ÍøÆغÚÁÏ

Throttle Elevator Music is a West Coast collective who birthed their own brand of ferocious punk-funk-inspired jazz with the release of their eponymously titled debut album in 2012. A mix of expansionary workouts and tight, raucous punk cuts, the record highlighted leader Kamasi Washington's unique playing, coupled with Wide Hive founder, producer, and composer Gregory Howe's impassioned and relentless drive. Over the next seven years, they followed with ever-evolving musicality and innovation with periodically recorded albums showcasing their development and musical obsessions.

Founded by Howe, the group was brought together in 2011 to merge two uncompromisable genres: jazz and punk. Featuring young tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington, drummer Mike "Lumpy" Hughes, and bassist/pianist Matt Montgomery, with Howe in the producer's chair, Throttle Elevator Music saw them define their own take on punk-jazz. The ensemble reconvened in 2014 for their sophomore album, Area J, this time with Mike Hughes on drums, and once again delivering a resolute blast of ferocious jazz. The following year saw Howe and co. deliver their third long-player, 2015's Jagged Rocks, before returning again in 2016 with IV. Around the same time, Washington's career took off, with the release of his albums The Epic (2015) and Heaven & Earth (2018) cementing his position as one of jazz's leading lights. In 2017, a fifth LP from the ensemble appeared; titled Retrorespective, it featured a host of new material recorded in both 2011 and 2016.

Howe resurrected the Throttle Elevator Music ensemble for 2020's Emergency Exit. Like its predecessor, the album featured a host of unreleased music recorded between 2011 and 2014, and featured guest playing from the likes of Ross Howe, Kasey Knudsen, and trumpet player Erik Jekabson. In March 2021, Throttle Elevator Music issued Final Floor, their last collection of original music resurrected, as its title suggested, from the studio floor in the from of leftovers in the form of alternates, outtakes, demos, developed fragments, etc. Rather that present them as an odds 'n' sods collection of tracks, the set was carefully curated sequenced, and arrived as a proper seventh release. ~ Rich Wilson

A thoughtfully cerebral performer known for his sophisticated jazz chops, trumpeter/composer Erik Jekabson first emerged as a freelancer in the Bay Area in the late '90s. Based in San Francisco, Jekabson balances his time between performing and teaching, holding positions at the California Jazz Conservatory, Los Medanos College, and Diablo Valley College. While post-bop jazz is his forte, albums like 2012's Anti-Mass, 2017's Erik Jekabson Sextet, and 2018's The Falling Dream, with his big band the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, are anything but predictable, showcasing forays into Latin rhythms, funk, and chamber string music.

A native of Berkeley, California, Jekabson started playing music at an early age, eventually settling on the trumpet at age ten. By his teens, his playing had landed him a spot touring Japan with the Monterey Jazz Festival High School All-Star Big Band in 1991. After high school, he studied jazz at the prestigious Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio, where he was able to tour the United States promoting Oberlin's jazz program.

Graduating in 1994, Jekabson moved to New Orleans and found himself performing with such varied artists as trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, organist Eddy Louiss, and the jazz-funk group Galactic. A move to New York City in 1998 brought Jekabson work with an eclectic group of musicians including the Howard Fishman Quartet and the Illinois Jacquet Big Band, as well as gigs with his own post-bop-oriented ensemble, Vista. In 2003, Jekabson enrolled in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music's graduate program for composition. While active in the San Francisco music scene, he could also be found touring with singer/songwriter John Mayer.

In 2010, he released the album Crescent Boulevard. In 2012, he returned with Anti-Mass, featuring his arrangements for his small, string-based chamber jazz ensemble, the String-tet. The concert album Live at the Hillside Club, featuring Jekabson performing with his quartet and percussionist John Santos, appeared in 2014. Two years later, the trumpeter returned with the nuanced A Brand New Take. The sophisticated fusion- and post-bop-inflected Erik Jekabson Quintet appeared in 2017, while The Falling Dream, the second outing by his Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, followed a year later when the band was in an extended residency at the California Jazz Conservatory. Jekabson produced the album and wrote three of its ten tracks. The aptly titled Erik Jekabson Sextet arrived in 2018. A year later, he was back with his Electric Squeezebox Orchestra for Matter Is, which featured arrangements for big band and voices. The trumpeter's soulful fusion, Latin, and post-bop small group date, One Note at a Time, arrived in early 2020. ~ Matt Collar

Producer and musician Gregory Ross Howe was born in 1969 and came up in Santa Barbara, California. While enrolled at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, he majored in political and environmental sciences. Returning to the West Coast, he became active with the California Public Interest Group as well as the Patagonia Environmental Grant Program and specialized in on site Hazmat remediation projects; all excellent prerequisites for a trailblazing career in the music industry. Howe's pathway to success began with the formation of a band and the establishment of a makeshift recording studio in his living room. By the late ‘90s, he was operating the Wide Hive, a combination record store-café, performance venue, and full-service recording facility at 3299 Mission Street in San Francisco. Wide Hive's mission, so to speak, was "to integrate musicians with community and emphasize artistic independence." CDs created on-site were sold directly to patrons at the gigs. True to the cultural environment in which it thrived, business conducted at the Hive transcended mainstream genre distinctions as defined by the conceits of 21st century marketing analysis. To an even greater extent, Howe's Wide Hive records catalog, which over the next decade would rack up more than 30 releases, reflects the irrepressible cultural diversity of the locus and the day. The Wide Hive Players is a group descended from the house band. While funky groove jazz is their stylistic foundation, the composite Wide Hive label profile carries elements of acid jazz, salsa, rock, soul, rap, hip-hop, trip-hop, turntablism, downtempo, and various forms of electronica. The Wide Hive approach has been described as being respectful of past tradition while progressing toward new musical horizons. Thanks to Howe, veteran Detroit trombonist Phil Ranelin enjoyed a well-deserved comeback in the form of several Wide Hive releases that included visitations from saxophonists Pharoah Sanders and Wendell Harrison, bassist Henry Franklin, and hand drummer Big Danny Ray Black (aka Big Black). Core members of the Wide Hive Players include guitarist Luke Westbrook, bassist Matt Montgomery, trombonist Mike Rinta, saxophonists Doug Rowan and George Brooks, and drummer Big Thomas McCree. One of the original Players, trumpeter Tim Hyland, passed away in 2010. This tight little group, of central importance to Howe's gradual success, has backed master guitarists Calvin Keys, Larry Coryell, and Harvey Mandel.

While primarily active as producer, mixer, and composer, Howe periodically shows up on Wide Hive recordings using any combination of guitars, synthesizers, turntables, voice and percussion. The band that put him and Wide Hive on the map with an eponymous release in 1998 was called Dissent. Rather than referencing hand-to-hand combat or a conference in a matriarchal menstrual hut, the title of Dissent's second album, Bleeding Together (2002), is clearly emblematic of a culture where musical genre distinctions are fast becoming blended like dyes in a progressively unfurled silk painting. Bleeding Together, in fact, appeared almost simultaneously with Calvin Keys' Detours Into Unconscious Rhythms and two edgy offerings by Howe's Variable Unit featuring MC Azeem Ismail, an Afro-Jamaican-Panamanian-American rapper who achieved national fame while working with Michael Franti & Spearhead. It was through Howe that Azeem hooked up with DJ Zeph from Santa Cruz. Howe has produced recordings by vocalists Faye Carol and Jessica Cooke, rocker Ken Flagg, DJ Quest and the Mission's own JRK. In 2006, Howe and selected Wide Hive associates put together Salsa Blanco, a Latin soul and salsa album with strong ties to the neighborhood where Wide Hive first flourished. After seven years in the Mission District, Wide Hive moved to the East Bay. In 2012, now based in Albany, Howe's rock band the Neomythics came out with the album New Corporate Resistance. This was simultaneously brought before the public alongside Throttle Elevator Music, a toothy funk-rock album featuring saxophonist Kamasi Washington and a drummer named Lumpy. Years from now, Wide Hive's Gregory Howe will be regarded as a dynamic force in the rapidly diversifying independent musical culture of the early 21st century. He should never be confused with popular East Coast guitarist Greg Howe, who was born in New York in 1963. ~ arwulf arwulf