Laurie Anderson & Christian McBride Launch Improvisations Series 2/23 at the Town Hall

Maverick artist, composer, vocalist and instrumentalist Laurie Anderson and bass virtuosoChristian McBride collaborate for the first time in the opening concert of Town Hall's new series, Improvisations. The show will also feature special guest Rubin Khodeli on cello.

While improvisation is central to the language of jazz and has been a focus of McBride´s work, the performance comes at a time Anderson is reconsidering her attitude towards improvisation.

"I've never had the nerve to do so much improvisation as I am now," she told The Washington Post recently. "In the past, I've been a little bit stricter about how things relate to each other, and now I think it's not so much logic that ties things together as something else that I can't quite define. Things work or don't work for much stranger reasons than I understand. I love that about being an artist."

Anderson is one of the most influential artists of our time, a rare brand-name among innovators whose multidisciplinary work encompasses performance, film, music, installation, writing, photography, and sculpture. Her most recent works underscore her remarkable creative range. They include a documentary film, Heart of a Dog, her first in 30 years, which is a lament for her beloved dog, Lolabelle, and, ultimately, a deeply personal reflection about mortality; the installation Habeas Corpus, at the Park Avenue Armory, using video projections and guitar feedback to examine the case of the young Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohammed el Gharani; and her project Letters to Jack, which draws from her childhood correspondence with John F. Kennedy.

McBride has constructed a remarkable career as a bandleader, musician and composer whose work includes the notable "The Movement, Revisited," a four-movement suite dedicated to four of the major figures of the civil rights movement: Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and DR. Martin Luther King, Jr.. He has distinguished himself as an educator and advocate, passions that also shape his work as a host and producer of "The Lowdown: Conversations With Christian" on SiriusXM satellite radio and National Public Radio's "Jazz Night in America," a weekly radio show and multimedia collaboration between WBGO, NPR and Jazz at Lincoln Center, showcasing outstanding live jazz from across the country. McBride has long established himself as a first-call collaborator and sideman for top artists in jazz, R&B, pop and classical music -- from Sonny Rollins, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Pat Metheny, to Isaac Hayes, James Brown, Sting and Kathleen Battle.

The unique Town Hall show will also feature Albanian cellist Rubin Kodheli, a remarkable genre-transcending musician who has collaborated with such premier improvisers as Henry Threadgill and Meredith Monk.

http://thetownhall.org/event/laurieanderson-christianmcbride

Laurie Anderson & Christian McBride with special guest Rubin Kodheli. Thursday, February 23, 2017 * 8:00pm, THE TOWN HALL, 123 West 43rd Street (between 6th Avenue and Broadway), New York, NY 10036. Tickets: $40/50/60/75. Box Office: 212-997-6661 boxoffice@thetownhall.org