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Jessica Lurie

Seattle and Brooklyn-based Jessica Lurie is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser, performing on saxophones, flute, voice, accordion and electronics. Influenced by her parent’s love of classical, jazz, broadway and Americana, combined with having come up in the diverse Seattle music scene of the ‘90s on, she calls on a wide range of musical influences, including, funk, jazz, Americana, gospel, Klezmer, Balkan, Latin, and Afro-Cuban music, as well as a great love for free improvisation.

Jessica will be releasing her newest recording “LONG HAUL” in summer 2017, featuring Jessica on saxophones and flutes, Todd Sickafoose on bass, Allison Miller on drums, Mike Gamble on guitar, Brian Marsalla on piano and special guest Naomi Seigel on trombone.

She has received critical acclaim from Downbeat, Emusic, Jazz Times, All About Jazz and more. Known for “melding lyrical pop, stinging rock, rhythmic Eastern European folk music and improvisation-heavy jazz with a dose of free-wheeling avant-groove-meets-grind” (Dan Oulette), she has performed at festivals, universities, clubs, social centers and workshops in the US, Canada and Europe. Current projects include The Jessica Lurie Ensemble; Tiptons Saxophone Quartet & Drums; Living Daylights Trio; Bill Horist / Jessica Lurie Duo; Sephardic Sofie Salonika with Katie Down; Jewish Afro-beat band Zion80; experimental Far Cry Flutes and Seattle based improvising ensembles Slingshot Songs and Full Fathom Five +, featuring Skerik, Kate Olson, Naomi Seigel, Evan Flory-Barnes and D’vonne Lewis.

As a leader, side-person, composer and collaborator, Jessica is featured on over 60 recordings. She composes for multi-media, dance, theater and film, and has collaborated on over 30 multi-media works with visual artist Danijel Zezelj, theater companies Great Small Works and Circus Amok. Collaborations with international artists include Fred Frith, Billy Martin, Skerik, John Zorn, Cyro Baptista, OU, Todd Sickafoose, David Krakauer, Bill Frisell, Jenny Scheinman, Chris Cochrane, Bill Horist, Robert Dick, Jamie Baum, Joe Dorias’s McTuff, Chuck D, The Indigo Girls, Mark Ribot, Eyvind Kang, Karl Denson, Frank London, Allison Miller, Vinicio Caposella, Nels Cline, Amy Denio, Jacob Fred Jazz Odessy, Kenny Wolleson, Sleater Kinney, Bernie Worrell and Ivan Neville among others.

Highlight appearances include the NYC Winter Jazz Fest, Vienna Klezmore Festival, SXSW, Motovun International Film Festival, Athens Babel Arts Festival, Earwing No Jazz, JVC Jazz Festival, CMJ, High Sierra Music Festival, Canadian Music Festival, Bumbershoot International Music Festival and the Seattle Earshot Jazz Festival. Her music has been reviewed and acclaimed in All About Jazz (NY and Italy), Jazziz, Jazz Times, Downbeat, Chicago Jazz Magazine, The New Yorker, Jambase and the International Review of Music.

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5
Interview

Jessica Lurie: In It For The Long Haul

Read "Jessica Lurie: In It For The Long Haul" reviewed by Paul Rauch


Jazz music, in all its forms, spread throughout world culture, is deeply embedded in the American experience. It is a culture based phenomena uniquely reflecting that experience in such a personal and expressive way as to embrace the myriad of crosscurrents that express new interpretations of the form. It is deep as the physicality of its beings, from the heart that pumps life into its veins, to the soul and conscious understanding of the constant, forever assimilation of ...

11
Album Review

Jessica Lurie: Long Haul

Read "Long Haul" reviewed by Paul Rauch


Jessica Lurie's new aptly titled release Long Haul (Chant, 2017) is a statement not of an arduous journey of endurance, but of her devotion to craft over three decades that has seen her carve out a musical identity of great diversity and depth. Her career personifies her experience as a strong woman instrumentalist, composer and vocalist in a male dominated genre, steeped in joyous interpretive revelation. While citing influences ranging from Klezmer, to Cuban, to jazz, Lurie's music is her ...

128
Album Review

Jessica Lurie / Andrew Drury: That Is What It's Like To Be

Read "That Is What It's Like To Be" reviewed by Celeste Sunderland


Stylistic and atmospheric shifts occur frequently and abruptly on This Is What It's Like To Be, derived from a combination of skill and poor recording techniques. Saxophonist/flutist Jessica Lurie and drummer/percussionist Andrew Drury recorded four tracks in their basement “studio, and five others were captured live in varying locales. Though the result turns out rather disjointed, it's an interesting amalgamation of the various ways these two instruments can interact and interpret the music they make together, as well as apart. ...

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Multiple Reviews

Jessica Lurie: Drive & Licorice & Smoke

Read "Jessica Lurie: Drive & Licorice & Smoke" reviewed by Celeste Sunderland


The Tiptons Drive Zipa 2005 Jessica Lurie Licorice & Smoke Zipa 2006

The Tiptons, that notorious, all-female saxophone quartet from Seattle, have a tremendous amount of fun playing together. Throw on any of the group's albums, released by their former band The Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet (named for a woman ...

215
Download Review

Jessica Lurie Ensemble: Live at Bruno

Read "Jessica Lurie Ensemble: Live at Bruno" reviewed by Mark Sabbatini


When I argue there's enough quality jazz that's free and legal on the Internet to last any reasonable listener a lifetime, this is what I'm talking about.

Seattle native Jessica Lurie does more than deliver an outstanding 2.2-hour sax and vocal showcase of modern jazz in this February 18, 2005 performance in San Francisco. Some minimal Web browsing leads to more than 20 other full-length concerts of hers, including at least a couple hosted by a site (www.silverwrapper.com) ...

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101

Music Industry

Jessica Lurie Ensemble:Shop of Wild Dreams

Jessica Lurie Ensemble:Shop of Wild Dreams

Source: JamBase

By: Dennis Cook

Artists that offer one tremendous satisfaction and surprise throughout their career are rare. The temptation to embrace a profitable rut is strong, especially in these downturn days. So, with a quiet smile glued to my face, I can report Jessica Lurie is such a rarity, a composer and instrumentalist of gliding power and true invention. Case in point, Shop of Wild Dreams (released in January on Zipa!Music), which begins with the post-bop electricity of the early '70s ...

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Performance / Tour

Jessica Lurie New CD Release - Shop of Wild Dreams, December 3 2008, Brooklyn Lyceum

Jessica Lurie New CD Release - Shop of Wild Dreams, December 3 2008, Brooklyn Lyceum

Source: All About Jazz

WHAT: JESSICA LURIE ENSEMBLE - SHOP OF WILD DREAMS CD Release

WHEN: Wednesday December 3, 2008 8 pm

WHERE: Brooklyn Lyceum, Park Slope 227 4th Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11215 (718) 857-4816

COST: $10

WHO: Jessica Lurie - saxophone, flute, songs Todd Sickafoose - bass Allison Miller - drums Art Hirahara - piano Brandon Seabrook - banjo ...

“Jessica Lurie is considered one of the most exciting interpreters of music today, pushing stylistic barriers not simply to ramble from one genre to another, but to construct new musical landscapes, to daydream with an extreme sense of purpose.” – Giuseppe Segala, All About Jazz Italy

“Playing saxophone and accordion as well as vocalizing, Jessica Lurie wears many hats in this adventurous but melodic group.”—Nate Chinen, New York Times

“… a terrific sound-scape, songs and music composed and performed by Jessica Lurie … suggestive of a Balkan John Coltrane or klezmerized Sonny Rollins.”—off-off blogway

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Long Haul

Chant Records
2017

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Megaphone Heart

Self Produced
2012

buy

Shop of Wild Dreams

Self Produced
2009

buy

Laws of Motion

Self Produced
2008

buy

That Is What It's...

Self Produced
2006

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Tiger Tiger

Self Produced
2005

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Videos

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