Resonant Motion, Inc. presents the third of four events in its 2019 Jazz Up Close series, “Can I Get A Witness – Jazz Composition as Storytelling.” This year’s guests for the popular program, now in its fifth year, will share and discuss a variety of original compositions inspired by and used to tell stories through the medium of instrumental jazz. For this event bass clarinetist and composer Todd Marcus leads a quartet, accompanied by bassist Henry Lugo,  drummer Eric Kennedy and pianist and series curator Noah Baerman. One of the few jazz artists to focus primarily on the bass clarinet, Todd Marcus actively leads multiple ensembles ranging from at trio to a nonet. He has worked with jazz artists such as Gary Bartz, Bennie Maupin, Don Byron, Ralph Peterson, Warren Wolf, Sean Jones, and Orrin Evans. His original work draws largely on straight-ahead jazz and classical influences as well as the Middle-Eastern sounds from his Egyptian-American heritage. In addition to his music career, Marcus runs Intersection of Change, a vital nonprofit addressing poverty related issues in his Baltimore neighborhood. His fourth and most recent album as a bandleader, On These Streets, directly addresses the unrest in that neighborhood following the 2015 killing of resident Freddie Gray.

This event is supported in part by the Middletown Commission on the Arts and the CT Department of Economic and Community Development, Office of the Arts, which also receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, along with the Shoreline Arts Alliance.