The New "Fonda/Stevens European Quartet"
The Quartet will be on tour in Europe from April 14, 2027 through April 27, 2027. For booking information please contact mjsjazz@mac.com. We look forward to seeing you!!!
The members...
Bassist Joe Fonda has performed with his own ensembles throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. He has collaborated Archie Shepp, Ken McIntyre, Lou Donaldson, Bill and Kenny Barron, Leo Smith, Perry Robinson, Dave Douglas, Curtis Fuller, Bill Dixon, Han Bennink, Bobby Naughton, Xu Fengia, Randy Weston, Gebhard Ullmann, Carla Bley, Carlo Zingaro, Barry Altschul, Billy Bang and many others. Fonda was the bassist with Anthony Braxton from 1984 through 1999. His current projects include the “Dreamstruck” trio featuring Marilyn Crispell and Harvey Sorgen, his collaboration with pianist Satoko Fujji, The New Origins Trio with Christopher Roche, The Eastern Boundary Quartet, the Michael Musillami Trio and the Nu Band.
Pianist Michael Jefry Stevens has released over 100 CDs featuring his own music and has performed and recorded extensively with many of the top names in Jazz, including Dave Liebman, Oliver Lake, Dave Douglas, Leo Smith, Matt Wilson, Han Bennink, Mark Feldman, Steve Wilson, Walt Weiskopf, Valerie Ponomarev, Cecil Bridgewater, Jeanne Lee, Dakota Staton, Charles Moffett Sr., George Schuller, Dame Evelyn Glennie, and many others. In 2021 he received a $10,000 Doris Duke Foundation Performing Artist Recovery Fund Grant administered by the New York Community Trust Fund and grants from the North Carolina Arts Council and Buncombe County’s Mountain Bizworks. He received his Master of Arts degree in Jazz Performance from Queens College (CCNY).
Swiss Drummer Dieter Ulrich is one the most prominent modern jazz drummers in Europe. He is a mainstay on the "Intakt" Recording Label and has recored with Oliver Lake, Nil Wogram, Ray Anderson, Gabriela Friedli and Claudia Ulla.
From 1983 until his death in 1995, Ulrich teamed with Urs Blchlinger. He toured and/or recorded as a sideman or leader with Omri Ziegele, Bob Mover Trio/Quartett, Kurt Gramiger, Glenn Ferris, Luten Petrowsky, Tom Varner, Dave Taylor, Amb�- Nathanael Su Trio, Trevor Watts, Lindsay L. Cooper, Christoph Gallio, Christoph Baumann, Jacques Siron, Urs Voerkel, Alfred Zimmerlin, Co Streiff, Claudia U. Binder, Jurg Solothurnmann, Vinny Golia, and own groups.
For many years the saxophonist, clarinetist and composer Silke Eberhard has left her mark on the Berlin jazz scene and has also received great international acclaim with performances on all continents (except Antartica!). In 2020 she received the Jazzpreis Berlin in recognition of her achievements.
She interacts with many people in the most diverse formations; with Jan Roder and Kay Lübke she founded Silke Eberhard Trio in 2006, and her band Potsa Lotsa has grown into an imposing tentet in the XL lineup.
She composes for small and large ensembles, contemporary music and jazz. In her wide-ranging work as a performer she also focuses on improvised encounters in dance, theatre and visual arts.
Silke works with many collective ensembles, including the duo with Ulrich Gumpert, duo with Uwe Oberg + trio with Gerry Hemingway, Matsch & Schnee, Satchi (w Maike Hilbig & Yuko Oshima), I am Three. She performs and has recorded with numerous musicians of the international jazz scene such as Henry Threadgill & Zooid, Aki Takase, Nikolaus Neuser, David Liebman, Sandy Evans, Maggie Nicols, Hannes Zerbe, Dave Rempis, Mike Reed, Wayne Horvitz, Ken Vandermark, Dave Burrell, Michael Zerang, Joe Morris, Michael Formanek, Talibam! (Matt Mottel and Kevin Shea) and amo.
Her work is documented on approximately 50 albums (CD/LP) on record labels such as Intakt, Jazzwerkstatt, Leo Records, ESP Disk, Not Two, Intuition, Trouble in the East Records, Relative Pitch, 577 Records, Aerophonic, Rufus, and fixcel.
Silke Eberhard has featured in almost every Downbeat Critics Polls since 2015: 72nd (2024) – 71st (2023) – 70th (2022) – 69th (2021) – 67th (2019) – 66th (2018) – 65th (2017) – 63rd (2015)
Dubbed “one of the great and often under-appreciated jazz groups of the modern era” by the All Music Guide, and “arguably one of the finest and hardest working modern jazz outfits in the business” by All About Jazz, the Fonda/Stevens Group has consistently toured and recorded to critical acclaim for over three decades, performing numerous European tours, radio broadcasts and festival appearances. Together for more than thirty years, the core rhythm section team of Michael Jefry Stevens, Joe Fonda, and Harvey Sorgen in collaboration with Herb Robertson on trumpet have been featured performers at numerous venues throughout Europe and North America.
The Fonda/Stevens Group grew out of a series of musical relationships that Joe Fonda and Michael Jefry Stevens engaged in beginning in 1984 in New York City. Our first musical liaison began with our mutual association performing with Mark Whitecage in various musical ensembles culminating in performing with his “Liquid Time” Quintet in the late 1980’s and included Dave Douglas, Gerry Hemingway, Mike Sarin, Peter LeMaitre and probably some other musicians on and off during the course of probably 5 years. Associations from that band helped to form our next major musical project which was the Mosaic Sextet (1988 – 1990).
That Sextet included Michael Rabinowitz, Joe Fonda, Michael Jefry Stevens, Dave Douglas, Mark Feldman and Harvey Sorgen on drums. The group disbanded in 1990 and Joe and I decided to start the Fonda/Stevens Group. The players we chose were Mark Whitecage, Herb Robertson and Harvey Sorgen. This probably happened in 1991, which means that the band has been together now for 33 years. Although the band was originally a quintet it became a quartet without Mark around 1999/2000.
The Quartet has released fourteen CD’s over the course of thirty plus years as a touring ensemble. The ensemble has been dormant since “Covid”. However, the group is currently reforming and is planning a European tour in the Fall of 2026.
Fonda/Stevens videos
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“These days, there are few modern jazz groups which can seamlessly merge elements of free improvisation with main- stream and post-bop stylizations, while still maintaining a signature group sound. The Fonda/Stevens Group is partly about the sum of its parts, where the respective musicians emerge as stylists by honing a group-based methodology that stand on its own”.
– All About Jazz, Glenn Astarita
CD Releases...
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