Curtis Hasselbring

Biography

An alumnus of Boston’s New Britain Conservatory, trombonist Curtis Hasselbring — also called Curha — is among several creative jazz music artists who moved to NY (Brooklyn, specifically) and enlivened the city’s so-called “downtown picture” through the ’90s, continuing his outré explorations in to the 21st hundred years as both a bandleader and valued sideman. Hasselbring’s initial recorded appearances started when he was still in Boston in the past due ’80s, nevertheless, as an associate of Ken Schaphorst’s big music group, Russ Gershon’s freewheeling Either/Orchestra, as well as the Charlie Kohlhase Quintet. In 1988 Hasselbring also started leading his very own music group, Mellow Edwards, which gigged frequently in a café in Cambridge. The trombonist continuing to execute and record with Schaphorst’s ensemble as well as the Either/Orchestra — showing up on several Accurate label albums by both groupings — until, like many innovative jazzers in the Boston picture, he was attracted to New York as well as the city’s fertile avant jazz environment. A Knitting Manufacturer regular, Hasselbring participated in rings led by famous brands Bobby Previte, Frank London, Jerry Granelli, Satoko Fujii, and Matt Darriau (Ballin’ the Jack port) from the middle- to past due ’90s and carrying on in to the 2000s. His trombone also slid with the arrangements from the Balkan road music group stylings of Slavic Spirit Party!, an organization whose early account included reedman Chris Swiftness, like Hasselbring a fresh Britain Conservatory graduate who got become a essential person in the Brooklyn-based avant jazz community. In the mean time, over twelve musicians had exceeded through the rates of Hasselbring’s Mellow Edwards group, and in the first 2000s the trombonist experienced a name switch was to be able, christening the music group the brand new Mellow Edwards and eventually solidifying the lineup into an extraordinary quartet including bassist Trevor Dunn, drummer John Hollenbeck, and Velocity on tenor sax and clarinet. In 2006, Velocity founded the impartial Skirl Information label, and the brand new Mellow Edwards’ eponymous debut Compact disc showed up on Skirl that same 12 months. Three years later on, Skirl released the group’s sophomore recording, Big Choantza. This year 2010 Hasselbring received support from Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Functions Commissioning and Outfit Development system for his most ambitious task yet, Number Channels, a made up and improvised arranged in line with the interested phenomenon of real shortwave r / c that broadcast sequences of figures regarded as coded messages delivered by intelligence companies with their spies in a variety of countries all over the world. Hasselbring conceived the piece for a protracted ensemble comprising the brand new Mellow Edwards (right now with Ches Smith instead of John Hollenbeck on drums) coupled with Decoupage, another music group that he prospects. Furthermore to Hasselbring on trombone, Decoupage features guitarist Mary Halvorson, Slavic Spirit Party!’s Matt Moran on vibes and marimba, and percussionist Satoshi Takeishi; with involvement from both New Mellow Edwards and Decoupage, Quantity Stations was therefore performed by way of a seven-piece aggregation sketching from two unique edges of Hasselbring’s earlier creative result. The Cuneiform label (also house, incidentally, towards the Claudia Quintet, offering Hasselbring collaborators Speed, Hollenbeck, and Moran) released Quantity Channels on disc in January 2013.

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