27 July 2025 • 11:00

18 €

San Telmo Museoa

©Evy Ottermans

Kirk Knuffke Quartet Featuring Ray Anderson

Kirk Knuffke (cornet), Ray Anderson (trombone), Bill Goodwin (drums), Stomu Takeishi (bass)

A spectacular quartet of four geniuses who understand each other perfectly. A unique opportunity to see and listen to this stellar group, up close and on stage, in the wonderful cloister of the San Telmo Museum.

Kirk Knuffke grew up in Colorado and has lived in New York since 2005. There, he studied improvisation with Ornette Coleman, Art Lande and Ron Miles, and also started to collaborate with cornetist, Butch Morris. Since then, he has launched a series of albums, in his own name, first for the Clean Feed and No Business labels, and later, with pianist Jesse Stacken, for SteepleChase Records, including an album of Charles Mingus compositions. He has also worked with Matt Wilson and Mary Halvorson, with the Andrew D'Angelo Big Band, in Josh Roseman's Extended Constellations, and with artists like Roswell Rudd, Tootie Heath, Myra Melford, Cécile McLorin Salvant, James Brandon Lewis, Steve Swell, William Parker, Jeff Davis, Federico Ughi, Lisle Ellis, Charlie Hunter…

This prolific and acclaimed creator, cornetist and composer has, in the last two decades, produced almost 20 albums as leader or co-leader. Kirk Knuffke stands out for his untiring search for beauty, his taste for innovation, diversity and the unexpected; also for his instrumental mastery, his capacity for the fusion of tradition and innovation, his capacity for improvisation, and his versatility and creativity. As he himself puts it: “I’m concerned with making beautiful music. Even when music is free and avant-garde, I want it to reach people’s hearts. I like to play fast and loud and high, but beauty is always first, though not in a precious way. It can be in a rough way too.”

Ray Anderson is possibly the most innovative and outstanding trombonist of his generation, recognised for his ability to connect Jazz tradition with new forms of expression, and for pushing the limits of that instrument to the extreme. Since the 1970s, Anderson has broadened the sound range of the trombone through innovative techniques and a unique musical personality. He has been described as a lyrical interpreter and bold innovator, capable of combining, with inventiveness and creativity, nostalgic melodies with unpredictable improvisations.

He has been at the forefront of many different projects, such as Slickaphonics, Pocket Brass Band and BassDrumBone, and has collaborated with legendary figures such as Charlie Haden and Anthony Braxton.

Since 2003, Anderson has also been a Professor and director of Jazz Studies at the University of Stony Brook. He has received many awards and continues to record and perform, thrilling and captivating audiences, faithful to his belief in the healing power of music.

Bill Goodwin is an extremely versatile and prestigious American drummer who began his professional career at the tender age of seventeen, accompanying the renowned saxophonist Charles Lloyd. During the 1960s, he worked with outstanding musicians like Mike Melvoin, Art Pepper, Paul Horn, Frank Rosolino, Bud Shank, George Shearing and Gabor Szabo, and became established as a major talent on the Jazz scene.

In 1969, he joined the ensemble led by the great vibraphonist Gary Burton, and moved to the east coast of the United States. After three fruitful years with Burton, Goodwin decided to settle in the Pocono mountains, where he carried on with his career, playing in hotels and resorts. In 1974, he was a founding member of the Phil Woods quartet. For forty years, he was a key member, as well as producer, of the group, and won three Grammys.

Throughout his illustrious career, Goodwin has performed alongside, and recorded with, giants of the Jazz world like Bill Evans, Lee Konitz, Dexter Gordon, Jim Hall, Bobby Hutcherson, June Christy, Joe Williams, Tony Bennett, Mose Allison and The Manhattan Transfer. Goodwin’s career is living testimony to his musical prowess, to his commitment to art and to his abiding influence on the world of Jazz.

Stomu Takeishi, (born in 1964, in Mito, the capital city of Ibaraki Prefecture in northern Japan), is a talented and versatile Japanese Jazz bassist, recognised for his contribution to Jazz and experimental music. His distinctive style is characterised by the use of the fretless five-string electric bass, as well as a Klein five-string acoustic bass. To complement the playing of both instruments, extended electronic techniques such as looping are often drawn upon, allowing him to create unique, immersive soundscapes.

Takeishi began his musical career playing the koto, a traditional Japanese instrument, before moving to the United States in 1983 to study at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, in Boston, Massachusetts. After finishing his studies in 1986, he moved to Manhattan, to complete his training at The New School.

During the 1990s, Takeshi became established as an innovator on the New York Jazz scene. His creative focus and exceptional sensitivity to sound and timbre have been highly praised by critics and colleagues. Throughout his career, he has played at the major international Jazz festivals and performed on the biggest stages of New York, the United States and Europe.

Takeshi has collaborated and/or recorded with iconic figures of music such as Don Cherry, Henry Threadgill, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Butch Morris and Dave Liebman, showing his ability to adapt to many different styles and bring greater richness to every project with his unmistakeable artistic seal.