presents
Rob Mazurek and Black Cube SP
Jazz Appreciation Month
Rob Mazurek, cornet + electronics
Thomas Rohrer, rabeca + soprano saxophone
Mauricio Takara, drums, electronics + cavaquinho
Guilherme Granado, keyboard, synths + sampler
Ars Nova Workshop is pleased to announce the return of Rob Mazurek with his new group, Black Cube SP.
Chicago-based composer, improviser and multi-media artist Rob Mazurek has drawn inspiration from a multitude of audio and visual styles and sources over the past three decades. Augmenting his cornet playing with computer programming, electronics and an assortment of keyboards, Mazurek's broad electro-acoustic palette defies simple categorization.
While living in Brazil from 2000 to 2005, Mazurek immersed himself in the sights and sounds of the Amazonian rain forest, the plateaus of Brasilia and the urban intensity of São Paulo. Inspired by these disparate experiences, he constructed exotic soundscapes using such esoteric source material as the sounds of electric eels recorded at INPA research laboratory in Manaus and audio culled from storm systems on the outskirts of Brasilia. It was in São Paulo that he met Mauricio Takara and Guilherme Granado, his partners in the São Paulo Underground, which continues to spur his interest in the Brazilian sensibilities of sound and color.
Mazurek's newest ensemble, Black Cube SP, features his long standing São Paulo Underground trio with the addition of Thomas Rohrer. Rohrer earned his stripes as a master of the keening rabeca (Brazilian viola) through intense studies with the instrument’s leading practitioners in Brazil’s northeast. The group released it's debut record, Return the Tides, on Cuneiform in 2014. It is a heart-felt tribute to Rob Mazurek's mother, who died on in 2013 just days after receiving a diagnosis of late stage cancer. The record was described by All About Jazz as “Mazurek's most personal and poignant offering to date; cathartic and compelling, it combines avant-garde jazz expressionism, bold electronic experimentation and hypnotic Tropicália rhythms with a profound spirituality, yielding a ritualistic homage worthy of its honoree.”
Mazurek currently leads and composes for a wide variety of ongoing ensembles, including the Chicago Underground Duo, Exploding Star Orchestra, and Pharoah & The Underground (featuring Pharoah Sanders). He has collaborated with a wide variety of luminaries, such as, Bill Dixon, Mike Ladd, Roscoe Mitchell, Yusef Lateef, Fred Anderson, Naná Vasconcelos, Mamelo Sound System, Kassin and Marcelo Camelo, and many others.
Listen to the title track from Rob Mazurek And Black Cube SP's new album, exclusive to The Wire
Admission is FREE