Art Lande
Piano
Mark Miller
Saxophone, flute, shakuhachi
"Weird and wonderful… a mesmerizing spiritual experience." - San Francisco Examiner
"A perfect gem… Why aren't these guys more famous?" - Cadence Magazine
Art Lande and Mark Miller have performed and recorded together for over thirty-five years since meeting in Lande's San Francisco Bay Area band Rubisa Patrol. They have developed a precise improvisational language drawing on elements of jazz and contemporary classical music, creating intimate and imaginative improvisational worlds through finely drawn musical line, color, rhythm, and poetry.
Art Lande has performed with jazz greats Bobby Hutcherson, Woody Shaw, Tom Harrel, Nat Adderly, Chet Baker, Charlie Haden, Eddie Harris, Anthony Braxton, Kenny Wheeler and many others. He has recorded more than a dozen albums including Hardball, nominated for a Grammy Award.
Mark Miller has performed and recorded with a wide variety of improvising artists including Art Lande, Tuck and Patti, David Friesen, David Darling, Paul McCandless, Bill Douglas, Peter Kater, Native American flutist R. Carlos Nakai, Tibetan flutist Nawang Khechog and poets Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman.
Reviews
Cadence MagazineThere are various manners of integrating modern classical (some would say "European") and contemporary improvisatory (some would say "American Jazz") techniques. [World Without Cars] represents a success of the highest order. ...What makes a great piece of music is the unanalyzable property of containing all and only the right sounds at the right time. This characteristic is beautifully exemplified. The written-out compositions on World Without Cars would fit equally well in a classical recital format; they are elegant, tightly-constructed chamber works for flute or sax and piano. But there is also plenty of dazzling Jazz blowing here.... Though I mention Barber, I hesitate to compare Lande's writing too closely to Barber's (or Rorem's), because I think Lande is a much more interesting composer. His pieces are more adventurous and make use of a greater diversity of rhythmic and harmonic means.
San Francisco Examiner
Lande and Miller have studied, performed and taught together for 20 years; they think and play with like minds. Their musical sound is not essentially jazz, since the fragments of melodic lines which provide the stepping- stones (as it were) along whose musical path the performance proceeds are more likely to remind the listener of, say, Schoenberg, Stockhausen or Cecil Taylor than Ellington, Monk or Miles Davis. But the Lande-Miller duos' spirit and improvisations, based on charts, are definitely jazz. They play long suite-like works, weaving their sounds together through 20 to 30 minutes of playing. It's weird and wonderful piano stuff, particularly in tandem with Miller's alto flute or soprano sax expressions. Meters, rhythms, key signatures, gorgeous melodies (and chords) and spicy dissonances come and go, with Lande and Miller shifting the lead when the mood suits, modal style. Sunday's Maybeck performance [was] a mesmerizing spiritual experience....
Back to top
