Thursday Night Jazz: Blues Machine Trio Reimagines Jazz Standards

For the first time ever as an official Trio, City of Asylum welcomes jazz musicians Mark Micchelli, Eli Namay, and Hugo Cruz, also known as Blues Machine. The group’s name comes from a simple observation: economy affects musical practice. Blues Machine musically reflects on formal standardization of the blues, which happened as Black folk and country music practices became increasingly intertwined with development of recording technology and industrialization. In this situation, along with racialized genre classifications, underlying assumptions became cemented about how one should play a tune and what the music should sound like. This trio takes articulation and redevelopment of some of these underlying assumptions as a starting point for arrangement and improvisation of well known and loved jazz tunes. Play is taken up in affirmation of the healing power of creative music, as well as to acknowledge that the jazz and blues tradition has roots that go deeper than the music’s development in urban centers.

For more information, the band has Notes on Meaning of this Photograph.

About the Musicians:

Mark Micchelli is a pianist, composer, improvisor, and scholar based in Pittsburgh, PA. Recent projects include producing the multimedia autobiography of Vietnamese singer-activist Mai Khôi, finishing a dissertation on George Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization as it relates to twelve-tone music, hosting a series of house concerts under the moniker “Stage MK,” and arranging jazz standards for solo piano and improvising computer. Mark has accrued degrees and awards from several institutions of higher education, and he has performed in venues such as Joe’s Pub (NYC), the Smithsonian Museum (Washington, DC), and La Fenice (Venice, Italy).

Eli Namay is a Lebanese/Syrian Pittsburgh and Chicago based improvising bassist, researcher, composer, community organizer, and educator. His work focuses on affirming creativity as a fundamental human need, and illuminating the intertwined and always moving nature of human minds, musical traditions, and socioeconomic realities. Eli is currently a graduate student worker at the University of Pittsburgh. His performances include venues such as Northwestern University, DePaul University, and Chicago Symphony Center, with artists and ensembles such as Adiaphora Orchestra, Jessica Aszodi, Yeyha Khalil, Michael Ibraham (National Arab Orchestra), and many more. Eli has a BA in music from Columbia college where he studied under Dennis Luxion, Chuck Webb, and Dan Anderson. He has also studied upright bass with Anton Hatwich and Greg Sarchet (Lyric Opera of Chicago), and Arabic Maqam based music with Ronnie Malley. Eli regularly curates comedy and improvised music shows with Gilded Records at Cafe Mustache, works with musicians associated with Amalgam Records, and performs with the hip-hop/avant-jazz group Jə’raf and American folk group Can I Get an Amen, amongst many other periodic formations.

Hugo Alexander Cruz Machado is a Cuban-born, award-winning, drummer and composer who has performed internationally, including South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, and the United States. Hugo is the leader of the jazz fusion music group Caminos, who have made appearances at Fábrica de Artes in Havana, Cuba, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival 2019, Carnegie Museum of Art, City of Asylum, Thunderbird Cafe and Music Hall, Westylvania Jazz and Blues Festival, and the Monroeville Jazz Festival, among many others.

About Your Visit: 

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