Andrea Parkins

Andrea Parkins is an American composer, sound artist, performer and improvisational musician based in New York. She is known for her inventive explorations on the electric accordion, generative sound processing, and arrangements of objects and sound. Parkins received a BFA from Tufts University and MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University.

Andrea Parkins’s work is influenced by the compositional strategies of John Cage and Fluxus and pays homage to musique concrète and 1970s analog synth. Parkins often incorporates electronically processed accordion, customized sound processing, live tape manipulation, analog effects boxes, laptop electronics, acoustic piano, sampling, and amplified objects. Her method and sound were characterized by LA Weekly as: “The big, varied, confidently conceived abstractions Parkins yanks from her squeezebox, laptop, effects devices and maybe piano — cloudy and cranky one minute, surgically sharp the next.” With an unconventional approach to instruments, Parkins “fragments the instrument's traditional vocabulary and expands its capabilities with electronics and extended techniques.”

Andrea

Andrea (/ˈændriə, ˈɑːn-, ɑːnˈdreɪə/) is a given name which is common worldwide, cognate to Andrew.

It is traditionally popular because, according to the Christian Bible, Saint Andrew was one of the earliest disciples of Jesus and one of the twelve Apostles.

Origin of the name

It derives from the Greek ἀνήρ (anēr), genitive ἀνδρός (andrós), that indicates the man as opposed to the woman (while man in the meaning of human being is ἄνθρωπος, ánthropos, ἀνθρώπου, anthrópou). The original male Greek name, Andréas, (directly etymologically related to andras/άνδρας, man/adult male, husband) represents the hypocoristic, with endearment functions, of male Greek names composed with the andr- prefix, like Androgeos (man of the earth), Androcles (man of glory), Andronikos (man of victory). The same root ἀνδρ-, andr- denoting the male gender is found e.g. in misandry (the hatred of the male sex), andrology (male physiology), androgens (male hormones) and polyandry (the practice of taking more than one husband at the same time).

Ellery Eskelin

Ellery Eskelin (born August 16, 1959) is an American tenor saxophonist, born in Wichita, Kansas, and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, from the age of two. His parents, Rodd Keith and Bobbie Lee, were both professional musicians. Rodd Keith died in 1974 in Los Angeles, California, and became a cult figure after his death in the little-known field of "song-poem" music. Organist Bobbie Lee performed in local nightclubs in Baltimore in the early 1960s and provided Eskelin an introduction to standards from the Great American Songbook as well as inspiring an early interest in jazz music.

Eskelin has resided in New York City since 1983 and has led numerous international touring ensembles while participating as a side-person with many of today's most forward-thinking composers and improvisers. He has released more than twenty recordings as a leader since the late 1980s, primarily for the Swiss hatOLOGY label. His most important work continues to be with the group he formed in 1994 featuring keyboardist Andrea Parkins and drummer Jim Black although he has maintained lasting musical associations with Joey Baron, Mark Helias, Gerry Hemingway, Marc Ribot, David Liebman, Han Bennink, Sylvie Courvoisier, Bobby Previte and Daniel Humair among others.

Jim Black

Jim Black (born 1967 in Seattle, Washington) is a jazz drummer who has performed with Tim Berne and Dave Douglas, among others. He attended Berklee College of Music.

His own group, AlasNoAxis, includes Hilmar Jensson on electric guitar, Chris Speed on tenor saxophone and clarinet, and Skúli Sverrisson on electric bass. The music is in some ways closer to post-rock than jazz, concentrating on rhythmic shifts and ensemble texture rather than featured solos. Since 2000, the group has released several records on Winter & Winter.

The group Pachora, also including Black, Speed, and Sverrisson, and with Brad Shepik on tambura and electric saz, plays music that is similarly rhythmically diverse, but inspired by Balkan rhythms.

Jim participated as drummer 12 in the Boredoms 77 Boadrum performance which occurred on July 7, 2007, at the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park in Brooklyn, New York.

He is also one-third of the group BBC (Berne/Black/Cline) along with alto saxophonist Berne and Nels Cline of Wilco. The group released a critically acclaimed album called The Veil in 2011.

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern United States and is the United States' 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. The state has a maritime border in the Atlantic Ocean with Rhode Island, east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the north and Ontario to the west and north. The state of New York, with an estimated 19.8 million residents in 2015, is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City, the state's most populous city and its economic hub.

With an estimated population of nearly 8.5 million in 2014, New York City is the most populous city in the United States and the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. The New York City Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City is a global city, exerting a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment, its fast pace defining the term New York minute. The home of the United Nations Headquarters, New York City is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural and financial capital of the world, as well as the world's most economically powerful city. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State. Two-thirds of the state's population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% live on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th century Duke of York, future King James II of England. The next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany.