During the summer of 2008 the acclaimed US-based Empty Cage Quartet travelled to Montpellier, France to record and perform with French clarinetist Aurélien Besnard and guitarist Patrice Soletti. The meeting resulted in Take Care of Floating, a thrilling collection of ten original compositions that explore the intersections between American creative jazz and European free improvisation. Take Care of Floating has the unique feature of including two separate mixes: one in high resolution and the other mixed specifically for mp3 players and other portable devices.
Take Care of Floating is made possible with support from Chamber Music America and French American Cultural Exchange's CMA/FACE French-American Jazz Exchange Program, funded through the generosity of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, the Florence Gould Foundation, SACEM, Cultures France, and FMEO - Le Bureau Export de la Musique Française.
The EMPTY CAGE QUARTET has consistently been praised as one of the most powerful and original new jazz groups to emerge from the American West Coast. For over seven years the group has explored new ways to integrate a diverse mix of musical influences ranging from shuffle swing to free jazz blowouts, minimalist percussion loops to complex modernist gestures, funky stomps, odd-meter marches, robotic grooves, heavy rock, and nearly everything in between. The result is a continually evolving, multidimensional approach to jazz and new music performance, improvisational acuity, and compositional craft that Amazing Sounds Magazine has likened to an "urban folk music of the future." The group has toured extensively in the United States and in Canada and Europe, and they have received support from the American Composers Forum, the International Society for Improvised Music, the Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT), and Chamber Music America’s French-American Jazz Exchange. Their 2008 CD Stratostrophic (Clean Feed Records) was hailed as "one of the best things in jazz to emerge in the new millennium" by the U.K. Magazine THE WIRE. More information is available at www.emptycagequartet.com
AURÉLIEN BESNARD is a clarinetist, composer, and educator living in Montpellier, France. He studied both jazz and classical music at the national academy of Caen. In 2001 he was awarded “best soloist” at the European Improvisation Festival of Poitiers. Besnard is the co-leader of the acclaimed European jazz ensemble Contrabande, and he has performed with Louis Sclavis, Barre Phillips, Martin Tétréault, Jean Dérome, Sylvain Chauveau and Bernard Günter among others. He is the founder and current Artistic Director of Rude Awakening Présente, a record label and musical collective that is devoted to the development and support of European contemporary jazz and improvised music. To date Rude Awakening has presented numerous concerts in France and has a catalogue of 17 releases.
PATRICE SOLETTI is an improviser, composer and guitarist living in Montpellier, France. He studied music at CIM (Paris), and graduated in jazz studies from Evry Music School. Soletti won the Django Reinhardt price in 1995, and in 1996 his soundtrack to the film “Rupture” won first price at “Concours Ile de France.” Soletti records and performs with many artists in jazz and contemporary improvised music including Barre Phillips, Louis Sclavis, Philippe Deschepper, Gilles Coronado, Guillaume Orti, Christophe Monniot, Bruno Chevillon, Nicolas Genest, Louis Sclavis, Rémi Charmasson, Jean-Pierre Jullian, Guillaume Seguron, and Denis Fournier.
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