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Sebastian Noelle

After choosing New York City as his permanent residence in 2002, guitarist Sebastian Noelle has been performing with his group on a regular basis. His name can be found on the programs of the city's hot spots for creative music such as the 55 Bar, Cornelia Street Cafe or CBGB's Gallery.

Sebastian Noelle's performance experiences include concerts at the North Sea Festival, Montreux Festival, and tours in Holland and Slovakia.

His melodic playing can be heard to advantage throughout his latest CD "Secret Sound Nation" (2004, Nolimit Records), which showcases original compositions exclusively. Among his former recordings are "Freedom Trail" (2001) featuring a quartet with former mentor John Abercrombie and "Home Is Where The Heart Wants To Go" (2001), an acoustic guitar album with duo partner Gene Bertoncini.

After growing up in Germany in a musical family with a classical background, Sebastian became interested in the jazz traditions and the practice of improvised music. The curiosity for musical cultures from all over the world led him to New York, where his style was enriched by Middle Eastern, Asian and South American folk music.

His steady group consists of Donny McCaslin or Chris Cheek on tenor saxophone, Ted Poor (Ben Monder Trio, Maria Schneider Orchestra) on drums, Thomson Kneeland (Matthias Lupri, Chris Potter, Mark Turner) and himself on guitar.

As a sideman Sebastian Noelle has performed with JoAnne Brackeen, Lewis Nash, Mulgrew Miller, Bob Moses, Maria Schneider, Joel Frahm, Bobby Shew, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Dave Santoro, John Hollenbeck, Scott Reeves, Michael Abene and Tony Moreno.

His original compositions also include works for big band, string quartets, solo guitar, voice, and small jazz ensembles and have been performed extensively in the U.S. and Europe.

Education: BA in jazz performance and composition (Hochschule fur Musik in Mannheim, Germany), MA with Distinction in Performance (New England Conservatory, Boston, MA)

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Album Review

Darcy James Argue's Secret Society: Dynamic Maximum Tension

Read "Dynamic Maximum Tension" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Precursore nel 2009 (con l'innovativo Infernal Machines) del nuovo rinascimento orchestrale nel jazz, Darcy James Argue approda all'etichetta Nonesuch e pubblica il nuovo album in studio: un doppio CD realizzato con i consueti partner della Secret Society più l'aggiunta della cantante Cecile McLorin Salvant e della violinista Sara Caswell. A differenza degli ultimi due dischi, Dynamic Maximum Tension non è un'opera multimediale ma conserva la spinta visionaria animata dalla costante riflessione socio-politica. Spinta che si traduce in ...

6
Album Review

Darcy James Argue's Secret Society: Dynamic Maximum Tension

Read "Dynamic Maximum Tension" reviewed by Katchie Cartwright


Darcy James Argue's superb double-album Nonesuch debut offers compositions written throughout his career. He turns to twentieth-century thinkers for “ideas that can help us in the present, that we can reexamine and reconfigure for our own purposes." These include futurist designer Buckminster Fuller, cryptanalyst-computer scientist Alan Turing, composer-arranger Bob Brookmeyer, actress-screenwriter Mae West, trumpeter-mentor Laurie Frink, and musician-beyond-category Duke Ellington, among others. Like West, Argue seems to control his own path. He may not yet be the tycoon she was, ...

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Album Review

Jihye Lee: Daring Mind

Read "Daring Mind" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Korean-born composer Jihye Lee is a musician who knows her own mind, whether it be relentless, unshakable, revived, dissatisfied or Daring, as on her second recording for Motema Records. In 2018, Lee earned the prestigious BMI Charlie Parker Composition Prize for “Unshakable Mind," one of nine diverse themes presented here. Another, “I Dare You," is loosely based on Wayne Shorter's response when asked, “What is jazz?" It is a question Lee must also address, as her music is not only ...

Album Review

Jihye Lee: Daring Mind

Read "Daring Mind" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Solo un talento eccezionale come Jihye Lee poteva ottenere risultati così brillanti e personali nel campo dell'orchestrazione jazz partendo quasi da zero. Nata a Seoul ed emigrata negli Stati Uniti da adolescente, quando s'iscrisse al Berklee College conosceva pochissimo il linguaggio musicale afro-americano e per niente la sua dimensione orchestrale. Dopo un decennio, studi di perfezionamento alla Manhattan School of Music col grande Jim McNeely (a cui va riconosciuto parte del merito) e un primo eccellente debutto (April, 2017), la ...

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Album Review

Schapiro 17: Human Qualities

Read "Human Qualities" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Following its splendid premiere recording, an exploration of Miles Davis' unrivaled album Kind Of Blue (Capitol Records, 1959), composer/arranger Jon Schapiro's 17-member ensemble broadens its horizons on Human Qualities, pairing seven of the maestro's astute and adventurous charts with the Roberta Flack best-seller, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." This time around, Schapiro proves that he need rely on nothing more than his own considerable experience as a jazz artist to create an album that expresses his point ...

5
Album Review

Jihye Lee Orchestra: Daring Mind

Read "Daring Mind" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


Listening to bandleader/composer Jihye Lee and her mic-drop orchestra is like watching your life flash before your eyes. You see it all: All the richness of spirit one can attain. All the sadness one can espouse. All the waltzing mischief to which one can aspire. Testing malleability at every turn, Lee's on to an eclectic something that doesn't pass through the torpor too often: A lucid, active imagination. Thus Daring Mind, Lee's Motema Music debut, co-produced by Darcy ...

5
Album Review

Schapiro 17: New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60

Read "New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Miles Davis' album Kind Of Blue (Columbia, 1959) is the best-selling jazz album of all time and has been highly influential for the last 60 years. Most of its five tracks have become jazz standards and have been interpreted time and again. However it is rare to see the entire album reworked to the extent that Jon Schapiro and his big band, Schapiro 17, do here. The tracks undergo extensive retooling, expanding into big band arrangements that carry on the ...

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Performance / Tour

Malaby/Sanchez/Rainey Trio (Sat) Sebastian Noelle Group (Sun) Big Bang (Mon) & More at the Cornelia Street Cafe

Malaby/Sanchez/Rainey Trio (Sat) Sebastian Noelle Group (Sun) Big Bang (Mon) & More at the Cornelia Street Cafe

Source: All About Jazz

CORNELIA STREET CAFE 29 Cornelia Street, NYC, New York 212-989-9319 between West 4th and Bleecker Sts, Greenwich Village 1,9 Subway to Sheridan Square; A, C, E, B, D, F to West 4th St. Saturday Feb 18 6:00PM GREEK-AMERICAN WRITERS ASSOCIATION Dean Kostos, host Dean presents former students Kristen Anderson, Laura Gerheiser, Matthew Hupert, Darielle Rayner, & Barbara Rubin. Cover $6 (includes one house drink) 9:00PM MALABY/SANCHEZ/RAINEY TRIO

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Dynamic Maximum...

Nonesuch Records
2023

buy

Human Qualities

Summit Records
2021

buy

Daring Mind

Motéma Music
2021

buy

New Shoes: Kind of...

Summit Records
2020

buy

Shelter

Fresh Sound Records
2016

buy

Ordinary Lives

Fresh Sound Records
2014

buy

Revived Mind

From: Daring Mind
By Sebastian Noelle

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