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24
Thu
Nov
2017
20:00 |
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$480, $350, $250, $180 |
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Concert Hall, Hong Kong City Hall |
BUY TICKET
Music
Jazz Up Series: Antonio Sanchez with Migration Band
4 time Grammy Award Winner
Sanchez' Birdman "Best Original Score" Accolades
A Novel Idea
Antonio Sanchez describes his current album with his band Migration, The Meridian Suite, as “my attempt to write in novel form rather than in short stories” and his music has an absorbing tale to tell.
Sanchez was last in Hong Kong in 2016, performing in what to most jazz lovers is, perhaps, his most familiar role – guitarist Pat Metheny’s drummer of choice. He returns as a bandleader with ambitious and acclaimed music of his own composition.
A Melodic Journey
He has come a long way since joining the Pat Metheny Group in 2002, working live and in the studio with a distinguished list of artists which includes Michael Brecker, Gary Burton, Enrico Pieranunzi and Chick Corea, among many others.
Along the way, several critics noted the melodic aspect of his drumming – a quality which makes him a particularly outstanding contributor to the musically demanding trio format, and allows him to hold the attention of audience as an unaccompanied solo percussionist.
It was accordingly no surprise that he turned out to be a gifted composer as well. Sanchez’s solo career began with 2007’s star studded Migration, and in 2011 he formed a band named after that album with pianist John Escreet and bassist Matt Brewer, both of whom played on his 2013 album, a New Life, of which Pat Metheny said “This record feels like a leap forward for Antonio”.
Making Movies
He took another leap forward the following year as the composer and performer of a solo percussion score for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s multiple Academy Award winning film Birdman. Sanchez was controversially denied an Oscar nomination for his music on the basis of a disputed technicality, but did pick up a Golden Globe nomination, and the BAFTA Award For Best Film Music. The soundtrack of Birdman also won him a Grammy Award. He also appeared as a drummer in Don Cheadle’s 2016 directorial debut Miles Ahead.
Birdman’s success altered the public perception of him from stellar jazz sideman to composer and leader, and his next two albums under his own name were eagerly awaited. Later Three Times Three, an album released by Sanchez as a leader, featured an all star cast, comprising guitarist John Scofield, bassists Matt Brewer, John Pattitucci and Christian McBride, pianist Brad Mehldau and saxophonist Joe Lovano.
Suite Success
The Meridian Suite, released in 2015, featured the Migration Band, expanded to include vocalist Thana Alexa, and saxophonist Seamus Blake. Those are the musicians who will be performing the suite with him in Hong Kong.
The band is now road seasoned, and The Meridian Suite has developed further in live performance.
“The band has been evolving exponentially and we’ve achieved a level of consistency and interaction that can only be acquired through extensive touring. The Meridian Suite has proved to be one of the most fun and rewarding live experiences of my career. We’ve been performing it in it’s entirety in all kind of venues all over the world for more than a year, and it’s still growing, morphing and developing. Seamus Blake, Thana Alexa, John Escreet and Matt Brewer have been the perfect combination of musical personalities that have made this kind of growth possible,” says Sanchez.
The suite features Escreet and Brewer – a telepathic partnership even before they started playing with Sanchez – on both acoustic and electric pianos and basses respectively.
Alexa’s wordless vocals, and Blake’s powerfully inventive saxophone and EWI playing extend the range of what was already an extraordinary band still further.
The music is by turns tranquil and turbulent, always searching and exploratory. The band is unafraid of risks.
This performance offers an opportunity to hear an ensemble of New York’s leading jazz musicians interpreting some of the most ambitious music of a game-changing drummer who has also emerged as a substantial composer. It should be a night to remember.
TICKETING
DATE VENUE PRICE 24.11.2017 (Fri)
20:00
20:00
Concert Hall, Hong Kong City Hall
$480, $350, $250, $180