Quinsin Nachoff Magic Numbers This ensemble features an exciting blend of classical music, jazz influence and groove with its unusual instrumentation of string quartet, saxophone, bass and drums. Shimmering sonic landscapes travel through a diverse mixture of moods and colours while a delicate balance is achieved between improvisational elements and compositional forms. Encompassing a wide range in dynamics and atmospheres, the music can move from melancholy and introspective to vibrant and aggressive, but is always exhilarating and imaginative. The debut CD is available on the Songlines label. The group features Jim Black on drums, Mark Helias on bass and a string quartet led by Nathalie Bonin.

“…one of the most innovative chamber jazz recordings in recent years.” --John Kelman, AllAboutJazz.com “…one of Canada’s leading saxophone innovators…” --Geoff Chapman, Toronto Star

“…amazed by ambitious ideas and writing” --Bruce Gallenter, Downtown Music Gallery NYC

Quinsin Nachoff is a saxophonist and composer based in Toronto, Canada. His latest release on the Songlines label, Magic Numbers, skilfully integrates a string quartet with a jazz trio. Nachoff has toured Canadian jazz festivals to promote his debut CD, Quiescence, and more recently organized a six week tour through Australia, New Zealand, Japan and China

performing at festivals, concert halls and clubs. He has a future release of original compositions featuring the talents of British pianist John Taylor and Dutch cellist Ernst Reijseger. He was a winner of the 2004 KM Hunter Award in Music, semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk Jazz Saxophone Competition and a winner in the Canada Council Jazz I.D. Showcase. As a sideman he has performed and/or recorded with Kenny Werner, Howard Johnson, Dave Binney, Kenny Wheeler and Don Thomson among others. He performs regularly with Tim Posgate’s Hornband, Darren Sigesmund’s Strands Quintet, Michael Herrings’ Vertigo, Dave McMurdo’s Jazz Orchestra and Michael Bates’ Outside Sources; these ensembles have taken him across Canada, the United States, Europe, Australia, South Korea, Japan and China. He has studied with Joe Lovano, Jim McNeely, Frank Falco, Alex Dean, and Mike Murley among others. Nachoff has coached at the Banff Centre for the Arts and currently teaches at the University of Toronto. “Nachoff, … is one of the truly bright younger jazz minds hereabouts” –Mark Miller, Globe&Mail “Nachoff has emerged from the "promising" category to become a musician of real significance.” –Stuart Broomer, Toronto Life Magazine

Bassist/Composer Mark Helias has been making innovative music since beginning his career in the mid seventies. He has enjoyed long musical associations with Edward Blackwell, Anthony Davis, Dewey Redman, Ray Anderson, Don Cherry and Gerry Hemingway. Eight albums of his music have been released since 1984, including “Split Image” , “The Current Set” (1987), “Desert Blue” (1989) and “Attack The Future”, (1992) “Loopin’ the Cool” (1995), “Fictionary” (1998), “Come Ahead Back” (1998) and “New School” (2001) "Verbs of Will" (2003). Mr. Helias had a seventeen year association with the great drummer Edward Blackwell, with whom he recorded two CDs. He has also collaborated for 26 years with Ray Anderson and Gerry Hemingway in the ensemble BassDrumBone. A prolific composer of small ensemble music he has composed music for short films and two feature films by director Jay Anania. Helias has worked with numerous bands including those of Oliver Lake, Slickaphonics, Julius Hemphill, Marilyn Crispell, Arthur Blythe, Abbey Lincoln, Karrin Allison, Cecil Taylor, Marcel Khalife, Barry Altschul, Don Byron, Mose Alison and Marty Ehrlich’s “Dark Woods Ensemble”. In addition to his many performances on records and CDs, Mr. Helias has produced recordings for other artists on the Gramavision, Enja, New World, Arabesque, Sound Aspects, and Avant/DIW labels. Presently, Mark is leading and collaborating on various projects: Open/Loose with Tony Malaby and Tom Rainey, Solo Bass performances, The Marks Brothers with fellow bassist Mark Dresser, MOI Project-a sextet with varying personnel, Attack the Future a quartet/quintet. Mr. Helias, a graduate of Rutgers University and Yale School of Music teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, The New School and SIM (School for Improvised Music)

Jim Black has been playing drums for twenty-eight years. Born in 1967, he grew up in Seattle, WA, playing music ranging from garage rock to big band swing. In 1985 he went to Boston, MA to attend the Berklee College of Music. During this time he recorded numerous albums, performed in Europe and taught summer classes at Berklee. In 1991 he moved to Brooklyn, NY, and has

since become one of the most in demand drummers in the jazz/new music scene today.

In addition to co-leading and composing for the groups Pachora and Human feel, Jim records and tours extensively with diverse groups including Ellery Eskelin, Chris Speed's Yeah No, Tim Berne's Bloodcount, Dave Douglas' Tiny Bell Trio, Uri Caine's Mahler, Bach, and Berio Projects, and Laurie Anderson.

Jim is currently recording and performing with his quartet AlasNoAxis, his latest cd "Habyor" is available on Winter & Winter Recordings. He also regularly performs with the collective Balkan-music-inspired quartet, PAcHORA, featuring Skuli Sverrisson, Brad Shepik, and Chris Speed.

Born in San Francisco and raised in Montreal, Quebec, Nathalie Bonin has toured extensively in North America, South America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Fluent in many styles of music from classical to Jazz, African to Arabic, pop songs to film music, she has collaborated with artists such as: Lara Fabian, Gino Vannelli, Isabelle Boulay, Bruno Pelletier,

Rick Wakeman, Nanette Workman, Kim Richardson, Cirque du Soleil, Cirque …loÔze, Moist, Riccardo Cocciante, Marie-Denise Pelletier, Bran Van 3000, Robert Marien, Yann Perreau, Urbain Desbois, Kenny Werner, Michel Cusson, James Gelfand, Michel Donato, Charles Papasoff, Oliver Jones, Quinsin Nachoff, Jim Black and Mark Helias. Nathalie graduated in 1993 with a Bachelors’Degree with Honours in classical violin from McGill University and received numerous grants from the Canadian and Quebec Arts Councils to study Jazz and improvisation since 1998. She is featured on more than 30 recordings, numerous movie soundtracks and television commercials including the soundtrack of the movie Les Muses Orphelines directed by Robert Favreau which won 6 Jutras in 2000 including “Best Original Music”. Nathalie also founded and directed the Montreal String Fest from 1998 to 2001 producing concerts with international artists such as: Marc O’Connor, Darol Anger, Matt Glaser, Joe Diorio, Jorane, Julie L. Lieberman, John Blake Jr. and Eugene Friesen. Nathalie is a member of numerous jazz, contemporary and Tango music ensembles which have been featured on various radio broadcastings and recordings. Since September 2002, she is a member of the NYC-based jazz quintet Odeon alongside Ted Nash, Wycliffe Gordon, Bill Schimmel and Matt Wilson. They have performed at The Village Vanguard, at The Jazz Standard and at Dizzy’s Jazz Club of the Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York. The group also toured in Brazil in 2003. They have just completed a tour in California and New York for the CD release of their second album: La Espada de la Noche on Palmetto Records.

By Troy Collins On Magic Numbers, Canadian saxophonist Quinsin Nachoff debuts an ensemble that delivers on the promise originally offered by the Third Stream. Combining a free-wheeling, improvisational saxophone trio and a rigidly regimented but highly creative neo-classical string quartet, Nachoff has found an equitable way to integrate the best elements of both worlds. Nachoff's compositions are lush but labyrinthine. Interwoven string parts commingle with a rhythm section of astonishing dexterity for a dynamic session that veers from hushed whispers to an almost rock-like intensity. As a soloist, Nachoff has a burnished, refined tone. His nuanced, breathy timbre is laced with an understated intensity akin to Joe Lovano or Joe Henderson. Bassist Mark Helias acts as a tether between the string quartet and the trio, while Jim Black's idiosyncratic, funky drumming pushes the ensemble into unexplored realms. At its most rhythmic, Nachoff's string writing seems custom designed to interlock with Black's sense of mercurial timing. The string quartet has a solid solo voice in leader Nathalie Bonin's violin, and no member ever sounds like a mere chart reader. Nachoff's intricate writing never strays far from melody. The opener, “There and Back,” has an insinuatingly catchy theme, with a funky undercurrent that the group uses as a springboard for endless rhythmic variations, supporting the leader's sinewy soprano. Nachoff's romantic streak comes to the fore in “October,” a wistful ballad that traffics in similar territory as the swirling melody of “Circles and Waves.” “How Post-Modern of Me” embodies all the characteristics its title suggests. Jump-cuts, tricky rhythm changes, and a protean aesthetic are all on display. Nachoff doesn't allow the divergent sources of inspiration to devolve into academic whimsy. Jim Black's pummeling trap set invokes Sabbath and Zeppelin--and the string quartet's quicksilver Jekyll and Hyde transformation from folksy plucking to hardscrabble skronk--conjur Stravinsky and Bartok respectively, but heard together, these elements sound seamless. Nachoff's compositions embody a sense of varied dynamics that is nothing short of masterful. There are moments when the string quartet rests while the trio forges ahead. On others, such as “Whorls,” the rhythm section sits the piece out, letting the leader weave his soprano through a nuanced web woven by the string quartet. With the full group his meticulous attention to detail blossoms. On “Branches,” Black unleashes his patented acoustic drum-n-bass thrashings, the throttling strings strain to keep up, only to dissolve into barely audible harmonics and arco effects. “Sun-Day” closes the album definitively with a suite-like structure. It travels from pensive whispers to sonorous harmonies, bolstered by a midtempo groove. An unaccompanied string quartet curtails a pulverizing drum solo, only to yield to a frenzied duet between Black's polyrhythmic assault and the leader's impassioned multiphonic tenor. The composition concludes far from its origins. No longer invoking the saccharine compromise of crossover accessibility, improvising jazz units augmented with strings are leading the forefront of new music collaboration. Quinsin Nachoff may be a relative unknown, but Magic Numbers should change all that.

By John Kelman These days, marrying improvisational collectives with units more typically associated with classical music--from intimate string quartets to full-blown orchestras--is neither a revolutionary concept nor suggestive of the syrupy “jazz with strings” association it once had. Recent releases--eg. pianist Billy Childs’ Grammy-nominated Lyric: Jazz-Chamber Music Vol. 1 (Lunacy Music, 2005) and pianist Steve Kuhn’s Promises Kept (ECM, 2004)--have proven that it’s no longer simply a matter of bringing together disparate musical aesthetics, but instead broadening one’s musical definitions to allow the integration of a wider range of reference points. Toronto-based saxophonist Quinsin Nachoff is no stranger to establishing common ground between seemingly unrelated musical styles, with earlier albums like Intersection combining an improvisational piano/sax duo and string trio to create something not exactly jazz or classical, but a bit of both. Magic Numbers may be his most successful border-busting album yet, seamlessly blending string quartet with a sax-led trio featuring bassist Mark Helias and drummer Jim Black. Much of the music was written before Nachoff had met Black, but it feels tailor-made for Black’s aversion to stylistic pigeonholing. Strong performances abound. Nachoff’s conception is what clearly gives the album weight, but Black’s contribution almost single-handedly elevates Magic Numbers into one of the most innovative chamber jazz recordings in recent years. Black’s raucous and rock-ish playing--he's as likely to lay down a solid backbeat as delicate shadings--sometimes feels at odds with its lush surroundings. “There & Back” features Nachoff’s lyrical soprano and the string quartet providing a firm harmonic foundation, but Black’s funk-like pulse creates a strange confluence that somehow works; Helias provides the necessary glue to tie it all together. And while the saxophone trio gets the most freedom, violinist Nathalie Bonin--a versatile player heard most recently on saxophonist Ted Nash’s La Espada De La Noche (Palmetto, 2005)--proves once again that a younger generation of classically-trained players is often just as comfortable in extemporaneous settings. “To Solar Piazza” opens with a passionate solo from Bonin that leads into a softer pseudo-tango referencing Astor Piazolla’s integration of 20th Century classical constructs into the folks music of his own culture. Nachoff’s writing tends to complex through-composition, often linking surprising dichotomies. “How Postmodern of Me” brings together passages that suggest everything from Bartok’s String Quartets, with rich counterpoint between the string quartet, Nachoff, and Helias, to brief moments of sheer chaos and firmer rhythmic pulses. What’s most remarkable about Magic Numbers is how cohesively Nachoff’s often multiple personality-like writing ultimately plays out. It’s also surprising how much beauty can be found, despite his often opaque melodies. Nachoff's detailed arrangements manage to breathe in a jazz-centric way, despite there being few direct reference points other than the trio’s (and Bonin’s) clearly sophisticated improvisational prowess. Aside from having strong appeal for jazz fans with more adventurous leanings, Magic Numbers could also serve as a compelling entry point for fans of contemporary classical music looking for a way into jazz’s more open-ended musical aesthetic.

A new pair of releases teams New York edge-cutters with their north-of-the-border counterparts.

Toronto-based reed player Quinsin Nachoff has one foot in jazz performance and the other in classical composition. While this combination can sometimes lead to a musical no-man’s land, Nachoff manages to avoid stylistic malaise, largely by dint of the decidedly rockin’ drum work of New York’s Jim Black.

A jazz trio, featuring another New York import, the superb Mark Helias on bass, is spliced together with a first-rate string quartet drawn from Toronto’s pool of young classical talent.

Remove the jazz trio and you’d have a tasty little suite of string pieces, but not only has Nachoff brought in drums, he’s apparently instructed Black to go more for Sonic Youth than Billy Higgins, a stark constrast against the delicate strings. Nachoff’s own sax work adds further textural and stylistic counterpoint. What we have in the end is not quite gumbo, but a distinctive sound that can’t yet be categorized (although, add it to the body of work John Hollenbeck and a few others are busy creating and soon enough we’re sure to begin hearing some new appelation - Fourth Stream? Classical Groove?).

Nachoff’s writing is, harmonically, quite sophisticated and he sets up lovely chord progressions, articulated by the strings, over which he blows with inspired technique. His idea here is much clearer than that of pianist Chris Gestrin, who has paired Vancouver’s Dylan van der Schyff on drums with another New Yorker, guitarist Ben Monder, on a recording of mostly open improv with a couple original tunes: The Distance. February 2006 | ALLABOUTJAZZ-NEW YORK