Dean Magraw©Andrea Canter

Red Planet

Dean Magraw is one of the Twin Cities’ most eclectic musicians, with a thirty-year career spanning genres and cultures, from blues to classical to folk and jazz, from Japanese and Indian to Celtic and middle American. Starting out on bugle, the St. Paul native studied classical guitar at the University of Minnesota and Berklee College of Music in Boston. 

For many years, Magraw was half of a popular partnership with mandolin virtuoso Peter Ostroushko. He has performed with and/or recorded with Ruth McKenzie, Claudia Schmidt and Greg Brown, among others; he has explored his Celtic heritage performing with accordionist John Williams.  Other collaborations include Japanese shamisen prodigy Nitta Masahiro, classical violinist Nigel Kennedy, South Indian vocalist and vina virtuoso Nirmala Rajasheker, Irish supergroup Altan, Garrison Keillor and Prairie Home Companion, jazz bassist Anthony Cox and avant garde French saxophonist Francois Corneloup.  In addition to the Dean Magraw Trio and Red Planet, he has played with Impulso (Brandon Wozniak and Jay Epstein), in duos with Bryan Nichols, Maud Hixson and Lucia Newell, on the bandstand with Bruce Henry, and currently with percussionist Davu Seru for the First Tuesday series at the Black Dog.  Dean has released a series of recordings spanning his musical universe, including his most recent, a duo with tabla master Marcus Wise, How the Light Gets In.

Chris Bates, with his brother, drummer JT, grew up with jazz, sons of trumpeter/bandleader Don Bates. He began bass lessons in 4th grade and progressed to jazz studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire before returning to the Twin Cities to study with Anthony Cox. A member of the Motion Poets, Framework, Low Blow, How Birds Work, Kelly Rossum Quartet, Atlantis Quartet, Zacc Harris Quartet, Todd Clouser's Love Electric and more, Chris  is also an accomplished composer (he was a 1999 McKnight Composer Fellow) and recently recorded his first album as leader with his Chris Bates Quintet.

Space Dust

Space Dust

After recording the tracks for Space Dust in 2008, Red Planet was on hiatus for about a year while Magraw successfully battled lymphoma. In May 2011 the trio returned to the performance stage at full throttle, with Space Dust proving to be a stunning testimony to the band’s creative telepathy and never-ending search for new sounds, even within the iconic music of John Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix. Also on the CD is an unforgettable cover of Solomon Linda’s hit, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” and six original compositions (three from Magraw, two from Bates, and one from the collective). On Space Dust, Red Planet covers corners of the jazz galaxy that we might have imagined, and acres of a sonic wonderland we never suspected. (Click here for full review) 

We can expect some re-creations from Space Dust as well as some new sounds as Red Planet re-enters the Earth's atmosphere and lands at the Ice House on Monday, June 18th at 9:30 pm.

The Ice House is located at 2528 Nicollet Ave South in Minneapolis.  

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