B-Side presents B-Side Jazz Festival Grand Pianoramax featuring Mr. Lif & Celena Glenn with Dessa (Doomtree)

When Leo Tardin steps behind the keyboards and becomes Grand Pianoramax, he moves like a subterranean silhouette, reminiscent of a familiar, unassuming young man with a trim haircut and dark-rimmed glasses who discretely dons a superman outfit. He is an agile crusader, permanently on the run: out to save Metropolis with a super hero dose of nocturnal music. On his sophomore album "The Biggest Piano In Town", Tardin shreds any static notions of what jazz is and serves up a piping hot disc of phuture funk, hip-hop and spoken word.

On his 2005 debut, Tardin was backed up on drums by live drum'n'bass pioneer Jojo Mayer as his sidekick. With "The Biggest Piano In Town" he enlists two new heavy hitters. Syncopating in staggered rhythm are the prodigious drum masters: Deantoni Parks (Kudu, The Mars Volta, Me’Shell Ndegeocello, Tom Waits) and Adam Deitch (50 Cent, Talib Kweli, The Game, John Scofield). Alternating each of these two drummers, the keyboard/drums duo that is Grand Pianoramax strips the music down to its most essential form. With every note, the clichés of electronica and acid-jazz fall away, saving listeners from their musical diet of mainstream junk food.

This second group effort also introduces narrators to vividly tell the album’s story through the trials of our modern age. The Geneva-born artist brings in an international crowd to serve his cause: Mike Ladd, one of the revolutionary ministers of rap in 2008, tells the very adult superhero battle on “Showdown”; Detroit-based Invincible flows about water rights on “Blue Gold”; Brooklyn’s Celena Glenn channels the poetic fury of Amiri Baraka on “The Hook”; and Spleen, the Frenchman from Cameroon, collaborates with Glenn and shows that he just might be a punk-infused successor to Prince. The Biggest Piano In Town is an oratorio on demolished ecology and urban consciousness using poetic sensuality. The songs and slams unravel and take on the failings of a jubilant world, avoiding the gimmicks cluttering much of the extemporaneous fare on the market.

Tardin’s music and his freshness of purpose shine as he dedicates himself to playing instruments which these days are seen more as museum objects; namely, the Minimoog, Fender Rhodes and a real grand piano made of lacquered wood. With these three instruments put to good use, Grand Pianoramax’s eruptive, organic sound is a joyful explosion that ransacks conservatories, transcends categories and aims for the dance floor.

In a musical landscape dominated by sampling, Grand Pianoramax’s new album goes beyond. Tardin reintroduces the joy of playfulness and the music radiates profoundly. It doesn’t quiet the paradoxes of our time; instead it brings them out for a musical examination and exploration." The Biggest Piano In Town" earns its bold title. It is no bluff.

FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE WHAT'S IN THE PRESS: “The ever talented pianist and composer, Leo Tardin returns to ObliqSound for his second genius album of awe inspiring avant jazz explorations. Absolutely brilliant and essential for all discerning future music lovers.” – BPM (USA)

"Big keys, nasty words...Grand Pianoramax forges an expansive sonic palette using the scaled-down instrumentation of keyboard and drums." – Downbeat Magazine (USA) “

Keep an eye out for this group. Grand Pianoramax may be the future of funk.” –Dallas Observer (USA)

“The Biggest Piano in Town displays Tardin’s ability to send free-form jazz, future funk, art rock and hip-hop into exhilarating free fall.” – Metro London (UK)

“Grand Pianoramax is a lean, mean, future funk machine.” – Time Out London (UK)

“It would be a real shame if Grand Pianoramax wasn’t playing to capacity audiences at somewhere like the Queen’s Hall next time. They certainly deserve it. – Edinburgh Evening News (UK) “Grand Pianoramax, developed from Leo Tardin’s old school synthesizers and the vocal stylings of Mike Ladd is a broad, rhythmic delirium.” – Expresso (PT)

“Resolutely modern and urban. (…) Greatly imaginative.” – Jazz Magazine (FR)

“Tardin belongs, alongside colleagues such as Jason Moran, Matthew Shipp and Vijay Iyer, to the small circle of those jazz pianists who look passionately and intelligently for new ways to reanimate jazz through the infusion of modern Grooves.” – Berliner Zeiting (DE)

“The biggest piano in town? Definitely the most imaginative!” – Tribune de Genève (CH)

Mr. Lif
Mr. Lif has become perhaps the most touted lyricist in Boston Hip-Hop history" (Boston Phoenix 12/1/00). Since his 1997 debut on Brick Records Rebel Alliance LP, Mr. Lif has released numerous singles, an EP and a live album to international critical acclaim. 1998's "Elektro," and 1999's "Triangular Warfare," which featured B-side production from underground kingpin El-P (then of Company Flow), introduced the world to Lif's infectious delivery and distinct voice. In the Fall of 1999 Lif hooked up with the Beastie Boy's Grand Royal Records for the release of his third single "Farmhand" as part of the 12" series Blow up Factor. The year 2000 marked the release of Lif's first EP Enters the Colossus on Definitive Jux Records, prefaced by the lead single "Front on This." This past year, Mr. Lif did what few hip-hop artists have ever tried to do, he released a live album. Live at the Middle East brings to life Mr. Lif's incredible energy and ability, as he performs all the classics, plus introduced three new songs to the masses.

Mr. Lif is poised to release both an EP, and his debut full-length album in 2002. Emergency Rations, which will be released on June 25th, is a seven-song EP which offers in-depth commentary of the ills of the American society post 9/11. In a voice reminiscent of political giants like Public Enemy, Mr. Lif calls America's foreign policy into question, and examines with a critical eye the War on Terrorism. In an era of increasing censorship and violation of civil liberties, Lif speaks for the unheard masses.

Mr. Lif's debut full-length effort, I Phantom, will be released on September 3rd 2002 on Definitive Jux Records. Lif and long-time friend and legendary beatsmith El-P (founder of Definitive Jux Records) team up for six incredible tracks on the album, with production by Lif, Fakts One, Insight and Edan round out the rest of the album. I Phantom features guest shots from Jean Grae, El-P, Aesop Rock, Akrobatik, Insight, Edan and more.

Four-time Boston Music Awards winner, Mr. Lif has toured the world, performing alongside the very best in Hip-Hop and beyond, including; Eminem, The Roots, Company Flow, Busta Rymes, Burning Spear, Souls of Mischief, Cannibal Ox, KRS-One, Mos Def and Talib Kweli, Roni Size Reprazent, Tortoise, Zap Mama and many, many more.

As a lyricist, Mr. Lif offers Hip-Hop through the eyes of an intelligent man who is passionate about his art form. He commands the attention of his peers and seeks to inspire them to search for Knowledge of Self. Within one song, he may launch an attack on the American educational system while delivering an onslaught of battle rhymes that will make Hip Hop fans reminiscent of park jams back in '88. Mr. Lif uses a powerful command of vocabulary to create vast and precise images. Listeners receive an intense lyrical package that contains highly visual content delivered via polyrhythmic flows, a voice full of character and authority, as well as a compelling sincerity that will blow your mind.

Dessa
If Doomtree was an elite crime-fighting unit: The things this woman comes up with. When she's not getting her lab coat all in a bunch over some piece of evidence that somebody spilled coffee on, she's outfitting the team with the craziest toys. Explosive cigarettes? Sure. Latex fingerprints? All the time. Everyone's always telling her to "give it to me in english." Once in a while Dessa's roped into the field when we need that "feminine touch," and she's got a real knack for it. But she'll never really leave the lab. It's her calling. Chemistry, physics, strands of DNA; that's her family. It's obvious to everyone, though, that she gets a kick out of occasionally losing the glasses and the clipboard, letting down her hair, and masquerading as a ballroom dancer at the Chilean embassy.

Tickets on sale noon Fri Mar 20 from the Cedar Ticketline (612-338-2674 ext 2), Cedar outlets, and online at Ticketweb.

B-Side Jazz Festival

Celena Glenn

Dessa

Dessa’s first release with Doomtree, False Hopes, introduced a unique sensibility to underground hip-hop: literary, bitter-sweet, and wry. She alternated between a clever, droll persona as an emcee and her earnest, unaffected delivery as a singer with a low,...

Grand Pianoramax

Winner of the first Montreux Jazz Festival International Piano Solo Competition, Leo Tardin conceived Grand Pianoramax as a live keyboards/drums duo with guest MCs/vocalists, blending powerful analog-synth bass lines, syncopated keys, organic drumming and...

Mr. Lif

Mr. Lif (born Jeffrey Haynes) is a Boston rapper who is currently signed to New York independent label Definitive Jux. Besides his solo career, Lif is also a member of the hip hop group The Perceptionists with long-time friends and collaborators Akrobatik and...