Empty Cage Quartet profile picture

Empty Cage Quartet

Stratostrophic!

About Me


"One of the best things in jazz to emerge in the new millennium."
-Brian Marley, The Wire
"One of the most powerful and appealing jazz units currently active."
-Rex Butters, All About Jazz Los Angeles
"What a fine young quartet this is... they follow many different musical paths, all the while maintaining a pretty stimulating group voice."
-Jason Bivins, Cadence Magazine
"One of the left coast's most underexposed treasures."
-Troy Collins, One Final Note
"Not your typical background jazz music, this local group is in your face, angular, fresh, and assertively spontaneous."
-Zach Behrens, LAist
"Wildly eclectic..."
-Adam McLean, The Santa Fe Reporter
"Of interest... a time-worn context has proven itself with new blood via the work of MTKJ."
-Clifford Allen, All About Jazz
"The MTKJ Quartet's music is the shit..."
-Gene Armstrong, Tucson Weekly




Empty Cage Quartet: Stratostrophic
(Clean Feed Records CF103CD) 2008
Order CD | Amazon MP3 Store | eMusic | iTunes

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 8/16/2006
Band Website: mtkjquartet.com
Band Members: Jason Mears woodwinds
Kris Tiner trumpets
Ivan Johnson bass
Paul Kikuchi drumset/electronics

Influences: Wadada Leo Smith, Anthony Braxton, Milford Graves, Ken Wilber, Ornette Coleman, Vinny Golia, Ralph Nader, Aurobindo, minivans, Aristotle, Robert Motherwell, Kenneth Patchen, John Carter, Bobby Bradford, royal court music of Uganda, Osho, Bob Marley, Duke Ellington, Jim Jarmusch, Albert Ayler, Igor Stravinsky, Bob Dylan, Javanese gamelan, Fred Meyer, Nick Drake, Charles Ives, Billie Holiday, Ewe traditional music, Beethoven, Booker Little, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Charlie Haden, Sudanese trumpet music, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Karlheinz Stockhausen, coffee, Iannis Xenakis, Neil Young, Umberto Eco, Thelonious Monk, Skip James, John Coltrane, Morton Feldman, Charles Mingus, Aikido, Devendra Banhart, fish tacos, Robert Johnson, The Feardom Press, Joachim-Ernst Berendt, Harry Partch, Eric Dolphy, Hank Williams, C.G. Jung, Erik Satie, Doug Davis, Jelly Roll Morton, John Steinbeck, Herman Hesse, J.D. Salinger, William Faulkner, Sun Ra, Koichi Tohei, Quentin Tolimieri, John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, Coen Brothers, Stanley Kubrick, Andrea Tarkovsky, pizza, Leroy Jenkins, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Buddy T. Fish, Maurice Andre, Radiohead, Nels Cline, Beck, David Suzuki, Gyorgi Ligeti, Lao Tsu, Frank Zappa, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Parker, Max Roach, Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds, Son House, Matt Groening, Amy Mears, Bubber Miley, Kraig Grady, Don Cherry, Samuel Beckett, Jean Giono, vanwiches, Woody Guthrie, Brian Wilson, Jimi Hendrix, Soul Coughing, Olivier Messiaen...
Sounds Like:
Record Label: Nine Winds, pfMENTUM
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

Paris, June 6


Posted by Empty Cage Quartet on Thu, 15 May 2008 01:55:00 PST

Upcoming concerts in France...


Posted by Empty Cage Quartet on Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:09:00 PST

STRATOSTROPHIC reviewed in The Wire


Posted by Empty Cage Quartet on Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:03:00 PST

THE NEW ALBUM...

Finally settled... All new music, all previously unrecorded:1. Again a Gun Again a Gun Again a Gun (Mears)2. Feerdom is on the March (Mears)3. Old Ladies (Tiner)4. Power of the Great (Mears)5. We Are ...
Posted by Empty Cage Quartet on Mon, 05 Mar 2007 01:21:00 PST

Double CD Review in Signal to Noise!

Empty Cage QuartetHello the Damage!pfMentum CD040 CD x 2MTKJ QuartetDay of the RaceNine Winds NWCD 0258 CDThis hardworking freebop outfit from the West Coast  Jason Mears (alto sax, clarinet, wood fl...
Posted by Empty Cage Quartet on Fri, 23 Mar 2007 10:21:00 PST

Next CD is on the way...

We mixed down the next CD on Saturday at Wayne Peet's studio in Venice. Twelve tracks, over 71 minutes, mostly new compositions that were developed and recorded in Los Angeles over several grueling da...
Posted by Empty Cage Quartet on Tue, 10 Oct 2006 11:30:00 PST

New review at AAJ...

Jack Gold of All About Jazz has posted a review of our new 2CD live set, Hello the Damage!. Other recent reviews can be found at KFJC, Downtown Music Gallery, and Aiding & Abetting -- although that la...
Posted by Empty Cage Quartet on Tue, 10 Oct 2006 11:21:00 PST