Rudresh Mahanthappa

One of the most accomplished innovators on alto saxophone, Rudresh Mahanthappa leads his exciting quartet in performance at the Green Mill in Chicago, on Saturday, October 20th. Joining him on the bandstand will be one of the keyboard sensations of the new Millennium, long-time collaborator Vijay Iyer, along with acclaimed French bassist Francois Moutin and fast-rising star drummer, Damion Reid. 

Rudresh Mahanthappa earned degrees from Berklee and from Chicago’s DePaul University and currently teaches at the New School in New York City. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, currently he leads or co-leads seven ensembles in addition to his ongoing work with Vijay Iyer. His quartet recording, Mother Tongue (Pi) was named a “Top Ten” Jazz CD of 2004 by the Chicago Tribune, Jazz Times, Coda, All About Jazz, and Jazzmatazz as well as one of the top jazz albums of 2005 by several European publications including Jazz Review. He released Code Book in 2006, with Iyer and Moutin, along with drummer Dan Weiss. Also in 2006, Rudresh and Iyer released a highly regarded duet recording, Raw Materials. As a sideman, Mahanthappa has worked with David Murray, Steve Coleman, Jack DeJohnette, Von Freeman, Tim Hagans, David Liebman, Greg Osby, and Dr. Lonnie Smith, among others. Like Iyer, he is a 2006 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow and has received numerous grants for composition. Notes the Chicago Tribune, "Mahanthappa creates a music that is at once technically brilliant yet musically cogent, harmonically adventurous yet expressively straightforward. Mahanthappa takes listeners into fascinating Eastern Idioms that are otherwise virtually unheard in jazz today."  

Rudresh Mahanthappa and Vijay Iyer

Vijay Iyer was born and raised in upstate New York, the son of Indian immigrants. He started violin as a toddler but was more interested in his sister’s piano. He continued violin studies but is entirely self-taught as a pianist and composer who discovered jazz in his teens. He played original music with his own ensembles through college, earning a Master’s Degree in physics at 22 and a doctorate in music and cognitive science from Berkeley (that’s the California university, not the Boston music school!) in 1998. While on the west coast, he worked with Steve Coleman, George Lewis, Liberty Ellman, and Rudresh Mahanthappa, releasing two recordings on the Asian Improv label. His debut, Memorophilia, was listed by Cadence Magazine as one of the ten best of 1996. Since moving to New York and concentrating on his music career, Iyer has performed at worldwide jazz festivals and participated in several multimedia projects. He’s appeared with Steve Coleman's Five Elements, Roscoe Mitchell's avant garde Note Factory, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet, Greg Tate's Burnt Sugar, and poet-activist Amiri Baraka's Blue Ark. He’s received numerous grants and awards, including the 2006 fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. 

French bassist Francois Moutin first studied guitar from age 5, adding piano at age 11 and finally realized his lifelong love for the acoustic bass as a teenager. Studying mathematics and physics in college, Francois earned an undergraduate degree in engineering and a doctorate in physics at age 24. Music was the stronger calling, however, and at age 29 he formed the Quintet Moutin with twin brother Louis, by then a top echelon jazz drummer. In November 1997, Francois relocated to New York where he has found steady work in live performance and studio sessions with the premier artists on the New York Jazz Scene, and where Quintet Moutin evolved into the current Moutin Reunion Quartet. 

Southern Californian Damion Reid has been playing drums in public since he was a toddler performing in church. Mentored as a teen by the late, great Billy Higgins, Reid went on to the New England Conservatory of Music after high school, and, after achieving a variety of honors, was accepted into the elite Monk Institute of Jazz for further study. In Los Angeles he recorded with Robert Glasper and Robert Hurst, later returning to New York where he began associations with Marcus Strickland, Greg Osby, Terence Blanchard, Ravi Coltrane, Jason Moran and more. 

The Rudresh Mahanthappa Quartet will perform one night only at the Green Mill, 4802 N. Broadway in Chicago, sets begin at 8 pm ($12 cover). Call 773-878-5552.