About Me
Take six veteran Los Angeles musicians with diverse musical backgrounds yet common influences; gather them each Monday for about a year and a half to jam and have some fun, just playing for the sheer joy of it. Over time, a unique ensemble sound evolves which reflects the influences of this eclectic bunch. The result is Shapes, a new breed of jazz group that has one foot rooted in the tradition of acoustic, mainstream jazz or bop and one foot in the present, and all the while striving to push the envelope a little further. Even as the music industry leans in recent years towards pigeonholing artists and bands into simple categories, Shapes is that rarest of groups which realizes that truly great music shouldn't be limited to labels or preconceived definitions of what is or isn't "authentic."
Produced by Grammy Award winning bassist and jazz legend, Jimmy Haslip, Shapes' debut The Last Farewell features excursions into mainstream bop, Brazilian bossa novas and sambas, tender ballads and even has a little twang of country music on the title track. The core sextet of Roger Burn (piano, synths, vibes, marimba & background vocals), Tollak Ollestad (keyboards & chromatic, blues and bass harmonicas), Michael Higgins (electric & acoustic guitars), Michael Barsimanto (drums), Andy Suzuki (saxes & reeds) and Dean Taba (acoustic bass), is joined by some very special guests including Jimmy Haslip (fretless bass) and Russell Ferrante (piano), founding members of the seminal jazz fusion group, The Yellowjackets, the legendary Flora Purim (vocal) and her equally influential husband, Airto Moreira (drums), and Walfredo Reyes, Jr. (drums & percussion).
Their latest CD "The Big Picture" features special guests Jimmy Haslip, Russell Ferrante and Walfredo Reyes again, as well as Robben Ford, Pauline Wilson, and from the classic Cannonball Adderly group- Roy McCurdy on drums
