Barry Altschul and 3dom Factor featuring: Joe Fonda and Jon Irabagon
Born in the South Bronx on the 6th of January 1943, drummer-composer Barry Altschul was quickly ensconced in the hard bop scene of the late 50ies and 60ies. But it was a gig with pianist Paul Bley’s trio that put him amongst the ranks in the New York’s burgeoning free jazz scene of the next decade. This resulted in world tours and recordings with such notables as Steve Swallow, Gary Peacock, the Jazz Composers’ Guild Orchestra, Steve Lacy, Roswell Rudd, and many others.
At the end of the 60ies he played in the Cooperative Band Circle with Chick Corea, Anthony Braxton and Dave Holland as well as with the Sam Rivers Trio with Dave Holland and with the Anthony Braxton quartet with Holland, Georges Lewis or Kenny Wheeler. His familiarity with the tradition also landed him work with the likes of Hampton Hawes, Sonny Criss, Lee Konitz, Art Pepper, Kenny Drew, Tony Scott, Johnny Griffin, Babs Gonzalez, and many others.
In addition to this, he led his own free bop groups, with such luminaries as Muhal, Richard Abrams, Anthony Davis, Ray Anderson, Mark Helias, Santi Di Briano, and Uri Caine, to name a few.
During a 10-year sojourn in Paris, France he was chosen to be the first foreign artistic director of the French regional big band of Nancy where he conducted as well as composed music for a 20-piece orchestra with arrangements written by his friend, the great Colderage Taylor Perkinson. During that time, he also toured Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe as a cultural ambassador for the USIS.
Returning to the US in 1993, he worked as a professor at Sarah Lawrence College, freelanced around New York, and played with a Dave Douglas project where he renewed his relationship with Roswell Rudd.
Today, as well as performing with Roswell Rudd’s Trombone Tribe, he is also part of the F.A.B. Trio (Joe Fonda, Barry Altschul and Billy Bang), the Swell-Ullman band and of many projects under his own leadership.
Barry has participated in over a 160 recordings, 10 of which under his own leadership. He has studied with Charli Persip, Sam Ulano and Lee Konitz. When asked how his music is best described, he quotes the late great drummer Beaver Harris: “from Rag Time to no time”. His performances have taken him all over the world, playing in major concerts, festivals, nightclubs, and on the radio and television.
Joe Fonda – Bassist and composer
An accomplished international jazz artist, Fonda has performed with his own ensembles throughout the United States, Europe and Asia, and has collaborated and worked as a side man with Anthony Braxton, Leo Smith, Archie Shepp, Ken Mcintyre, Lou Donaldson, Bill and Kenny Barron, Randy Weston, Han Bennink, Xu Fengia, Curtis Fuller, Slid Hampton, Ramon Lopez, Carla Bley, Bobby Naughton, Bill Dixon, Gebhard Ullmann.
Jon Irabagon, winner of the 2008 Thelonious Monk Saxophone Competition, was recently named 201 Musician of the Year in The New York City Jazz Record, as well as 2011 Rising Star Alto Saxophonist in Downbeat Magazine and one of Time Out New York’s 25 NYC Jazz Icons in 2010. Jon has recently been performing in Barry Altschul’s 3Dom Factor as well as the new Dave Douglas Quintet, the Mary Halvorson Quintet and Septet, Mike Pride’s From Bacteria to Boys and the highly-acclaimed Mostly Other People do the Killing.Jon recently launched Irabbagast Records with two releases– Outright! Unhinged and I Don’t Hear Nothin’ but the Blues Volume 2:Appalachian Haze. Unhinged, which features many of New York’s up and coming left-of-center artists, received a 5 star review in the December 2012 issue of Downbeat Magazine and was listed in the 2012 Masterpiece Albums section of the January 2013 issue.