August 24, 2019 – 1:30pm
Transfigurations III, Celebrating 15 Years of Harvest Records Presents Flaherty/Corsano Duo
Saxophonist Paul Flaherty and drummer Chris Corsano are New England-based musicians dedicated to the promise and purpose of free improvisation. Paul has released over 35 recordings since the late 70’s.
Chris Corsano is a drummer who has been working at the intersections of free improvisation, avant-rock, and noise musics since the late 1990’s. He’s played with saxophonists like Paul Flaherty, Joe McPhee, and Evan Parker; string aces Sir Richard Bishop, Okkyung Lee, and Jim O’Rourke; and one-of-a-kind artists like Björk, Ghédalia Tazartès, Merzbow, and Jandek. Constantly on the hunt to expand his sound beyond conventional ideas of what drums can and can’t do, he attacks his kit with everything from cello strings stretched across drumheads to contact microphones to a slew of extended techniques of his own creation.
“Corsano, despite being arguably the most riotously energetic and creative drummer in contemporary free jazz, does far more than merely bash his kit into submission. Playing loud does not mean abandoning subtlety, and Corsano’s sudden shifts of texture and dynamics are a wonder to behold” – The Wire
Together, Flaherty & Corsano seek to champion the cause of total free improvisation, an often misunderstood, underestimated, and sometimes even hated artform.