PETE SIERS TRIO
A powerhouse trio featuring Dave Bennett on clarinet, Cliff Monear on piano, and Pete Siers on drums.
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FLEA CIRCUS
For years, Pete Siers has wanted to follow in the footsteps of master percussionists j.C. Heard and Roy Brooks by collaborating one-on-one with Mr. B. Flea Circus is their stroll through the endlessly rewarding gardens of our traditional culture. Everything that grows here is nourished and sustained by the honesty born of lessons learned from life in the real world.
Subsequent Flea Circus albums feature Luca Filastro (Vol. 2) and Carl Sonny Leyland (Vol. 3).
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This is an extraordinary new CD — the third in a series of duets between master drummer / washboardist Pete Siers and stellar pianist / vocalist Carl Sonny Leyland. And before you read another word from me, here is the Bandcamp link where you can purchase a download of this stirring music for about the price of a fancy coffee or a two-pound bag of organic carrots. (Other financial yardsticks are there for the imaginative to invent.)
I will only say that I was first dazzled by the swinging creative Mr. Siers in September 2004, when I attended my first Jazz at Chautauqua, and heard his beat (irresistible) and his sound-palette (apparently limitless). He is a percussionist who plays “for the comfort of the band,” as did the great forbears. I encountered the Rev. Leyland later, perhaps in 2011, but he made an impact on me that I have not forgotten: his mastery of the piano, his awareness of the joy to be found in playing and singing the saddest music as well as the most jubilant. Both men are irreplaceable soloists but they understand community deeply, so their duet is more than the sum of two organic entities: they are a portable orchestra that can occupy a two-top at the diner, so remarkable.
Self-care is more than the right moisturizer, so consider a careful purchase of this music and let it help you go aloft. And the legal shrubbery at the start was entirely necessary. You could hurt yourself while having an unrestrained personal festival. Swing out, buy hold on to the banisters.
JAZZ LIVES | APRIL 2024
KERRYTOWN STOMPERS
Holding traditional jazz deep in their hearts, these musicians have a deep passion for the early formation of jazz in all of its aspects: culture, structure, improvisation, and virtuosity. Pete brings with him a stellar line-up to get the “stomping” underway: Dave Kosmyna (cornet); Ray Heitger (clarinet); Alex Belhaj (guitar); and Chris Tabaczynski (bass). Pete will be hitting it on the drums, of course, but also…the washboard!
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LOS GATOS
The brainchild of drummer and multi-percussionist Pete Siers, Los Gatos performs a mixture of elegant boleros, delightful pachangas, firery mambos, relaxed cha cha chas, and exotic, 6/8 Afro/Cuban dance music. The band features the incredible musical talents of timballero Pete Siers and conguero Al DiBlassio, vibraphonist Cary Kocher, pianist Brian DiBlassio and bassist Kurt Krahnke. Los Gatos is built from the "old-school" Latin jazz values set forth by Cal Tjader, Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente and Joe Cuba. However, unlike many traditional Latin jazz groups with six or more members, Los Gatos is a quintet, a combination which dramatically exposes the function of each component of the band. Los Gatos' use of call-and-response vocal coro sections throughout their repertoire lifts the music to new heights of soulfulness and drama.
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