Serious Play with Cubby Phillips Group

Details

Cubby Phillips Group full profile / Guitar, saxophone, bass, drums / 4 musicians

Full program notes

During their performances, the Cubby Phillips Group employs a distinctive approach to vital grooves and harmonic terrains. The bandmates and audiences alike are regularly propelled into surprising domains, uniting tenderness, gravity, and heat. They stretch familiar forms, creating contexts for spontaneous discovery. The material is completely improvised, although the group occasionally import melodies from the traditions with which they have the most intimate connections: jazz, blues and R&B. The direction of the performance is tailored to the room, the audience, the moods and longings, voiced or otherwise. Sometimes they challenge the listener, and often themselves, to overcome expectations, presumptions, and doubts that plague receptivity. They are committed to earnest joy, serious play, forging with a spring in their step.

Historical context

Cubby's steadfast reliance on improvisation is reinforced by his devotion to the lineage of jazz and blues visionaries of the last 100+ years. These artists were aware that moment-to-moment receptivity supports their forays into the unknown. They understood that trusting one's ears, one's body, and the unfolding of a phrase brings the utmost freedom to performers and listeners alike. Cubby has found that the approaches developed by these great improvisers form a stable bridge into Mystery, from which springs beauty and novelty. His performances are equally a devotion to continuous discovery and a devotion to the historical revelations that have brought freedom-music to his life, such that he can bring it to the lives of listeners.

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Audio from this ensemble

Other programs from this ensemble

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  Solo improvised guitar

  • Musician profile: Cubby Phillips
  • Instruments: Electric guitar

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