The Last Quiet Place Ingrid Laubrock

• 1Anticipation06:35
• 2Grammy Season08:29
• 3The Last Quiet Place08:32
• 4Delusions08:24
• 5Afterglow05:45
• 6Chant II11:15
• Total Runtime49:00

Info for The Last Quiet Place

Originally from Germany, Ingrid Laubrock is a saxophonist/ composer based in Brooklyn since 2009. Laubrock is interested in exploring the borders between musical realms and creating multi-layered, dense and often evocative sound worlds.

"Saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock possesses one of the most fetchingly original free-improv styles out there—throaty, gutsy, bravely lyrical­—but recently, her composing and arranging have proven as engaging as her soloing." (Paul de Barros, DownBeat)

"The Last Quiet Place” is just as restless as the other compositions. It begins with the pit-a-pat of the brushes on the snare, a repeated note on guitar and long lines on violin. Everything stops while the violin plays. Laubrock enters on soprano and makes carefully stated comments that sometimes sound like laments. Her voice may be representative of the album’s perpetually threatened quiet place. The ensemble never settles down in the face of her phrases, however sweetly melancholic. In a new section, Reid and Swift play in unison over the bass. Compared to the title cut, “Delusions” is a kind of uptempo group assault. Afterglow begins with an extended duet between tenor saxophone and drums. The set ends with its longest number, “Chant II.” (“Chant I” must be found elsewhere.) The piece, indeed the entire session, seems to me to be about spotlighting the ensemble’s sound rather than the virtuoso displays of its leader. And The Last Quiet Place‘s collaborative product is a wide-awake, living kind of thing, neither esoteric nor prematurely patterned. In fact, the togetherness can be amusing, as when “Delusions” comes to an abrupt stop — only to restart with Seabrook playing a goofy phrase that is repeated while the drummer solos and Laubrock interjects what sound like outraged squawks. That’s the way the piece ends … not with a bang but a giggle." (Michael Ullman, artsfuse.org)

Ingrid Laubrock, tenor and soprano saxophones
Mazz Swift, violin
Tomeka Reid, cello
Brandon Seabrook, guitar
Michael Formanek, double bass
Tom Rainey, drums

Recorded at Firehouse 12, New Haven, CT, September 2019
Mixed by Ryan Streber at Oktaven Audio, Mt. Vernon, NY, June 2022
Mastered by Scott Hull at Masterdisk, Peekskill, NY
Produced by Ingrid Laubrock

Ingrid Laubrock
is an experimental saxophonist and composer, interested in exploring the borders between musical realms and creating multi-layered, dense and often evocative sound worlds. A prolific composer, Laubrock was named a “true visionary” by pianist and The Kennedy Center's artistic director Jason Moran, and a “fully committed saxophonist and visionary" by the New Yorker. Her composition Vogelfrei was nominated 'one of the best 25 Classical tracks of 2018' by The New York Times.

She worked with: Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richards Abrams, Dave Douglas, Kenny Wheeler, Jason Moran, Tim Berne, William Parker, Tom Rainey, Mary Halvorson, Kris Davis, Tyshawn Sorey, Craig Taborn, Andy Milne, Luc Ex, Django Bates’ Human Chain, The Continuum Ensemble, Wet Ink and many others.

Awards include the BBC Jazz Award for Innovation in 2004, a Fellowship in Jazz Composition by the Arts Foundation in 2006, the 2009 SWR German Radio Jazz Prize, the 2014 German Record Critics Quarterly Award, Downbeat Annual Critics Poll Rising Star Soprano Saxophone (2015) , Rising Star Tenor Saxophone (2018) and Herb Alpert/Ragdale Prize in Composition 2019.

Ingrid Laubrock has received composing commissions by The Fromm Music Foundation, BBC Glasgow Symphony orchestra, Bang on The Can, Grossman Ensemble, The Shifting Foundation, The Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, The Jerwood Foundation, American Composers Orchestra, Tricentric Foundation, SWR New Jazz Meeting, The Jazz Gallery Commissioning Series, NYSCA, Wet Ink, John Zorn's Stone Commissioning Series and the EOS Orchestra.

She is a recipient of the 2019 Herb Alpert Ragdale Prize in Music Composition and the 2021 Berklee Institute of Gender Justice Women Composers Collection Grant.

Ingrid Laubrock is part time faculty at The New School and Columbia University. Other teaching experiences include improvisation workshops at Towson University, CalArts, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, Baruch College, University of Michigan, University of Newcastle and many others. Laubrock was Improviser in Residence 2012 in the German city Moers. The post is created to introduce creative music into the city throughout the year. As partof this she led a regular improvisation ensemble and taught sound workshops in elementary schools.

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