Myk Freedman Quartet, Sandcatchers

Myk Freedman Quartet: Myk Freedman-lap steel/composer, Kenny Warren-trumpet, JP Schlegelmilch-piano, Ari Folman Cohen-bass.

“Freedman’s ballads are some of the most gorgeous music in jazz right now.”
-David Dacks, Exclaim! Magazine

“Lap-steel whiz Myk Freedman excels at intensely evocative instrumentals that draw on Dixieland, klezmer and avant-garde jazz. His aesthetic is wistful yet subtly surreal.”
-Time Out New York

Composer, leader, and performer Myk Freedman is a Toronto native and two-time Canada Council for the Arts grant recipient. Myk is an active member in the Brooklyn creative music scene and can regularly be heard in various projects and ad hock ensembles led by local luminaries. Since 2001 he’s lead the Toronto ensemble Saint Dirt Elementary School, a nine piece junk yard jazz band dedicated to his numerous tunes. In Brooklyn he fronts Myk Freedman and the Mykfreedmans, a quintet of distinctly unique improvisers who interpret his music. He is also a consummate member of Kenny Warren’s otherworldly country band Laila and Smitty, Joey Weisenburg’s Hadar Ensemble specializing in modern Jewish vocal music and Yoshie Fruchter’s Turkish-Americana quartet the Sandcatchers.

Myk has performed with John Zorn, William Parker, Elliot Sharp, Cyro Baptista, Erik Friedlander, Kenney Wessel, and many others. His compositions have been recorded by his own groups, as well as by The MK Groove Orchestra, In a China Shop, and Laila and Smitty. The Toronto duo Martin & Haynes, has released two records dedicated to his music. In 2008, Myk worked with iconoclast John Oswald, arranging Strauss’ music for the Sun Ra Solar Arkestra.

SANDCATCHERS is a quartet featuring Yoshie Fruchter, Myk Freedman, Michael Bates and Shai Wetzer - a fresh sound blending the middle eastern trope of the oud with the dreamy, americana infused textures of the steel. Featuring original music by Fruchter inspired both by middle eastern maqam and the Appalachian trail, Sandcatchers is a beautiful collaboration of sound and souls.