Community Calendar

John Funkhouser Quartet at Cadenza, June 28, 7:30pm

The John Funkhouser Quartet makes it debut at the dynamic new live music venue Cadenza in Freeport, ME on Saturday, June 28, 2019. Funkhouser’s music is eclectic, with influences from South Africa, the Great American Songbook, Appalachia, India, New Orleans, ‘70s prog rock, modern jazz, and much more.

The Quartet’s new album Brothers, released this year, is full of empathy, fire, staggering technical displays, profound intimacy, joy and playfulness – all qualities that undoubtedly make a superb album, but also reasons why this group is best experienced live. Along with Funkhouser on keys, is Jerry Sabatini (trumpet), Greg Loughman (bass), and Mike Connors (drums) – a quartet of forward-thinking jazz musicians who are “often wildly inventive and great fun to watch and listen to” but “can also play with grace and sweetness,” according to Middletown Eye.

The title of the new album, as Funkhouser explains, comes from his relationship with his fellow band mates: “Improvised music has a curious and beautiful quality whereby you can get on stage with a musician you have never met before, play a set or two of music, and instantly develop a deep, lasting and even intimate friendship.” Funkhouser has played with these musicians for almost 20 years, so their musical friendship has grown exponentially with time. ‘Brothers’ is the title “because that’s what we are at this point,” he says. “I think the bond that has formed between us, in all humility, shows in our spontaneity, spirit of exploration, freedom to take musical chances and say something controversial or to reveal feelings and thoughts that would remain guarded in less familiar and sympathetic company.”

The John Funkhouser Group has headlined the Jazz In June festival in Oklahoma City and played at major music festivals nationwide, including the Riverbend Festival in Chattanooga, TN, the Mellon Jazz Festival in Pittsburgh, PA, and Jazz In The Sangres in Westcliffe, CO. The band has played in such New York clubs as the Knitting Factory, Small’s, ShapeShifter and Cornelia St. Café.

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