, David ‘Fathead’ Newman, Evan Parker, Anthony Braxton, Douglas Ewart, Oliver Lake, Muhal Richard Abrams, Henry Threadgill, Richard Davis, Leroy Jenkins, Milt Jackson, and Jackie McLean.

Tani Tabbal is known as a dynamic, lyrical and energetic drummer. As a recording artist, he is on over 70 cd’s and has released four cd’s as a bandleader: Before Time After, Wizards, Mixed Motion and Triptych.

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Jazz at Atlas is a cooperative project of writer, musician and multimedia artist James Keepnews, and music researcher, radio host and producer Ben Young. Along with presenting performances by world-renowned creative musicians, JAA will also be offering listening sessions, dialogues with artists and classes covering the entire spectrum of creative music in all its varied manifestations around the world and throughout its history.