Album Notes

Pianist/Composer Michael Jefry Stevens (born 1951 in NYC) performs extensively in Europe, Latin America and North America. He has composed over 400 works for both large and small ensemble. Over 100 of these works are currently recorded and broadcast throughout the world on various radio networks. As an active band-leader for over 30 years his working musical ensembles include the Conference Call Quartet, The Fonda/Stevens Group, the Swiss “In Transit Quartet, the Hungarian Eastern Boundary Quartet, the Griffith/Stevens Quartet, Brass Tactics Quintet, Stevens-Siegel-Fergusion Trio and the newly formed Southern Exposure Quartet. Michael has released over 60 cds of his own music, most recently Conference Call’s “Poetry in Motion” on Clean Feed Records out of Portugal (2008). Mr. Stevens has performed and/or recorded with some of the top names in Jazz including Dave Liebman, Dave Douglas, Valery Ponomarev, Cecil Bridgewater, Dakota Staton, Bill McHenry, Leo Smith, Perry Robinson, Matt Wilson and many others. He was the “Margaret Lee Crofts Fellow” for 2000-2001 at the MacDowell Colony, received 2nd prize in the 1999 Monaco International Jazz Composition Contest, was a 2006 Centrum Arts composer fellow, was a member of the BMI Jazz Composer’s Workshop and has been the recipient of numerous “Meet the Composer” grants. Mr. Stevens is artist in residence for 2 weeks every year at EMU Conservatory in La Plata, Argentina. He currently resides in Memphis where he is on the adjunct music faculty of Rhodes College.