Anna Webber and Angela Morris, two composer-performers whose music overturns expectations for the jazz big band, have co-led this ensemble of stellar New York improvisers since 2015. Their critically acclaimed debut album, Both Are True (Greenleaf Music), was featured on several Best of 2020 lists including The New York Times, Bandcamp, and NPR. The band’s instrumentation is a jazz staple, but the composers’ respective pieces are equally rooted in minimalism, pop, noise, and other music of the past century or so. Integrating improvisation and composed material in unorthodox ways and using extra-musical sources—such as poetry or mathematics—to form the foundation of new works, the traditional big band sound mutates into something unpredictable. The saxophonists take turns filling the tenor chair while the other conducts her own works.
For this performance, the band will present works from their 2020 album Both Are True (recorded at Roulette!) and newer works, including a piece by Morris and a suite of pieces in just intonation by Webber.
