Billy Mintz photo courtesy of Roberta Piket
Sunday, November 16, 7:30pm
The Royal Room
The NY-based quartet of drummer and composer Billy Mintz will be touring the Pacific Northwest for the recent release of Mintz’s self-titled album, his first. Mintz’s musicality is continually praised, and he has managed to pack his newest musical endeavor with greats of similar attentiveness – pianist Roberta Piket, saxophone legend John Gross and bassist Putter Smith.
Billy Mintz’s percussion has long embodied the multidimensionality of a whole rhythm section. DownBeat’s Brad Farberman: “[Mintz’s] improvising is powerful but restrained. He doesn’t play a lot, but what he does play has intent and focus … There’s no ego here. The compositions and the collective musicianship are the stars.”
Born in Queens, New York, Mintz began performing at a young age. He moved to Los Angeles in 1981, then onto touring with the Los Angeles Symphonic Jazz Orchestra, sax great Charles Lloyd, and the Alan Broadbent Trio. He was an important fixture of the city’s small but devoted progressive-jazz scene. At a young age, he was already sighted as a highly talented professional who would go on to tour with Lee Konitz, Mose Allison, Mary Murphy, Bobby Shew, and others. With a log of shows played in this area, he has won a fervent fan base among Seattle percussionists, as has the quartet’s pianist and organist Roberta Piket.
The Brooklyn-born daughter of a Viennese conductor and composer, Roberta Piket became a computer engineer before using her musical genes and studies to pursue composition. Her love of twentieth-century harmonic innovations was encouraged through her New England Conservatory training and apprenticeship with pianist Richie Beirach. In 1993, she came second in the International Thelonious Monk competition, drawing the attention of Lionel Hampton. Among musical endeavors with Dave Liebman, Rufus Reid, and others, she worked with Hampton’s band before beginning a solo career in 1997.
The Earshot Jazz Festival hosted Piket and Mintz in the past, then for Piket’s trio. The performance Piket gave was described as “the revelation of the [2006] festival.” Playing with the transcendent spirit of Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner and Earl Hines, she possesses the ability to break up musical space freely while drawing on a tradition of virtuosic playing. Her expertise is matched with composition skills, respected among fellow players. She has released several jazz records and crosses genres in her “retro-futurist” electric band, Alternating Current. The acclaimed keyboardist has joined forces with Mintz for ten years now, in several different musical combinations.
Mintz’s West Coast colleagues, saxophonist Gross and bassist Smith, join the duo. Smith, who has played with talents like Thelonious Monk, Carmen McRae and John Mayall, has also been heard with Mintz before in Alan Broadbent’s trio. Smith, with a dual residency in New York and Los Angeles, and Portland-resident Gross are no strangers to each other’s playing, either. In 1990, Gross received a preliminary Grammy nomination for his album Three Play, with his and Smith’s trio. Enjoy the intelligent synchrony of these experts doing what they do best. Dinner reservations at 206-906-9920. The Royal Room is all ages until 10pm. Tickets are $12 at the door or $10 advance at strangertickets.com.
