Bright Dog Red (BDR), an improvising collective from Albany,
New York, fuses free improvisation, electronica, jazz, hip hop, psychedelia,
and noise music.
BDR debuted in September 2015. In short time, the band’s
regular performances have generated comparisons to “Mahavishnu Orchestra meets
Digable Planets” (Paul Schulman), “electronic Ahmad Jamal,” (Don Lucoff), and
to other psychedelic, jazz fusion, and hip hop luminaries.
In October 2018, BDR released “Means to the Ends,” the
group’s debut album on the influential Ropeadope Records label.
In addition to leader Joe Pignato, drums and concepts, BDR
features MC Cully, Electronic musician Cody Davies, Trumpeter Jarritt Sheel,
Saxophonist Mike LaBombard, and Bassist Anthony Berman.
Baltimore bass clarinetist, composer, and arranger Todd
Marcus is one of the few jazz artists worldwide to focus exclusively on use of
the bass clarinet as a solo instrument. While most uses of bass clarinet in
jazz typically lean towards avant-garde and free-music styles, Marcus’ playing
presents the instrument with a modern straight-ahead jazz approach. His music
swings hard with both fiery and introspective intensity but also maintains a
strong lyrical sensibility. Marcus has presented music for 15 years and along
the way received accolades including a Jazz Hero Award from the Jazz
Journalists Association in 2017, Maryland’s $25,000 Baker prize in 2014,
selections as a rising star by national jazz magazine Downbeat annually in its
annual critics poll since 2013, and an NPR pick for one of the top 10 jazz
albums of 2012, and a JazzTimes pick for one of the top 40 albums of 2015.
Born and raised in the northern New Jersey
suburbs of New York City, the half-Egyptian Marcus began music at age six with
early piano lessons. He picked up clarinet at age 10 first playing band then
classical music repertoire. While in high school, an English teacher who also played
New Orleans style jazz piano would introduce Marcus to jazz. But upon trying to
join the school’s jazz band, Marcus was told saxophones, not clarinets, were
the reed instruments allowed in the band and he was turned away.
In 1994 Marcus moved to Baltimore, MD to study political
science at Loyola University and again attempted to join the school’s big band.
This time Marcus was allowed to play and embraced the opportunity. With this
first exposure to modern jazz along with a friend’s borrowed jazz records of
artists like Oscar Peterson, Stan Getz, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and John
Coltrane, Marcus began to further explore the music by learning improvisation
from records and teaching himself theory and harmony. “I started exploring and
realized I would have to figure out how to understand theory and harmony. So
I’d just mentally drill myself by thinking - Ok, what is the minor 7th of an E
dominant chord? – just exercises like that. And then of course, I learned a lot
by just sitting at the piano and plucking away till I could play chord
progressions.”
While at Loyola, Marcus also began volunteering at a local
chapter of Habitat for Humanity in west Baltimore’s Sandtown-Winchester
community. He soon began to build relationships with community members including
a life-long resident and pastor, Rev. C.W. Harris, who mentored him about the
African-American community’s rich legacy of the arts and jazz, segregation
challenges, and battles to overcome decades of poverty resulting from
destruction by 1960’s riots, flight by black professionals, and an influx of
drugs. Harris’ mentoring nurtured Marcus’ interest in Civil Rights era history,
its deep connection with the jazz music of that time, and Marcus’ feelings of
the need for greater racial reconciliation in America. With a resulting belief
in a need to be engaged in community based revitalization, Marcus left college
and in 1997 moved into the neighborhood doing community work by day and
pursuing his ongoing study of jazz at night.
1997 also marked an important move for Marcus musically as
he made the switch from clarinet to bass clarinet shortly after hearing the
work of jazz legend Eric Dolphy on the instrument. “I felt it offered a lot
more options than regular clarinet,” Marcus explains. “It hasn’t been easy
because of challenges the bass clarinet presents on a sonic and mechanical
level but I’ve worked to present the horn as an equal to saxophones in a
straight-ahead playing context. With so few examples of people playing bass
clarinet in modern jazz though, I think it’s ended up being an opportunity for
me to chart some new territory for the instrument.”
In late 1998 Marcus
returned to New Jersey to complete his college degree in urban studies with two
semesters at Rutgers University. While there however, he spent a majority of
his time at the school’s jazz department. Though not a music major, he was
accepted by audition into the department’s jazz combos getting his first
experience of performing in quartets, trios, and composing.
By mid 1999 Marcus
was back in Baltimore working again with Rev. Harris where together they have
worked since to run Intersection of Change (intersectionofchange.org), a
nonprofit addressing poverty related issues in the community. These efforts
have resulted in the establishment in 2000 of Martha’s Place, the
organization’s recovery program for women overcoming substance abuse and
homelessness, Jubilee Arts, a program established in 2008 to offer arts
classes, entrepreneurship, and community beautification for children and adults,
and Strength to Love II in 2016 which operates an urban to address the
community’s food desert crisis and need for employment opportunities. Work to
date has resulted in significant neighborhood community revitalization through
the full renovation of six previously vacant and dilapidated buildings,
transformation of 18 vacant lots into community green spaces and meditative
gardens, creation of a dozen neighborhood murals, and conversion of 96,000
sq./ft. of vacant lots into an urban farm.
Marcus’ music career
has also grown during these years as he has charted new ground on the bass
clarinet and developed as a composer and arranger with his Todd Marcus Quintet,
Quartet, Trio, and Duo as well as his nonet, The Todd Marcus Jazz Orchestra. In
2006 he released his debut album In Pursuit of the 9th Man with his Todd Marcus
Jazz Orchestra as well as his Todd Marcus Quartet’s 2012 release Inheritance.
He again featured his jazz orchestra with 2015’s Blues for Tahrir and a 2018
quintet album On These Streets.
Though self taught in jazz theory and composition, Marcus’
compositions draw largely on intricate but lyrical straight-ahead jazz,
classical influences, and over recent years have also increasingly explored the
Middle-Eastern sounds from his Egyptian-American heritage. His work includes
international performances, clinics, and radio play and he has worked with
other jazz artists such as Gary Bartz, Bennie Maupin, Don Byron, Larry Willis,
Odean Pope, Gary Thomas, Joel Frahm, Tim Warfield, Ralph Peterson, Warren Wolf,
Sean Jones, Xavier Davis, George Colligan, and Orrin Evans.
Marcus’s work includes regular performances in Baltimore,
Washington DC, New York, and Philadelphia as well international performances,
clinics, and radio play. He was a featured artist in 2017 Jazz Tales Festival
in Egypt, 2015 Cairo Jazz Festival in Egypt, and in 2005 at the 1st World Bass
Clarinet Convention in Rotterdam, Holland.
“My adult life has really been about being a part of and
serving my community by day and cultivating my music by night,” Marcus shares.
“I think I’ve always felt upset by the injustice of inequities in the world and
so being a part of my community has allowed me to specifically deal with
ongoing issues that stem from systemic racism and poverty. And at the same time,
my music has allowed me to try to create some beauty that hopefully unites
people across all races through the power of music.”
DIMITRIJE VASILJEVIC is a New Orleans based, award-winning
jazz pianist and composer who has been hailed as “a strong jazz player with an
impressive vocabulary and a powerful modern improviser who shows promise that
he will be a new voice in modern jazz” (Tony Germain – Berklee College of
Music). His music, “iridescent and captivating, a cascade of weaving twists and
turns” (All About Jazz), represents an innovative combination of the gentle
flavor of European jazz with intricate musical landscapes full of exotic
rhythms and sophisticated harmony.
Vasiljević got his Bachelor Degrees both from Berklee
College of Music in Boston, MA and University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia, his
Master’s degree from NYU Steinhardt in New York City and his doctorate (DMA)
from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Before he accepted the
position of a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies at Xavier
University of Louisiana in New Orleans in 2017, he taught jazz piano at both
NYU Steinhardt in NYC and UIUC in Urbana, IL.
Vasiljević has performed concerts at such renowned venues as
Carnegie Hall (NYC), United Nations Headquarters (NYC), Kennedy Center
(Washington, DC), Krannert Center (Urbana, IL). He performs extensively
throughout the United States and Europe, both as a solo pianist and with his
own jazz trio/quartet/quintet. In 2008 he won third jury prize and the audience
prize at the world renowned Montreux Solo Jazz Piano Competition in
Switzerland, and in 2014, Tesla Science Foundation in New York City, awarded
him with a Recognition of Achievement for his contribution in promoting the
life and legacy of Nikola Tesla through Music. In 2015, Vasiljević was a
finalist of both Luminarts Jazz Competition in Chicago and the Kate Neal Kinley
Memorial Fellowship competition. During his time at Berklee, he received the
Jazz Performance Award and the Piano Department Achievement Award, and while
working on his doctorate at UIUC, he received Creative and Performing Arts Fellowship.
He has performed with renowned jazz artists such as Joe Lovano, Chris Potter,
Charles “Chip” McNeill, Tito Carrillo, Victor Garcia, Marko Djordjevic, Klemens
Marktl and Brad Shepik, among others.
In addition to his composing/performing and teaching
careers, Vasiljević also scores music for films (There Has to Be More Than
This; Tierra Utopia), and is one of the founding members of Music Defying
Boundaries, American nonprofit organization dedicated to engaging individuals
with experimental and improvised music through education, performance, and
documentation. For 5 years, he was also on the faculty of Blue Mountain Chamber
Music Festival summer camps in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Vasiljević is a
Ropeadope Records artist and a member of Jazz Education Network (JEN).
