The second installation of Wooley’s Seven Storey Mountain project features two musicians who, like Wooley, have found themselves somehow straddling the worlds of free improvisation and noise. All three are known for their solo work as well as being respected members of collectives and working steadily in improvisation’s secretarial pool. Tonight’s show at New York’s Issue Project Room features the three of them working as an improvising unit, as well as the premiere and recording of Wooley’s new work with tape which extends the work recently released on Important Records (Seven Storey Mountain with David Grubbs and Paul Lytton).
Nate Wooley was born in 1974 in a small fishing town in Northwest Oregon. He began playing trumpet professionally at age 12 with his father’s big band on the Oregon and Washington Coast circuit. After a short stop in Denver, Colorado, where he studied and performed with Ron Miles, Fred Hess, Art Lande, and underground luminary, Jack Wright, he moved to Jersey City in 2001. While maintaining a strong tie to the traditional grounding of jazz music, Nate is very involved with exploding the concept of what the trumpet is physically capable of, evoking “…surrealistic environments from sounds not meant to come from the horn” (Shaun Brady of the Philadelphia City Paper). His solo recording, “wrong shape to be a storyteller” on Creative Sources Recordings, has taken a critical spot next to such incredible solo trumpet documents as Greg Kelley’s “trumpet” and Axel Dorner’s “trumpet”. Besides his own projects, Nate is in demand as a collaborator in New York, performing and recording with such phenomenal and varied musicians as Anthony Braxton, Joe Morris, Paul Lytton, Fred Frith, Marilyn Crispell, Graveyards, Double Leopards, John Butcher, Alessandro Bosetti, Tony Malaby, Randy Peterson, and many others. Bill Shoemaker calls Nate, “…one of those rare players who seemingly pop up from nowhere, fully formed and confidently indicating the future of his instrument in contemporary music”, and Dave Douglas says “Nate is the most interesting and unique trumpet player I’ve heard in the last decade….and that is without hyperbole”
C. Spencer Yeh was born in Taipei, Taiwan 1975, moved to the US in 1980; studied radio/television/film at Northwestern University, and is now based out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Yeh is active both as a solo and collaborative artist, as well as with his primary project, Burning Star Core. As an improviser, Yeh is focused on developing a personal vocabulary using violin, voice, and electronics. As a sound artist/composer, Yeh works with all aspects available surrounding a work, aurally and physically, as elements key to the cumulative experience. He is concerned not only with the sensual aspects of ’sound organization,’ but the gestural qualities as well. Yeh has collaborated with a deep and ever-growing list of artists and groups, including Tony Conrad, New Humans with Vito Acconci, Evan Parker, Thurston Moore, Amy Granat with Jutta Koether, Okkyung Lee, Justin Lieberman, John Wiese, Don Dietrich and Ben Hall (as The New Monuments), Prurient, and Jandek. He has performed at festivals and venues such as Sonar, FIMAV at Victoriaville, Frieze Arts Fair, No Fun Fest, High Zero, the 24 Hour Drone People at Fylkingen, The Kitchen, ZKM Karlsruhe, and has also exhibited visual art, sound, and video works internationally.
Chris Corsano is a multi-faceted drummer; a list of his collaborations attests to that fact. He’s recorded and gigged with, among others, Paul Flaherty, Michael Flower, Björk, Jim O’Rourke, Thurston Moore, Evan Parker, Nels Cline, Jessica Rylan, Jandek, Six Organs of Admittance, Sunburned Hand Of Man, Okkyung Lee, MV&EE, Keiji Haino, Vampire Belt, Joe McPhee, Christina Carter and Heather Leigh Murray.
First captivated by free improvised music in the mid ’90s after witnessing performances by TEST, William Parker, Cecil Taylor and others, Corsano began a long-standing high-energy partnership with Paul Flaherty in 1998. Moving from western Massachusetts to Manchester, England in 2005 and then Edinburgh, Scotland a year later, Corsano focused on developing an expanded solo percussion music of his own, incorporating sax reeds, violin strings and bows, pot lids, adhesive tape and other household devices into his drum kit. In February 2006 he released his first solo recording, The Young Cricketer. In 2007 and ‘08 he was the drummer on Björk’s Volta world tour. With a move back to Massachusetts, 2009 heralds a return to his own projects, most notably his duo with Michael Flower and solo work, now revamped to include synthesizers and contact mics in addition to his drum kit and home-made acoustic instruments.