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Joshua Abrams
Abrams has toured internationally with Natural Information Society, including performances at Endless Shout, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Festival International de Music Actuelle de Victoriaville (Vico), Canada; Fylkingen, Stockholm, Sweden; Guelph Jazz Festival, Canada; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Pritzker Pavillion, Millennium Park, Chicago; Sant'anna Arresi Jazz Festival, Sardina, Italy; Serralves em Festa, Serralves Museum, Portugal; Stanser Musiktage Festival, Stans, Switzerland; Teatro Maria Matos, Lisbon, Portugal; and Kaleidophon Festival, Ulrichsberg, Austria. Natural Information Society's recorded works include Simultonality (eremite, 2017); Magnetoception (eremite, 2015); Represencing (eremite, 2012); Natural Information (eremite, 2010); and Cipher (Delmark, 2003).
Abrams has scored numerous feature films, including The Trials of Muhammad Ali (2013), and several projects with award-winning director Steve James: the films Abacus: Small Enough To Jail (2017), Life Itself (2014), The Interrupters (2011); and the documentary series America To Me (2018). Abrams' collaborations with visual artists include sound projects and exhibitions with Lisa Alvarado, Theaster Gates, and Simon Starling.
Abrams has appeared on over 100 recordings, including those by Fred Anderson, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, David Boykin, Hamid Drake, Neil Michael Hagerty, Nicole Mitchell, Roscoe Mitchell, Mike Reed, Matana Roberts, The Roots, and Town and Country. His performances include work with The Fred Anderson Trio, Sean Bergin, Ari Brown, Earle Brown, Peter Brötzmann, Rhys Chatham, Gerald Cleaver, Tony Conrad, Toumani Diabaté, Bill Dixon, Axel Dörner, Von Freeman, Jandek, Kidd Jordan, Oliver Lake, Joe McPhee, Joe Morris, Evan Parker, Jeff Parker, William Parker, Ballaké Sissoko, Damo Suzuki, Craig Taborn, Chad Taylor, and Kurt Vonnegut. He was an artist in residence at Fred Anderson Park (2017) and at The Hideout (2016), both in Chicago. Abrams was awarded the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award (2018).
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Jason Stein: Anchors
by Giuseppe Segala
Il clarinetto basso vanta nel jazz contemporaneo una rosa di solisti eccellenti, a partire da Eric Dolphy, che ha letteralmente inventato un modo di interpretare lo strumento, di valorizzarne colori e incisività espressiva. Però la sua frequentazione, con lo stesso Dolphy e con personalità quali Michel Portal, John Surman, Vinny Golia, Marty Ehrlich, Don Byron, si è sempre affiancata ad altri strumenti, alla ricerca di una duttilità tipica degli esploratori di tavolozze timbriche aperte e audaci. Tra i rari musicisti ...
Continue ReadingJason Stein: Anchors
by Jerome Wilson
Six years after releasing his previous album, bass clarinetist Jason Stein returns with a new trio recording that goes outside the realm of conventional jazz. He has been undergoing healing therapy in those six years to combat physical injury and this album is inspired by that process. Aided by bassist Joshua Abrams and drummer Gerald Cleaver, Stein constructs trio music that is both meditative and explosive, with the three musicians tightly focused on their collective sound. Stein's playing ...
Continue ReadingRempis / Adasiewicz / Abrams / Damon: Propulsion
by Mark Corroto
Do you ever imagine yourself, while listening to an album from the Chicago creative scene, as a detective in one of those murder mystery movies? The investigator has assembled a wall with a string running from the crime scene photos and victims to all the accused. They do so to visualize the connections between suspects. The same process is helpful with Chicago musicians. Saxophonist Dave Rempis had curated nearly a thousand Thursday night performances at Elastic Arts in Chicago between ...
Continue ReadingJason Stein: Anchors
by Mark Corroto
Jason Stein would never in a million years characterize Anchors as his variation of A Love Supreme (Impulse!, 1965). But a comparison can be made. John Coltrane's quartet recording was the most personal and profound statement of his career. The same can be said for Stein and Anchors. He had taken time off from recording and performing due to some chronic pain that plagued him. Stein set about diving deeply into the body, studying massage, specifically trigger point therapy, practicing ...
Continue ReadingNatural Information Society: Since Time is Gravity
by Danen Jobe
The concept of trance is one of the oldest in the world. Many older music forms embraced trance for their rituals. One is the Gnawa musical tradition originating in Kano, Nigeria and Morocco, which uses double and triple notes repeated sometimes for hours to induce a religious state while the singer sings stories of spirits. It is played on a gimbri (aka sintir or hajhuj), a three stringed instrument featuring one short and two long goat gut strings over a ...
Continue ReadingRempis / Abrams / Ra + Jim Baker: Scylla
by Mark Corroto
Avreeayl Ra sets the tone for this entire live set as his voice and mbira open Scylla, “this is for all the survivors." According to Greek mythology Scylla was a beautiful woman who turned into a monster with four eyes and six long snaky necks with heads, each containing three rows of shark's teeth and 12 tentacle legs plus six dog's heads wrapped her waist. Recorded deep into the Covid-19 pandemic, in July 2021, at Chicago's Elastic Arts, one would ...
Continue ReadingJoshua Abrams’ Cloud Script: Cloud Script
by Mark Corroto
You can take bassist Joshua Abrams out of his Natural Information Society, but you can't take the Natural Information Society out of Abrams. His long- lived ensemble, which traffics in long-form psychedelic environmental music, has made a permanent imprint on just about everything Abrams does. In bands led by Nicole Mitchell, Hamid Drake, Dave Rempis, and Rob Mazurek, Abrams' acoustic bass sound is hypnotic and mesmerizing. The same can be said for this one-off Cloud Script quartet. The ...
Continue ReadingStLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Cooper-Moore, Joshua Abrams & Hamid Drake
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
This week, let's check out some videos featuring multi-instrumentalists Cooper-Moore, Joshua Abrams, and Hamid Drake, who will be teaming up for a show presented by New Music Circle next Saturday, May 26 at Off Broadway. All three are veterans of the international creative music scene who have performed in St. Louis previously in different ensembles. Most recently, Drake played here with violinist Iva Bittová last year; with fellow percussionist Adam Rudolph in 2016; and, along with Cooper-Moore, as part of ...
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Jazz This Week: Christian McBride Trio, Gaslight Cabaret Festival, Joshua Abrams' Natural Information Society, and More
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
Has the dreadful winter of 2014 finally released its icy grip on the St. Louis area? We can only hope so, because there's a lot of interesting jazz and creative music to hear around town over the next few days. Let's go to the highlights... Tonight, bassist Christian McBride begins a four-night stand at Jazz at the Bistro, this time with the latest iteration of his trio, featuring drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. and the up-and-coming pianist Christian Sands. Their first ...
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STLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Joshua Abrams' Natural Information Society
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
This week, let's get better acquainted with Joshua Abrams, the Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist whose group Natural Information Society will perform in a concert presented by New Music Circle at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 22 at Joe's Cafe, the gallery and “house concert" venue at 6014 Kingsbury Ave in the Central West End. As a bassist, Abrams has worked with many musicians well-known in Chicago's jazz and improv communities, including the David Boykin Expanse, Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble, Jeb Bishop, ...
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Joshua Abrams Natural Information Society Performs at UMass Amherst on Wednesday, October 26
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MassJazz: Jazz in Massachusetts
Joshua Abrams and the Natural Information Society perform at the Fine Arts Center at University of Massachusetts at Amherst on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 8:15 p.m. Tickets are $10 general admission and $5 for students and can be ordered online. Playing bass and guimbri (North African bass lute), composer Abrams is part of Chicago's vibrant music scene over the past 15 years. He appears with percussionist Frank Rosaly. For a complete schedule of concerts and events at the Fine ...
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Music
Joshua Abrams
Location: Philadelphia
Instrument: Bass, acoustic
