Spider Trio plays original jazz tunes that swing, skank, funk, and stretch. Its music celebrates a variety of sources through inventiveness of composition. The lineup of horn, bass, and drums is intended to leave space for each musician. Although influences range from Chuck Brown to Olivier Messiaen, listeners have said the group comes closest in spirit to Henry Threadgill’s trio Air.
Spider Trio was formed by Dan McNaughton in 1997 and has performed around the eastern US, including Chicago, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Washington DC. The current lineup of the band has Bryan Pardo on tenor saxophone, Dan McNaughton on bass, and Tim Keenan on drums.
Bryan is originally from Columbus, OH, and has played jazz, salsa, and klezmer. While pursuing a PhD at the University of Michigan he led the modern klezmer group Into The Freylakh and was in the Creative Arts Orchestra directed by Ed Sarath; Weave, an improvising group directed by Sarah Weaver; and a quartet led by bassist James Ilgenfritz. Bryan moved to Chicago in 2004; he rejoined Weave and has performed Balkans/klezmer music with a quartet under his own name.
Dan came up in the punk scene of San Francisco, and made his way to New Orleans in 1993 specifically to learn from the city’s rich musical traditions. There he became a jazz musician, playing everything from traditional to avant garde, and most notably was part of Richard Theodore’s large free jazz band Gilgamesh. From 1998 to 2002 he lived in Ann Arbor, MI where he broadened his horizons to include classical as well as klezmer music; he was the original bassist of Into The Freylakh. His Chicago musical resume to date includes a long-running avant garde jam session with Richard Theodore and Steve Ivan, the Healing Force Jazz Ensemble, the Astral-Terra Trapeze Unit, and backing up the singer Tammy McCann on her recent cd, “Classic.”
Tim’s musical journey has taken him from New York to Washington, DC, and finally Chicago, with a stop in Guinea along the way. Since arriving in Chicago he has played with Fred Anderson, Nicole Mitchell, Fareed Haque, and Jim Baker, among others, and in the following groups: Lineage Duets, the Socratic Dialogue, and Manteca o Folk Ensemble. Tim is currently the drummer of the Astral Terra Trapeze Unit, led by Kurt Iselt and featuring Bill Brimfield.
Spider Trio’s first cd, Permission, is for sale through CD Baby (http://cdbaby.com/cd/spidertrio). The group’s second cd, Presences, is due to come out in the spring of 2007.
Got a correction? Click
Here
