Paul Austerlitz Band - Afro-Caribbean Jazz

Paul Austerlitz Band brings an Afro-Caribbean jazz set to Shrine. The billing identifies the act as a band, though no musicians or show-specific lineup are announced. Expect music shaped by Austerlitz’s meeting point of Caribbean traditions and jazz, rather than a fixed personnel list inferred from earlier appearances.

Born in Finland, Austerlitz came to New York City at age one and is known as a reed player, composer, and ethnomusicologist. His work draws particularly on Haiti and the Dominican Republic, blending Latin and Caribbean music with free forms of jazz. Original pieces have been described as inspired by ritual sounds from those two places, and his Dr. Merengue forms part of the Marasa Twa: Vodou-Jazz-Merengue trilogy. His collaborators include Ed Blackwell, Julius Hemphill, Jimmy Knepper, Doc Cheatham, Dave Murray, Don Byron, Roswell Rudd, Gunter Hampel, poet Michael Harper, the Haitian group Foula, and merengue musician Joseíto Mateo. The Vinyl Anachronist called the music “about jazz, the bass clarinet and world music,” full of “splendid noises,” while Raul da Gama praised Austerlitz’s “dazzling technique” and the music’s “emotional intensity.”