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Josh Harlow
Boston-born Josh Harlow is a pianist, keyboardist, and composer based in Chicago. He graduated from Oberlin Conservatory in 2016, where he studied Jazz, composition, and improvisation. He plays a wide array of music, touring the country with several musical projects besides Teiku, with instrumental psychedelic band Submerser, duo projects with Joe Suihkonen and Peter Formanek, and his piano trio. He has collaborated with a variety of like-minded peers and mentors, including Wadada Leo Smith, John Lindberg, Michael Formanek, Jaribu Shahid, Dana Jessen, and Joo Won Park. In addition to his work as a composer and performer, Josh is an experienced and committed educator. He teaches private and group lessons and has an ongoing relationship with Make Music NOLA, a free music-for-social-justice after-school and summer program for underserved children in New Orleans.
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Teiku: Klang
by Glenn Astarita
Teiku is a Talmudic acronym that translates to “unanswered question," a concept the Chicago-Detroit quartet has adopted as a full artistic identity. Co-leaders Josh Harlow (piano) and Jonathan Barahal (percussion) formed the band after discovering a striking coincidence: Both grew up singing Passover melodies unique to their ancestral Ashkenazi-Ukrainian villages. Passed down by ear through generations from communities wiped out by persecutions, these liturgical songs became the raw material for a creative jazz project that registers as deeply spiritual yet ...
Continue ReadingMicroplastique: Blare Blow Bloom!
by Glenn Astarita
Blare Blow Bloom! by Microplastique, a Chicago-based contemporary music group, is a wild ride through the avant-garde jazz landscape. The album is a cacophony of sound that somehow manages to be both chaotic and harmonious, a testament to the artists' musical prowess and fearless creativity. The press release states: “Performing the compositions of band leader Adam Shead, Microplastique creates music that is both absurd in its aesthetic and serious in its execution." The album features selections from concerts in Cleveland, ...
Continue ReadingMicroplastique: Blare Blow Bloom!
by Lawrence Peryer
Chicago's experimental music scene welcomes a new voice as Microplastique, four multi-instrumentalists, release their debut album, Blare Blow Bloom! (Irritable Mystic Records), on December 6, 2024. Formed in April 2023, the group includes Ben Zucker, Molly Jones, Josh Harlow and Adam Shead, with Shead composing and leading. Blare Blow Bloom! documents Microplastique's July 2024 US tour. Ten tracks from shows in Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Lafayette, and Indianapolis display the group's talent for reshaping composed material through improvisation. Each ...
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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson
