Herb Robertson’s jazz and new music improvisation combines a thorough command of traditional and extended techniques with a prodigious imagination yielding an utterly original voice. Along with Paul Smoker and Kenny Wheeler, Robertson is among the most innovative improvising trumpeters of the last 25 years. Born and raised in New Jersey, he attended the Berklee School of Music before playing in various jazz and rock bands, eventually joining both saxophonist Tim Berne’s band and bassist Mark Helias’ groups in early 1980’s New York.
In 1985, Robertson recorded as a leader for the first time. Transparency featured Berne, guitarist Bill Frisell, bassist Lindsey Horner, and drummer Joey Baron and was followed by four more recordings for the important JMT label. He recently began his own record label, Ruby Flower Records, with Ana Isabel Ordonez.
As a leader and sideman, Robertson has performed with Anthony Braxton, Anthony Davis, Bobby Previte, David Sanborn, Barry Guy, Agusti Fernandez, Evan Parker, Bill Frisell, and Paul Motian among many. He tours Europe several times yearly, is featured regularly on many of their major festivals and media broadcasts, and also composes music for dance and theater. For more information, see http://www.herbrobertson.com/
Matt Bauder is a saxophonist and composer who has studied with Ed Sarath, Anthony Braxton, Ron Kuivila and Alvin Lucier. In the past ten years he has been an active member of the new music scenes in Ann Arbor, Chicago, Berlin and New York, where he has performed with, among others, Braxton, Rob Masurek, Jeff Parker, Taylor Ho Bynum and Ken Vandermark. He appears on recordings with Jason Ajemian (Locust Music), Warn Defever (Perforate My Heart), Neil Michael Hagerty (Drag City), His Name is Alive (4AD/TimeStereo), Saturday Looks Good to Me (Polyvinyl) and Bill Brovald (Tzadik). His recordings as a leader on 482 Music and I & Ear Records have received wide critical acclaim.
Sara Schoenbeck is a bassoonist who dedicates herself to expanding the sound and role of the bassoon in the worlds of contemporary notated and improvised music. The Wire places her in the “tiny club of bassoon pioneers” at work in contemporary music today and the New York Times has called her “riveting, mixing textural experiments with a big, confident sound.” From being a member of creative music ensembles, like Wayne Horvitz’s Gravitas Quartet, Anthony Braxton’s 12+1tet and Vinny Golia’s Large Ensemble to backing Mos Def in Dakah hip hop orchestra and backing Tony Bennett and Stevie Wonder in the Mancini Orchestra, Sara continues to defy categorization as an artist. She has also also shared the stage in improvised music performances with Yusef Lateef, Fred Frith, John Butcher, Mark Dresser, Pauline Oliveros, Wadada Leo Smith and Nels Cline among many others. A recent transplant from Los Angeles, she spent a portion of her time there recording and also as adjunct faculty at California Institute of the Arts. Feature films she has worked on include the Matrix Trilogy, Spanglish and Dahmer. She performs regularly at jazz festivals and venues throughout North America and Europe, notably the Du Maurier Jazz Festival in Vancouver, B.C., the Improvised Music Fest in Antwerp, Belgium and the Berlin Jazz Festival. Sara has received grants from Meet the Composer and the Durfee foundation for outreach work and composition.