Dead Cat Bounce

Dead Cat Bounce: Chance Episodes

by Raul d'Gama Rose
March 12, 2012

It does not behoove to fall for the apparent flippancy of Dead Cat's Bounce. The name of the ensemble is merely an ironic take on the state of the union; and on a larger canvas it casts aspersions on the relevance of capitalism without the folk tradition. Even its use of klezmer music and a mash of marching music, folk blues rhythms and other cultural motifs are to suggest the richness of Babel-like nature of America's music. The wry sense ...

Dead Cat Bounce: Chance Episodes

by Jerry D'Souza
January 30, 2012

Saxophonist Matt Steckler is a man of many parts. As a musician he has led his own bands including the imaginatively titled Dead Cat Bounce and has played with some of the finest including saxophonists Anthony Braxton and Lee Konitz, and percussionist Bobby Sanabria. His varied associations and wide comfort zone are manifested in the array of styles infused into his compositions. He is well-served by his band, an unusual combination of four saxophones, bass and drums. Dead Cat Bounce ...

Dead Cat Bounce: Chance Episodes

by Dave Wayne
January 3, 2012

Combining a supremely agile multi-reed quartet with a lithe rhythm section, Dead Cat Bounce is anything but moribund on its Cuneiform debut, Chance Episodes. The title is a bit of a misnomer as well, as the highly developed compositions--all written and arranged by saxophonist/woodwind multi-instrumentalist Matt Steckler--leave little to chance. Originally commissioned by Chamber Music America in 2003 and subsequently refined and expanded for this recording, Steckler's pieces tend to proceed episodically as a string of seemingly unrelated movements or ...

Dead Cat Bounce: Chance Episodes

by Andrew J. Sammut
September 28, 2011

Saxophonist/composer Matt Steckler mentions “remembering things anew," when describing the music he wrote for Chance Episodes. Dead Cat Bounce certainly “remembers" several influences on its fourth album, yet its members recollect via their own unique voices. The Boston-based sextet munches on several speeds of hardboiled swing for “Food Blogger," with calypso beats sandwiched throughout. “Silent Movie, Russia 1995" travels between Terry Goss' big, bluesy tenor sax and Jared Sims' jagged klezmer riffs on clarinet. Sims also contributes ...

Dead Cat Bounce: Home Speaks To The Wandering

by Mark Sabbatini
August 17, 2004

Their music defies easy description, but there's no trouble understanding why they keep winning awards and polls as Boston's best jazz band.

Dead Cat Bounce blends everything from traditional big band to uber free jazz into a thick and inexplicably coherent canvas on their third album, Home Speaks To The Wandering. A record store owner might file this under avant-garde (fusion might be more appropriate in the true sense of the word), but it has enormous potential appeal ...

Dead Cat Bounce: Home Speaks to the Wandering

by Mark F. Turner
March 1, 2004

Dead Cat Bounce is about attitude. The saxophone quartet with rhythm section is definitely not your typical garden variety combo. With highly orchestrated material injected with taut musicianship and a sense of wittiness, the group has been lauded in the press and in their hometown of Boston. Their new recording Home Speaks to the Wandering continues in the vein of their recent recordings with tinges of Charles Mingus, the World Saxophone Quartet, and new attitudes.

A cursory listen might overlook ...

Dead Cat Bounce: Legends of the Nar

by Mark F. Turner
December 18, 2002

Their name might be a bit strange, but the Boston group Dead Cat Bounce is one of today’s more interesting and progressive saxophone quartets. Their new recording Legends Of The Nar is a workout for strong horn arrangements with a creative flair. With the profile notable groups such as the World Saxophone Quartet and the American Saxophone Quartet, the acceptance of the sax quartet is growing in popularity, and deservedly so. Many lesser known groups performing at universities and smaller ...

Dead Cat Bounce - Chance Episodes (Cuneiform, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland
October 22, 2011

Dead Cat Bounce is a stock market term, unusual for a jazz band, but no threat to our four legged felines. But nonetheless, their music is a wonderfully upbeat mixture of hard-bop and modern jazz with a four horn front line. Their music is exciting, full of exhilaration and humor which recalls if nothing else, the high energy splendor of Charles Mingus' classic recordings, or the great David Murray Octets. Dead Cat Bounce consists of Matt Steckler on saxophones and ...
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Dead Cat Bounce's "Chance Episodes:" Four Horns, Rhythm, and Matthew Steckler's Artistic Vision

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards
October 12, 2011

Matt Steckler, driving force behind the ensemble Dead Cat Bounce, joins three other reed soloists and an actively charged rhythm section in a program of Steckler compositions. Chance Episodes (Cuneiform Rune 323) is the concretion of the session, so to speak, and is some kind of concretion at that! It's the dynamic of a tightly interactive sax quartet with bass and drums, playing some charts that have a modern ring to them (sometimes a la Elvin Jones' classic recordings with ...
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Dead Cat Bounce Calendar: February 2004

Source: All About Jazz
February 10, 2004

Wednesday, February 4, 2004 Persiflage @ The Pourhouse Overground Series 790 Metropolitan Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11211 (718) 599-0697 www.thepourhouse.com (w/ Chris Van Voorst Van Beest, Eliot Krimsky and Eric Thompson) Saturday, February 7, 2004 Dead Cat Bounce @ The Center for Arts in Natick 14 Summer St. Natick, MA 01760 (508) 647-0097 www.natickarts.org w/ James Merenda's Masked Marvels DCB CD release tour: Monday, February 16, 2004 Zeno's 100 West College Ave. State College, PA 16801 (814) 237-2857 Tuesday, Feb. ...
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