Alliance for Improvised Music |
New Show |
Susie Ibarra/Assif Tsahar
(Ivanovich opens)
Fri. Jan. 8, 1999, 9 pm, $6. Go! Studios, Carrboro. Co-sponsored by Go! and Wobbly Rail.
A SOUND PARTNERSHIP
Susie Ibarra was born in California, grew up in Texas, and for the past ten years has been living in New York City. It is in that flourishing improv enclave that she has emerged as the most exciting new drummer on the scene (Susie was awarded best new talent of the year by Jazziz Magazine 1998), powering the rhythm section of both the David S. Ware quartet, William Parker's In Order to Survive and his big band, The Little Huey Orchestra as well.
Ibarra studied under one of the original liberators of "the beat," free jazz pioneer and master percussionist Milford Graves, and it shows. Susie is all over the drum kit and cymbals, punctuating sizzling, multi-layered sheets of rapid cymbal and snare taps and splashes with explosive, dramatic rolls. She often avoids bombast in favor of stuttering hi-hat or rim fills, but swings hard and is not afraid to push the rest of her group; she clearly has the strength to do so.
Anyone who saw one of the last two Ware 4tet shows knows what a dynamic, riveting performer Susie Ibarra is, and won't want to miss this show.
Susie's most recent efforts include a drum duets cd Drum Talk (Wobbly Rail) with the late Denis Charles, an emotional and rocking live document which also features Susie on tuned Philippine gongs. She and her husband, saxophonist Assif Tsahar, have a new, self-released cd entitled Home Cooking.
Tsahar is a powerful young tenor saxophone player whose own nascent discography is rapidly increasing, with releases on Eremite, Silkheart, and he and Ibarra's own label. Like Ibarra, he is involved heavily with the NYC scene and his own trio includes Ibarra and William Parker on bass.
Michael Rosenstein in Cadence Magazine wrote: "Tsahar is clearly influenced by players like David Ware and Charles Gayle, his full throaty tenor spilling out roiling waves and driving torrents. He is clearly developing his own voice on the horn, combining an energetic exuberance and full command of the extended vocabulary of overblowing and harmonics with a sense of vocalized phrasing and open dynamics."
-- Mac McCaughan