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Eli Wallace

Eli Wallace is a pianist, improviser, composer, and curator who resides in Brooklyn, NY. Since moving from Oakland, CA in 2015 he has established himself in the New York improvised and creative music scene, constantly seeking out improvisers with a similar predilection such as Daniel Carter, Billy Mintz, Ches Smith, Trevor Dunn, Chris Pitsiokos, Andrew Smiley, Sandy Ewen, Carlo Costa, Sean Ali, Angela Morris, Brandon Lopez, Erika Dicker, and many others. His project Slideshow Junky utilizes numerous one-page pieces as a tool for improvisation and collaboration. He is also a member of the collective trio Cataclysmic Commentary, whose debut album Audience Participation was included in multiple “Best Albums of 2018” lists. And, he is one half of Rob Pumpelly’s duo Dialectical Imagination, whose third album was released by Leo Records. His work as a pianist displays his vast milieu of experiences from classical, jazz, and free improvisation studies, while incorporating contemporary piano performance practice to create a sound that is uniquely his own. As a composer, he’s written pieces for solo piano, chamber groups, jazz ensembles, vocal jazz ensembles, jazz big band, chamber orchestra, full studio orchestra, and received commissions from Contra Costa College JazzaNova, Lawrence University, and dancer Randee Paufve. His musical education was granted by Lawrence University, Appleton WI, and New England Conservatory, Boston, MA, where he completed a Bachelor’s of Music, and a Master’s of Music, respectively.pleted a Bachelor’s of Music, and a Master’s of Music, respectively.

Awards

Avant Music News Best of 2016, Honorable Mention: Sound Etiquette; Avant Music News Best of 2015, Honorable Mention: Cabbages, Captain, & King


Tags

9
Album Review

Eli Wallace: Pieces & Interludes

Read "Pieces & Interludes" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


At his most experimental, pianist & composer Eli Wallace has sufficient preparations to obscure almost all the natural sounds of the piano. That has often been the case across a portfolio of half-a-dozen leader or co-leader releases, but Wallace's solo album Pieces & Interludes is a singular enigma. The California native, now Brooklyn-based, Wallace has a varied musical background which encompasses jazz, rock, and classical music. He studied under Jason Moran and Jerry Bergonzi at the New England ...

13
Album Review

Eli Wallace/Beth McDonald: Solo/Duo

Read "Solo/Duo" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Pianist & free improviser Eli Wallace and tuba player Beth McDonald team up for Solo/Duo, an ineffable project which eludes characterization. Wallace works across multiple genres, with an experimental spirit. He moved east from Oakland, CA in 2015, earning Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the New England Conservatory in Boston. Now a Brooklyn resident, he has composed for piano, ensembles, vocalists, big band, orchestras, and a dance company. He co-curates the Brooklyn-based music and art installation series Invocation, with guitarist ...

2
Album Review

Stephen Gauci / Eli Wallace / Kevin Shea: Live At The Bushwick Series!

Read "Live At The Bushwick Series!" reviewed by John Sharpe


Tenor saxophonist Stephen Gauci presents another bulletin from the front line of the Brooklyn underground on Live At The Bushwick Series! Literally so when considering the windowless basement room in the Bushwick Public House where this performance was recorded in November 2019. Alongside Gauci sits the regular drummer from his trio/quartet Kevin Shea, best known for his tenure with Mostly Other People Do The Killing, and keyboardist Eli Wallace, a 2015 transplant from Oakland, California, who has worked with Daniel ...

7
Album Review

Eli Wallace and Ben Cohen: Evaporation

Read "Evaporation" reviewed by Troy Dostert


In a series of imaginative projects, pianist Eli Wallace and saxophonist Ben Cohen have shown themselves to have a remarkable range of creative impulses. Wallace has thrived in a powerful duo with percussionist Rob Pumpelly called Dialectical Imagination; the two create furious intensity with a substratum of romanticism, as on The Angel and the Brute Sing Songs of Rapture (Atma Nadi Records, 2017). Cohen has a lyrical side as well, displayed to strong effect in his Viriditas trio, which at ...

8
Album Review

Eli Wallace: Barriers

Read "Barriers" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Eli Wallace is best known as the keyboard half of the piano/drum improvising duo Dialectical Imagination with Rob Pumpelly. Listeners familiar with Wallace's work in that setting and with the trio Cataclysmic Commentary, with tenor saxophonist Ben Cohen and Dave Miller on drums, know that Wallace is not averse to swimming against the current. The California native, now residing in Brooklyn, works across genres of improvisation, modern jazz, rock and classical music. He holds Bachelor's and Master's of Music, from ...

74
Album Review

Dialectical Imagination: Two Infinitudes; The One You "see" and the One That Is You.

Read "Two Infinitudes; The One You "see" and the One That Is You." reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Improvising artists, Eli Wallace (piano) and Rob Pumpelly (drums) recorded this outing for legendary UK-based jazz/avant-garde/free-improv record label, Leo Records. But they've been involved with free-jazz and other jazz activities for San Francisco Bay Area's, Edgetone Records amid various projects and encounters. Indeed, the band moniker, Dialectical Imagination, is significant from an opposing forces standpoint. Yet for the most part the musicians are a team via these four galvanizing semi free-form jaunts. Besides the torrential currents, Wallace shrewdly ...

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Album Review

Dialectical Imagination: The Angel and the Brute Sing Songs of Wrath

Read "The Angel and the Brute Sing Songs of Wrath" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


On their debut album The Angel and the Brute Sing Songs of Rapture (Atma Nadi Records, 2017) pianist/composer Eli Wallace and drummer Rob Pumpelly--the duo Dialectical Imagination--described their music as an amalgam of free improvisation and chamber music. Their vision for The Angel and the Brute Sing Songs of Wrath is decidedly more abstract though that is an overly simplified depiction of a complex set of extended pieces.A California native, transplanted in New York, Wallace has a broad ...

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“Wallace has a powerful delivery, amply demonstrated by the forceful shards of notes scattered throughout…but it’s never out-of-control, as even in the most tumultuous moments of the music there’s a lyrical quality just under the surface”

-Troy Dostert, All About Jazz

"The music that Dialectical Imagination play doesn’t heed to a particular set style; it heeds to some invisible, intuitive force that guides them through tonality and dissonance, barren and overflowing." -S. Victor Aaron, Something Else!

"Avant-garde trio pushes the envelope in arrangements and on their instruments, embracing unconventional sonic roles and shirking musical convention. Not for the faint of heart." - KZSU Stanford

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Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Pieces & Interludes

Infrequent Seams
2022

buy

Solo/Duo

Eschatology Records
2021

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Evaporation

Eschatology Records
2020

buy

Barriers

Eschatology Records
2019

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Videos

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