Sat, 12 June 2004

Euphonic Productions presents:
Burton Greene solo

9pm, Sat, June 12
$7 at the door
Eyedrum
290 MLK Jr. Drive, Suite 8
404-522-0655
www.eyedrum.org

Burton Greene

Photo by Peter © Peter Gannushkin / DowntownMusic.Net

Born in Chicago on June 14, 1937, this pianist/composer has produced over 35 recordings in jazz, electronic, and folk music on such labels as ESP Disk, BYG Actuel, Hat Hut, Columbia, Kharma, BVHaast, CIMP, Cadence, etc. He has collaborated with a host of other musicians, including Albert Ayler, Clarence Becton, Han Bennink, Sean Bergin, Anthony Braxton, Willem Breuker, Roy Campbell, Tobias Delius, Martin van Duynhoven, Lou Grassi, Akki Hak, Tom Jones, Theo Loevendie, Keshavan Maslak, Michael Moore, Wilber Morris, Sunny Murray, Perry Robinson, Roswell Rudd, Paul Stocker, Tjitze Vogel, Raoul van der Weide and Frank Wright.

Greene studied classical music with the Fine Arts Building's Isadore Buchalter and jazz theory and harmony with Dick Marx, and continued learning in the "School of the Streets" from local luminaries like Billy Green and Ira Sullivan. He moved to New York in 1962, and the next year formed arguably the first spontaneous composition group -- The Free Form Improvisation Ensemble -- with bassist Alan Silva.

He joined Bill Dixon and Cecil Taylor's Jazz Composers Guild in 1964, and also played with a number of other artists, including Rashied Ali, Albert Ayler, Gato Barbieri, Marion Brown, Byard Lancaster, Sam Rivers, Archie Shepp, Patty Waters, and others before moving to Europe in 1969, to Paris and later to Amsterdam.

During the 1980s, he started working with Eastern music. His most recent project has been with Perry Robinson in the klezmer-jazz group Klezmokum, which delves into Greene's eastern European Jewish roots, blending Jewish/Semitic music with improvised music and jazz. The group, which has appeared at a number of European festivals, including Mitte Europa ('98), Amiens Jazz Festival ('99), the International Jewish Music Festival ('98) and Op de Vuupijl ('98), also released their third CD -- "ReJew-venation". An earlier recording was entitled "Jew-azzic Park".

During 1999, Greene released "Throptics" (CIMP, 1999) with Lou Grassi and Wilber Morris. Other recent releases include the solo piano CDs, "Shades of Greene" (Cadence, 1998) and "Live at Grasland" (Drimala, 2004), and "Free Form Improvisation Ensemble", a 1964 session finally released in 1999 on Cadence. His autobiography entitled "Memoirs of a Musical Pesty Mystic, or From the Ashcan to the Ashram and Back Again", was published by Cadence Jazz Books.

After the show.

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