Party: Monday Jazz Sessions: KIK (Karl Berger/Ingrid Sertso/Ken Filiano)

Party: Monday Jazz Sessions: KIK (Karl Berger/Ingrid Sertso/Ken Filiano)

“Karl Berger brings the rhythms of Africa and the swing of Milt Jackson to a higher degree of improvisation on the vibes. Berger’s instrument is at once vividly imaginative and filled with the dance of magic.”

-- Philadelphia Tribune


“The way Karl plays the vibes he should be president of the United States.”

-- Dave Brubeck

Quinn's is proud to present in their return to our Monday Jazz Sessions the ensemble KIK, featuring the noted composer, arranger, conductor, pianist, vibraphonist and educator Karl Berger along with vocalist Ingrid Sertso and bassist Ken Filiano on October 6.

Large among his considerable achievements and together with Ornette Coleman and Sertso, Karl Berger created the legendary Creative Music Studio in New York City in 1971 before eventually migrating north to Woodstock, NY, where its legacy continues today with the Creative Music Foundation. CMS has been called the premier study center for contemporary creative music during the last five decades. As a school and incubator for a wide array of creative music projects and ensembles, CMS brought together countless leading innovators in the jazz and world music communities. Musicians came to CMS from Asia, Africa, Europe and South America. Unprecedented in its range and diversity, CMS was an acknowledged phenomenon in the international music world, providing participants with the rare opportunity to interact personally with the musical giants of improvisation and musical thought on a daily basis. Berger's own life and musical work extend well beyond even CMS' significant contribution to the history of creative music, having performed and/or recorded with a wide array of major figures in many musics well outside the "jazz" idiom, ranging from Don Cherry to Dave Brubeck, from Jeff Buckley to James "Blood" Ulmer," Angelique Kidjo to John McLaughlin, Gunther Schuller to Natalie Merchant, Bootsy Collins to The Swans…and on and on. In this intimate setting, Berger's artistry truly flourishes in concert with Sertso's unique vocalizing and Filiano's powerfully accomplished passion on bass.

As with all Monday jazz sessions at Quinn's, the performance begins at 8 PM and there will be no cover charge at the door, though donations for the artists will be requested and gratefully accepted.

Biographies of the musicians follow below. Upcoming events as part of Monday Jazz Sessions @ Quinn's include:

October 13: Tarana — ground-breaking duo of Rick Parker on trombone and synthesizer and Ravish Momin on drums and electronics blurs the boundaries between the electronic and the acoustic, while blending a vast array of influences, ranging from "Jazz to Juke to Disco to Bollywood" and much else besides;

October 27: Eric Person & Shinnosuke Takahashi "Duoscope" — the esteemed Hudson Valley saxophonist Person —veteran of ensembles like World Saxophone Quartet and alongside Dave Holland, McCoy Tyner, Chico Hamilton, Ronald Shannon Jackson, John Hicks and many other groups under his own leadership — brings his new project featuring young lion Takahashi on percussion into Quinn's;

November 17: Kendra Shank/John Stowell — the extraordinarily talented and accomplished duo of vocalist Shank and guitarist Stowell — following their appearances at Roulette in Brooklyn, The Falcon and other venues worldwide — bring their celebrated project to Quinn’s;

November 24: Mario Pavone Arc Quartet — the legendary bassist Pavone, veteran of many noted ensembles over the five decades of his career — ranging from Paul Bley to Anthony Braxton to Thomas Chapin and countless others — is joined by the powerhouse ensemble of Ellery Eskelin on tenor saxophone, Dave Ballou on trumpet and Matt Wilson on drums;

December 22: Avram Fefer Trio — the scalding saxophonist leads a trio with Michael Bisio on bass and drums TBA

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Karl Berger is founder and director of the Creative Music Foundation, Inc., dba The Creative Music Studio, a not-for-profit corporation, dedicated to the research of the power of music and sound and the elements common to all of the world's music forms; and to educational presentations through workshops, concerts, recordings, with a growing network of artists and CMS members worldwide.

He is also a six time winner of the Downbeat Critics Poll as a jazz soloist, recipient of numerous Composition Awards (commissions by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, European Radio and Television: WDR, NDR, SWF, Radio France, Rai Italy. SWF-Prize 1994). Professor of Composition, Artist-in- Residence at universities, schools and festivals worldwide, PhD in Music Esthetics.

Karl Berger became noted for his innovative arrangements for recordings by Jeff Buckley ("Grace"), Natalie Merchant ("Ophelia"), Better Than Ezra, The Cardigans, Jonatha Brooke, Buckethead, Bootsie Collins, The Swans, Sly + Robbie, Angelique Kidjo and others; and for his collaborations with producers Bill Laswell, Alan Douglas ("Operazone"), Peter Collins, Andy Wallace, Craig Street, Alain Mallet, Malcolm Burn, Bob Marlett and many others in Woodstock, New York City, Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, Paris and Rome.

He recorded and performed with Don Cherry, Lee Konitz, John McLaughlin, Gunther Schuller, the Mingus Epitaph Orchestra, Dave Brubeck, Ingrid Sertso, Dave Holland, Ed Blackwell, Ray Anderson, Carlos Ward, Pharoah Sanders, Blood Ulmer, Hozan Yamamoto and many others at festivals and concerts in the US, Canada, Europe, Africa, India, Phillippines, Japan, Mexico and Brazil.

His recordings and arrangements appear on the Atlantic, Axiom, Black Saint, Blue Note, Capitol, CBS, Columbia Double Moon, Douglas Music, Elektra, EMI, Enja, Island, JVC, Knitting Factory, In&Out, MCA, Milestone, Polygram, Pye, RCA, SONY, Stockholm, Vogue and others.

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Through her work with such avant-jazz musicians as Don Cherry and Karl Berger, Ingrid Sertso established herself as a captivating, adventurous vocalist, capable of blending jazz, African, South American and other worldbeat influences into a distinctive, hypnotic sound.

Although Sertso didn't become well-known until the release of Dance with It in 1994, she spent over 20 years honing her art. During the late '60s, she lived in Europe, leading her own trios and performing with the likes of Eric Dolphy, Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, Karl Berger and Leo Wright; she also worked as a music teacher at several institutions in Europe. In 1972, she became a permanent resident of the United States and she released her first album, We Are You, on Calig Records. Over the next few years she taught, while she performed in North America and Europe with the likes of Cherry, Ed Blackwell, Lee Konitz, Sam Rivers, Jimmy Giuffre, Bob Moses, Dave Holland, Perry Robinson and Jumma Santos. In 1974, she released Kalaparush on Trio Records in Japan. It was followed in 1975 by Peace Church Concerts on India Navigation/CMC Records.

In 1975, Sertso became a faculty member at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. She stayed there through 1975 and 1976, before moving to the Banff Centre of Fine Arts in Calgary, Canada. She had two residencies at Banff before moving to the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, New York, where she became the co-director. While working at the Creative Music Studio, she began singing in the Art of Improvisation with Berger and David Inzenon. In 1979, she toured major European cities as a solo artists, supported by the Woodstock Workshop Orchestra. She also released an album on MPS Records that year.

During the early '80s, Sertso remained a co-director at the Creative Music Studio, while continuing to record and perform with a variety of musicians, including such mainstays as Don Cherry and Karl Berger, as well as Paulo Moura, Nana Vasconcelos, Steve Gorn, Dan Brubeck and Mike Richmond. In 1984, she performed with the Music Universe Orchestra at the Kool Festival in New York and released a duet album, Changing the Time, with Berger on Horo Records in Italy. She also toured Europe twice during this time and she also toured West Africa with Olatunji and Aiyb Dieng.

Sertso's career picked up momentum during the latter half of the '90s. She held a series of concerts and workshops in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and she regularly tour the US on club and festival circuit. Sertso also toured Europe twice and sang solo vocals on Berger's orchestral ballet, The Bird. She was one of the co-leaders of Rhythm Changes, who released the Jazzdance album on ITM Records. During these five years, she also performed and recorded with a variety of artists, including Pauline Oliveros, Lee Konitz, Frank Luther, Anthony Cox, Leroy Jenkins, Jimmy Cobber, Linda Montano and Karl Berger.

In 1990, Sertso catapulted back into the mainstream jazz spotlight through her version "Until the Rain Comes" on Don Cherry's Multi Kulti album. Shortly afterward, she began working on a new album, but she became sidetracked by collaborating with Karl Berger and guitarist Paul Koji Shigihara. The trio blended original compositions with Sertso's poetry, improvisations and interpretations of traditional tune. Sertso also regularly performed poetry readings at the Tinker Street Cafe in Woodstock and the Knitting Factory in New York, and she also regularly played clubs along the Northeast coast. In 1994, she released her comeback album Dance with It, which earned postitive reviews.

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Ken Filiano performs throughout the world, playing and recording with leading artists in jazz, spontaneous improvisation, classical, world/ethnic, and interdisciplinary performance, fusing the rich traditions of the double bass with his own seemingly limitless inventiveness. Ken’s solo bass CD, “subvenire” (NineWinds), received widespread critical praise. For this and numerous other recordings, Ken has been called a “creative virtuoso,” a “master of technique” … “a paradigm of that type of artist… who can play anything in any context and make it work, simply because he puts the music first and leaves peripheral considerations behind.”

Ken is currently bassist for the Anthony Braxton Quartet. In addition, Ken composes for his quartet with Michael Attias, Tony Malaby, and Michael T.A. Thomspon; a collective with Attias and Tomas Ulrich; and for his decades-long collaborations with Steve Adams and Vinny Golia. His prolific output also includes performances and/or recordings with artists including Bonnie Barnett, Rob Blakeslee, Bobby Bradford, Taylor Ho Bynum, Roy Campbell, John Carter, Nels Cline, Alex Cline, Connie Crothers, Mark Dresser, Ted Dunbar, Marty Ehrlich, Giora Feidman, Bob Feldman, Eddie Gale, Georgian Chamber Orchestra, Dennis Gonzalez, Lou Grassi, Phil Haynes, Fred Hess, Jason Hwang, Joseph Jarman, Sheila Jordan (with the Aardvark Orchestra), Raul Juarena, Joe Labarbera, Joelle Leandre, Frank London, Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, Tina Marsh, Warne Marsh, Dom Minasi, Hafez Modirzadeh, Butch Morris, Barre Phillips, Don Preston, Herb Robertson, Bob Rodriguez, Roswell Rudd, ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Ursel Schlicht, Paul Smoker, Chris Sullivan, Peeter Uuskyla, Fay Victor, Biggi Vinkeloe, Kenny Wessel, Andrea Wolper, Pablo Ziegler. With Tomas Ulrich, Elliott Sharp, and Carlos Zingaro, he is a member of T.E.C.K. String Quartet.

Ken has been a guest lecturer, performer, and workshop leader at institutions in the United States and Europe. He earned a MM from Rutgers University and is currently on faculty at Mansfield University.

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