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The Jair-Rohm Parker Wells Trio
Jair-Rohm Parker Wells: electric basses
Elliott Levin: saxes, voice
Klaus Kugel: drums and cymbals
The Jair-Rohm Parker Wells Trio is a very high energy improvising unit driven by sonics and beats that propel boundless musical explorations. The members all have impressive backgrounds in the idiom with credits as illustrious as tenures with legends such as Sun Ra and icons like Charles Gayle, Tony Scott and Cecil Taylor. The group is current with a release on Ayler Records entitled "Brotherly Love in Philadelphia" a wholly improvised session that combines spirited group throw-downs with spoken word and extended instrumental techniques.
The Jair-Rohm Parker Wells Trio recently completed a stellar European tour which included performances at the legendary Zappanale festival, the Nordischer Klang Festival in Greifswald, Germany as well as various other concert stages in Scandinavia, the UK and Germany.
Klaus Kugel studied at the School of Jazz in Munich. Since 1989 he has been playing intensively with the outstanding lithuanian soprano-saxophonist Petras Vysniauskasas well as many different international projects. Recognised as one of Germany's most inventive and adventurous drummers, Klaus has demonstrated his exceptionally inspired musicianship with the likes of: Karl Berger, Tomasz Stanko, Charlie Mariano, Kent Carter, Michel Pilz, Theo Jörgensmann, Kenny Wheeler, Vyacheslav Ganelin, Bobo Stenson, Glen Moore, Steve Swell, Sabir Mateen, Robert Dick, Ken Filiano, Peter Evans, Bruce Eisenbeil, Perry Robinson, Albrecht Maurer, Arkady Shilkloper, Sirone, Eric Vloeimans, Burton Greene, Hilliard Greene, Vijay Iyer, Charles Gayle, John Lindberg, Herb Robertson, Louie Belogenis, Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Bobby Few, Natalka Polovinka and others. Over the past 20 years, he gave numerous concerts and appeared at festivals throughout Europe, the Baltic States, Canada, USA, Syria, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Ukraine and China.
Elliott Levin: Born in 1953, Elliott Levin is a Philadelphia born and based jazz musician and poet. For ten years he toured the world with Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, as saxophonist in The Sound of Philadelphia band. His poetry has been published in several periodicals including the LA Weekly, Blue Beat acket (Japan), The Painted Word, Po' Fly, The Nile, Vital Pulse, Ozone, and Poets & Prophets. He regularly performs jazz and poetry with Gloria Tropp, Miguel Algarin, Cecil Taylor's groups Phthongas and Unit Core Ensemble, New Ghosts, Interplay and Talking Free Be-Bop. His original music and poetry was recorded for broadcast throughout the USA as part of the New American Radio Series. Elliott performed as solo, and in collaboration with Frank Messina at Lollapalooza in 1994, where they also jammed with Courtney Love in Phila. at a late night jam. He is currently a member also of drummer Calvin Weston's (Ornette Coleman, Blood Ulmer, Lounge Lizards)BIG TREE (www.calvinweston.com); Animus (world/fusion music); and The Philadelphia Phenomenon (w/ Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Rick Iannacone, Calvin Weston).
Jair-Rohm Parker Wells is an American bassist, composer, programmer, conceptualist and record producer. A resident of Stockholm, Sweden since 1985, he is widely recognized as a highly individual voice on the electric bass guitar, Ashbory bass, Fichter electric double bass and acoustic bass guitar, he has also distinguished himself as a clinician (demonstrating at the Frankfurt Musik Messe and the Los Angeles NAMM show for Hohner and Steinberger), programmer and synthesist developing with Max/MSP, Csound and Java. As a record producer and composer he has collaborated with many of the more prominent names in the international art world such as Peter Kihlgård, Lydia Grey, Johannes Bergmark, Iris Lord, Magnus Alexanderson, Olaf Rupp and Reeves Gabrels. He is the recipient of commissions from prestigious institutions such as Stockholms Stadsteatern and New York's MEET THE COMPOSER. He currently produces and performs with spoken word artist Cyndi Dawson, and is featured as leader on recordings from Red Toucan Records ("Steamroom Variations") and Ayler Records ("Meditations on Albert Ayler").
Raised in southern Germany, Jair-Rôhm moved to New York in 1978. After touring the United States for a year with a top forty band he attended Tulane University in New Orleans. While at Tulane, he regularly performed with local jazz and rhythm and blues artists. He also performed as a member of Tulane University's Tulanians, met and studied with Richard Payne (the first person to record with the electric bass) and discovered the music of Harry Partch. He returned to the New York area in the fall of 1980 where he met and started work study under saxophonist/composer Ken Simon. During this period Jair-Rôhm also met Anthony Braxton and became involved in the study of his music. In 1982 Jair-Rôhm founded his own experimental music/theater group GLASS THOUGHT THEATER ENSEMBLE. Between 1982 and 1983 he was composer in residence at the New York Theater Ensemble (New York, N.Y.) where he wrote and produced a trilogy of progressive"operas". He received a MEET THE COMPOSER grant in 1983. From 1984 - 1985 he was resident in New Jersey where he continued composing and playing the bass. He was a founding member of the New Brunswick Jazz Musician's Collective (New Brunswick, N.J.) for which he composed and performed many significant works for various ensembles. He is also one of the original members of the legendary New York improvising band Machine Gun.
Some of the artists Jair-Rôhm Parker Wells has performed and /or recorded with include: Robert Musso, Tobias Schmitt, Karl Berger, Reeves Gabrels, Lost Boys, FIVE, Dr. Alban, Daniel Carter, Regina Belle, Max Martin, Jon Lord, Tony Scott, Marcus Heesch, Thomas Chapin, Charles Brakeen, Jonas Hellborg, Peter Sonntag, Luther Thomas, John "Jab'O" Starks, Steve Conte and the legendary Finnish band Kra.
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