'Jazz-Philosophy Fusion' - World Premiere
The Jazz-Philosophy Fusion project led by James Tartaglia (SPIRE) will give their debut performance in a concert promoted by Birmingham Jazz on Sunday 31 January, immediately after three days of recording in a central Birmingham studio.
The project, funded by the APRA Foundation Berlin and Keele Impact Acceleration Fund, is an unprecedented combination of jazz music and philosophical ideas. By supplementing a conventional jazz group with a singer and actress, classic philosophical themes are explored, providing a new layer of conceptual significance to the music, a new resource for improvising artists, and a vivid way of expressing philosophical ideas which acknowledges that they are not always of simply 'academic' interest to us.
The band, called Continuum of Selves, will perform eight of Tartaglia's newly composed works of Jazz-Philosophy Fusion, all based around the theme of the philosophy of selfhood; the titles include 'Teletransportation', 'The Transcendental Ego', 'Email Persona' and 'Dream, Death, and the Self'. The line-up features leading figures in UK jazz, as well as Los Angeles-based bassist David Hilton, who is travelling to the UK for the first time especially for this project.
Jessica Radcliffe - vocals
Sonja Morgenstern - conceptual improvisation
James Tartaglia - tenor saxophone
Steve Tromans - piano
Gareth Fowler - electric guitar
David Hilton - electric bass
Tymek Jozwiak - drums
Find out more on the project website:
http://www.jazzphilosophyfusion.com/