Alliance for Improvised Music

New Show


SATURNALIA STRING TRIO w/ DANIEL CARTER

Many of you may remember Carter from his outstanding performance last fall at the Coffeehouse with the group Test, and he's also in Other Dimensions in Music (w/ William Parker, Roy Campbell, Rashid Bakr). For this show he's teaming up with the Saturnalia String Trio which features Jonathon LeMaster (violin, performed here with Cul de Sac), Vic Rawlings (cello), and for this tour Matt Heyner (bass, also of Test).


carter and saturnalia"Those of us who attended the Green Street Grill show in Cambridge on  Sunday night, September 13 were treated to a very special collaboration between the Saturnalia String Trio…(and) special guest Daniel Carter…the group turned in a sublime set of music whose melodic beauty and clarity was as unique as it was uncommon in much of the improvised  music of the day." Franklin Jones, Signal to Noise, November/December 1998

Saturnalia String Trio is a violin, cello, bass ensemble that blends free improvisation, jazz aesthetics, the dynamics of 20th Century Western Classical music and the subtle influence of punk rock and "noise" music. The trio is a more recent variation of a larger ensemble entitled Saturnalia, which, in addition to the violin, cello and bass, also features the unique pastiche textures of Therimin, guitar, vocals, banjo, serangi, analogue synthesizer, and drums. Saturnalia's self-titled debut CD was released on Sublingual Records (owned and operated by Saturnalia founder Jonathan LaMaster) in June of 1998, and the band was also featured on a Sublingual Records compilation of fringe rock, jazz and electronica entitled "Boston Underbelly" (along with The Binary System, Thurston Moore, Andrew Neumann, Mile Wide, Neptune, Sigmoid Flexure, and Bill T. Miller's Kings of Feedback and Orgy of Noise, the latter of which features Japanese guests Melt Banana).

The larger Saturnalia ensemble has performed extensively in New England and New York City, and has collaborated with multi-instrumentalist Elliott Sharp, guitarist/pianist Roger Miller, electronic musicians Andrew Neumann (also a Sublingual Recording artist) and Robin Amos (from Cul de Sac), as well as radical theatre artist Rain House (of the famed Living Theatre Company). LaMaster and Saturnalia have also composed and performed soundtracks to the films "The Way Things Go" (at Boston's Institute for Contemporary Art) by Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss, "Belongings", by up-and-coming Russian American filmaker Alla Kovgen, "Ojos Viajandos" by Jeff Silva, and the expressionist German silent film "Der Golem". 

The Trio version of the group (Jonathan LaMaster-violin, Michael Bullock-bass, and Vic Rawlings-cello, banjo & serangi) premiered in November of 1997 in concert with the Joe Maneri Quartet, and has since collaborated and recorded with such guests as free jazz multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter, The Gold Sparkle Band (in Atlanta), Roger Miller (Mission of Burma), and Miller's new prepared piano/drums duo with Larry Dirsch called The Binary System (SST Records). In spring of 1999, Sublingual Records will be releasing two CD's featuring The  Saturnalia String Trio: one in collaboration with Carter, and the other with The Binary System.

Joining Saturnalia String Trio for his first tour with the group is 29 year old bassist Matthew Heyner (taking the place of the regular SST bass player Mike Bullock), who is already playing strongly in the lineage of great free bassists, from Henry Grimes to Alan Silva to William Parker. Heyner plays in the groups Test (with Daniel Carter, Sabir Mateen and Tom Bruno), The No Neck Blues Band, and APSU Ensemble (with members of Atlanta via NYC's Gold Sparkle Band) and has also played with Rashid Bakr (Other Dimensions in Music, Cecil Taylor's "Unit" from the 70's) and many other groups out of New York.

Multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter (reeds, flute and trumpet) will join the Saturnalia String Trio for an upcoming tour of the East Cost/South East. Carter has been a member of Other Dimensions in Music (along with trumpet player Roy Campbell and former Cecil Taylor Unit alumnists William Parker on bass and drummer Rashid Bakr) for over 14 years, releasing an album on the Silkheart label in 1990, as well as the recent Aum Fidelity album entitled "Now!" Daniel is also a founding member of One World Ensemble, and co-leads the group Test along with fellow multi-instrumentalist Sabir Matin, bass player Matt Heyner and drummer Tom Bruno. Test is slated to release an album this year on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label, to be followed up with an additional album on Aum Fidelity in 1999. Daniel has performed and/or recorded with such iconoclasts as Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, William Parker, Gunter Hampel, Bob Moses, & Earl Freeman, and has recently been involved in a variety of other projects such as APSU Esemble (with members of NYC via Atlanta's Gold Sparkle Band), Suspect, Mammals of Zod, COYN, and in collaborations with Toby Kasavan and Reuban Radding.


Choose your destination...