Bands  |  Selected Performances  |  Discography  |  Presented By

 
The Pink Noise Saxophone Quartet

Here's a list of some of the jazz, rock and new music ensembles and bands I've performed, toured and worked with: More discography is below..

	The Pink Noise Saxophone Quartet, The Jig Is Up. 1999 Pink Tomato Music  My band from 1996-2002. Read a review of  The Jig is Up. ‘Ryhmically driven, mood shifting music with blues and bop roots, keeping an anarchic energy barely in check. They wove themes of jazz, blues and ethnic folk melodies into a huge sphere of sound that was always tuneful’ Cadence Magazine. To buy a CD send $10.00 (USD) plus $3 shipping in the US; $6 international to the address on the home page.
	Firewater (Universal Records) with Firewater ‘The Ponzi Scheme’  (Universal Records); Psychopharmacology (Jetset Records); Some Strange Reaction (Jetset Records) 1997. Go to the Firewater  website.
	The Last of the International Playboys Vegas Jazz & Latin Lounge (Transcontinental Records)  Web: The Last of the International Playboys
	The Modern Congress is a great album put together by a  very cool Sydney producer and guitarist Tim Rollinson. http://www.inthemix.com.au/reviews/music/20456/
	Myth Science (Knitting Factory Works) Review;  Love in Outer Space (Knitting Factory Works) Downtown Jazz & Other Sounds (Knitting Factory compilation 1997) Myth Science - Time Out (compilation) (Knitting Factory 1996) LOVE IN OUTER SPACE is a collection of Sun Ra compositions. Myth-Science: Briggan Kraus (alto saxophone); Tim Otto (tenor saxophone); Anthony Coleman (organ); Reuben Radding (acoustic bass); Ed Ware (drums). Recorded live at the Knitting Factory Tap Bar, New York, New York on October 7 & 8, 1995. Includes liner notes by Reuben Radding. JazzTimes (10/96, p.102) - "...[a] jumpin', happy set....They do capture some of the raw, emotive, unbridled spirit of Ra's mid-sized groups circa 1956-60 in Chicago....Myth Science gets beyond cool bar fare: it's lounge wizardry for thinkers.
	Virgil Moorefield Ensemble: ‘The Temperature in Hell is Over 3000 Degrees’. (Tdzadik Records); Unsettled Scores (Cuneiform Records). Various artists.
	The Original Otto Orchestra Don't bother with the covers bands. Only The Original Otto Orchestra has the right stuff. Fortunately for true music lovers, music from their vintage years as well as from their astonishing comeback ('Where the hell have these characters been? I mean what planet have they been on?' - Variety Gazette) is available on modern discs for the connoisseur. While the Ottos compositions and arrangements for massed saxophones (four of them in all) do not shun the spectacular, the loopy and the surreal, there is a serious intent here to explore the timbres and the blended tones of what Debussy, when asked to compose for saxophone, called, 'this strange aquatic instrument'. Each of the four members in fact plays at least two of the saxophone family. The frequency range is impressive - from bass sax, up through baritone and tenor to soprano. Whether buzzing like bagpipes, hooting coolly or roaring like fundamentalist preachers, the Ottos unfailingly intrigue the ear with their textures, harmonies and tones. By John Clare from  http://www.rufusrecords.com.au/artists.html Available special order only; LP and cassette.

Here's a strange clip circa 1988. An Australian band I played in called Pardon Me Boys doing their hit version of Stairway to Heaven.

Also as a sideman:
Steven Bernsteins’ Diaspora Soul
George Kilby Junior and the Coolerators
The Big Apple Circus
Pinetop Perkins; The blues piano legend (as seen on a Chicago street corner in The Blues Brothers movie,) and Grammy Lifetime achievement award recipient.2005.
The Main Squeeze Orchestra; A band of 16 women accordionists led by a dear friend of mine Walter Kuehr,  I recently arranged one of my pieces for them, and as far as I know, I'm the only man other than Walter to have had the absolute pleasure to have played in the band.
Ska legend Roscoe Gordon.
The Muggles; A band project for book publisher Scholastic to create music for the Harry Potter author J.K Rowling on her 1st visit to the US.
The Bluetones
The Stingers
The Brooklyn Saxophone Quartet
Radio cult figure Joe Frank
Eve Beglarian
The Flux Quartet
Joe Gallant and the Illuminati Big Band
Michelle Kinney and Chris Cunningham's’ Ésctatomatique
The Original Otto Orchestra
Cecil Taylor- rehearsal band 1994
The Australian Environmental Orchestra. New Guinea Tour 1990.
The New York Theater Workshop
Pardon Me Boys
David Linton and Electric Outhaus

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More Discography:

Chris Cunningham Stories to Play (2000)
Joe Gallant & Illuminati Big Band 'Code of The West' Scratchy Records 1994
The Original Otto Orchestra OOO/ABC Records 1989
Pardon Me Boys: ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission )Records Stairways to Heaven

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Selected performances and venues:
Bang on a Can, Avery Fischer Hall
Knitting Factory and related festivals, 1996,97 and 98;
Soha Arts Festival
Merkin Hall
MOMA
LaMama
North Sea Jazz Festival
NY Microtonal Festival
PS 122
Dixon Place
La Mama Galleria
CBGB's, and Gallery 313
Barbican Center, London
Singapore Arts Festival
Hamumis Festival, Papua New Guinea
Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide Arts festivals. (Australia)
American Festival of Microtonal Music
New York Theater Workshop
Extensive US, Australian and world touring and club performances.

Film, Video and Theater:
Scores for..
Russia For Sale (PBS Documentary Dir. Natasha Lance. Parallax Productions NY, 1993.
Dummy
'Lester Shot From a Canon' Dir. Adam Yaffe. Fingerprint Films NY 1993
Every Good Boy Dir. Adam Yaffe. Fingerprint Films NY 1995
Dance scores w/ Lucy Guerin at DIA Center for the Arts and Judson Church
Susan Graham: Score for video installation. Southhampton College 2004

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Tim’s music and compositions have been presented by:
The Jazz Composers Collective
Texaco NY, and Heineken NY Jazz Festivals 1998, 1999
Edge Fest, Ann Arbor MI
The Absolute Ensemble
Meridian Arts Ensemble
Roulette, NY
Dixon Place
Kostabi World
Danspace @ St Marks Church
Film, TV, theater and dance:
Tim can be seen in the 2003 movie release ‘Dummy’ starring supermodel Mila Jovcovitch, and Academy Award winner Adrian Brody who plays a depressed suburban ventriloquist. Tim played drums in Mila’s characters’ band, and can be heard also playing clarinet on the soundtrack.

Here's a review quote for the Pink Noise Sax Quartet: from Artist Direct:
New York City's Pink Noise Saxophone Quartet is led by Australian tenor and soprano saxophonist Tim Otto , who has also performed with Myth Science , Joe Gallant , and the Virgil Moorefield Ensemble. Otto formed the quartet in 1994, applying the "Pink Noise" name to the group in a reference to both the lush harmonies of combined saxophones and the abrasiveness of low frequency static. Far from abrasive, however, the PNSQ juxtaposes street marches, funk, freewheeling jazz, blues, and Middle Eastern music, performing pieces with both solo and collective improvising as well as adventurous ensemble writing. The original quartet included Peck Allmond -- an alto and tenor saxophonist from the San Francisco Bay area who has also played with Don Cherry , Peter Apfelbaum and the Julius Hemphill Sextet -- Nathan Salant, and Blaise Siwula in addition to Otto . During the late '90s, the quartet went through a number of personnel changes, always retaining Otto in the driver's seat while evolving into a unit characterized by rigorous compositions and arrangements in addition to free-blowing improvisation. Other members of the PNSQ have also included Andy Laster -- of Hydra , Interpretations of Lessness, the Julius Hemphill Sextet, New and Used, Ballin' The Jack , and Erik Friedlander 's Topaz -- on baritone saxophone, Canadian Michael Blake -- of John Lurie 's Lounge Lizards , Groove Collective , and Kamikaze Ground Crew -- on tenor saxophone, and Briggan Krauss -- of Babkas , Wayne Horvitz's Pigpen, Good Kitty, Andrea Parkins' Cast Iron Fact, and his own recent trio with Horvitz and drummer Kenny Wollesen -- on alto saxophone. The Pink Noise Saxophone Quartet released its first CD, The Jig Is Up , on the independent Pink Tomato Music label in 1998. The CD features Otto , Allmond, Laster , and either Blake or Krauss augmented by the rhythm section of bassist Dom Richards and drummer Aaron Alexander in an energetic live session recorded on two dates in the summer of 1998 at the Knitting Factory's Tap Bar in NYC. The high spirits and humor of the recording are evident in the titles of the eight Tim Otto compositions, which include "Pass the Cous Cous," "Fish Eats Dog," and "Romance in Underpants." ~ Dave Lynch, All Music Guide

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