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Noah K

Noah K is a composer, saxophonist and record producer from Topanga Canyon, CA. His music has been performed by the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, JACK Quartet, SO Percussion, and others, in venues including Le Poisson Rouge, National Sawdust, Seiji Ozawa Hall, and The Stone. He leads the band Dollshot whose second album Lalande was released in 2019 and is currently developing an opera, Salvation, with screenwriter Hampton Fancher for which Fancher wrote the story and libretto. As a saxophonist, K has performed or recorded with Anthony Coleman, David Tronzo, Peter Erskine, Alan Pasqua, Rinde Eckert, Joe Morris, Mat Maneri and Joe Maneri, among others. The Noah Kaplan Quartet has recorded three albums for HatHut Records, Descendants (2011), Cluster Swerve (2017) and Out Of The Hole (2020).

K received the Harold W. Dodds Honorific Fellowship at Princeton University (2018-19) where he was previously a Naumburg and Mark Nelson doctoral fellow. He graduated from the New England Conservatory (2006) with a B.M. with Honors in Jazz Performance. In 2015 he received an M.F.A. in Music Composition from Princeton University. He has received fellowships from Tanglewood and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.

K is a co-director of Underwolf Records. He recently edited an English edition of Ivan Wyschnegradsky’s Manual of Quarter-Tone Harmony, which was published by Underwolf Editions in 2018. He lives in Brooklyn.

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25
Album Review

Noah Kaplan Quartet: Out of the Hole

Read "Out of the Hole" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


This is the third installment of saxophonist, composer Noah Kaplan's quartet for the hatology (now ezz-thetics) label amid an eight-year delay between the time the sessions were completed and the issuance of the album. For example, this live outing recorded at Firehouse 12 in Connecticut was consummated in 2012 and released in 2020. But in the liners, Kaplan states that a “quartet reunion gig in 2017 reminded him of the previously unreleased material's growth and substance" warranting a release of ...

Album Review

Noah Kaplan: Cluster Swerve

Read "Cluster Swerve" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala


Nel 2011 il sassofonista e compositore Noah Kaplan aveva pubblicato l'album Descendants, con lo stesso quartetto che comprende Joe Morris alla chitarra, Giacomo Merega al basso elettrico e Jason Nazary alla batteria. La matrice della sua musica con questo organico si mostrava ben focalizzata sui parametri free derivanti dallo studio degli intervalli microtonali al New England Conservatory di Boston, sotto la guida di un'autorità in materia come Joe Maneri. Con lui aveva approfondito pure lo studio di armonia, contrappunto e ...

My Playlist

Noah Kaplan

Read "Noah Kaplan" reviewed by Vincenzo Roggero


1. Joseph Haydn, Symphony 44, 25, 49 Iona Brown & Academy of St. Martin in the Fields (haenssler CLASSIC, 2000). Ci ho messo del tempo a rendermi conto di che tipo tosto fosse Haydn. Un sacco di Bach e presagi di Beethoven in questo disco. 2. Charles Mingus, Pithecanthropus Erectus (Atlantic, 1956). Violento e sexy. L'essenza del jazz. 3. Wyschnegradsky, Wyschnegradsky / Ives: Quarter-Tone Pieces (HatHut, 2007). Ho recentemente pubblicato una ...

43
Album Review

Noah Kaplan Quartet: Cluster Swerve

Read "Cluster Swerve" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Saxophonist Noah Kaplan's second album for the Switzerland-based hatOLOGY label equates to a six-year gap, following his debut, Descendants (2011). But the artist has been productive by pushing the envelope via his multi-purposed activities with various ensembles amid his status as a PhD candidate in Music Composition at prestigious Princeton University. He skirts the free-zone here, along with revered improvising guitarist Joe Morris. During Kaplan's studies at the New England Conservatory he learned some broad concepts under Joe ...

69
Album Review

Noah Kaplan: Descendants

Read "Descendants" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose


Who knew that tenor saxophonist Noah Kaplan would turn out to be an old soul? Probably no one, especially those who have heard his extraordinary propensity for wailing in a sea of microtones and xenharmonics. But the truth is that Kaplan has made his lineage clear. He goes further back, from reeds-master Joe Maneri to the Greeks--even the ancient Indians--with his soft drones and whispering, sliding glissandi to thank the lute players. He goes back to the veena and sitar ...

113
Album Review

Noah Kaplan Quartet: Descendants

Read "Descendants" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Schooled at the knee of microtonal innovator Joe Maneri and supported by Maneri collaborator Joe Morris on his first release as a leader, saxophonist Noah Kaplan's Descendants is quite the auspicious debut.Kaplan's music is an archeological dig that unearths the remains of mummified blues and early jazz--at least a well-preserved jazz sound once rediscovered by Ornette Coleman in 1959. Like the legendary saxophonist/composer's music, Kaplan writes unbalanced music that, thanks to Maneri, shifts through varied pitches, microtones, and ...

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59

Recording

Noah Kaplan Quartet - Descendants (2011)

Noah Kaplan Quartet - Descendants (2011)

Source: Something Else!

The title for the Noah Kaplan Quartet's debut album makes all the sense in the world when you look up the word “descendant" in the dictionary. There, you'll find one of the definitions read “deriving or descending from an ancestor." In the case of saxophonist Noah Kaplan, he's learned from microtonal pioneer Joe Maneri, and with the passing of the great Maneri as the liner notes of Descendants were being prepared, Kaplan has stepped into huge vacuum suddenly left behind. ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Out of the Hole

Ezz-thetics
2020

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Cluster Swerve

Hat Hut Records
2017

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Descendants

Hat Hut Records
2012

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Watch The Walls...

Underwolf Records
2012

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Descendants

Hat Hut Records
2011

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Dollshot

Underwolf Records
2011

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