"Mark Feldman (born 1955 in Chicago) is an American jazz violinist. Feldman worked in Chicago from 1973-1980, in Nashville, Tennessee from 1980-1986, in New York City and Western Europe from 1986. He has performed with John Zorn, John Abercrombie, The Masada String Trio, Dave Douglas, Uri Caine, and Billy Hart.

He was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and played in many bar bands in Chicago. He played on over 200 recordings in Nashville as a studio musician, was a member of the Nashville Symphony, and was a member of the touring groups of country western entertainers Loretta Lynn and Ray Price.

In 2003 he was soloist with Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in Guus Janssen's Violin Concerto and with the WDR Jazz Orchestra in Concerto for Violin and Jazz Orchestra by Bill Dobbins. At Newf York's Lincoln Center he performed in duo with pianists Paul Bley and Muhal Richard Abrams.

He has recorded with Michael Brecker, Lee Konitz, Joe Lovano, and Chris Potter and has played on over 100 recordings in New York City as a soloist in contemporary music and modern jazz.

Feldman has released several albums, including Music for Violin Alone (Tzadik, 1995); Book of Tells (Enja, 2000); What Exit (ECM, 2006 with British pianist John Taylor; To Fly to Steal (Intakt, 2010) with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Gerry Hemingway; and Oblivia (Tzadik, 2010) with his wife, Swiss pianist Sylvie Courvoisier. In September 2012, he and violinist Jean-Luc Ponty produced the debut album of Scott Tixier. Feldman wrote the liner notes."

"Cellist Erik Friedlander started studying music at an early age, beginning at 5 with guitar, and then at 8, cello lessons. He grew up in a house filled with music, as his father, an avid music lover, made countless mixtapes which played daily in their home. Erik spent his twenties honing his skills as a player and an improviser and quickly became a sought after studio musician, performing on the Downtown music scene and with artists as diverse as The Mountain Goats, John Zorn, Dave Douglas and Courtney Love. Erik's desire to actively participate in the swirl of music styles he was surrounded by led him to find new ways to play the cello and drives his solo work which is varied and unusual."

"Marc Ribot (pronounced REE-bow) was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1954. As a teen, he played guitar in various garage bands while studying with his mentor, Haitian classical guitarist and composer Frantz Casseus. After moving to New York City in 1978, Ribot was a member of the soul/punk Realtones, and from 1984 - 1989, of John Lurie's Lounge Lizards. Between 1979 and 1985, Ribot also worked as a side musician with Brother Jack McDuff, Wilson Pickett, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Chuck Berry, and many others.

Rolling Stone points out that "Guitarist Marc Ribot helped Tom Waits refine a new, weird Americana on 1985's "Rain Dogs", and since then he's become the go-to guitar guy for all kinds of roots-music adventurers: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Elvis Costello, John Mellencamp." Additional recording credits include Soloman Burke, Neko Case, Diana Krall, Beth Orton, Marianne Faithful, Arto Lindsay, Caetano Veloso, Laurie Anderson, Susana Baca, McCoy Tyner, The Jazz Passengers, Medeski, Martin & Wood, Cibo Matto, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, James Carter, Vinicio Capposella (Italy), Auktyon (Russia), Vinicius Cantuaria, Sierra Maestra (Cuba), Alain Bashung (France), Marisa Monte, Allen Ginsburg, Madeleine Peyroux, Sam Phillips, and more recently Joe Henry, Allen Toussaint, Norah Jones, Akiko Yano, The Black Keys, Jeff Bridges, Jolie Holland, Elton John/Leon Russell and many others. Ribot frequently collaborates with producer T Bone Burnett, most notably on Alison Krauss and Robert Plant's Grammy Award winning "Raising Sand" and regularly works with composer John Zorn.

Marc has released over 20 albums under his own name over a 35-year career, exploring everything from the pioneering jazz of Albert Ayler with his group "Spiritual Unity" (Pi Recordings), to the Cuban son of Arsenio Rodríguez with two critically acclaimed releases on Atlantic Records under "Marc Ribot Y Los Cubanos Postizos". His avant power trio/post-rock band, Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog (Pi Recordings), continues the lineage of his earlier experimental no-wave/punk/noise groups Rootless Cosmopolitans (Island Antilles) and Shrek (Tzadik). Marc's solo recordings include "Marc Ribot Plays The Complete Works of Frantz Casseus" (Les Disques Du Crepuscule), "John Zorn's The Book of Heads" (Tzadik), "Don't Blame Me" (DIW), "Saints" (Atlantic), "Exercises in Futility" (Tzadik), and his latest "Silent Movies" released in 2010 on Pi Recordings was described as a "down-in-mouth-near master piece" by the Village Voice and has landed on several Best of 2010 lists including the LA Times and critical praise across the board. 2013 saw the release of "Your Turn" (Northern Spy), the sophomore effort from Ribot's post-rock/noise trio Ceramic Dog, and 2014 saw the monumental release: "Marc Ribot Trio Live at the Village Vanguard" (Pi Recordings), documenting Marc's first headline and the return of Henry Grimes at the historical venue in 2012 already included on Best of 2014 lists including Downbeat Magazine and NPR's 50 Favorites.

Marc has performed on scores such as "The Kids Are All Right," "Where the Wild Things Are," "Walk The Line (Mangold)," "Everything is Illuminated," and "The Departed" (Scorcese)." Marc has also composed original scores including the French film Gare du Nord (Simon), the PBS documentary "Revolucion: Cinco Miradas," the film "Drunkboat," starring John Malkovich and John Goodman, a documentary film by Greg Feldman titled "Joe Schmoe," a feature film by director Joe Brewster titled "The Killing Zone", and dance pieces "In as Much as Life is Borrowed", by famed Belgian choreographer, Wim Vandekeybus, and Yoshiko Chuma's "Altogether Different". Marc is also currently touring his live solo guitar score to Charlie Chaplin's "The Kid", which was commissioned by the NY Guitar Festival and premiered Jan 2010 at Merkin Hall, as well as a program of new arrangements of classic Film Noir scores commissioned by the New School Noir Arts Festival 2011.

In 2009, Marc was named curator and musical director for the year's Century of Song Festival, part of the Ruhr Triennale in Germany. The concert series sparked new collaborations with Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithfull, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, master cajón player Juan Medrano Cotito, Carla Bozulich and Tine Kindermann.

Marc's talents have also been showcased with a full symphony orchestra. Composer Stewart Wallace wrote a guitar concerto with orchestra specifically for Marc. The piece was premiered by the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC in July of 2004 and also appeared at The Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz, CA in August of 2005.

Marc is currently touring with several projects including the Marc Ribot Trio, a free jazz group featuring legendary bassist Henry Grimes and Chad Taylor on drums, his power trio Ceramic Dog with bassist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Ches Smith, the Philly soul meets the harmolodics of Ornette Coleman's The Young Philadelphians with Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Calvin Weston, and with Caged Funk, a project of funk arrangements of John Cage's music featuring Bernie Worrell of Parliament Funkadelic fame."

"Anthony Coleman (born August 30, 1955) is an avant-garde jazz pianist. During the 1980s and 1990s he worked with John Zorn on Cobra, Kristallnacht, The Big Gundown, Archery, and Spillane and helped push modern Jewish music into the 21st century.

At the age of thirteen, Coleman started studying piano with Jaki Byard. At the New England Conservatory of Music he studied with George Russell, Donald Martino and Malcolm Peyton.

Coleman's collaborators over the years have included guitarist Elliott Sharp, trumpeter Dave Douglas, accordion player Guy Klucevsek, composer David Shea, former Captain Beefheart bandmember Gary Lucas, classical and klezmer clarinetist David Krakauer, guitarist Marc Ribot, bassist Greg Cohen, drummer Joey Baron and saxophonist Roy Nathanson.

Coleman's compositions and solo work reflect his interest in his Jewish background. His groups Sephardic Tinge and Selfhaters in the 1990s explored both the lively, rich and exuberant musical legacy as well as darkly described the lamentation of a minority culture in Diaspora. Sephardic Tinge toured extensively, especially throughout Europe, in the 1990s and the early 2000s.

Coleman's Disco by Night is a work inspired by his visit to his family's homeland of Yugoslavia and was his first major solo record released by Japan's Avant Records in 1992. Shmutsige Magnaten, in which he played the songs of Yiddish folk composer Mordechai Gebirtig, a victim of the Holocaust was also released by Tzadik Records in 2006. It was recorded live at midnight in the oldest synagogue of Kraków, Poland, a few steps away from Gebirtig's birthplace during the annual Kraków Jewish Music Festival in 2005.

His duo albums, The Coming Great Millenium, Lobster & Friend, and I Could've Been a Drum with Roy Nathanson, mostly explore the fun, frivolous and joyous alongside the nostalgic hearts and minds of Jews in modern and old America. These recordings typify Coleman's "free" playing style as well as his multi-instrumental capabilities with him also operating samplers, trombones, percussion as well as piano and voice. Coleman and Nathanson have performed all over the U.S. and Europe.

Coleman is also an accomplished composer with many works being commissioned by numerous ensembles including the 2006 work Pushy Blueness which was released on Tzadik.

His work includes Damaged by Sunlight, issued on DVD in France by La Huit, the album Freakish: Anthony Coleman plays Jelly Roll Morton (Tzadik); a monthlong residency in Venice as a guest of Venetian Heritage, a commission for the Parisian Ensemble Erik Satie: Echoes From Elsewhere; tours of Japan and Europe with guitarist Marc Ribot's band Los Cubanos Postizos; a lecture/performance as part of the symposium "Anton Webern und das Komponieren im 20 Jahrhundert" (Neue Perspektiven, Basel, Switzerland) and a commission from the String Orchestra of Brooklyn (Empfindsamer).

He has been on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music since 2005 and Mannes College New School for Music since 2012. His album The End of Summer features his NEC Ensemble Survivors Breakfast.

Coleman has degrees in composition from the New England Conservatory of Music and the Yale School of Music and attended Mauricio Kagel's seminar at Centre Acanthes in Aix-en-Provence, France. He has received grants and residencies from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Djerassi Colony, the Civitella Ranieri Center, the Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg Kulturbehörde and the Yellow Springs Arts Center. He spent the spring semester of 2003 teaching theory and composition at Bennington College in Vermont. In 2004 he was the subject of a three-day festival, Abstract Adventures, in Brussels, Belgium.

Coleman writes articles for All About Jazz and Bomb magazine and was a contributor to John Zorn's essay collection Arcana: Musicians on Music in 2000.

In the mid 1990s, Coleman appeared in Sabbath in Paradise, Claudia Heuermann's documentary about Jewish music in the avant-garde downtown scene in New York, A Bookshelf on Top of the Sky, Heuermann's documentary about John Zorn, and Following Eden. In 2005 Coleman was interviewed for the Marc Ribot documentary The Lost String, directed by Anais Prosaic."

"Cyro Baptista (born December 23, 1950) is a Brazilian musician, teacher, and recording artist specializing in percussion in the genres of jazz and world music.

Born in S‹o Paulo, Brazil, Baptista arrived in the U.S. in 1980 with a scholarship to Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, New York. He has recorded and toured regularly with popular musicians and groups. Baptista creates many of the percussion instruments he plays.

Baptista recorded with pianist Herbie Hancock on his 2005 release, Possibilities. In 2002 Baptista toured with Yo-Yo MaÕs Brazil Project and also appeared on the Obrigado Brazil album Ð winner of two Grammy awards. He also toured with Trey Anastasio of Phish and John Zorn. He recorded and performed worldwide with Herbie HancockÕs Grammy award-winning GershwinÕs World. Baptista collaborated with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra for a Brazilian Carnival modern jazz concert. For over two years, he toured with Paul Simon's Rhythm of the Saints tour and appears on his Concert in Central Park release. He also toured worldwide with Sting in 2001.

Baptista has performed or recorded with many artists, including: Trey Anastasio, Laurie Anderson, Derek Bailey, Gato Barbieri, Daniel Barenboim, Kathleen Battle, David Byrne, Dr. John, Brian Eno, Melissa Etheridge, Stephen Kent, Wynton Marsalis, Bobby McFerrin, Medeski Martin & Wood, Robert Palmer, Carlos Santana, Tim Sparks, Spyro Gyra, Sting, James Taylor, Michael Tilson Thomas, Yo-Yo Ma, and John Zorn. He has also played with many noted Brazilian artists such as Badi Assad, Ivan Lins, Marisa Monte, Milton Nascimento, Nana Vasconcelos and Caetano Veloso.

Baptista has performed on five Grammy award-winning albums: Yo-Yo MaÕs Obrigado Brazil, Cassandra WilsonÕs Blue Light 'Til Dawn, The ChieftainsÕ Santiago, Ivan LinsÕ A Love Affair, and Herbie HancockÕs GershwinÕs World. A documentary on BaptistaÕs project, Beat the Donkey, recorded for the WGBH-TV Boston program ÔLa PlazaÕ, won 3 New England EMMY Awards in 2002.

Baptista appeared in Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel's 1990 documentary film on Fred Frith, Step Across the Border. He has also composed music for programs on the children's television network Nickelodeon.

Baptista formed Beat the Donkey, a percussion and dance ensemble in 2002. The debut self-titled album Beat the Donkey (Tzadik) was picked by Jon Pareles of The New York Times as one of the ten best alternative albums of 2002. Readers of JAZZIZ magazine and DRUM magazine voted it "Best Brazilian CD of the Year" and named Baptista "Best Percussionist of 2002." Down Beat magazine's 51st annual critics' poll selected Baptista as 'Rising Star' in percussion. The group released its second album, Love the Donkey on John Zorn's independent Tzadik record label in 2005.

Baptista's first solo recording in 1997, Villa Lobos/Vira Loucos, is a mix of his own compositions with the work of the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. It was called "the most courageous, bright, funny, dramatic, and imaginative work in recent memory."

Blue Note Records released Supergenerous, a duo CD recorded with guitarist Kevin Breit (KD Lang, Cassandra Wilson). Billboard called Supergenerous "pure aural pleasure" and the Washington Post noted it "a marvelous debut that manages to feel outside and intimate at the same time."

Baptista conducts educational "rhythm workshops" in a variety of formats. He has provided presentations for a range of audiences, from elementary school children to professional musicians.

He has conducted workshops and master classes at numerous institutions throughout the world. These include Berklee College of Music (Boston), The New School (New York City), Drummer's Collective (New York City), Mannes College of Music (New York City), New World Symphony Orchestra (Miami) and Rimon School of Music (Tel-Aviv, Israel).

In 2009 Baptista won a Fellow Award in Music from United States Artists.

Baptista plays congas, bongos, tambourine, maracas, caxixi, agogo bells, pandeiro, pandora, cuica, bells, gong, drums, ceramic drums, surdo, berimbau, shaker, triangle, temple blocks, bass drum, metal percussion, campana, caja, udu, arrelegos, bell tree, bottles, washboard, rubboard, hadgini, cowbell, timbales, shekere, wood block, repique, Rototoms, cabasa, apito, mark tree, whistles, shekere, tabla, talking drum, finger cymbals, Chinese bells, tamborim, snare drum, whistles, typewriter, Alfaia, bird calls, clay drums, cymbals, kalimba, wind chimes, tom-toms, water gong, vacuum cleaner, water phone, peneira cheia, alarm clock, and other percussion."

"Kenny Wollesen (born 1966) is an American drummer and percussionist.

Wollesen lives in New York City. He has recorded and toured with Tom Waits, Sean Lennon, Ron Sexsmith, Bill Frisell, Norah Jones, John Lurie, Myra Melford, Steven Bernstein, and John Zorn. He is a founding member of the New Klezmer Trio and a member of the Sex Mob and Himalayas groups. He also performs on the soundtrack to the popular children's show The Backyardigans.

Kenny grew up in Capitola, CA, studying at Aptos HS and spent many teenage years jamming with Donny McCaslin. He spent quality classroom time with flugelhornist and arranger Ray Brown at Cabrillo College. Kenny also arranges and studied vibraphone at Cabrillo."