Cellar Live launches in the West End Cultural Centre in Winnipeg, on March 20, 2015, "Dialectics" Curtis Nowosad

"The good son returns home", is the case of Curtis Nowosad based in New York City, but who is a native of Winnipeg, Canada, and now returns to his hometown to celebrate with his people and his label Cellar Live launch of "Dialectics".

Here are some considerations Nowosad own:
Like most generic labels, “straight-ahead jazz” is a bit mystifying.

According to one definition, “straight-ahead” emerged as a generic label to differentiate mainstream improvised Black American Music from “fusion”, “Avant-garde” and other equally unwieldy subgenres. “Straight-ahead” was jazz that preserved conventional forms like chorus-by-chorus chord changes and was supposedly what the mainstream returned to in the 80s after benighted forays into electric experimentation and other digressions; it was the path forward.

But Jazz History isn’t a through-line or a single prevailing sensibility plus tangents, nor is it a series of decade evolutionary stages. Jazz is communities of artists with differing but related sensibilities from which streams of influence emanate and move through time concurrently. The throughline is an illusion just as most labels and genre designations are, too.

As a preview here offer you the video of the live recording of Speak no Evil (Wayne Shorter) which is the part that opens the Album "Dialectics". The musicians: Curtis Nowosad (drums); Jimmy Greene (Tenor & Soprano Sax); Derrick Gardner (trumpet); Steve Kirby (accoustic bass) and Will Bonness (piano):

Notes on Curtis Nowosad:

New York-based drummer, composer, and bandleader, Curtis Nowosad, has developed a reputation as a highly-skilled, versatile, and forward-thinking musician. A native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Curtis became recognized as one of the faces of the new generation of jazz players in Canada, and he has performed with such world-class jazz musicians as Philip Harper, Donny McCaslin, Stefon Harris, Miguel Zenón, Jack Wilkins, George Colligan, Dave Douglas, and Steve Wilson. He has performed with two NEA Jazz Masters, Candido Camero and Jimmy Owens, and recently recorded with a third, pianist Kenny Barron.

His sophomore album, Dialectics, will be released in March 2015 on Vancouver-based Cellar Live Records, and features Jimmy Greene on tenor saxophone, Derrick Gardner on trumpet, Steve Kirby on bass, and Will Bonness on piano. It was recently named one of “Fourteen jazz CDs to look forward to in early 2015” by Peter Hum at the Ottawa Citizen. His debut album, The Skeptic & the Cynic, released in late 2012, spent two weeks at #1 on the !earshot Canadian Jazz Charts. The album showcases Curtis’ arrangements of contemporary pop material such as Bob Marley and Michael Jackson, along with his quintet and special guest and two-time Grammy nominee Taylor Eigsti on piano.

Curtis has performed on many high-profile stages, including New York jazz clubs Smalls, Smoke, and Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, as well as Edmonton’s Yardbird Suite, Vancouver’s Cellar Jazz Club, Toronto’s The Rex Hotel, and several Canadian Jazz Festivals, including the Ottawa Jazz Festival and the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal.

A recipient of several awards and scholarships, Curtis recently performed at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam, as a winner of the Keep an Eye Jazz Award. He has twice been selected to participate in the Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead residency at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and in 2012, he attended the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music at the Banff Centre. He is currently a graduate student and Fellow of the Jazz Institute at Manhattan School of Music, where he is a student of John Riley, and performs with the multi-Grammy nominated MSM Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, under the direction of Bobby Sanabria; he holds a Bachelor of Jazz Studies from the University of Manitoba, where he mentored with master drummers Terreon Gully and Quincy Davis.

Curtis can be heard on several other recordings, including Erin Propp’s WCMA-winning/JUNO-nominated Courage, My Love, Alfa’s Harmattan, Neil Watson’s Move!, Oshima’s The Age of Shapes, The Lytics’ They Told Me, and Keith Price’s Gaia/Goya, and Breakfast of Champions, as well as Farewell 274: Winnipeg’s Jazz Community Celebrates Aqua Books, a live compilation album that he produced.

He is also active as an educator and clinician, working with private students, high school bands, and jazz camps, as well as teaching for two years in the University of Manitoba’s Bridge program, which provides music education to inner city students, many of whom are new Canadians. He previously hosted his own radio show on 101.5 UMFM called Tomorrow Is the Question! He has also curated several jazz and world music series at Aqua Books in Win
nipeg.

His articles have been published in dig! Magazine and he recently penned a pair of articles forDrums Etc. Magazine, “Getting Ready: A Guide To Prepare For College Auditions,” and “DIY: Self-Releasing An Album.”

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www.curtisnowosad.com

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