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Jeff Lederer

Little (i) Music is a Brooklyn-based record label founded by saxophonist Jeff Lederer, which produces creative music in the jazz and improvised music fields. The catolog focuses on the work of Jeff Lederer and his projects, including Shakers n' Bakers, Mary LaRose, Swing N' Dix, and the upcoming Brooklyn Blowhards release! New release by Honey Ear Trio is coming in Sept 2016!

Jeff Lederer is a New York based saxophonist-clarinetist/composer/educator whose work crosses the genres of jazz, latin and creative improvised music. In 2014 he has been named in both the critics and Readers Polls of Downbeat Magazine recognizing his work on tenor and alto saxophones and clarinet. He has worked for many years in the Matt Wilson Quartet and the grammy nominated ensembles of Bobby Sanabria and Salsa trombonist Jimmy Bosch. He has recorded for Gunther Schuller’s GM Recordings, CIMP Records, Palmetto Records and his own Little (i) Music label. His quartet “Sunwatcher” made it’s debut in 2011 on the Jazzheads label featuring Buster Williams on bass, Jamie Saft on piano and Matt Wilson, drums. His longstanding ensemble “Shaker n’ Bakers” performs modern jazz interpretations of the Vision songs of the Shaker religious sect and has released two recordings of Shaker music and performed at the World Festival of Sacred Music in Los Angeles.

Jeff’s cross-stylistic composition/arranging projects include “Los Sazones”, a salsa reimaginng of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” which was commissioned by the Ravinia Festival for the Chicago Symphony and has been performed by many major orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.

New projects for 2014 include a new recording and tours with the Honey Ear Trio with drummer Allison Miller and bassist Rene Hart and the debut of his new ensemble, “The Brooklyn Blow-Hards”- a brass band that plays sea shanties and Albert Ayler compositions.

Jeff has performed at numerous major jazz festivals including the Newport Jazz Festival, JVC Jazz Festival , Monterey Jazz Festival, Litchfield Jazz Festival, Pori Jazz Festival, Moldes Jazz, Guimaraes Festival (Portugal), Tiempo Latino (France) and many, many others. In 2013 Jeff performed a duo concert with drummer Allison Miller at the mainspace of the San Francisco Jazz Center. In 2010 he was invited as a special guest to perform spontaneous improvisations with the pianist Shahin Novrasli at the Baku Jazz Festival in Azerbaijan.

As an educator, Jeff has worked with Jazz At Lincoln Center where he was featured in the 2010 Jazz for Young People Concert “What is Free Jazz?”.

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7
Album Review

Jeff Lederer with Mary LaRose: Schoenberg on the Beach

Read "Schoenberg on the Beach" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Saxophonist Jeff Lederer has used several unexpected inspirations for musical projects over the years, such as Shaker hymns and the writings of Herman Melville. Schoenberg on the Beach may be the most audacious thing he has ever done. It blends the compositions of Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern and the sounds of Coney Island together into an intriguing song cycle performed by a team of exceptional jazz musicians. Schoenberg lived in Los Angeles in the latter part of ...

6
Album Review

Jeff Lederer: Balls of Simplicity

Read "Balls of Simplicity" reviewed by Mark Corroto


To describe Jeff Lederer's latest offering, borrow a catchphrase from Monty Python's Flying Circus, “and now for something completely different." The saxophonist, clarinetist and composer might be best known for reimagining the music of Albert Ayler in both the traditions of the Shaker Christian sect or in a sea shanties format, his irreverent reimagining of Dixieland music with Swing N' Dix, and his horns in drummer Matt Wilson's ensembles. Lederer's Balls of Simplicity moves into the world of chamber music, ...

7
Album Review

Leap Day Trio: Live at The Cafe Bohemia

Read "Live at The Cafe Bohemia" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Drummer Matt Wilson and tenor saxophonist Jeff Lederer have worked on many projects together, over a thirty-year period, covering everything from Christmas songs to the poetry of Carl Sandburg. This particular album finds them in a stripped-down trio, playing some of their most intense music ever, live at New York's reopened Cafe Bohemia. The trio's third member is bassist Mimi Jones, a recent acquaintance of both men, who fits right in with their freewheeling dialogues. Lederer blows with ...

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Album Review

Matt Wilson: Live at The Cafe Bohemia

Read "Live at The Cafe Bohemia" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


From its modest opening in 1955 until its closing in 1960, 15 Barrow Street in Greenwich Village, aka Cafe Bohemia, housed such progressive jazz creators as Oscar Pettiford, Horace Silver and Kenny Dorham. Charlie Parker, who lived across the street, was booked to open the club and play for drinks but passed away before his run began. Cannonball Adderley made his New York debut there sitting in for Pettiford's regular sax man Jerome Richardson. A slew of hydrogen hot discs, ...

4
Album Review

Ted Kooshian: Hubub!

Read "Hubub!" reviewed by Edward Blanco


New York pianist and keyboardist Ted Kooshian continues his love affair with classic TV, cartoon themes and the pop scene, on Hubub!, offering a selection of striking originals influenced by his “enthusiastic love for pop culture," which includes tributes to actors Steve McQueen and William Shatner of Star Trek fame. The album's sole standard is Leonard Bernstein's classic “Somewhere" from the West Side Story play, distinguishing this version from so many others with an atypically jaunty arrangement from the pianist. ...

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Album Review

Ted Kooshian: Hubub!

Read "Hubub!" reviewed by Jack Bowers


There are two ways of looking at Hubub!, pianist Ted Kooshian's fifth album as leader. The first is, “nothing new here"; and the second, “everything is new here." On the one hand, Kooshian's able quintet hews closely to the post-bop canon which has given rise to its fabric; on the other, they do so within the framework of Kooshian's bright and engaging melodies, none of which seems commonplace or shopworn. Kooshian wrote nine of the album's eleven ...

3
Album Review

Mary LaRose: Out Here

Read "Out Here" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Vocalist Mary LaRose has long been putting vocals, with and without words, to the works of modern jazz composers such as Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Haden and Eric Dolphy. This CD is her first full-length exploration of Dolphy, probing the free-wheeling elusiveness of his work with a group which includes several of the instruments he used in his recordings, cello, vibraphone, and bass clarinet. LaRose approaches Dolphy's music by putting lyrics to some tunes, singing wordlessly on ...

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Jackson Cotugno
saxophone, tenor

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Balls of Simplicity

Little (i) Music
2024

buy

Live at The Cafe...

Giant Step Arts
2023

buy

Schoenberg on the...

Little (i) Music
2023

buy

Hubub!

Summit Recoreds
2022

buy

Eightfold Path

Little (i) Music
2021

buy

Out Here

Little (i) Music
2021

buy

Leap of Faith

From: Live at The Cafe Bohemia
By Jeff Lederer

Hubub

From: Hubub!
By Jeff Lederer

Hug

From: Hug!
By Jeff Lederer

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