Artist description Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival, June 11, 2000: The Micros play their first gig in eight years.

Music Style Surrealistic Swing, Twisted Tangos, Heavy Metal Bebop

Musical Influences Thelonious Monk, Steve Lacy, Fletcher Henderson, Count Basie, Captain Beefheart, The Beatles.

Artist History Active for roughly a dozen years, from 1980-92, the Microscopic Septetwas widely recognized as "New York's Most Famous Unknown Band." The group started with a basic reeds-and-rhythm texture that was sonically similar to the sound of the Swing Era. However, they employed this texture to address a widely eclectic range of styles, from free-form music to R&B, reggae, rhumbas and ragtime. The result was a brilliant blend of fresh-sounding orchestration ideas and inspired soloing. Along with Don Byron and former band-member John Zorn, The "Micros" were also the most celebrated of the many cutting-edge units associated with experimental music's best-known venue, the Knitting Factory, during the peak years of the "Downtown" music movement in the late '80s and early '90s. Part of the Microscopic Septet's problem with "marketing" itself was the lack of an obvious label to describe what it did -- the closest anyone came was the handle "Surrealistic Swing." While the two major strains of '80s jazz were "neo-classical" (ala Wynton Marsalis) and the avant-garde, the Micros seemed to be doing both at the same time. The group specialized in multi-layered compositions that rarely used conventional song forms but instead shifted between many different basic themes in a single piece (like Ellington or Jelly Roll Morton but unlike most modern composers). Among the group's more requested works were the tango "Lazlo's Lament" and the klezmer-styled "Waltz of the Recently Punished Catholic School Boys"; they also produced brilliant, completely re-imagined treatments of Monk, Ellington and such Tin Pan Alley items as "Tico Tico." As titles like these indicate, the group's most important asset was its sense of humor. In addition to playing with a joyful zeal rarely heard in postmodern music, the group specialized in wacky, Raymond Scott-like tune titles and Johnston's characteristically droll, Steven Wright-like bandstand one-liners. From 1981 to 1992, the band toured Europe, Canada, the United States and appeared three times at the JVC Jazz Festival. The Micros also became one of two or three groups most associated with the Knitting Factory when that new music forum opened in the mid-'80s. Although frequently written about by the alternative music press, the band, unfortunately only rarely attracted the attention of mainstream publications and, mysteriously, even less from record labels. In 12 years of regularly working together, they recorded only four albums, none at all between 1988 and 1992, thus documenting only a fraction of the 170 charts written expressly for the group. Disillusioned and also wanting to move on to other sonic formats, Johnston disbanded the group in 1992. However, like the rest of the group, he remains an active force in the New York scene, playing in bands(comprised partly of fellow former Micros) such as Big Trouble and the Transparent Quartet. [Will Friedwald]

Group Members Phillip Johnston, Joel Forrester, Don Davis, Paul Shapiro, Dave Sewelson, David Hofstra, Richard Dworkin.

Instruments Sax quartet with rhythm section

Albums Take The Z-Train (re-released on Koch Jazz in 1999), Let's Flip!, Off Beat Glory, Beauty Based on Science

Press Reviews ``Best New York Jazz Band of 1991: The Microscopic Septet.''— J.P. Olsen, New York Perspectives``They play with as fine a calibration of the traditional and the daring as has [Wynton] Marsalis — or, for that matter, Duke Ellington.''— Gene Seymour, New York Newsday``Results as good-natured as they are antihistorical...[They play] wry pieces that parody swing and bebop with a touch of dense Hindemith-flavored dissonance. The tempo changes and sudden breaks from urbane swing chords to squalling polyphony are witty.''— Jon Pareles, The New York Times``The Micros, mixing harmonic sophistication with wondrous playfulness, can really be a lot of fun. A unique unclassifiable group: Picture the Saturday Night Live Band with a sense of humor, a downtown edge, and dollops of Ellington and Monk thrown into the mix, and you'll have some idea — but you have to hear 'em.''— Chip Deffaa, New York Post``Merry jazzbos who put the cult back in culture. This brainy and hilarious outfit will bring a smile to your face while nailing knotty arrangements through the heart. Kinetically eclectic compositions, and Monk's ghost winking in the background. One of the best jazz records of the 1980's.''— The Village Voice``Recommended. One of New York's favorites, this large combo with the tiny name offers entertaining musical melanges with a surplus of good playing and good humor. Splendidly romantic, soulful, glass-smooth, cucumber-cool, and delightfully insouciant...Really worth checking out if you're serious about your music but not so serious that you can't enjoy it.''— Peter Keepnews, Billboard``The riffing angularity, pithy solos, and streetband feistiness of these downtown irregulars have enlarged their following. They've refined the attack without sanding down the edges.''— Gary Giddins``The Micros have honed their band to the musical equivalent of a guided missile, with stop-on-a- dime time changes, an ensemble attack as clean and sharp as that of any band around, and an array of first-rate soloists.''— Elle Magazine``They rollick and bop around as easily as they can soothe or cool you off — but those quieter moments are only used as breathing space after the churning upbeat crescendos that come time and time again.''— CMJ New Music Report``Heavy in talent and imagination.''— Bob Blumenthal, Boston Phoenix``Colliding kaleidoscopically like a petri dish seething with paramecia, the Microscopic Septet plays musical mitosis. The Micros genre-bend big band and bebop, mutating into new life forms. Unpredictable as an acid flashback in a barrel-of-monkeys funhouse, these avant vaudevillians consistently deliver the good-time goods.''— Downtown Express``Sleeper concert of the year!— Gail Meadows, The Miami Herald``A `typical' tune from among the Micros' 175 charts could only be characterized by an almost perverse diversity. Tangos, waltzes, polkas, and unexpected allusions to pop hits and tv theme songs fit together with jigsaw-puzzle coziness into deft, complicated arrangements that link thoughtful traditionalism to your favorite modernisms.''— Richard Gehr``A truly distinctive sound that pumps Basie boogies, zestfully sifts from tangoed unison to Dixieland discordance with Mingus precision, and spins off sax solos that reach Eric Dolphy free and Earl Bostic blue within the same tune.''— Ashley Kahn, Rolling Stone Record Guide``A refreshingly original little big band, The Microscopic Septet are talented cut-ups whose knowledge of jazz styles dating back to Fletcher Henderson allow them to contrive clever comedies of juxtaposition. The band has something to say and the ability to say it.''— Downbeat``The guys rock out like Hank Mancini riding shotgun for Pete Gunn, taking bluesy corners on two wheels and gallivanting to a perfect stop. Cool as a shrimp cocktail. This is my favorite living jazz band and one destined to please adults of all ages. They swing, they rock, they exude food for fun, prophesy cool nights for the future near and far out.''— Glenn O'Brien, Interview``My favorite jazz band is The Microscopic Septet, an aggregation of amiable and brilliant zanies. They make a kind of music that is exhilarating and almost defiant of description. The musicians mesh bebop and Kentonian modernism with a combination of wit, intelligence, and drive that is completely their own (if you listen hard, you can even hear some strains from Gene Goldkette and possibly Little Lulu). Their recordings occupy a place on the shelf next to the first edition of The Day of the Locust. In short, there is nothing quite like The Microscopic Septet, and if I were you, I would run, not walk and certainly not jog, to hear them the next time they blow.''— Richard Merkin, GQ``This band knows how to have fun while going deep. Somebody ought to put these guys on TV.''— Francis Davis, Philadelphia Inquirer``Deploying their inimitable hodgepodge of swing, bebop, and musical one-liners, the Katzenjammer Kids of postmodernism have arrived.''— Vanity Fair``Entertaining, vital, just the sort of thing I'm looking for.''— George Wein, Pres., Festival Productions

Additional Info Watch for limited edition 20th Anniversary CD

Location New York, NY - USA

Copyright notice. All material on MP3.com is protected by copyright law and by international treaties. You may download this material and make reasonable number of copies of this material only for your own personal use. You may not otherwise reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or create derivative works of this material, unless authorized by the appropriate copyright owner(s).