Huet // Fournier // Kuhl

Huet // Fournier // Kuhl is the result of an impromptu visit to Baltimore in 2018, which resulted in an impromptu studio session as the end of the visit hosted by Electronic Musician/Studio Engineer, Edwin Huet. The results were compelling enough that we chose to release them as an almost-complete, almost-unedited session.

Featuring an electro-acoustic ensemble of live-processing electronics, double bass and drums/percussion, the entirely improvised session explores both possibility and impossibility in a way where each concept refers and spurs the other on, pushing the musicians and their music to both new heights and new depths.

Edwin Huet - Electronics/Live Processing

Mike Kuhl - Drums/Percussion

Alex Fournier - Double Bass

The Dan Pitt Trio/Quintet

Ironically I had to go all the way to Brooklyn to meet Dan, despite the fact that we both come from the same city. Dan Pitt’s trio and quintet utilized a semi-modular arrangement of musicians, employing the same rhythm section between groups, to which the duo of McCarroll-Butler/Smith can be added to create different arrangement possibilities and textures. Employing two books of music with some overlapping between the two, Dan’s music explores the possibility of setting and space across a collection of brooding and exciting music.

Dan Pitt - Guitar/Compositions

Nick Fraser - Drums

Alex Fournier - Bass

Naomi McCarroll-Butler - Woodwinds (Quintet)

Patrick Smith - Woodwinds (Quintet)

Bearrah Fawcett

Once described as “impossible music”, Bearrah Fawcett is a project where each performer finds musical expression for their wildest ideas and sonic experiments. Each piece pushes the boundaries of what a song’s form could mean, as well as the boundaries of what that form can comfortably contain. With this as an ongoing aesthetic to aspire to, we are presented with the challenge of making each piece/moment musical as well, discovering anew the circular relationship of the beauty in complexity and the complexity of beauty.

Rob Grieve - Fretless Guitar/Compositions

Chris Pruden - Piano/Synth/Compositions

Stefan Hegerat - Drums/Compositions

Alex Fournier - Bass/Compositions

Modern Eurological Music

Since arriving at the Peabody Conservatory I've worked with a multitude of composers local to the scene and peers at the conservatory. The value of exploring this genre - often pitted as diametrically opposed to jazz - has served to inform both my micro and macro understanding of form in improvisation, while expanding the pallet of textures I can draw from and the methods involved in making those consistent. In turn, applying these lessons to my improvisation has helped me see the link between improvisation and interpretation, an all the spaces where character can be found in and in-between written forms, giving rise to the idea that a score - though appearing fixed - is just as alive as the most spontaneous of improvisations.

From one of my collaborations: the Passacaglia movement of Sean Calhoun's Suite for Solo Double Bass.