Thursday, 09 December 2010Written by Andrea Canter, Contributing Editor “...a swinging, sometimes quirky sense of time and creative expression.” – Jazz Police 
In the nine years since he completed a degree in genetics at Iowa State University, pianist Bryan Nichols has been busy performing, composing and teaching music rather than studying DNA. The Twin Cities native has been in high demand since returning “home” in 2005. This weekend, Bryan brings a quintet (with Mike Lewis, Brandon Wozniak, Erik Fratzke and J.T. Bates) to the Artists Quarter, a warm-up for a recording session later in the month featuring original compositions. Bryan Nichols studied classical piano with a “neighborhood piano teacher” but came to jazz on his own, developing his skills without formal jazz studies. He did participate in the Minnesota Institute for Talented Youth (MITY) summer jazz program where he worked with veteran piano teacher Denny Malmberg. After graduating from Burnsville High School, he went on to Iowa State, majoring in genetics “which I’ve done absolutely nothing with, ever.” Next came four years playing straight-ahead and free jazz in Chicago with the likes of Corey Wilkes, Maurice Brown, Jeff Parker, Nicole Mitchell, Von Freeman, Ari Brown, Hamid Drake and Ernest Dawkins. In 2004, Bryan was chosen for Betty Carter’s prestigious Jazz Ahead program. Based at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the program provides a fellowship for young jazz artists based on excellence in performing and composing. Over his career, Bryn has appeared at international festivals including Sons d’Hiver (Paris, France) and Kerava Jazz Festival (Kerava, Finland) as well as at local and regional festivals such as the Chicago Jazz Festival and Minnesota Sur Seine Festival. He appears on recent recordings by James Buckley, Chris Morrisey, Gordon Johnson, Kelly Rossum and Nicole Mitchell; has performed locally with Chris Thomson, Bruce Henry, the Gang Font and Connie Evingson; and earned a 2009 grant from the American Composers Forum.
In the Twin Cities for the past five years, Bryan heads his own trio and quartet, and has performed with the Kelly Rossum Quartet, Rossum Electric Company, Rossum’s Nicollet Circus Band, James Buckley Trio, Chris Morrisey Quartet, Zacc Harris Quartet, Off the Map, and the Minneapolis/Chicago collective, City of Fiction. Earlier this year he brought a 9-piece ensemble to MacPhail, “We Are Many.” He also finds time to teach at the MacPhail Center for Music. Despite his own “do it yourself” jazz education, he notes that “I think lessons/school type thing is pretty valuable, especially for young jazz musicians these days.” Bryan has been working with the quartet format lately, using varying combinations of musicians, usually with either Mike Lewis or Brandon Wozniak on saxophone. “I really thought they would sound great together, so I thought it would be great to get them both on some gigs and on my record…We've played a couple shows now as a quintet, one at Clown Lounge, one at MacPhail, so we're still working out arrangements, group interplay, everything, which I think is great because there will be a lot of new discoveries on stage.” 
Michael Lewis plays saxophone for the nationally acclaimed bands Happy Apple and Fat Kid Wednesdays, and pulls out the bass for tours with Andrew Bird. He's also played electric bass (and sometimes clarinet) with Martin Dosh and with rock bands Alpha Consumer, Red Start and Fog. The Minneapolis South High alum gained national attention (outside of his sax work for Happy Apple and Fat Kids) while touring with Bird, appearing on David Letterman and The Tonight Show. Brandon Wozniak previously lived and worked in New York City, toured with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, and earned his BA from Indiana University under the tutelage of David Baker. Since arriving in the Twin Cities in 2006, he has performed with local bands led by Bruce Henry, Katie Gearty and Sam Kuusisto; and is a member of the Atlantis Quartet, Monk in Motian, the Adam Meckler Quintet, Impulso and the Dave King Trucking Company.
Bassist James Buckley is the usual bassist for the quintet, and will record with the band for the album, but was not available for the AQ gig this weekend. Filling in will be Erik Fratzke, best known locally as the bassist for Happy Apple; he also plays regularly with Gang Font and Zebulon Pike. The Winona native started off on drums, switching to upright bass in fourth grade. Among early influences, he cites his mother’s record collection (including Bartok), MTV, classical string quartets, and later, the bass playing of Stanley Clarke, Jeff Berlin and Jaco Pastorious. Early in his career, he found himself playing jazz, metal, even “Christian country rock.” Over the years, the three-time Minnesota Music Awards winner as “Bassist of the Year” has played with Reid Anderson and Bill Carrothers in addition to Mike Lewis and Dave King. “I'm very excited about [Erik],” said Bryan. “Erik's a brilliant musician who I've been watching play since I was a teenager, and this year I've been working with him a lot in Gang Font, so it made total sense to ask him to step in for the weekend shows, both in terms of being able to really play his ass off on the music, but also being super familiar with everyone else in the band.” J.T. Bates is one of the busiest drummers in the Twin Cities, on and off the bandstand. He was a member of Motion Poets, has played and recorded with Doug Little, and has worked with a variety of Latin, electronic, and experimental ensembles, including Low Blow and the Kelly Rossum Quartet. Noted Richard Brody in The New Yorker, “In free rhythm, his shimmering cymbals recall Sunny Murray’s work with Ayler; the tom-tom groove is like the one Ed Blackwell got with Coleman; and, when he plays on an ethereally introverted modernistic piece, he sounds like a one-man Art Ensemble of Chicago, ready to use anything for the right sound—chopsticks, chains, his hands, and even the nub of a drumstick, which he rubs on cymbals to make them whisper as if butterflies were beating their wings upon them.” 
Of the music planned for this weekend, Bryan notes that “we'll be playing all my tunes, plus maybe one or two other things. I think our book for that band is something like 15-16 of my songs, most written over the past year for this band/album/project. It's diverse music but definitely rooted in a lot of music, jazz and otherwise, that I love. I really hope people like it, certainly this band will play it beyond what I could hope, I'm sure.” The music has a unique flavor with the two saxophones playing off each other in cacophonic conversation on tunes like “Other End,” or offering intriguing harmonies and surprising lyricism in a bit of a Mingus vein on tunes yet to be named. With or without titles, the set list for the Bryan Nichols Quintet gig at the Artists Quarter this weekend should entice listeners who already appreciate the innovators of modern jazz, while drawing in those ready to look beyond the usual bebop gig. The Artists Quarter is located at 408 St. Peter Street in downtown St Paul, lower level of the Hamm Building off 7th Place. Sets begin at 9 pm; $12 cover. Visit www.artistsquarter.com
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