Side Yard Sounds: Tommaso Moretti's Outside In Quartet.
"Outside In" is a music project that aims to be a legitimate tribute to the iconic improvisational scene of Chicago. The artistic goal is to blur the line between improvisation and composition exploring new ways of blending the two sides of the creating process both in the context of music performance and during the producing process. Experienced local music improvisers will be involved in the musical effort of shaping extemporary compositions out of individual and collective improvisations.
"Outside In" is meant to be the follow up of the "Inside Out" project and album which started from diametrically opposite artistic premises: playing pre-arranged compositions as a tool and starting point to inspire individual and collective improvisation. With "Outside In" the starting point would be the individual and collective improvisation with the abstract purpose of channelling and shaping the ensemble voices into a cohesive and organic musical piece all in real time.
From the "Inside Out "to the "Outside In" We are the same living bio-organism and we can start acting as one. Music and the Artsare the empirical demonstration that we are all connected on a deeper level that we might be aware of.
John Sutton is a bassist/composer and educator based in Chicago. As a natural storyteller, both his playing and writing reflect his belief in the power of simplicity and humor. In recent years, John has composed for over 15 feature length and short films as well as theme music for multiple web series and other media projects. He releases original music under his own name and as The Vine Street Alternative, a saxophone trio based in NYC. John has been featured on recent releases by Vine Street Alternative, Saxsquatch, Ryley Walker, Mikel Patrick Avery, Tammy McCann, and Rana Santacruz. He has performed in many world famous venues including The Getty Museum, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, NYC Winter Jazz Fest, Millennium Park Pritzker Pavilion, as well as NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series. He is the creator of the web series Bass Solo: a sketch comedy show exploring what it means to be a musician in today’s world.
Norman W. Long (b. 1973, Chicago, IL) is a sound artist/designer/composer based in Chicago, IL. His current work focuses on sound art production within the larger context of landscape. He has exhibited and/or performed in galleries in Chicago, Ithaca, New York, London, and the San Francisco Bay Area. The processes involved in his practice lie within the area of field recording, electro-acoustic composition and dub technique. His art/studio practice involves gardening, collecting, performing and recording to create, objects, environments, situations in which the artist and audience are engaged in a dialogue about memory, space, value, silence and the invisible. It is his desire that his practice offers us a space to consider our relationship to sound via social, ecological structures, our interiority and to affirm our existence.
Ben LaMar Gay is a composer and cornetist who moves sound, color, and space through folkloric filters to produce electro-acoustic collages. His unification of various styles is always in service of the narrative and never solely a display of technique. A Chicago native, Ben’s true technique is giving life to an idea while exploring and expanding on the term “Americana.”
By being active in Chicago’s experimental music scene and having spent a three-year residency in Brazil, Ben has collaborated with several influential figures in the world of music, including Joshua Abrams, the Association of the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Bixiga 70, Black Monks of Mississippi, Celso Fonseca, George Lewis, Nicole Mitchell, Jeff Parker, Theo Parrish, Mike Reed, Tomeka Reid, and Itibere Zwarg.
Ben received his Bachelor of Arts in Music Education from Northeastern Illinois University. He has served as a music instructor in Chicago Public Schools, a guest lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a facilitator with the Chicago Park District’s Inferno Mobile Recording Studio for six years. The latter helped set the tone for a core philosophy that fuels his musicianship, a fundamental component of which explores the lineage of an idea passed from one generation to another. He aims for his work to have the same functionality as most folktales, which is to create variations on timeless themes to help people make sense of their existence and place in the world.
With the celebrated release of his debut album, Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun (International Anthem, 2018) and multiple commissions, Ben is establishing his unique place and voice in the creative ecosystem. He has received artist residencies from Edgar Miller Legacy Glasner Studios and the Red Bull Music Academy. His range of performances and creative projects span from his hometown in Chicago’s very own Symphony Center and across the globe to places such as Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Nigeria, Poland, and the Netherlands.
Ben’s musical influences derive from his collection of experiences in all of the Americas and the gathered data channeled by technology and its amplifying accessibility. The fact that the world is closer via technology and that everyone has access to the possibility of exploring different ideas makes his avant-garde version of “Americana” very global. Embracing global vision while remaining true to his roots, Ben aligns his creative output with the honest notion that he only knows how to be a man from the South Side of Chicago.
Tommaso Moretti is a drummer, composer, educator born and raised in Italy where he began to play drums at the age of 10.
His musical career started when he moved to Rome and became part of the city’s vibrant music scene. Between 2004 and 2013 he released albums and toured internationally with 4 different bands: Thrangh , an avant/rock quartet, Tribraco a punk/jazz trio , The Orange Man Theory a noise-core combo and Underdog an indie jazz rock/world music ensemble. Busy as a musician and music educator in Italy he also cultivated international collaborations in Chicago (where he founded the math/rock band Tasty Gasoline and become part of Ben Lamar Gay’s project Tones for Tales) and in London where he joined (with Tribraco) the “Match and Fuse” project (a European network of experimental musicians and bands promotion).
In late 2013 he relocated to Chicago where he is now freelancing as a jazz drummer and educator. In 2017 with the band Bottle Tree he released an album on International Anthem record label. In December 2017 he released his first album as a leader "SemoComeSemo" on Amalgam record label. Since 2018 he has been performing in Jazz festivals throughout Europe such as North Sea, Willisau, Berlin and London Jazz fest with the Ben Lamar Gay quartet. In 2022 Tommaso released his second album "Inside Out" (Bace records) which has been positively reviewed by international specialized press like DownBeat, Stereophile, Jazziz , BandCamp. He is currently part of the following Chicago based music projects: Rob Frye Exoplanet, Ben Lamar Gay quartet, Eric Hines Pan Dulce, Kevin and Hell group, Chicago Samba. Among many others he experienced playing with musicians such as: Renè Baker, Pharez Whitted, Mai Sugimoto, Ernest Dawkins, Hunter Diamond, Greg Ward, Aaron Shapiro, Matt Piet, Aaron M Frison (Coultrain), Jaime Branch.
