I am striving to provide more frequent website updates this year (please note that the Gig page is always up-to-date – don’t let the occasionally moldy nature of the main page news fool you), so here are a few bits of possibly interesting information:

- First and foremost, we are delighted to be returning to the Makeout Room’s Monday night series (curated by Lisa Mezzacappa and Darren Johnston) on Monday, March 5^th. This is going to be an unusual gig for us, in that all 4 of our recent horn players – Aaron Novik, Kasey Knudsen, Sylvain Carton and Evan Francis — will be on the gig, making the Group a septet for the first time. It’s an embarrassment of reed riches. We play first, at about 8:30, and there is no cover. Please come check out what might be a one-time-only lineup. See the Gigs page for more info.

- An early 2012 highlight was the latest installment of our annual double-bill with Lisa Mezzacappa’s Bait & Switch. This year, we tried a San Francisco venue, namely the wonderful and mysterious Viracocha. If you get a chance, do check this place out. I hope that we’ll play there again at some point. The gig went well and we were lucky enough to receive nice pre-gig and post-gig blurbs in the East Bay Express and the Memory Select blog.

- The big news for later in the year: the Nathan Clevenger Group will be recording our 2^nd album! The plan is to record in the spring and early winter with the goal of getting the thing finished and pressed in time for 2013. This vague release date has some significance, as 2013 marks the 10 year anniversary of the west coast Nathan Clevenger Group. Yikes. We have a lot of music we’re eager to record and I’m looking forward to heading into the studio with Kasey Knudsen, Aaron Novik, Sam Bevan, Jon Arkin, Evan Francis, Sylvain Carton, and Eli Crews.

- Finally, I am the quasi-composer-in-residence for the recently-launched 1000 Fathoms podcast. The Baltimore-based podcast is focused on self-sufficiency/D.I.Y. aesthetics/efforts, and I’m staying true to the theme by providing music that is entirely written, played and recorded by me, in my apartment, using whatever instruments I have lying around. It’s been an interesting challenge creating small, simple, often goofy pieces appropriate for the context and a lot of fun experimenting with a working method that is so quick and simple compared to the work I do composing for my main musical gig. It’s also stretched my limited vibraphone chops a bit and taught me that brushes on a cardboard box can be very effective drums. You can check out 1,000 Fathoms here and some of my music for this series here.

Thanks for reading.

n.c.

This year, we decided to move our annual holiday gig back to mid-January. You may have noted that this brings us rather close to Chinese New Year, and this is no accident. After another year of economic turmoil throughout the United States and Europe, the Clevenger Group Politburo figured that it’s never too early to start currying favor with our future overlords. At any rate, Viracocha is a wonderful and mysterious new venue in the Mission. Please see the Gigs page for more details and please come on out if you can.

More news soon. And Gung Hay Fat Choy, friends.

N.S.C.

Yes, dear friends and statistical enthusiasts/anomalies, according to the very official-looking memo I recently received from the crack NCG Statistical Analysis Team, our gig this Sunday (March 20th) will be our 40th. What better place to celebrate this milestone than the site of 10 of our 40 gigs, the lovely Café Royale?

I’m delighted to be joined by Aaron Novik (clarinets/36th NCG gig), Sam Bevan (bass/28th gig), Jon Arkin (drums/15th gig), Sylvain Carton (tenor sax & clarinet /10th gig), and Evan Francis (alto sax & flute / 1st gig). We’ll miss Kasey Knudsen (alto saxophonist of record and veteran of over 20 gigs) and Mitch Marcus (tenor emeritus).

Please check the gigs page for more info.

In semi-related news, I have been writing jazz reviews for the East Bay Express…check out my first efforts:

Chris Speed’s Endangered Blood
Steve Coleman & Five Elements

We’ve got 2 shows coming up in March, one with my Sextet and one with my new Quartet. New music aplenty. Please check out the Gigs page for details – hope to see you there.

By way of 2010 in review, what can I say? Our CD, The Evening Earth was released and caused the East Bay Express to refer to me as a “fascinating composer” and describe the Group’s music as “long-form, dreamy, sectional without being rigid, and bluesy — albeit in a non-traditional way.” Thanks! Gig-wise, it was our busiest year ever with 8 gigs. The highlight was no doubt our CD Release gig at 21 Grand, with our tenor saxophonist emeritus, Mitch Marcus, back for a reunion gig (check out the versions of “Monsoon” and “Trellis” from that gig on Youtube). What a blast. Besides the core band members (Kasey Knudsen, Aaron Novik, Sylvain Carton, Sam Bevan, Jon Arkin & Eric Garland), this year we were thrilled to we welcome guest stars Aram Shelton and Eric Vogler on a gig apiece. Frequent guest star Eric Perney will be joining us for the December gig.

Plans for 2011 include the recording of our 2^nd album, hopefully in the early Spring, and perhaps some occasional variations on the sextet format we’ve been working with. Now is not the moment for pontificating on the State of the Scene (as everyone knows, it’s not hard to get me going on that subject, so let’s just back away slowly…), but I will say that the nightlife habits of the San Francisco Bay Area can be puzzling and the local attitude seems to turn ever more inimical toward original jazz music. Yet we carry on, waiting for the wave to rise again. Perhaps 2011 is the year the Nathan Clevenger Group will stop fighting the tide and dedicate our gigs to performing the music of some jazz superstar or dead celebrity singer du jour, but probably not. In fact, definitely not. I guarantee it. We hope you’ll join us on this Quixotic campaign…there’s no time like the present. Literally.

Thanks for reading and all the best.

N.S.C. 

P.S. – Regarding my restraint in not titling this post “State of the Nathan”, you’re welcome.

I should mention that we have recently been pleased to receive two mentions in the wide world of the web. The first is a feature article about the Bay Area jazz scene in which we are, well, featured. You can check it out at The Bold Italic. The second is a review of our debut album (see the sidebar on the right) at the Tough Customer blog. Excellent.

Also, we’re working on arranging some sort of CD Release-type gig in the coming months, so hopefully that will be listed on the Gigs page soon.

Have a look around, and don’t hesitate to let me know what you think and what you like or dislike. We’re always happy to talk shop and/or shit.

Ciao.

NSC