The Draylen Mason Music Studio at KMFA (41 Navasota ST. Austin, TX 78702)

Tim Berne – alto saxophone

Nasheet Waits – drums

“Alto saxophonist Tim Berne and drummer Nasheet Waits connect a Möbius strip of improvisational wonder. Berne plays with intense lucidity of communication — his incisiveness fires arrows of indisputable meaning into the air. Waits likewise pulls out the rug from under us not out of a desire to break our equilibrium but to reveal an even more stable surface beneath it. Such is the depth of their rapport as each defers to the other until the geyser of creativity grows too hot to contain.”

— Tyran Grillo, New York City Jazz Record

Epistrophy Arts is proud to host a meeting between two celebrated masters of the contemporary jazz avant-garde in Austin,Texas.  Alto saxophonist Tim Berne and drummer Nasheet Waits will continue the dialogue they began together in 2020, documented on two critically acclaimed recordings, Coanda Effect (Relative Pitch), and Tangled (Screwgun).

Tim Berne has been declared “a saxophonist and composer of granite conviction” by The New York Times. Since learning at the elbow of St. Louis master Julius Hemphill in the ’70s, the Syracuse, New York-born Berne has built an expansive discography as a leader. In his pace-setting ensembles over the past few decades, he has worked with a who’s who of improvisers, including Joey Baron, Django Bates, Jim Black, Nels Cline. Mark Dresser, Marc Ducret, Michael Formanek, Drew Gress, Ethan Iverson, Dave King, Herb Robertson, Chris Speed, Steve Swell, Bobby Previte, Hank Roberts, Tom Rainey and Craig Taborn. As a sideman, Berne has made ECM appearances on recent albums by Formanek (The Rub and Spare Change; Small Places) and David Torn (prezens). The New York Times summed him up by saying: “Few musicians working in or around jazz over the last 30 years have developed an idiomatic signature more distinctive than Tim Berne.”

Nasheet Waits is an American jazz drummer and son of percussionist Freddie Waits. He is a New York native who has been active on the jazz scene since early in his life. Before pursuing a music career, he studied psychology and history at Morehouse College in Atlanta. He also holds a degree from Long Island University in music. While studying at L.I.U, instructor Michael Carvin secured Waits a spot in the percussion ensemble M’Boom, started by drummer Max Roach and Freddie Waits, in 1970. Waits has recorded or performed with Fred Hersch, Antonio Hart, Joe Lovano, Jason Moran, Andrew Hill, Ron Carter, Tony Malaby, Bunky Green, William Parker, Eddie Gómez, Casimir Liberski, John Medeski, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and Mark Turner.

Epistrophy Arts is a grass-roots cultural organization dedicated to presenting the finest adventurous and improvised music in Austin Texas. Since January of 1998 we have presented over 100 concerts with some of the major figures in international contemporary adventurous music.

A Discussion with Tim Berne & Nasheet Waits Re: “The Coandă Effect”

https://www.ecmrecords.com/artists/1435047273/tim-berne

https://necmusic.edu/faculty/nasheet-waits