From New York’s RUCMA:

Start: 12/22/2008 – 7:30pm
End: 12/22/2008 – 10:00pm
Timezone: Etc/GMT-4

Ras Moshe
Monday, December 22 @ 7:30 PM
Yippie Café: 9 Bleecker Street, near Bowery
General Admission: $10
Students and Seniors: $7
Jam Session @ 9:00: $5

Ras Moshe, tenor saxophone
Rashid Bakr, drums

Brooklyn, New York native, Ras Moshe, studied music in school as a child and with his father, saxophonist Ted “Jacob” Burnett II. His grandfather, Ted Burnett, played tenor sax in the bands of Earl Bostic, Lucky Millender, Jimmy Mundy, Don Redman, Ella Fitzgerald and many others after coming to America from Jamaica. Although trained in earlier forms of Jazz, Ras’ preferred mode of improvisation is in the later or “free” developments of the music. At the age of 16, he started playing alto in roots reggae bands and in the early 90’s he picked up the tenor and decided to pay homage to Coltrane, Albert Ayler, John Gilmore and his other favorites on a permanent basis, without copying verbatim.

He definitely believes in the positive effect the new music will have on social and personal change. He formed The Music Now Unit in 1999 with Jackson Krall, Tor Snyder, Matt Lavelle, Kyoko Kitamura, Matt Heyner and Todd Nicholson. You can hear different editions of the band on the “Live Spirits” series, released by Utech records. His new band is The Ras Quartet with Dave Ross, Shayna Dulberger and Rashid Bakr. Their latest release is called “Transcendence” on KMB Jazz (2007). Other collaborators include Kyoko Kitamura and Dafna Naphtali, who are in the forefront of electronic and vocal improvisation. In addition to his performance activities, Ras is also the founder and organizer of The Music Now Festival, which is still going strong after 7 years.

www.myspace.com/rasmoshe