Joseph Daley Tonal Colors Trio

Joseph Daley (piano, euphonium, tuba, drone flute, electronics), Ken Filiano (string bass, electronics), Shu Odamura (guitar, electronics)

The Tonal Colors Trio is an exploration into the improvisational concepts of visionary Sam Rivers using expansive tonal colors. “This music colors/shades, reflects/deflects, echoes/contradicts, calls/responds, parries/thrusts and swirls about in a pastiche of joyous abandon and transcendent expression.”

Joseph Daley is a highly acclaimed instrumentalist, composer/arranger, and educator specializing in new contemporary music, jazz, and improvisation. He earned a master’s degree in music education at the Manhattan School of Music and retired as a music educator after over 30 years of distinguished service. Mr. Daley has received fellowships in music composition from the National Endowment of the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, Music Omi, and the Geraldine R Dodge Foundation: and has been commissioned for acclaimed works by the Tri-Centric Foundation and Dance Clarinet Ensemble (through Brooklyn Council on the Arts.)  Daley has performed, recorded, and toured internationally with Muhal Richard Abrams, Sam Rivers, Gil Evans, Carla Bley, Howard Johnson’s Gravity, Liberation Music Orchestra, Far East Side band, Burning Bridge ensemble and Hazmat Modine. His enormous versatility and range have made him a much in-demand collaborator for a genre-bending array of superb artists, including Taj Mahal, Jayne Cortez, Dave Douglas, Bill Dixon, Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, Craig Harris, Bill Cole, George Gruntz, Reggie Nicholson, Warren Smith, Natalie Merchant, Taylor Ho Bynum, The Kronos String Quartet, Hunn Hur Tu, The Alash Ensemble, and The Gangbe Brass Band of Benin. In 2011, Joseph formed the JoDaMusic label, primarily to release his orchestral music. Its initial release, The Seven Deadly Sins, featured his Earth Tones Ensemble – a full jazz orchestra. This powerfully innovative music mines the same rich vein of musical expression as that of immortals like Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, and George Russell, receiving rave reviews and making several Best of Year lists. Following up were two string orchestra projects: The Seven Heavenly Virtues (partially funded through New Music USA), and Portraits: Wind, Thunder and Love which includes the five-movement suite Wispercussion: Five Portraits of Warren Smith – both featuring string orchestras. The Tuba Trio Chronicles (a tribute to Sam Rivers), The Tuba Trio Chronicles Vol 2 and The Trayvon Martin Suite (a live concert recording with Bill Cole) are also available on the label.

Currently, Joseph is working on several projects for an extensive series of events in celebration of his 75th birthday in 2024.

Ken Filiano is a bassist, composer, improviser, and teacher who performs around the world, fusing the rich traditions of the double bass with his own seemingly limitless imagination. A “creative virtuoso” (JazzValley), Ken has performed and recorded with a veritable who’s who in multiple genres, from Anthony Braxton to Pablo Ziegler. Ken leads two quartets, Quantum Entanglements and Baudolino’s Dilemma, and is co-leader of The Steve Adams/Ken Filiano Duo, Filiano-Grassi-Lerner, and Double Duo (with Jay Clayton). He has been an integral member of groups led by such artists as Karl Berger and Ingrid Sertso, Connie Crothers, Bill Dixon, Vinny Golia, Taylor Ho Bynum, Jason Kao Hwang, Diane Moser, Roswell Rudd, Fay Victor, We Free Strings, and numerous others, and collaborated with poets Davida Singer, Barry Wallenstein, and Upsurge! (Raymond Nat Turner and Zigi Lowenberg). His extensive discography includes the solo CD, “Subvenire”(Nine Winds) and Quantum Entanglements’ “Dreams from a Clown Car” (Clean Feed). He teaches master classes in bass and improvisation, has a private bass studio, is a frequent guest teacher at School for Visual Arts and Hunter College (New York City), and is a Guiding Artist and Advisor at Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, NY.

Shu Odamura: Born and raised in Kyoto, Japan, Shu Odamura is a guitarist and composer based in New York City. He received a scholarship to Berklee College of Music and came to the United States in 2006. He was honored by the 32nd Annual Jazz Station Awards as the third top acoustic guitarist in the world in 2010. Soon after his graduation from Berklee in Jazz composition, Shu relocated himself to NYC and formed the first band, Shu Odamura Trio. Its debut album “Cloud Illusions” was released on What’s New Records. The album was reviewed in All About Jazz, Minor 7th, Jazz Life Magazine, and Jazz Japan Magazine. In 2016 he co-founded another group, Jazz Triangle 65-77, which has toured in Japan, Thailand and performed at the Blue Note New York and Flushing Town Hall. Besides his Jazz gigs, Shu has appeared in Off-Broadway musicals and theater projects in the New York Area, including the projects with Watoku Ueno’s shadow puppetry group where Shu has been the music director for over a decade. The list of the venues he has performed includes Williamstown Theatre Festival, American Airline’s Theatre, Minetta Lane Theatre, LaMaMa ETC, Joe’s Pub, Nublu 151, 54 Below, The Greenroom 42 and Vanguard Theatre. As a composer and arranger, he has written music for independent films, wind bands, wind ensembles and Jazz big bands.