Todd Bishop's Pop Art 4 - the band
Todd Bishop | Rich Cole | Steve Moore | Geoff Harper
Todd Bishop (b. 1967) has been performing and teaching professionally in Portland, OR, the west, and internationally since 1985. He has led jazz, avant-garde and indie rock groups and produced five CDs of original music for Seattle's Origin Records and for independent release. With his multi-layered, organic style, he is a compelling musician, and has thrilled audiences with visceral performances owing as much to the influence of Keith Moon or Olatunji as to the jazz masters.
He released two CDs with the jazz power trio Flatland. The Satellite is a largely groove-based album with early Bishop arrangements of two Don Cherry tunes, and produced by Tony Lash (Elliot Smith, Dandy Warhols). The second CD, Origin of Species, bore Bishop's stamp as producer and arranger, highlights including several dark, cinematic soundscape pieces, and "Malheur", a propulsive drum solo. The group was a significant regional presence, and shared bills with such acts as Galactic, Charlie Hunter, Wayne Horvitz, and Herbie Hancock's Headhunters.
Next came the ambient, delicately-textured free improvisations of Lower Monumental, which released Mayday Session, a live broadcast performance on Seattle's venerable Sonarchy Radio. Features a spontaneously rendered Bishop composition, "Headlights."
The movie-music/international pop-oriented Pop Art 4 is Bishop's most ambitious project to date, with an European tour in the works and at least four additional CDs worth of material currently in development, including free interpretations of the music of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, Lalo Schifrin's Dirty Harry soundtrack, and Candy, an album of original music.
Bishop studied classical percussion with Charles Dowd at the University of Oregon, and, under scholarship, jazz studies with Gregg Field (Count Basie) and John Thomas (Woody Herman, Chick Corea) at the University of Southern California. He also completed six national tours with DCI-affilliated drum and bugle corps, including the famous1986 Santa Clara Vanguard, which finished second nationally that year. He was instructed by drum corps greats Ralph Hardimon, George Tuthill, and Fred Sanford, as well as marching specialist Alan Keown.
Also accomplished in visual media, he is a prolific photographer of Pacific NW musicians, has returned several times to Italy to photograph the city of Rome, and is one of the major providers of photographic imagery for Origin Arts. As a painter, Bishop creates richly textured abstract landscapes echoing Oregon farm country and wilderness in oils. He is represented by the Provenance gallery (Eugene, OR), and his work has been collected by buyers on four continents. He is also the creator of the Skulli and My Sweet Fiend character designs, which are currently selling well in several large chains in North America and Japan.
Fans, critics and musicians place Richard Cole in the first rank of his generation's players. A nationally acclaimed talent, Richard is among the most in-demand musicians in the burgeoning jazz scene in the Pacific Northwest. Beside work with such jazz greats as Randy Brecker, Dave Holland, Adam Nussbaum, Julian Priester and John Fedchock, he has toured regularly with fusion star Dan Siegel, performed with r&b legends Gladys Knight, The Temptations and The Four Tops while also composing and performing his own music.
Richard's music is clearly jazz, following forward from the intense traditions of the jazz masters, yet it is enriched by the many lessons learned from his wide range of musical experiences. Richard cites numerous influences including the seminal jazz performances of John Coltrane and Joe Henderson. He studied music at Western Washington University and taught woodwinds, ensembles and improvisation at the prestigious Cornish School of Music in Seattle, Washington.
Richard can be heard in the Seattle area playing with the likes of John Bishop, John Hansen, Jeff Johnson and Bill Anschell. His
latest album for the Origin label, The Forgotten, features modern jazz giants Randy Brecker, Joey Calderazzo, and Adam Nussbaum.
Steve Moore (aka Stebmo - b. Jan 9, 1976) is a multi-instrumentalist hailing from Seattle, WA. Known as a pianist with a love for wurlitzers, casiotones and bells, he is also a trombonist and composer. As a studio musician and sideman, he has a resume that reads like a cult top-10 list with artists as diverse as songwriter Sufjan Stevens, jazz hero Bill Frisell and black metal mavericks sunnO))).
Moore's formative years were spent playing jazz and free improvisation in the pacific northwest and briefly in New York City. A rich scene, it allowed collaboration and study with some of jazz's modern masters including Julian Priester, Steve Turre, Robin Holcomb and Wayne Horvitz. Eventually, he met and recorded with producer Tucker Martine in 1997 -- this meeting had a profound impact on the direction of Moore's music and career. Together they have collaborated in the ambient collective Mount Analog and on dozens of albums ranging from the far-left twang of Jim White to classic Seattle rockers Mudhoney.
Since 2001, he has performed regularly as part of Laura Veirs' band Saltbreakers playing keyboards, trombone, singing and occasionally playing bass. Together they have toured the world many times over and recorded four albums, three of which are released on Nonesuch Records. Sweeping synthesizers, catchy hooks and a flair for improvisation are all trademarks of Moore's playing with Saltbreakers.
As a composer, Steve Moore first began to make a name for himself as a member of Skerik's Syncopated Taint Septet, with a self-titled Ropeadope Records release in the fall of 2003. Causing a small revolution in the jam band scene, the band toured heavily and took the opportunity to record in LA with grammy winning engineer Husky Huskolds. The resulting album, Husky, is a dark, masterful take on funk and jazz released by Hyena Records.
In the fall of 2005, Moore joined the legendary Seattle band Earth for the recording of their comeback album Hex. Moore's trombone and keyboard played a crucial role on the album as well as the tours that were to follow, reaching a psychedelic pinnacle on 2008's The Bee Made Honey In The Lion's Skull, which also featured Bill Frisell. In 2006, Southern Lord label-mates sunnO))) asked Moore to join the band for the recording of their collaborative album Altar, with Japanese band Boris. In addition to touring the US and Europe, he has recorded two more albums with the band, including Dømkirke, a live album from Norway’s Borealis Festival.
Celebrating a a sonic palette as diverse as the artists he's worked with, Steve Moore's self-titled debut album STEBMO is a breath of much needed fresh air into the jazz pantheon. Produced by long time collaborator Tucker Martine, the album is alive with a fresh compositional outlook and the spark created in a one day session with an all star rhythm section. Matt Chamberlain is one of the most celebrated drummers of our time and he's joined by bassist Todd Sickafoose. Eyvind Kang provides masterful string arrangements alongside brooding woodwind treatments by Doug Wieselman. The resulting nine tracks are a beautiful and truly original take on instrumental music.
Geoff Harper is one of the Northwest’s premier bassists, on the jazz scene for more than 15 years. He has performed with musicians such as Julian Priester, Herbie Hancock, Jessica Williams, Eyvind Kang, Kenny Kirkland, Jeff Hamilton, Phil Woods, Jay Clayton, Bill Frisell, and Wayne Horvitz.
Geoff studied bass at the Berklee College of Music and at Cornish College of the Arts. He has an extensive recorded discography, including Julian Priester, Bebop and Destruction, The Marriot Jazz Quintet, The Real Harper Brothers, and last but not least, Stackpole. His current projects includes the monthly concert series "Last Mondays" featuring rotating guest artists, personal composition works and exploring the LLQ, a quartet formation with Hans Teuber, Byron Vannoy and Steve Moore.