Craig Taborn & Dave King Duo - Heroic Enthusiasts

Internationally renowned Jazz musicians Dave King and Craig Taborn first played music together in 1982 at a winter basement birthday party in Golden Valley Minnesota where they both grew up. This first meeting performing rock covers on synthesizer and drum set led to a long friendship and musical partnership that has them both to considerable success in playing and interpreting their own and other people’s music. Supporting artists like Dave Holland, Joshua Redman, Chris Potter, Ros-coe Mitchell, Evan Parker, Tim Berne the two also individually lead their own ensembles: Dave King with The Bad Plus, Happy Apple, The Trucking Band and Taborn with the Avenging Angel solo piano concerts, his trio, Junk Magic and Daylight Ghosts quartet.

During soundchecks while touring with Taborn’s Daylight Ghosts quartet in 2016 and 2017 the two musicians started to evolve short duets with drums, electronics and piano. Taborn generating rhythmic and tone color patterns from his electronic set up and King quickly joining on the acoustic kit and electronic drum pads. From this both would begin to build what would become quite or-chestratal pieces that suggested a much larger ensemble. There was a fluidity and consistency to this music fueled by their shared affection for the freedom and swing from Jazz, the compact and en-gaging structures of pop music, and the sounds and aesthetics of the electronic rock underground of the 70s and 80s.
So when Crag Taborn was composing new music for an electronic ensemble he found that in reality it only required two people to play it and realized that the other musician with the skill set and sen-sibilities he was nearing was Dave King.
Starting from dense, compact compositions that Taborn describes as “evolving miniatures” the duo extract and expanded the music through their shared improvisational and compositional sensibility that has been evolving for 30 years.

Inspired by Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, Drexciya, Silver Apples, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Herbie Hancock, Ryuichi Skakamoto and other luminaries, Heroic Enthusiasts’ music focuses on sound and rhythm, music dynamism and musical flexibility with an ear towards conci-sion and focus.

DAVID KING is a drummer/composer from Minneapolis Minnesota. He is widely known as a founding member of the acclaimed jazz groups The Bad Plus and Happy Apple. Besides also being a member of Craig Taborn's Junk Magic he has recorded and or performed with Bill Frisell, Dewey Redman, Joshua Redman, Jeff Beck, Tim Berne, David Torn, Hank Roberts, Bill Carrothers, Meat Beat Manifesto, Django Bates, Dead Prez, Boots Riley, Kurt Rosenwinkle, Joe Lovano, Anthony Cox, Tchad Blake and the Mark Morris Dance Group among others.

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, CRAIG TABORN has been performing piano and electronic music in the jazz, improvisational, and creative music scene for twenty years. He has experience composing for and performing in a wide variety of situa-tions including jazz, new music, electronic, rock, noise and avant garde con-texts. He has played and recorded with many luminaries in the fields of jazz, im-provsed music and electronic music including Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Tim Berne, Dave Holland, Steve Coleman, David Torn, Susie Ibarra, Carl Craig, Dave Douglas, Meat Beat Manifesto, and Rudresh Manhathappa.. Taborn currently leads the Craig Taborn Trio, the electro-acoustic project Junk Magic, the Ancients and Moderns ensemble and is a member of progressive noise/punk band The Gang Font and the instrumental pop group Golden Valley is Now and also does frequent solo performances on both acoustic piano and electronics. He lives in Brooklyn. “Taborn’s penchant for sustaining creative fluency through a 360-degree span of stylistic taxonomies, in contexts “inside” and “outside”, acoustic or electronic, makes him a singular figure among improvisers of his gen-eration” - DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE