Acclaimed Italian creative jazz musicians Daniele Cavallanti and Tiziano Tononi will be embarking on a tour of the midwestern United States from October 18th --- 31st.

Tenor saxophonist Cavallanti and percussionist Tononi are longstanding members of the Italian Instabile Orchestra, a super-group of Italy---s finest improvisers. They also lead several projects of their own and play together as the duo Udu Calls. They have performed and recorded with several major innovators of creative jazz music including: Cecil Taylor, Dewey Redman, Andrew Cyrille, Roswell Rudd, William Parker, Muhal Richard Abrams, Walter Wierbos, Willem Breuker, Oliver Lake, Leroy Jenkins and many others.

For this tour they will be teaming with up-and-coming Chicago improvisers to form the quintet Chicago Udu Calls. The three musicians that will join Cavallanti and Tononi are Dan Godston on trumpet, Jayve Montgomery on reeds and percussion, and Joel Wanek on upright bass.

They perform in the Chicago area as the Ways & Means Trio. These three young Chicago musicians explore the intricacies and multiplicities of sound and vibration using rhythms, melodies, drones and other soundscapes. Their performances are an amalgam of ritual and ceremony, mourning and celebration, dance and chance.

Although they are an ocean apart, these five musicians share a common affinity for American jazz, traditional African and Asian music, and European free improvisation.

Together their music will embrace and employ instrumentation, melodies and rhythms from around the world as it creates its own identity. Each performance is sure to be a different journey than the next.

Bios:
Tenor and baritone saxophone player Daniele Cavallanti was born in Milano in 1952 and is active on the Italian and European jazz scene since 1970.

At first with the Gruppo Contemporaneo with trumpeter Guido Mazzon and pianist Gaetano Liguori, then with Roman pianist Patrizia Scascitelli---s quartet, the band Aktuala and his own trio with bassist Roberto Della Grotta and drummer Filippo Monico.

In 1981, returning to Italy after a two years stay in Amsterdam, forms the band Nexus, soon co-leaded with drummer Tiziano Tononi. Nexus is considered an historical group of the Italian avant-garde jazz scene, and it has been voted best Italian band in 2003 and second best band in 2004. Daniele Cavallanti is also founding member of the celebrated Italian Instabile Orchestra.

During his career he has recorded, both as leader and as side-man, over 40 records and Cds and has played, among others, with: Gianluigi Trovesi, Enrico Rava, Giorgio Gaslini, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Cecil Taylor, Roswell Rudd, Dewey Redman, Herb Robertson, Mark Dresser, Raphael Garret, Barre Phillips, Andrew Cirylle. Maggie Nicols, Keith Tippet, William Parker, Glenn Ferris, Jean Jacques Avenel, Oliver Johnson, Trilok Gurtu, Radu Malfatti, Oliver Lake, Muhal Richard Abrams, Leroy Jenkins, Ran Blake, Nels Cline, Evan Parker, Paul Lytton, Michel Godard, Wolter Wierbos, Willem Breuker, Elliot Sharp, Jerry Granelli.

Both with Nexus and the Italian Instabile Orchestra played all over Italy, Europe and in Canada, United States and Japan.

Tiziano Tononi -- Drummer, Percussionist, Composer

Born in Milano on November 18th 1956, starts playing in rock bands and gets closer to jazz since the mid-seventies. In 1978 meets american percussionist Andrew Cyrille with whom starts studying in New York and successively in Europe as well.

In 1979 enrolls the Civica Scuola di Musica di Milano, studying classical percussion under David Lee Searcy, principal tympanist at the Teatro alla Scala, Milano, and playing contemporary chamber music. Collaborates with the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala playing Boris Godunov - 1979 - Romeo and Juliet - 1980 - and a concert with music by L.Nono in 1981. In that same year returns to New York to study with Bob Moses, and founds the group Nexus with saxophonist Daniele Cavallanti. In the same period becomes a member of the D.O.M. Orchestra, with which records for the first time and partecipates at his first European festivals, Grenoble 1982 and Rive De Gier 1983.

Gets more known with Nexus, in Italy first and then in Europe, through concerts and festivals appearan ces: Milano, Cagliari, Clusone, Bolzano, Noci, Le Mans, Koln, Moers, Vienna, Vilshofen, Opeye, Mulhouse, Verona, Saarbrucken-St.Ingbert, Gent, Tampere, S.AnnaArresi, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Vancouver, Istanbul. In twenty-five years the band has seen the partecipation of some of the best Italian musicians, as well as the appearance of guests Glenn Ferris, Mark Dresser, Herb Robertson and Roswell Rudd.

Nexus has released eight works - two LP's and six CD's - all of them very well received by both the critics and the public - all of them have been included in the annual Top Jazz critics pool by the Musica Jazz review - while the band has been voted Best Group Of The Year in 2002 and 2004 in the same critics pool.

In the second half of the 80's starts a long serie of collaborations with some of the most outstanding exponents of the new Italian jazz scene, among which Tiziana Ghiglioni, Gianluigi Trovesi, Roberto Ottaviano, Stefano Battaglia, Giancarlo Schiaffini. Plays and/or records also with Muhal Richard Abrams, Pierre Favre, David Friedman, Dave Liebman, Jean-Jacques Avenel, Oliver Johnson, Maggie Nicols, Andrew Cyrille, Barre Phillps, Evan Parker, Mark Dresser, Ray Anderson, Enrico Rava, Steve Lacy, Dewey Redman, William Parker, Cecil Taylor. Founds in 1985 the percussion group Moon On The Water with David Searcy and Jonathan Scully, with whom has record ed three works with guests Pierre Favre and ex-Police Stewart Copeland.

In 1989 founds the Jazz Chromatic Ensemble orchestra with D.Cavallanti and since 1990 plays with the Italian Instabile Orchestra, with which has performed in the major international festivals and venues (Rive De Gier, Monaco, Moers, Mulhouse, Zurich, Paris, Nevers, Le mans, Grenoble, Chambery, Vilshofen, Koln, Berlin,Vossa, Lisbon, Faro, Porto, Guimaraes, Madrid, Sevilla, Salamanca, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Yokohama, Istanbul) and has recorded for ECM and Enja. Since 2000 the Instabile Orchestra started collaborating with Cecil Taylor, and the result is documented by the CD "The Owner Of The River Bank" on Enja Records.

In 1991 was hired as a percussionist to partecipate in the first edition of the "Grande Orchestra Nazionale di Jazz" conducted by G.Gaslini. In 1995 composes the music for the short "Ketchup" by Carlo A.Sigon, AIACE first price at the Mostra del Cine ma di Venezia. In the same year writes for Nexus the soundtrack for the 1929 film "The Man With The Movie Camera" by Dziga Vertov, a work that would have been recorded lately in '97.

In 1996 records under his own name "Awake Nu" a double CD dedicated to the figure of Don Cherry, first international tribute to the great musician who had died a few months before, with the Society Of Freely Syncopated Organic Pulses,with some of the best new Italian musicians and New York trumpet player Herb Robertson. "Awake Nu" was voted Best Album Of The Year in both the Musica Jazz and Musica & Dischi magazines Critics Pool. In May 1997 records a tribute to John Coltrane, "Coltrane's Infinity Train", with the same Society Of---, a work commissioned by both RAI3 Radio Audiobox and Musica Jazz magazine to celebrate the 30th anniver sary since Trane's departure. In tha same year records also with both The Multipho nics Tuba Trio (with Renato Geremia and Michel Godard) and Beppe Caruso's Mr.C. Releases in '98 Nexus' sixth recorded work, this time a double CD entitled "We Still Have Visions", and containig the ultimate version of the music for the Dziga Vertov film "The Man With The Movie Camera".

1999 is largely devoted to the realization of his most ambitious project, a homage to the music and the figure of Rahsaan Roland Kirk: the result is the triple CD "We Did It, We Did It (Rahsaan & the None)", winner once again as Best Record Of The Year in both the Musica Jazz and Musica & Dischi magazines Critics Pool in 2000. In 2001 records with The Nexus Orchestra 2001 the double CD "Seize The Time!", to celebrate twenty years with Nexus---with most of the musicians who played with the band in its different incarnations and honorable member Roswell Rudd. This time the CD wins first price in the Musica & Dischi Critics Pool and gets second in the Musica Jazz Pool, while the band is voted Best Of The Year by Musica Jazz. Since 2002 re-collaborates steadily with singer Tiziana Ghiglioni, with whom records "Rotella Variations", based on the sonic works of visual artist Mimmo Rotella, and "So Long Flores" in 2004. The latest Nexus issue is a live recording published in September 2004, "Rivers Of Dreams", that defines under the name The Nexus Workshop 2004" the mood, feeling and everchanging nature of the Nexus concept---.

Next projects deal with an in-depht work on the music of Ornette Coleman (entitled "Peace Warriors", the work is made of two different volumes - the first already available since Spring 2005, the second to be released in 2007), a serie dedicated to the drummers-composers, a work on the music of Eric Dolphy, the music of an idiosyncratic band like King Crimson, and, in the long run, a "monster" work on the music of Frank Zappa.