Madison Park Groupmuse with Derrick Michaels

Each of these solo performances unfolds spontaneously — a fully improvised expression of this time and place in the abstract, resonated through a 100-year-old tenor saxophone. Performer, instrument, acoustic space, and audience merge into deeper co-existence as each note, phrase, breath draws on our collective energy and attention.

You will recognize familiar musical devices, as the raw materials for music-making are nearly universal across cultural divides...there will be moments of pure melody, moments of thematic development, moments of rhythmic propulsion, moments of textural exploration and extended techniques — all with a through-line that is motivated by a genuine passion for bringing people together through collective, conscious attention to the unfolding of a musical moment.

I am here to share love, tenderness, passion, and compassion through the music that I make. While the music is generated from the singular local source of my tenor saxophone, I cannot over-stress the impact that each audience member's intensity and openness in listening makes on the unfolding of this music. It cannot happen without each one of us.

Beginning with Coleman Hawkins in 1945 with "Hawk Variations" and again in 1945 with "Picasso", unaccompanied saxophone performances have permeated the recorded history of jazz. Sonny Rollins and Steve Lacy performed and recorded unaccompanied throughout their careers, followed by the likes of Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, and contemporary musicians such as Ellery Eskelin.

For me, this solo context allows an integration between a jazz-oriented approach to improvisation and particular sonic and expressive aspects of the saxophone more often associated with classical playing. My style and sound concept draw equally on my experience internalizing the jazz language and my time learning to bring Bach Cello suites to life on the tenor saxophone, integrating the sounds of Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young with the sounds of Sigurd Rascher and Marcel Mule. I celebrate a continuum of expressive saxophone playing that spans more than 100 years.