Joel Harrison IN CONCERT

$40 | 6:30pm | Anderson Social presents Joel Harrison IN CONCERT

Doors open at 5:00pm. Concert starts at 6:30pm. First come, first served seating.

Advance Tickets At: https://www.my805tix.com/e/joel-harrison-in-concert

Guitarist Joel Harrison's In a Silent Way project featuring Paul Hanson, Michael Manring, & Scott Amendola, will be performing music from the iconic 1970 Miles Davis record as well as original material

Former Berkeley resident and professional guitarist Joel Harrison returns to California for a fantastical journey into Miles Davis' iconic 1970 record, "In a Silent Way."  This one-night only concert will feature a hand-picked quartet consisting of the Bay Area's finest and most creative musicians, whom will also perform some of Harrison's original music.  Joel has recently released a live record from the Big Ears Festival of this same music.  However, this unique band's approach will be to "make it new."

Guitarist, composer, arranger, lyricist, writer, educator, and vocalist Joel Harrison has “created a new blueprint for jazz” (New Orleans Times-Picayune). He has released 27 records, a body of work that connects multiple American traditions.  While rooted in jazz, his music moves fluidly through classical, rock, country, and American roots music.  The New York Times has described his work as “protean… brilliant.” 

In addition to a hectic performance schedule, Harrison is the founder and director of the Alternative Guitar Summit, an annual festival devoted to innovative and unconventional guitar music. The Summit has featured artists such as Fred Frith, Nels Cline, Bill Frisell, Julian Lage, Michael Gregory Jackson, Mary Halvorson, and Pat Metheny, who has called it “one of the most interesting and distinguished forums for guitar on the planet.” Harrison is also the author of Guitar Talk: Conversations with Visionary Players, Pity the Genius, and Modern Jazz Standards for Guitar.

Joining Harrison for this special concert will be Paul Hanson, the world's foremost improvising bassoon player.  Yes, that’s correct:  Improvisational Bassoon!  Paul’s resume is exhaustingly impressive, including stints as Bassoonist & Electric Bassoonist with the Jon Baptiste’s American Symphony, Acoustic Bassoonist with Vitamin Em,  Electric Bassoonist with Idiot Fish featuring Wally Schnalle, Vincent Houdijk’s Polestar Project, as well as Electric Bassoonist with Raze The Maze (Progressive Rock Band).  Paul has also performed with Billy Cobham’s Crosswinds Project, has been Bassoonist with Cirque Du Soleil’s ZED; Cirque Du Soleil’s SALTIMBANCO (multi-woodwind show), Electric Bassoonist with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones and the Paul Dresher Ensemble, as well as  Assistant Bassoon Professor at Ithaca College of Music.  As one reviewer puts it “Paul plays at the very highest level surpassing almost anyone’s conception and ability on one of the most unforgiving instruments – ever.  For years, Hanson has brought the double reed instrument into areas where it’s seldom, if ever, gone before, combining a commanding improvisational sensibility with funk, classical, and world music influences.”

Hailed by many as the world’s leading solo bassist, Michael Manring has been pushing back the boundaries of what’s possible on the electric bass guitar for decades.  While his technical prowess and innovations always make an impression, it is his ability to communicate on a profound emotional level that most touches listeners.  As editor Tom Darter wrote in Keyboard magazine after seeing one of Michael's solo concerts, "Forget his astounding technique and musicality; forget his absolute command of his instruments; forget how seamlessly the musical ideas and the performance of them were wedded together...The enlightenment came most from feeling (seeing, hearing) the joy Michael felt to be playing...his brand of transcendental chops and musical understanding...was all in the service of the final outcome, the joy of making music."  Building on the conceptions of his teacher, the late bass legend Jaco Pastorius, Michael has developed a new approach to the instrument that includes unorthodox tunings, techniques and methodologies.  He has honed his skills on hundreds of recordings as a session musician and thousands of concerts throughout the world in venues including Carnegie Hall in NY, Yamaha Hall in Tokyo and Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. Michael has worked with a surprisingly diverse collection of musicians from New Age keyboardist Suzanne Ciani to avant-improv guitar innovator Henry Kaiser to celebrated folk troubadour John Gorka to experimental post-metal rockers Tim Alexander (Primus) and Alex Skolnick (Testament) to electro-pop pioneer Thomas Dolby. 

Manring’s long-term collaboration and close friendship with the late acoustic guitar genius Michael Hedges led to a lengthy stint as house bassist for Windham Hill Records; a label for whom he also worked as a solo artist, releasing four recordings under his own name: Unusual Weather (1986), Toward the Center of the Night (1989), Drastic Measures (1991) and Thonk (1994). These, along with his 1998 release The Book of Flame on the Alchemy record label earned him an international reputation as "a master of the fretless bass without rival." (Guitar Club Magazine, Italy).   Michael has garnered two gold records, Grammy and Bammie nominations, a Berklee School of Music Distinguished Alumni Award, two Just Plain Folks Awards and numerous Bass Player Magazine Reader's Poll awards including 1994 Bassist of the Year.  He was also the subject of a recent PBS TV documentary, The Artist's Profile: Michael Manring.  To quote Bass Guitar Magazine: “Every instrument has its technical innovators, and its pioneers who explore the emotional and expressive potential. Very rarely are the two combined in the same person – John Coltrane did it for the tenor sax, Keith Jarrett for the piano and Michael Manring for the bass guitar.”

And rounding out this incredible quartet is none other than drummer Scott Amendola, whose return to the California Central Coast is highly anticipated after a recent sold-out show at Anderson Social this past May.  For Scott, the drum kit isn’t so much an instrument as a musical portal. As an ambitious composer, savvy bandleader, electronics explorer, first-call accompanist and capaciously creative foil for some of the world’s most inventive musicians, Amendola applies his wide-ranging rhythmic virtuosity to a vast array of settings. His closest musical associates include guitarists Charlie Hunter, Nels Cline, and Jeff Parker, Hammond B-3 organist Wil Blades, violinist Jenny Scheinman, saxophonist Phillip Greenlief, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, bassists Trevor Dunn, and Todd Sickafoose, players who have each forged a singular path within and beyond the realm of jazz.

While rooted in the San Francisco Bay Area scene, Amendola has woven a dense and far-reaching web of bandstand relationships that tie him to influential artists in jazz, blues, rock and new music. A potent creative catalyst, the Berkeley-based drummer is the nexus for a disparate community of musicians stretching from Los Angeles and Seattle to Chicago and New York. Whatever the context, Amendola possesses a gift for twisting musical genres in unexpected directions.