- Genre :: Jazz
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Chris Byars Quartet’s rhythms evoke Manhattan’s bustling Times Square in its heyday. This New York-based quartet generates new, inventive music inspired by the 1950s Bop tradition—it has spent years developing relationships with and learning from musicians who thrived during the period.
The Chris Byars Quartet returns to The Rhythm Road after touring to the Balkans, Mediterranean and Central European regions with the program in February 2008. Three months later, the quartet was invited back to Cyprus to conduct an 11-day intensive workshop entitled "Jazz Futures," which took place in the United Nations Buffer Zone in the divided capital of Nicosia and featured musicians of both Cypriot communities. The Chris Byars Quartet has made it a practice to study the music and traditions of their touring regions while also continuing exploration of such musicians as Gigi Gryce. Gryce, an inspiration to the ensemble, was an American jazz musician who converted to Islam in the 1950s.
Chris Byars was born in New York City to a musical family. He began his career in opera and presently enjoys a varied career as a saxophonist, educator, composer and arranger. Winner of the Tanne Foundation Award and three Chamber Music America grants for education and composition, he combines a study of past jazz greats such as Lucky Thompson and Gigi Gryce with a deliberate thrust towards creation of new sounds in jazz.
Ari Roland grew up in downtown New York's Greenwich Village and benefited from early exposure to jazz through his proximity to the Village Vanguard, the iconic jazz club, as well as The Jazz Cultural Theater. He has played with many of today’s most important jazz artists, including Barry Harris and Lou Donaldson. Ari has led cultural tours for the U.S. State Department in Russia and Central Asia, recording the album Jazz Patterns with the Turkmen-American Jazz Quintet in 2007. His recent CD release And So I Lived in Old New York has received critical acclaim.
John Mosca is a native New Yorker, Juilliard graduate and musical director for the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, one of the world’s most celebrated and historically significant large jazz ensembles. His extensive career has allowed him to share the bandstand with assorted musical luminaries in countries across the world. He has performed with Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams, Barry Harris and Jimmy Heath. Tours for the U.S. State Department have brought him to Egypt, Tunisia, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, Montenegro and the Slovak Republic.
Stefan Schatz was born in New York City. His diverse talents have led him to perform with jazz greats Dakota Staton, Jon Hendricks, Arnie Lawrence, Herman Foster and Teddy Charles, in addition to Isaac Mizrahi, the Mark Morris Dance Company and the Broadway production of Bombay Dreams. He recently led a U.S. State Department-sponsored jazz educational tour to the Palestinian Territories.
