We happily welcome Mike Wolter and Friends every second Wednesday of the month, and i't’s free!!
Mike Wolter~ plays in multiple instrumental bands in town. His bands pull heavily from the Twin Cities brass band and avant jazz scenes. The tunes range from early jazz to Ornette and Brazilian choro to Balkan burners, and so much more.
Cody McKinney is a bassist, composer, improviser, and sound artist currently residing in the Twin Cities. He has been actively composing, recording, and performing since the mid 1990s. McKinney studied jazz and improvisation at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and, later, composition and process conceptualization at the New School in New York. His work straddles “a haunted space somewhere between free jazz and musique concrète,” with hallmarks that include his “liquid mastery of rhythm” and his use of graphic and text scores with indeterminacy and fixed time. Some of McKinney’s recent works have been recorded by his contemporary trio, Bloodline.
Nathan Hanson~ Saxophonist and composer Nathan Hanson makes music that invites listeners to stand outside themselves and the flow of time. His improvisations are “lithe and soaring, engaging in judicious honk 'n' splatter” (New York City Jazz Record).
In Europe, Hanson has performed at the Atlantique Jazz Festival, Splendor in Amsterdam and the Sons d’Hiver Festival in Paris. In the US he’s played at New York’s Knitting Factory, the Outpost in Albuquerque, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and Chicago’s Elastic.
With grants from New Music America and the Minnesota State Arts Board Hanson has launched solo projects that explore how space interacts with sound. Whether it’s a cathedral, a tree farm, or a sculpture garden, Hanson investigates how to channel the sound of each performance space. The energy of the audience circulates with the music, silence and breath. The effect leads listeners to become more present to the unfolding of each moment.
Hanson’s tours of the US and Europe opened the door to collaborations with Jacques Thollot, Catherine Delaunay, Dennis Gonzalez and Anne La Berge. He has recorded more than a dozen albums on labels including Innova, nato, and Skirl.
Recent projects include COVID-inspired front yard concerts and further sound and space exploration.
Peter Hennig~ graduated from McNally/Smith College of Music with a degree in percussion performance. followed by 2 years of private study with Twin Cities based drummer Dave King. Peter is one of the founding members of Atlantis Quartet and The Fantastic Merlins. Since 2010 he has performed at several European festivals and venues including, the Sons d’hiver festival in Paris, the Atlantique Jazz festival and the Pannonica Jazz festival in northern France, the Kind of Belou Jazz festival in Treignac (with Tony Hymas). In 2011 he received the Twin Cities Best Jazz Award with Atlantis
Quartet.
He’s had original compositions featured on 89.3 The CURRENT, 88.5 KBEM, and 90.3 KFAI. He is a recipient the Minnesota Emerging Composers Award (MECA) in 2010 and McKnight Fellowship (w/the Atlantis Quartet) in 2015. Over the past 15 years Peter has performed with many groups and
artists, including Tony Hymas (Jeff Beck Group, Stanley Clarke), Sheila Ray Charles (Daughter of R&B legend, Ray Charles), Christian Howes, Joel Harrison, Zach Brock (Snarky Puppy), Michael Janisch (Whirlwind
Records), Dr. lonnie Smith, Polly Gibbons, Imani Uzuri, Ben Wendel, Kirk Knuffke, Angelica Sanchez, Daniel Kelly, Dennis Gonzales, Jean-Brice Godet, and many others.
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