Promo Kit

MIKE FIELD JAZZ QUINTET: PHOENIX RISING FROM THE ASHES
– CD RELEASE OF “ASHES” @ NUJAZZ FESTIVAL NOVEMBER 18

"Field plays with authority, with obivious tonal smarts and ear-catching virtuosity."
Geoff Chapman, The Wholenote

"A trumpet that flows between the melancholic and the playful."
Josiah Blackmore, Cultural Critic

WHO: The Mike Field Jazz Quintet
WHAT: CD Release of ASHES - As Part of the 4th Annual NuJazz Festival
WHERE: Waterfalls Indian Tapas Bar & Grill, 303 Augusta Ave., Toronto, ON
WHEN: Friday, November 18th, 2011 @ 9:30-10:30 pm
TICKETS: $10 @ Ticketweb.ca http://tktwb.tw/pJl9WH
WEBSITE: www.mikefieldjazz.com / www.nufunk.ca

TORONTO – THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011 – Front man-trumpet player MIKE FIELD will release ASHES, his latest offering of traditional-style jazz originals at Toronto’s Waterfalls Indian Tapas Bar & Grill as part of the Fourth Annual NuJazz Festival on Friday, November 18^th at 9:30 pm. For more information please visit www.mikefieldjazz.com

Toronto-based trumpeter and composer Mike Field has the capacity for vision much like a phoenix scanning the landscape and collecting sensory information, creating with intense excitement and deathless inspiration. His latest collection of nine instrumental tracks, called ASHES, delivers a deep and penetrating array of textures and sounds. Playful and sometimes melancholic melodies from Field’s introspective mind are shaped and arranged to suit the traditional jazz quintet, which includes exceptional players like Carlie Howell on upright bass, Dave Chan on drums, Paul Metcalfe on tenor saxophone and Matt Newton playing piano on the recording while pianist Teri Parker joins the band for live performances.

The tunes are mostly upbeat, though with song titles like “Missing in Paris”, “Unwanted” and the title track “Ashes,” there is the sense of loss and longing. Still, there’s somewhat of a reprieve in the sweet piano-based and lazy Sunday-morning-coffee vibe of “Gotu Kola.” The album features plenty of groove, as well as a completely unrecognizably transformed swinging major blues to minor blues tune called “The Upstanding Translator” and there’s even a waltz!

Although the songs were recorded only recently, the classically-trained Field and his band have been performing them for several years at high-profile festivals including the Downtown Toronto Jazz Festival two years in a row, on tours throughout Germany and France, and on board a ship to Antarctica.

Field can be frequently heard playing with various bands at local concert venues such as The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, The El Mocambo and The Rex. He has toured Canada three times (with rock/funk band Jay Spectre), played the Beaches Jazz Festival in Toronto and in New Zealand (where his trumpet can be heard in the experimental bossa-nova collective The Inverts). He is also in the well-known reggae collective High Plains Drifter, playing numerous local Bob Marley and Peter Tosh tribute shows.

"Emotion and verve -- Field's music alternates seamlessly between playfulness and growling sincerity."
Bob Davidson, Author of Jazz Age Barcelona

"Mike’s standards sound to me like both recreations and sometimes unpredictable re-interpretations of familiar pieces. He doesn’t just replay a piece, he brings out its underlying texture, its emotional tensions, its artistic implications, giving back to us pieces we thought we already knew."
Chris Michalski, Poet and Performer

"Sultry yet playful, Mike Field's trumpet digs beneath the notes to find a song's true character."
Jonathan Fowlie, Journalist

"Mike penetrates to the roots of a jazz standard and brings out its heart and soul. He knows how to find the emotional or playful fabric of a familiar piece and explore it and recreate it in his own idiom."
Ryan Graves, Music Critic