KATALYST RECORD LABEL
Katalyst Entertainment is a Midwest-based record label representing top names in Jazz and World Music.
An independently owned and operated label based in Chicago for over 30 years, the label is focused primarily on preserving the creative music that stemmed from the AACM tradition of “Great Black Music – Ancient to the Future”.
The music embodies: human feel, physical, analog, authentic music, humanity.
Artists: Vincent Davis, Ari Brown, Ed Wilkerson, and Preyas Royazz that sparks change in Chicago and beyond.
KATALYST ARTISTS
VINCENT DAVIS
Vincent Davis(born January 22, 1957, in Chicago, Illinois) is an internationally acclaimed jazz percussionist, composer, and teacher. Davis grew up in a home filled with influences of jazz, gospel, and rock. In 1979, Davis left the Windy City to attend the Milwaukee Conservatory of Music. It was here that Davis met his mentor, Manty Ellis. Davis trained and studied with Ellis, primarily focusing on Jazz Trap drumming. The two began performing together, along with other local musicians on the Milwaukee jazz scene. He met Roscoe Mitchell in 1985, became a touring musician, and has since been working with Mitchell for 25 years. Davis has toured all throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, playing events such as: The Brussels Jazz Festival, Jazz Gallery Festival (Austria), Wolf Trap (Washington, D.C.), Chicago Jazz Showcase Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival (Germany, Holland, Amsterdam), and Hothouse (Chicago). In addition to live performances, Vincent Davis is on studio recordings such as: Roscoe Mitchell’s Songs in the Wind, This Dance is for Steve McCall, Jodie Christians Experience, Rain or Shine, Scott Fields 48 Motives January 11, 1996, and Jane Reynolds Gathering. Other artists Davis has collaborated with include Matthew Ship, Buddy Montgomery, Ken Chaney, Earl Thompson, Art Porter, David Murry, Gerald Cannon, Tatsu Aoki, Harrison Bankhead, Kirk Brown, Malachi Thompson, Corey Wilkes, Junius Paul and a host of others. Davis is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Currently, Davis performs with his group, Percussion Plus, which includes Ed Wilkerson, Scott Hesse, and Jim Baker.
EDWARD L. WILKERSON JR.
Edward L. Wilkerson Jr. (born July 27, 1953, in Terre Haute, Indiana) is an internationally recognized American jazz composer, arranger, musician, and educator based in Chicago. As founder and director of the innovative octet, 8 Bold Souls, and the 25-member performance ensemble Shadow Vignettes, Wilkerson has toured festivals and concert halls throughout the United States, Europe, Japan, and the Middle East. “Defender”, a large-scale piece for Shadow Vignettes, commissioned by the Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fund and featured in the 10th Anniversary of New Music America, a presentation of BAM’s Next Wave Festival. His music is on fourteen recordings, including two film soundtracks and the critically acclaimed albums Birth of a Notion, and 8 Bold Souls, both on his own Sessoms Records label. He has also been a major presence in Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), teaching composition at the organization’s music school and serving for a time as AACM president. He was an original member of the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble (formed by percussionist Kahil El’Zabar upon El’Zabar’s 1976 graduation from the AACM school) and remained with the group until 1997. He appeared on Ethnic Heritage Ensemble recordings such as: Three Gentlemen From Chicago (Moers), Hang Tuff (Open Minds), and Dance with the Ancestors (Chameleon). His most ambitious project, Shadow Vignettes, started in 1979; with twenty-five musicians and incorporates dance, poetry, and visual arts. Wilkerson has also played with the AACM Big Band, Roscoe Mitchell, Douglas Ewart, the Temptations, Chico Freeman, Geri Allen, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Muhal Richard Abrams, Aretha Franklin, and George Lewis. Wilkerson’s most recent release is the ensemble performance, Frequency, on the Thrill Jockey label. Encompassing distinctive compositions, and high-quality improvisational flights plus World and Native American sonic echoes, this debut CD confirms both the talents of the band Frequency and the continued adaptability of AACM members.
(RICHARD) ARI BROWN
(Richard) Ari Brown (born February 1, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois) is an internationally recognized tenor saxophonist, pianist, composer, arranger, and teacher. He began as a pianist, playing for soul, blues, and R&B artists around the midwest (Gene Chandler, the Chi-Lites, B.B. King, Lou Rawls, Chuck Berry, the Four Tops), and in 1965 he switched to tenor saxophone. He attended Woodrow Wilson College (renamed Kennedy-King) where he met Jack DeJohnette and other founders/early members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians: Henry Threadgill, Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, and Joseph Jarman. In 1968, he earned a bachelor’s degree from the VanderCook College of Music in Bronzeville. He joined the AACM in 1971 and was enlisted by the Awakening (which included AACM affiliates) for its two groundbreaking albums in 1972 and ‘73. In 1974, Brown lost teeth in an auto accident, and switched to piano till recovery. He played sax later in the 1970s with McCoy Tyner, Don Patterson, and Sonny Stitt. In the 1980s and onward, Brown would perform all over the world, started his own regular group, the Ari Brown Quintet, and continued to gig widely with other projects and bandleaders. His resumé is vast, but highlights include the AACM Experimental Orchestra, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Lester Bowie, Anthony Braxton (for his 1990s Charlie Parker Project), Donald Byrd, Malachi Favors, Von Freeman, Roscoe Mitchell, David Murray, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, and Orbert Davis ‘s Chicago Jazz Philharmonic. In 1989 he joined drummer Kahil El’Zabar in his Ritual Trio. Brown appears on more than seventy-five records, and in 1995, he recorded his first album, Ultimate Frontier. That year, he worked with frequent collaborators: his brother Kirk Brown on piano, Yosef Ben Israel on bass, and Avreeayl Ra on drums. The music honored bop’s past while looking forward to the freedom music it had spawned, and it led to more Delmark albums: 1998’s Venus, 2007’s Live at the Green Mill, and most recently 2013’s Groove awakening. Brown taught at Chicago Public Schools (1974-1989), and has since instructed at Columbia College (Chicago), the Chicago Conservatory of Music, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and other institutions. He’ played venues and events as diverse as the Smithsonian Institution, Steppenwolf Theatre, the Village Vanguard, the Newport Jazz Festival, and the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands.
PREYAS ROY
Preyas Roy (born January 9, 1985, in Syracuse, New York) is an accomplished, up and coming vibraphonist and marimba player. He started playing the mallets when he was about eleven and has been playing ever since. He came to Chicago to study at the University of Chicago, and soon after met his mentor, Sam Williams. Williams introduced Roy to street performing, and Roy soon became immersed in that improvisational space. He first played with Vincent Davis in 2011, performing a tribute to the late, great Baba Fred Anderson. Their ongoing weekly sessions began days later, and over the years, have included spectacular improvisors in Chicago’s creative and experimental music scene. Musicians he has worked with include Hanah Jon Taylor, Scott Hesse, Junius Paul, Ben Schmidt-Swarz, Andrew Lawrence, Darius Savage, and others. Earlier this year, Roy began hosting regular Monday jam sessions at The Katalyst, and creative musicians from all around the city flocked to take part in this collaboration.
NEW ALBUM
NEW RECORD! The Katalyst Conversation with Vincent Davis, Ari Brown, and Ed Wilkerson:
Introducing Preyas Roy
The Katalyst Conversation began in October 2021 with a series of concerts called “Mondays in October” featuring Vincent Davis and Ari Brown. These performances occurred at The Katalyst Coffee Lounge and Music Gallery, a coffee shop/record store that had just opened that year in Chicago. The store is an extension of Katalyst Entertainment, an independently owned and operated label based in Chicago for over 30 years. The label focused primarily on preserving the creative music that stemmed from the AACM tradition of “Great Black Music – Ancient to the Future”.
Proprietor and impresario, Kevin Beauchamp, produced the idea to pair Vincent Davis with Ari Brown for this series of duets to explore the musical language that the two would create. While they had played together in various situations, they never had played together in a duo context, which offers a more direct exchange of ideas. “Mondays in October” laid the groundwork for a second series of concerts at The Katalyst called “Mondays in May”. This series continued and soon became “The Conversation”.
In the meantime, up and coming vibraphonist and marimba virtuoso, Preyas Roy, began hosting regular Monday jam sessions at The Katalyst, and creative musicians from around the city flocked to take part in this collaboration. This was something not seen since The Velvet Lounge. “The Conversation” as a concept returned in March 2023 with Vincent Davis and Ari Brown. It featured Preyas Roy, Micah Collier, and others from the music community.
Now that the concept of “The Conversation” was established, in the spirit of moving the music forward, Vincent reached out to Ed Wilkerson to expand it even further and “The Conversation Continues” was performed in June of 2023. Because these three seasoned musicians share a common language, it came together quite naturally, and this powerhouse trio should continue exploring this musical dialogue. Vincent Davis, Ari Brown, and Ed Wilkerson are all internationally acclaimed musicians, and it is quite a wondrous occasion to bring them together for this “Conversation”. Preyas Roy represents the next generation in this journey and offers hope for the future as we are faced with many challenges and losses in the effort to preserve this culture of “Great Black Music – Ancient to the Future.”
