Michael Dease at Smalls Jazz Club, New York City, USA.
Dates: Friday, June 20, 2025 - Saturday, June 21, 2025
More details
We have received the following press release regarding this event;
GIG ALERT:
Trombonist Michael Dease Celebrates the Release of City Life Smalls
New York City
Friday, June 20 and Saturday, June 21, 2025
Shows at 9PM and 10:30PM
Tickets Available Online
https://www.smallslive.org/events/30010-michael-dease-city-life-quintet/
On City Life, Available June 20 on Origin Records, Dease Captures a Vibrant, Gritty, Fast-Moving Portrait of NYC’s Urban Jungle on City Life, a New Double Album of Songs by Gregg Hill
City Life Features a Trio with Linda May Han Oh, Jeff “Tain” Watts and Quintet Adding Geoffrey Keezer and Nicole Glover
Trombonist Michael Dease performs at Smalls in New York City on Friday, June 20 and Saturday, June 21. Shows are at 9PM and 10:30PM. Tickets available are available here. Joining Dease are tenor saxophonist Julieta Eugenio, pianist Arcoiris Sandoval, bassist Jonathan Hilliard and drummer Maria Marmorou.
On June 30, 2025, Dease will release the album City Life via Origin Records. Dease and composer Gregg Hill both served their time in New York City, formative years that provide the patchwork of colors and emotions that make up Dease’s latest album of Hill’s compositions that make up the multi-faceted album
“We all become New Yorkers once we spend some time in the city,” Dease says. “Of course there’s that element of sophistication that we all rise to meet, but no matter how cultured you become, you can’t get away from the grit and the rawness that New York exhibits.”
City Life is the third album that Dease and composer Gregg Hill have crafted together – this one staggering double album primarily focused on the compositions of the prolific Mr. Hill. Both feature the stellar rhythm section of bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts, a first-time pairing whose bristling chemistry was a keen stroke of intuition on Dease’s part. For the second album they form the core of a remarkable quintet with pianist Geoffrey Keezer and tenor saxophonist Nicole Glover. Special guests include the trombonist’s daughter, Brooklyn Dease, and his former student, bassist Jared Beckstead-Craan.
These collaborators, and the carefully selected repertoire, bring out a different side of the acclaimed trombonist than many listeners might be used to. Dease is revered as one of the most versatile voices of his generation, but he’s best known as a modern-day torchbearer for the jazz tradition. City Life doesn’t deviate from that tradition so much as detour into some of its more adventurous pathways, with Dease displaying a more rough-hewn and fiery approach while maintaining his virtuosic agility.
“This project feels a bit like taking the gloves off,” Dease says. “It’s all based on that unpolished, risky feeling that you encounter in the city. These days I go back with much more money than I had when I lived there, but you still get sideswiped by a car, you still step in a puddle at the curb, you still get told to go to hell. There’s no way to escape that power that New York City possesses.”