Minerva Midwest Tour!

Tomorrow I take to the road with the collaborative trio Minerva for seven straight nights of concerts, followed by a recording when we return to New York. It's the first time that this group has played outside of NYC, and we're excited to get to do so much consistent playing to develop the new music we're going to record.

The band is:

Carlo Costa - Drums
Pascal Niggenkemper - Bass
JP Schlegelmilch - Piano

Here are the dates!

May 16th: Minerva at Mahall's, 13200 Madison Ave, Lakewood, OH - 8pm
May 17th: Minerva at Trinosophes, 1464 Gratiot Ave, Detroit, MI - 8pm
May 18th: Minerva at Heaven Gallery, 1550 North Milwaukee, 2nd floor Chicago, IL - 8pm
May 19th: Minerva at Hungry Brain, 2319 W Belmont Ave, Chicago, IL - 8pm
May 20th: Minerva at Merriman’s Playhouse, 1211 Mishawaka Ave, South Bend, IN - 8pm
May 21st: Minerva at Black Sparrow, 223 Main Street, Lafayette, IN - 8pm
May 22nd: Minerva at the Garden Theater, 1187 North High St Columbus OH, 8pm

Throughout CD Release Show at Cornelia St Cafe!

I sincerely hope you can join me tomorrow night to celebrate the release of my first solo piano CD, Throughout: The Music of Bill Frisell. I recorded the music over a year ago and it's finally out this month on the SteepleChase LookOut label. It's been interesting to revisit this material after such a long time away. I'm playing things a lot differently now, and hopefully better, too.

Thursday, March 28th at 10pm
Cornelia St Cafe
$20 cover (includes a drink)

Time Out NY says:

"Progressive-jazz pianist JP Schlegelmilch celebrates Throughout, a warm and elegant new solo effort devoted to the works of guitarist Bill Frisell."

You can hear some clips of the music and read about the concept of the recording here.

If you can't make the show, Throughout is now available on Amazon and ITunes!

Gutai: Splendid Playground

The Guggenheim Museum used an electronic piece I composed in a promo video for a piece called "Water" by Motonaga Sadamasa which is currently installed in the museum's rotunda. I saw it in person last week, it looks amazing!

MARS!

I'm excited for the 2nd performance tonight of MARS: A Play About Mining, at the Center for Performance Research in Williamsburg! I'm playing keyboards in the space-rock meets hillbilly music live score. All 3 nights are sold out!

From the NY Times listing:

The arts collective Superhero Clubhouse channels its environmentalist energies into a new dance-theater concoction, adapted from Tom Coiner’s graphic novel “MARS!” Choreographed by Adam H. Weinert and directed by Jeremy Pickard, with live music composed by Adam Miller, the work examines the history of Appalachian coal mining through a sci-fi lens, asking, “Must human progress always end in destruction?” — SIOBHAN BURKE

NYC Live music update

On Monday I headed to Sycamore, home of the Radio Zero series, where I caught a set by the Danny Fox Trio. As I've written before, I have tremendous appreciation for groups that perform without reading onstage. Danny's music is pretty complex, too. Adam Schneit accurately described their group concept as a kind of modern Ahmad Jamal Trio, with lots of different grooves and sections navigated by musical cues. They've developed a really unique approach and they always seem to have new music.
Nice to see a good crowd on a Monday night, too! The Radio Zero series is really doing great, next month is curated by Kenny Warren, I'll be playing on March 18th with Two of Anything.

Last night I went to (gasp!) Manhattan to see Ethan Iverson's piano recital at Weill hall. Ethan is a longtime student of Sophia Rosoff, who helps present these concerts with the Abby Whiteside Foundation (Whiteside was Sophia's mentor). The concert featured two classical works, jazz standards, and Ethan's original pieces. I've never seen a program like this, it was very inspiring. I really need to check out more music by composer Louise Talma. Ethan opened and closed the concert with Talma's Alleluia in Form of Toccata, a wonderful neo-classical perpetual motion piece, a style that I love. The other classical piece was Stravinsky's Serenade in A, a piece that I've studied for a while and was eager to hear Ethan's interpretation. He sounded great, especially his rhythmic feel.

I was a little stunned when Ethan announced that he would take requests for the jazz standards he would play. I thought to myself that if I was playing in a recital setting like that I would want to be as prepared as possible in the material I chose. Ethan took five or six requests and then played continuously, improvising segues through the different tunes. This is definitely in the spirit of Sophia's teaching. In my lessons with her she would talk about how there really shouldn't be any difference between approaching jazz and classical music. Being in the moment while you play, getting out of the way and letting the music happen is a philosophy that Fred Hersch follows in his playing. This takes a lot of courage! It's something I'll be thinking about a lot as I prepare for my solo piano show next month..

Tonight at Douglass St!

I'm playing tonight at 8pm at Douglass St Music Collective with Noah Garabedian, Devin Gray and Kenny Warren. Also on the bill is Jonah Parzen-Johnson solo baritone, and Josh Sinton & Liz Kosack Duo.

We'll be playing compositions by all of us as well as my arrangement of Claude Debussy's "Des Pas Sur la Neige".

Old Time Musketry CD Release Party TONIGHT!

Yes, it is upon us!

I'm very excited to invite you to a special concert to celebrate the release of "Different Times", the debut album by Old Time Musketry.

We're proud of this recording as a document of our music after more than 3 years of playing together. I'm honored to get to play with such dedicated, awesome musicians who are also my good friends. The band has evolved a lot over the years and continues to grow, we have a lot of new music to share with you! We would love it if you would join us for an evening of music and hanging out......

Sunday, January 27th at 8pm
The Firehouse Space (246 Frost St, Brooklyn)
$10 cover

featuring:

Adam Schneit - Saxophone and Clarinet
JP Schlegelmilch - Piano and Accordion
Phil Rowan - Bass
Max Goldman - Drums and Melodica

The latest reviews from Downbeat and Time Out NY:

“4 stars“…”Old Time Musketry weaves through a variety of musical styles, never binding themselves to a single idea while asserting their own identity.”
–Jon Ross, DownBeat Magazine

“…a subtle yet engaging new release…The group’s idiosyncratic sound palette touches on klezmer, free jazz, R&B and sepia-toned marches.”
–Time Out New York