Firehouse 12 to Present Shakers N' Bakers October 10th

On Friday, October 10th, New Haven's Firehouse 12 will present a two-set performance by Shakers n' Bakers, an improvising ensemble of New York jazz scene veterans created to reinterpret original 19th century music discovered in the archives of the Shaker religious community. The band, featuring vocalists Mary LaRose and Miles Griffith, multi-instrumentalist Jeff Lederer, keyboardist Jame Saft, bassist Chris Lightcap and drummer Allison Miller, is on tour this fall in support of its second CD, YFZ (Yearning for Zion), which adds contemporary repertoire by John Adams, Albert Ayler, Gyorgy Ligeti and Arvo Part to the mix.

“The most unlikely and unprecedented musical endeavor I’ve come across since hearing Uri Caine’s amazing adaptations of Mahler, Bach, and Schubert,” wrote JazzReview.com’s Dave Wayne, “Shakers n’ Bakers (the name of a group and their eponymous first CD) straddles several universes both stylistically and conceptually...a triumph of both Lederer’s and LaRose’s musical scholarship. More importantly it is a triumph of truly inspired collective music making—this is one of the best bands I have ever heard, and the whole CD literally sparkles with their energy, intuition, guts, brains, sweat, and love.”

The guiding inspiration for the group is a collection of so-called vision songs (also known as gift songs) received in an ecstatic trance state by young Shaker women in the years between 1830 and 1850. Discovered, researched and transcribed by Lederer, these songs are attributed to divine sources (ranging from African and Native American spirits to historical figures such as Christopher Columbus and George Washington) and often sung in unique languages of trance inspiration, such as moon language. The source material takes on a whole new life as it is filtered through the lens of creative improvisation and modern genres such as free jazz, pop, calypso, minimalism and rock. The band has performed this music in venues ranging from jazz clubs to historical Shaker sites to the World Festival of Sacred Music.

2008 Fall Jazz Series Schedule:

09/19: Steve Lantner Trio
09/26: Conference Call
10/03: Ned Rothenberg's Sync
10/10: Shakers n' Bakers
10/17: Josh Roseman's Execution Quintet
10/24: Bad Touch
10/31: Magic (Joe McPhee/Dominic Duval/Jay Rosen/Mikolaj Trzaska)
11/07: George Schuller's Circle Wide
11/14: Jamie Baum Septet
11/21: Taylor Ho Bynum & SpiderMonkey Strings
12/05: The Flatlands Collective
12/12: Donny McCaslin Trio