WT800 / D212XLT / D210XLT

JFJO Website
Matt Hayes Website

JFJO is pianist Brian Haas, drummer Josh Raymer, upright bassist Matt Hayes, and guitarist Chris Combs. To say that JFJO's music transcends boundaries and expands minds is an understatement. Since 1994, JFJO has brought their impressionistic and improvisational vision from the Midwest's Bible-Belt to many of the world's finest music festivals and clubs. Music listeners are blown away by JFJO's instrumental creativity, musical risk, and near telepathy on stage. In the past 18 months, JFJO has travelled to Europe four times and have played at major jazz festivals all over the world.

JFJO's music generates an all-encompasing sensory experience for the listener. Since 1994 JFJO's virtuosic instrumental interplay, uncanny ability to communicate musically and near-telepathic improvisation has won over fans and critics alike all over North America, Europe and South America. In April 2008 JFJO released their fourteenth album, 'Lil Tae Rides Again,' their fourth release with Brooklyn-based Hyena Records. Garnering rave reviews in SF Weekly, Absolute Sound, Downbeat, and more, the album marks a departure from the past, with a focus placed on orchestrating sonic tapestries based on minimalist melodies and sweeping tonal textures.

These four musicians are musical chameleons who can move crowds in small jazz clubs, big rock clubs and performing arts theaters. JFJO may be dropping jaws while opening up for Sound Tribe Sector 9 or they may be receiving multiple standing ovations while opening up for Al Di Meola - all in the same week of touring. They have been celebrated by the jazz world - playing regularly at NYC's Blue Note and the now defunct Tonic, in some of Europe's biggest jazz theaters, and appearing in major jazz magazines such as Downbeat and JazzTimes - but they also have found success and audiences in the jam scene - playing large festivals and performing with the likes of Steve Kimock and Les Claypool. 2008 found JFJO winning a Guinness jazz Award for their performance at the Cork Jazz Festival in Ireland, and performing festivals such as the 40th Umea Jazz Festival in Sweden, and the prestigious Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island.

The Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey is the evolution of an ongoing musical discourse that's been developed over countless tours. Starting out Tulsa, OK as a funky octet in 1994, JFJO became a trio around the turn of the century. After 15 years of Haas and Mathis, JFJO turns over yet another leaf in 2009, with the debut of the Haas/Raymer/Combs/Hayes quartet lineup.

The band just wrapped up an incredible new EP entitled 'One Day in Brooklyn' which was recorded at 58N6 in Brooklyn,NY in July. The EP is set to be released on September 1st and marks the debut of the new quartet lineup in the studio setting. In addition the EP is the first release on JFJO's new record label Kinnara Records.

A description of JFJO's new sound for those yet to hear the latest incarnation is in order -- this is after all a band once described by Signal To Noise as having "a breadth and vision nearly untouched in modern jazz except by the likes of Wayne Shorter and Bill Frisell." With the addition of Combs on lap steel and Hayes on acoustic bass, JFJO has perhaps invented its own genre: red dirt jazz, equal parts earthy and nimble, pastoral and sweeping, elegant and rollicking. The quartet taps into their birthright, drawing upon "The Tulsa Sound" born of hometown heroes like JJ Cale and Leon Russell. These roots grow up into a jazz foundation that's built firmly upon the likes of Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk.

The band is also in the midst of executing the huge undertaking that is reinterpreting Beethoven's 3rd & 6th symphonies. Whittled down and reconstituted in a modern light, JFJO brings Beethoven to life in a new and exciting manner. Channeling the spirits of not only Beethoven & Karajan but Led Zeppelin & Radiohead as well, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey are turning Beethoven's 3rd & 6th symphonies into modern music for today's audiences. Taking 'Eroica' & 'Pastural' and condensing them to a total of 50 minutes, the band has transformed the symphonies into contemporary music for the young and old alike. In June the band will debut the project in orchestral form live at the international classical festival OK Mozart!

Over the years, the band has blossomed into one of the most visionary, fearless and tight bands around. JFJO's music offers a different sound that exhibits a rare form of abstract yet mature musical freedom and inquiry.