Recording with David Liebman at the Bunker Studio for the album Individuation (Destiny Records, 2014). - Photo by Luis Ruiz (www.larufoto.com)
The Michael Eaton Quartet is heading to the Midwest for an early 2015 tour. We'll visit Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, and Bloomington (Indiana) on the way. If you're in one of those cities, come say hello and check out music from Individuation. For more information, scroll to the bottom for upcoming gig dates.
Bio
Michael Eaton (b. 1981) is a Brooklyn-based saxophonst, composer, and educator. As a saxophonist and improvising artist, his professonal career to date has spanned a variety of idioms, encompassing jazz, free improvised music, soul, rock, western classical, funk, reggae, rockabilly, marching bands, and beyond. He embraces a progressive and holistic vision of jazz, cognizant of its rich historical origins and development, but reaches for a personal outlook with an eye towards future possibilities.
Michael's 2014 debut album on Destiny Records, Individuation, highlights his most recent music performed by his New York quartet along with trumpeter Jon Crowley. Individuation integrates angular themes and propulsive modern jazz with intricately rhythmic minimalistic vamps, freebop, Cageian prepared piano, and multi-layered open platforms. The band is joined on several cuts by a very special guest, master musician and saxophonist David Liebman.
Michael's early career highlights commenced with the (x)tet, a modern jazz sextet based in Indiana from 2005-2007. The (x)tet released Strange Visitation on Watercourse Records in 2009.
He co-founded a saxophone chamber group, The Saxophone Cartel, which in 2004 was selected to be a performing group at the North Sea Jazz Festival under the auspices of the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE). The Cartel's studio recording, Caught in the Act, was released on Sundog Records in 2004. Cadence Magazine's Nate Dorward wrote, "The Saxophone Cartel bumps the standard format up to a sextet, adding detail rather than mere weight to the ensemble sound. They keep at a slant to Jazz orthodoxy." He called the group "well worth hearing, offering a few new wrinkles on the familiar sax-ensemble format." (Cadence Magazine 2004, www.cadencebuilding.com) Their 2007 live follow up, "Allive!!!", was released as a free download.
Michael is a charter member of composer Dorian Wallace's Free Sound Ahn-Somble, a progressive avant-leaning big band, now entering its third season. He often appears with multi-instrumentalist Adam Minkoff at Rockwood Music Hall in a variety of ensembles, including Vaalbara, a post-70s Miles/downtown band that fuses rock, jazz, funk, and free improvisation.
May 2013 marked the 100th anniversary of Igor Stravinksy's Rite of Spring, and Michael played alto saxophone in a VSOP rock octet version arranged by Minkoff to a standing room only (and electrified) crowd. In July 2013 and 2014 he performed in Brittany Anjou's Larceny Chamber Orchestra playing Portishead's complete "Live at Roseland" album at Le Poisson Rouge, which included singers such as Karen Mantler, Joseph Keckler, Maria Neckham, Abbey Ahmad, and Carol Lipnick. He has also been a guest with Anjou's Trio and in her BEWAA ensemble, which performs arrangements of traditional Ghanaian xylophone music she learned from Bernard Woma.
Over the course of 2014, Michael recorded with drummer David Andrew Moore on his release Personal Mythologies. He recorded tracks in the soul genre with Paul Loren on Five & Dime Records for his album, Leisurely, and he was twice featured in the nationally touring Pink Floyd cover band, The Machine. The summer saw a new recording with his power free jazz/rock trio, Anderson/Eaton/Minkoff, adding prepared piano and electronics. In November, he returned to the studio with Minkoff to record Minkoff's octet version of the Rite of Spring.
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