The October Revolution of Jazz & Contemporary Music

While on tour in 2009, drummer-composer Mike Reed’s jazz quartet People, Places and Things was caught in the middle of a neo-Nazi rally and subsequent riot in the Czech Republic. That harrowing experience, which took years for Reed to fully process, led to the creation of Flesh & Bone, an expanded version of his quartet – Reed, bassist Jason Roebke, and saxophonists Tim Haldeman and Greg Ward – augmented by two additional stalwarts from the Chicago improvised music scene, bass clarinetist Jason Stein and trumpeter Ben Lamar Gay, along with vocalist/poet Marvin Tate Reed. The new music summons the spirit of Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus with thoroughly contemporary language and explosive energy.