On January 5, 2016 I had the opportunity to present my band Stereo Genius to a crowd of music enthusiast at Martyr’s in Chicago. The show started at with a DJ set by Makaya McCraven followed by three sets of music that was very similar and yet so different. All the bands were led by drummer and the majority of the compositions performed were original. For the first time I presented my group as a quintet featuring Hunter Diamond (tsx), Marques Carroll (tmpt), Andrew Toombs (ks) and Andrew Vogt (bs). We played material that has already been released as well as a couple of new compositions. We performed a tribute to Tony Williams the previous night at the Whistler which was also a success! The Xavier Breaker Coalitions followed us. His group featured Shaun Johnson (tmpt), Rajiv Halim (asx), Joel Ream (gtr), Marcin Fahmy (ks) and Andrew Vogt (bs). Kudos to Andrew for holding it down for two sets of music. Gabriel Wallace came up with the idea of having a drummer led bill. He performed with his group Manuals that featured Josh Griffin (bs) and Lindon McCarty (gtr). Thanks to all that made it out to the performances this week!!
