Labyrinth By Jacám Manricks With Ben Monder, Jacob Sacks, Thomas Morgan & Tyshawn Sorey Jacám Manricks is a New York City-based jazz Renaissance man whose strikingly good new album Labyrinth, featuring a jazz quintet and 40-piece chamber orchestra, comes out May 22 on the Manricks Music record label. The album is available at www.jacammanricks.com as well as itunes, CD Baby, emusic, Amazon.com. Since coming to NYC from his native Australia early this decade, Manricks has made his mark both as a PhD-level jazz composer at the Manhattan School of Music and as an alto saxophonist and woodwind player on the most vibrant jazz scene in the world. He also plays soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, flute, clarinet, alto flute and bass clarinet. The release of Labyrinth, his 2nd CD as a leader, heightens his profile and alerts post-bop jazz aficionados throughout the country to what has been obvious to discriminating listeners in Europe, Australia and NYC, and to jazz players on three continents — Jacám Manricks is a world-class talent. Besides its bandleader, the album features four notable advocates of superior jazz: Ben Monder on electric and acoustic guitars, Jacob Sacks on piano, Thomas Morgan on acoustic bass, and Tyshawn Sorey on drums. Also heard on the new album is a 40-piece chamber orchestra. Labyrinth brims over with probing music that is at once vastly intelligent and approachable. The musicians’ performances show an inner sense of design — pace and movement, fluidity and precision, tension and release, nuanced feelings. The five have command of melody, harmony, and rhythm without being showy or conspicuous. To Manricks and his comrades, conviction matters as much as execution. Every one of his eight compositions is musically challenging while speaking to heartfelt emotions. Manricks titled the album after his song “Labyrinth.” In the liner notes he writes, “…the long and sinuous curve of the melody, in addition to the chosen harmonies, creates a mystical atmosphere, as if one were journeying through a labyrinth….” - Short and inviting “Portal” combines composed and improvised parts; its melody referencing Debussy’s “Syrinx for Flute.” Through colorations and rhythms, “Micro-Gravity” conjures for listeners what Manricks calls “a floating or weightless sensation”—hear the hypnotic quality of his perfectly controlled alto playing. Pivoting on an engaging rhythmic pulse, “Move” displays such knowing communication between soprano saxophone, acoustic guitar, piano, and drums that the music is of considerable power. With Manricks switching between flute, alto saxophone, and clarinet, and pianist Sacks in especially inventive form, “Cloisters” evokes the awe its composer felt upon visiting the ruins at Fort Tyron Park in Upper Manhattan. “Aeronautics” holds some of Manricks’ most eloquent alto playing on the album; his warm, urgent improvised lines spin through the framework of the harmonic structure. There’s an exquisite clarity and remarkable assurance to every bar of music from these creative New Yorkers. With respectful referrals to Miles Davis’s “Sketches of Spain” and Ravel’s “Bolero,” “March and Combat” fascinates for the entirety of its 10-plus minutes. Monder’s electric guitar offers surprises, and the chamber orchestra adds to the pervading freshness of spirit. “Rothko” has what Manricks calls an “ambience created by a series of vertical sonorities and sparser approach to melody,” this bare-bones, eerie jazz sharing an ineffable artistic nook with the colorful multiform painting of the late idiosyncratic artist Mark Rothko. Jacám Manricks (pronounced Jay-cám) is a familiar figure in leading New York jazz rooms like Smalls, the Jazz Gallery, and the Cornelia Street Café. He’s also appeared at Jazz at Lincoln Center. In addition to his quintet and chamber orchestra, Manricks fronts a quartet, a trio and performs with, among other NYC notables, The Tyshawn Sorey Quintet, the Felipe Salles Band, Elio Villafranca, and Werner Klausenitzer’s Som Sum Sam. He’s also shared the concert stage with the likes of Ray Charles, Dave Liebman, Jeff “Tain” Watts and Mike Nock, his piano-playing mentor back in Sydney. Internationally, Manricks has been a featured soloist in Europe, Australia and the United States. As a jazz educator, Dr. Manricks teaches jazz saxophone/woodwinds and improvisation at New York’s New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music. He earned his doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music (where he also taught). Labyrinth is his second album of original pieces, following 2003’s acclaimed Sky’s the Limit. He has composed extensively for small bands and even an 80-piece Jazz Philharmonic Orchestra. His many contributions to jazz music have been praised by the international press. As John Shand said in the Sydney Morning Herald: "...Jacám Manricks breaks the mould by being a star as a composer...” [His] multi-faceted compositions are highly original in their harmonic and rhythmic language, and the complexity obliges the improviser to maintain strict relevance to the setting. As an alto saxophonist he has an austere sound and his improvising had such precision and rigour about it the casual listener could think everything was composed...". Bio Jacam Manricks is fast establishing himself as one of the most qualified artist/musicians in the world today. He tours internationally as a featured soloist, composer/arranger and clinician throughout Europe, North America and Australia. Mr Manricks has received a number of prestigious awards and scholarships for artistic excellence and has performed with some of the most recognized artists of our time, including Ray Charles, Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts, David Liebman, Micheal Abene, Dick Oatts, James Morrison, Mike Nock, Jerry Lewis and the Queensland Symphony to name a few. Mr Manricks has been a featured soloist at internationally renowned venues, such as Jazz at Lincoln Center (New York), the Jazz Standard (New York), the Jazz Gallery (New York), the A-Train (Berlin), the Gasteig Philharmonie (Munich), the Seymour Center (Sydney) & Bennet's Lane (Melbourne). As a composer, In June 2008 Mr Manricks recorded his second album of original works. The album entitled ‘Labyrinth’ consists of pieces for Jazz quintet and chamber orchestra featuring some of the leading Jazz soloists in New York along with himself on saxophones and woodwinds. In October 2007 Mr Manricks premiered a series of compositions for Symphony Orchestra and Big Band in New York. The works featured Mr Manricks as alto saxophone soloist and composer and were presented as part of the Manhattan School of Music’s 90th Anniversary Celebration Concert. Mr Manricks was also featured as soloist and composer for the Queensland Conservatorium of Music’s 50th Anniversary Celebration Concert in September 2007. As an ensemble leader, Mr. Manricks has presented his music at Jazz festivals and concert venues around the world such as the Wangaratta International Jazz Festival, the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Center and numerous Jazz venues in New York and North America. Mr Manricks was recently awarded the 2008 Contemporary Music Touring Program grant to tour the east coast of Australia with his Jazz quartet. As an educator, Mr. Manricks recently completed his first text ‘Principles of Music Theory’, which was written, in part, while teaching Jazz Theory for the Manhattan School of Music. Mr. Manricks has given master-classes and lectures on Improvisation, Jazz saxophone, Jazz composition and arranging at some of the leading music institutes in the world. They include the Manhattan School of Music, the New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the Victorian College of the Arts, the Queensland Conservatorium of Music and the Music Institute. Mr Manricks currently teaches Jazz saxophone and improvisation for the New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York. Further pedagogical experience includes playing a major role in the initiation of, and directing, the instrumental music program for the Computer School, a middle school on the Upper West-Side of Manhattan. Mr. Manricks has a Doctor in Musical Arts Degree (DMA) from the Manhattan School of Music, a Masters Degree in Jazz Composition and Arranging and a Bachelor Degree in Music Performance. Performance experience Ray Charles, Jerry Lewis, Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts, The Queensland Symphony, Dick Oatts, Dale Barlow, Mike Abene, Mike Nock, James Morrison, Art Depew, Grace Knight, Tom Burlinson, Barney McAll, Werner Klausnitzer, Tyshawn Sorey, Elio Villa Franca, Felipe Salles, The Con Artists Big Band, James Morrison Big Band, John Hoffman Big Band, Tommy Tycho Orchestra, Bud Maltin, Sydney 2000 Olympics Band, Dean Pratt Big Band, Kevin Blanq Big Band