User talk:Robreddy

Since forming his first band in 1989, a trio featuring legendary bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Pheeroan akLaff, Reddy has worked almost exclusively as a leader, with the exception of brief stints with Workman's ensemble and Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society in the early 90's. For the rest of that decade, Reddy would helm a prototypical sextet called Rob Reddy's Honor System, documented on his first two recordings, 1996's Post-War Euphoria (Songlines Recordings) and 1999's Songs That You Can Trust (Koch Jazz).

Two other CDs, 2000's However Humble (Koch Jazz) and 2001's Seeing By The Light Of My Own Candle (Knitting Factory Records), would follow early in the new millennium, demonstrating Reddy's expanding palette, as well as a growing roster of notable collaborators, including bassist Dom Richards, drummer Guillermo E. Brown, violinist Charles Burnham, cellist Rufus Cappadocia, and trumpeter John Carlson among others.

"I never use composition as a vehicle for improvisation," Reddy explains, "but rather I utilize improvisation as a tool to support the melodic material. My music is rooted in American folk forms (blues, gospel, country, Appalachian, marches and a wide range of jazz), and my recordings and working bands draw on a pool of musicians whose sounds and strengths become an essential part of presenting that music.”

In October 2006, he founded the Reddy Music label, and released his first recording in five years, A Hundred Jumping Devils, featuring a new sextet called Rob Reddy's Gift Horse, featuring Burnham, Richards, French hornist Mark Taylor, guitarist Brandon Ross and percussionist Mino Cinelu. The CD received critical praise and earned Reddy a commission from Chamber Music America to write new music for the band, which he will premiere in late 2007.

His second Reddy Music release, September 2007's The Book of the Storm, features an all-star 19-piece group he calls Rob Reddy's Small Town performing the hour-long title piece live at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center (TPAC) in March 2007. This impressive large-scale work was commissioned by the New York State Council on the Arts and the Jerome Foundation.

In the spring of 2007, Reddy expanded his label's presence by creating the Reddy Music Concert Series, a monthly series presenting double-bill concerts at Brooklyn's Jalopy Theater. Other upcoming projects include recording a new CD with his working quintet, unveiling a new ten-piece ensemble called Rob Reddy's Tenfold in October 2007, and a collaboration with choreographers Andrew Palermo and Taye Diggs to be premiered at TPAC in October 2008.