User:Cryptogramophone

Violinist, composer, producer, label owner and concert presenter Jeff Gauthier has been named a Downbeat “Rising Star” as both violinist and producer for several years running. He has worked with many prominent musicians in a variety of creative contexts during a career that has spanned over 25 years. As an improvising violinist he has performed and recorded with Yusef Lateef and Adam Rudolph for Meta Records, The Alex Cline Ensemble for ECM, Nine Winds & Cryptogramophone Records, the Cline Gauthier Stinson trio for Cryptogramophone and Nine Winds Records, and The Vinny Golia Large Ensemble and Quartetto Stig for Nine Winds Records. His own ensemble, The Jeff Gauthier Goatette has recorded six CDs including Internal Memo and The Present for Nine Winds and Mask, One and the Same, House of Return, and Open Source for Cryptogramophone. Gauthier has also performed in ensembles with bassist Mark Dresser (Banquet) and drummer/percussionist Gregg Bendian (Bone Structure). As a founding member of the ensemble Quartet Music (with Nels Cline, Alex Cline and Eric von Essen) in the late 70s, Gauthier recorded four albums, received several NEA and California Arts Council grants, and performed twice as soloist with the Milwaukee Symphony. Gauthier also founded and produced the long running Cryptonight new music concert series at the Club Tropical in Los Angeles, and is currently co-producer of The Angel City Jazz Festival.

Gauthier’s band, The Jeff Gauthier Goatette (named after his childhood nickname in a spectacular lapse of judgment) will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2012 with its core members. Guitarist Nels Cline and drummer Alex Cline have worked in ensembles with Gauthier for over 30 years. Pianist/keyboardist David Witham joined Gauthier’s group in 1992 along with bassist Eric von Essen. After von Essen passed away in 1998, bassist Joel Hamilton joined the band. Trumpet player John Fumo, the most recent member of the Goatette, worked with Gauthier for several years and recorded 3 albums with Steuart Liebig’s Quartetto Stig.

In demand as a producer of jazz and new music recordings, Gauthier has worked with such luminaries as Alan Broadbent, Nels Cline, Mark Dresser, Peter Erskine, Bill Frisell Bennie Maupin, Myra Melford, Jimmy Rowles, Stacy Rowles, Alan Pasqua, Don Preston, Jenny Scheinman, Scott Amendola, Ben Goldberg, and many others, having produced CDs for Cryptogramophone, Delos and Nine Winds Records. In 1998 Gauthier founded Cryptogramophone Records, which has since become the premiere West coast record label for cutting-edge jazz artists such as Nels Cline, Bennie Maupin, Myra Melford, Mark Dresser, Scott Amendola, Jenny Scheinman, Alan Pasqua, and many others.

In a former life as a classical violinist, Gauthier performed regularly with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Music Center Opera, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Long Beach Symphony, the Oregon Bach Festival and the Carmel Bach Festival. He performed on the 2000 Grammy Award winning CD Credo, by Krzysztof Penderecki with the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra and Chorus, as well as numerous recordings of classical and baroque music.

Gauthier is a graduate of California Institute of the Arts.