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Lao Dan Quartet
Over the last decade or so the Chinese multi-instrumentalist Lao Dan has emerged as one of the most hard-driven, skilled, and versatile figures of the improvised music community. While his earliest work found him exploring new, improvisational terrain with the dizi, a traditional Chinese bamboo flute used in many regional musical approaches, his lyric delicacy on that device has been countered by his ferocious energy and searing tone on the tenor saxophone.
He first surfaced on the global scene in 2019 with Live at Willimantic Records, a fiery live date recorded a year earlier in Connecticut with stalwart Western Massachusetts free jazz figures Randall Colbourne and Paul Flaherty, along with double bassist Damon Smith.
Dan’s restless spirit has led him to travel the planet, building new connections, collaborating with many different musicians. Dan’s dual interest in folkloric traditions and free jazz led to an interest in the duo work of Chicago percussionists Michael Zerang and Hamid Drake, whom he first heard on recordings as members of the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet. In the spring of 2024 he arranged for a trip to play in Chicago, and while Drake wasn’t in town, he performed with a variety of local figures, including a sterling quartet with Zerang, double bassist Joshua Abrams—leader of Natural Information Society—and pianist Mabel Kwan, a rising star whose improvisational brilliance has complemented her deep roots in contemporary music.
we are now happy to present Lao Dan’s Klotski, a searing recording of that live quartet performance at Elastic Arts where the opening tenor cries on “Green Tongue” can’t help but evoke the spirit of Peter Brötzmann’s galvanic opening blasts, but the music that follows belongs to this agile quartet alone. While Dan’s fire-breathing extremes lead the way through a rumbling, shape-shifting thicket on the opening piece, his crystalline tone, peerless technique and melodic gifts on flute distinguish the rollicking “Wandering Donkey.” Throughout the set the music toggles between such polarities, fed by the versatility of the quartet members who reveal an almost instant rapport and keen listening abilities, particularly the nubby sonic fabrics woven behind Dan’s blowing by Abrams and Kwan. With each new transmission Lao Dan exposes new facets of his complex musical personality and this new outing is no exception.
He first surfaced on the global scene in 2019 with Live at Willimantic Records, a fiery live date recorded a year earlier in Connecticut with stalwart Western Massachusetts free jazz figures Randall Colbourne and Paul Flaherty, along with double bassist Damon Smith.
Dan’s restless spirit has led him to travel the planet, building new connections, collaborating with many different musicians. Dan’s dual interest in folkloric traditions and free jazz led to an interest in the duo work of Chicago percussionists Michael Zerang and Hamid Drake, whom he first heard on recordings as members of the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet. In the spring of 2024 he arranged for a trip to play in Chicago, and while Drake wasn’t in town, he performed with a variety of local figures, including a sterling quartet with Zerang, double bassist Joshua Abrams—leader of Natural Information Society—and pianist Mabel Kwan, a rising star whose improvisational brilliance has complemented her deep roots in contemporary music.
we are now happy to present Lao Dan’s Klotski, a searing recording of that live quartet performance at Elastic Arts where the opening tenor cries on “Green Tongue” can’t help but evoke the spirit of Peter Brötzmann’s galvanic opening blasts, but the music that follows belongs to this agile quartet alone. While Dan’s fire-breathing extremes lead the way through a rumbling, shape-shifting thicket on the opening piece, his crystalline tone, peerless technique and melodic gifts on flute distinguish the rollicking “Wandering Donkey.” Throughout the set the music toggles between such polarities, fed by the versatility of the quartet members who reveal an almost instant rapport and keen listening abilities, particularly the nubby sonic fabrics woven behind Dan’s blowing by Abrams and Kwan. With each new transmission Lao Dan exposes new facets of his complex musical personality and this new outing is no exception.
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