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Johnny Butler

Johnny Butler is a multi-genre musician, composer, and teacher. He's a member of the Brooklyn, NY music community and grew up in Seattle, WA.

Butler performs nationally and internationally solo (with my saxophone and laptop), with my band Scurvy, and with numerous other groups.

Currently, he plays with The Skeletons Big Band, Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds, Sonia's Party and the Everyone's Invited Band, Ryan Snow's Pull, Indra Raj, Afuche, and Astoria based fusion group Dak Dies. I've also made recent appearances with Joe Lally of Fugazi, Scott Stein of The Ramblers, Margaret (Rhodes) Butler, and the Stumble Bums.

In addition, Butler donate my time and music to Musicians On Call, a not-for-profit organization that brings live and recorded music to the bedsides of patients in health care facilities.

Johnny Butler graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with a BM in Jazz Studies and Performance with an emphasis in classical composition, studying with Gary Bartz, Robin Eubanks, Billy Hart, and classical composers Randolph Coleman and Lewis Neilson and have continued my studies with Lenny Tristano disciple Connie Cruthers, Vijay Iyer, and Ableton Live sponsored electro-acoustic violinist Todd Reynolds.

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205
Album Review

Scurvy: Fracture

Read "Fracture" reviewed by Nick Millevoi


It is no news that prog rock is thriving. There is a healthy scene of underground bands that embrace heavy riffing and odd-meters, and run them through a variety of experiments. New York saxophonist Johnny Butler has gotten in on it too, and presents his unique version with Fracture, by his quintet, Scurvy. With Scurvy, Butler makes an avant-garde jazz attack on prog rock, where heavy vamps and extreme feedback abound to make for a noisy assault. Butler ...

275
Album Review

Johnny Butler: Solo

Read "Solo" reviewed by Mark F. Turner


On any street corner or venue it's possible to hear a musician playing solo saxophone, its reed-song beckoning down thoroughfares to anyone that will listen. But by putting a spin on things, it's quite another matter to hear and see that horn wired into a laptop computer, as it provides multiphonic voices and looped patterns, fed back into music that is familiar yet ethereal. Enter saxophonist Johnny Butler's Solo. For Butler, a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory ...

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“Expressive, thoughtful and freshly beautiful…Coltrane’s spirit was definitely in the room.” --The Oberlin Review

"Johnny Butler is a musician to look out for. I love his playing.” --Gary Bartz

“Johnny's complex compositions--sometimes satirical and political, sometimes emotional--reflect his intelligence and unpredictability.” --Conservatory Magazine 2006

“I got sucked into said mesmerizing world on Tuesday night while listening to Johnny Butler's Quintet at the Cat. "This guy's the greatest. It's a real pleasure to play with Johnny Butler…it really comes out in the music," said Ryan Snow, trombone. His original compositions were indeed the stars of the show.” --Lillian Copeland, Oberlin Arts Editor

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Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Solo

Self Produced
2010

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Fracture

Hi4Head
2010

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Videos

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