For 17 years Ethan Iverson was best known as one-third of The Bad Plus, a game-changing collective with Reid Anderson and David King. The New York Times called TBP “…Better than anyone at melding the sensibilities of post-’60s jazz and indie rock.” TBP has performed in venues as diverse as the Village Vanguard, Carnegie Hall, and Bonnaroo; collaborated with Joshua Redman, Bill Frisell, and the Mark Morris Dance Group; and created a faithful arrangement of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and a radical reinvention of Ornette Coleman’s Science Fiction (the latter with Tim Berne, Ron Miles, and Sam Newsome).
Lewis Porter, pianist, keyboardist, and composer, appears on 27 albums with Dave Liebman, Marc Ribot, Gary Bartz and many others, and his 2018 album Beauty And Mystery features John Patitucci, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Tia Fuller. AllAboutJazz writes that Porter’s music draws from many sources to make “a beautifully creative whole” and that he is “a first-rate pianist,” to which NYC Jazz Record adds that he has “a mind-boggling array of approaches at his …fingertips.” He received a Grammy nomination in 1995. He has performed across the USA and Europe with Liebman (who premiered one of Dr. Porter’s saxophone concertos), Joe Lovano, Wycliffe Gordon, Ravi Coltrane, Ribot, and many others. Awarded a Ph.D. in musicology in 1983, he is well-known as a jazz educator, researcher, and author, most notably of a celebrated volume on John Coltrane. A long-time former music professor at Rutgers in Newark, he also taught at The New School, The Manhattan School of Music, NYU, and Brandeis. He also teaches private students worldwide by Skype. Follow him at Lewisporter.com and on Facebook.
