Casey O’Brien Trio

Please join us on Thurdsay, June 20th and Friday June 21st  at The Red Stag Supper Club for a night of original creative music with some of the twin cities most talented musicians. Bringing together three unique voices, The Casey O’Brien trio will explore original compositions by the members.

Casey O’Brien

Casey O’Brien is a bassist, producer, composer and performer based in the Twin Cities. Casey’s unique and distinguishable style of playing along with his versatility make him standout performer in a variety of musical fields and styles.

Casey has appeared on over 30 recordings and his discography includes notable albums with with Eyedea (Rhymesayers),  Kristoff Krane (Crushkill Recordings), No Bird Sing (F.I.X.), Graham O’Brien (No Echo), Adam Svec (Drawfire), Carnage (Fill in the Breaks), TD Mischke (Independent) and Face Candy (Rhymesayers), among many others. He has released remixes under the upcoming record label F.I.X., as well as with Kristoff Krane.  His work in film and video includes the score for “The Place Where We Were Born” by Minnesota Book Award Winner, Kao Kalia Yang.

Casey can  be found performing regularly around the Twin Cities with artists and bands such asColoring Time (FIX), Sonny Knight & The Lakers (Secret Stash), James Patrick (Timefog), Graham O’Brien, JT Bates, Nathan Hanson, Davu Seru, John Keston (O / K / O). He also leads a number of jazz, and R&B oriented ensembles under his own name.

Davu Seru

Davu Seru (b. 1978, Minneapolis, MN) has been involved in one or more of the arts (legitimate and otherwise) for most of his life. Music won over his attention only after he was introduced to “jazz,” a moniker which he feels—despite being presented here in scare quotes—is worth arguing over. He has a deep affection for jazz, one which, he believes, is made even richer by his capricious sense of race pride. He also believes that sincerity is heroic and improvisation is its ritual.

His cohorts, past and present, include Milo Fine, Andrew Lafkas, Jaron Childs, Charles Gillett, Elliot Fine, Paul Metzger, Jack Wright, Elaine Evans,Anthony Cox, Dean Granros, Dean Magraw, Wendy Ultan, Evan Parker, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Adam Linz, Luke Polipnick, George Cartwright, Stefan Kac,James Buckley, Taylor Ho Bynum, Jim Baker, Robbie Lynn Hunsinger, Tatsu Aoki, David Boykin, Nicole Mitchell, Harrison Bankhead, and Rafael Toral. Currently he plays in the bands Merciless Ghost (with George Cartwright and Josh Granowski), Body Omara (with Joseph Damman and Tom Reichert), and Take Acre. He is also a PhD candidate in African American literature at the University of Minnesota.

What he would like to convey and by whatever means: life is suffering and it ain’t nobody’s fault but ours. We should laugh and often, even if not that deeply. Dancing ain’t bad neither.

 

Nathan Hanson

Soprano and tenor saxophonist Nathan Hanson has performed in venues from concert halls to prisons, churches to train stations, debutante balls to Soviet fallout shelters in places ranging from St. Paul to Slovenia; Paris to Pittsburgh; Milano to Milwaukee; and Rome (both Italy and Georgia). He is a graduate of Newberry College, and the University of South Carolina.

 

Hailed as an “extraordinary performer with a beautiful tone and concept” (Cadence Magazine), Mr. Hanson makes his home in St. Paul, MN since 2006 following a residency in New York from 1998 – 2006. His playing has been called “seductively pithy” (Marc Medwin, Signal to Noise), “unexpectedly tasteful and dignified” (Improjazz) and “immediately accessible without sacrificing musical smarts” (Jeff Jackson, Destination: OUT) with “tinges of Jan Garbarek and Albert Ayler” (Glen Hall, Exclaim!).

 

Mr. Hanson is a primarily associated with Fantastic Merlins, whose 2010 CD How the Light Gets In was a featured album on Radio France and whose 2007 CD Look Around was named a Grammy Semi-Finalist. In addition, he has maintained a longstanding duo with bassist Brian Roessler and is part of the quartet that signaled the triumphant return of legendary French drummer Jacques Thollot. He has performed with a long list of luminaries including George Cartwright, Viv Corringham, Pablo Cueco, Mark Dresser, Harris Eisenstadt, Liberty Ellman, Douglas Ewart, Dizzy Gillespie, Tony Hymas, Darius Jones, Elliot Humberto Kavee, Daniel Levin, Tony Malaby, Didier Petit, Mirtha Pozzi, Reuben Radding, Cecil Taylor, Claude Tchamitchian, Jacques Thollot, Matt Turner, Federico Ughi, Michael Zerang.

 

Awards include grants and commissions from New Music USA, The American Composers Forum, Meet the Composer, City of St. Paul Cultural STAR, The Jerome Foundation, The Southern Theater, and the National Performing Arts Convention.