ABOUT


With an ear aimed firmly toward the underground, Earprint is a four-part chordless creative collective who make music that is at least nominally for listening. Though they’re not out to save the world, or even modern jazz, they aim to at least turn a head or two with their aggressively melodic, shamelessly youthful approach.
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A chordless quartet—free of the confines of piano or guitar—has a uniquely open, stripped-down sound, perhaps most often associated with Ornette Coleman’s quartets or the Gerry Mulligan/Chet Baker group of the early 1950s. Earprint draws plenty from these touchstones, but their influences range across the chordless canon, paying homage to the likes of Steve Coleman, Happy Apple, and Dave Holland.

Earprint were born at Boston’s illustrious New England Conservatory, but their roots spread worldwide: saxophonist Kevin Sun is a Garden State native, while trumpeter Tree Palmedo emerged from the endless drizzle of the Pacific Northwest. Bassist Simón Willson swapped hemispheres to join the band—he’s from Santiago, Chile—and Israeli drummer Dor Herskovits crossed an ocean. To the surprise of all involved, four wildly different visions crystallized, merging burning swing, knotty grooves, and anthemic themes into a spare sort of kitchen-sink minimalism.
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After a series of intimate gigs at spaces like Shapeshifter Lab (Brooklyn, NY), the Lilypad (Cambridge, MA) and the Harvard Advocate (Cambridge, MA), Earprint entered the studio in the spring of 2016 to record their debut full-length album, Earprint. The collection of 11 original pieces, released in late October 2016, demonstrates the ethos of the band: historically influenced and so familiar, but bizarre enough to blow your mind.

CONTACT & BOOKING:
[email protected]

LIVE

2019​​
—October 2: The Lily Pad, Cambridge (MA)

2018
—June 20: Twins (DC)
​—June 19: Rhizome (DC)
—June 17: House shows, Marblehead and Jamaica Plain (MA)
—May 12: MIT Ampersand Series (MA)
—February 8: Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning, Queens (NY)

2017
—January 21: Cafe Resonance (Montreal)
​—January 22: House show, Somerville (MA, let me know if you'd like to join us)
—June 18: The Lily Pad, Cambridge (MA)

2016
—October 25: The Jazz Gallery, NYC (NY) 
—October 29: Wally's, Boston (MA) 
—November 11: Jazz at the Underbrook, New Haven (CT) 
—November 13: Riverwalk Cafe, Nashua (NH) 
​—November 16: The Middle East, Cambridge (MA)
—November 26: The Jazz Loft, Long Island (NY) 

​Earprint (2016)  #1 Debut, 2016 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll
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Get it: BANDCAMP

GALLERY

*above Earprint band photos by Jonas Tarm

Additional photos
--Earprint at The Jazz Gallery, October 25, 2016 (Photos by Jessica Carlton Thomas)

LINE UP


Dor Herskovits is an Israeli drummer based in Boston. 
He studied at Rimon School of Music in Israel while performing with top local artists in the Israeli Jazz scene. In 2010, Dor transferred to Berklee College of Music on an international scholarship, where he studied with Hal Crook and Bob Gullotti, among others. After completing his Bachelor’s degree at Berklee, Dor had spent a year in New York performing and teaching. During that year he had also participated in the semi-finals of the prestigious Thelonious Monk Jazz drummer competition. In 2015, Dor had completed his Masters degree in jazz performance at the New England Conservatory where he studied with Miguel Zenon, Donny McCaslin and others. He performs regularly around New England and New York, and has shared the stage with Dave Liebman, Jason Palmer, Daniel Rotem and George Garzone. He composes original music and teaches private lessons and master classes on jazz drumming and improvisation.

Tree Palmedo is a trumpeter, composer, songwriter, and writer based in Boston, MA. A product of the fertile music town of Portland, Oregon, he studied with local greats such as Randy Porter, Thara Memory, and Alan Jones. While still in high school, Tree dove deep into the study of jazz and explored Portland's diverse scene, participating in honor bands across the country and playing funk, rock, and afro-beat in various Portland clubs. In 2011, he attended the Brubeck Institute Fellowship Program in Stockton, CA, where he worked with Joe Gilman, Ingrid Jensen, Erik Jekabson, Wayne Wallace, Joel Frahm, Stefon Harris, and many others while playing in the Downbeat Award-winning Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet. Tree graduated from Harvard College in 2016 and is completing his Master's at the New England Conservatory, where he has studied with John McNeil, Ran Blake, and Ralph Alessi. 
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Kevin Sun is a Brooklyn-based saxophonist, clarinetist, and improvisor-composer. He recently served as a Teaching Assistant for Vijay Iyer at Harvard University ("Music 173r: Creative Music: Critical Practice Studio," Spring 2016), and has published in Music & Literature online and his blog, "A Horizontal Search." Kevin was the 2013 Vandoren Emerging Artist Competition winner and the 2012 Yamaha Young Performing Artists Competition winner in the jazz saxophone category. He was previously the editor of Jazz Speaks, the blog of The Jazz Gallery, a nonprofit jazz cultural center in New York City, and provides music-related grant-writing services for the Gallery and individual clients such as Ambrose Akinmusire, Shai Maestro, and David Virelles. He graduated summa cum laude with an A.B. in English from Harvard College and also holds an M.M. in Jazz Performance from the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Miguel Zenón, among many others.

Simón Willson was born in 1992 in Santiago, Chile. He began playing guitar and electric bass in elementary school, and switched to the upright bass in high school. Since then, he has performed in a wide variety of styles, but his taste has pulled him towards the realm of jazz and improvised music. While still in High School, Simón attended the Escuela Moderna de Músic prep program in Santiago. After graduating from High School, Willson decided to pursue his musical studies in the US. He was accepted into the prestigious New England Conservatory in Boston, MA, where he completed his Bachelor of Music degree with honors in May of 2015. Simón keeps a busy sideman schedule, performing regularly with the bands of tenor player Noah Preminger and trumpet player Jason Palmer, in addition to being a member of the collective groups Great on Paper and Earprint. He has shared the stage with the likes of Ben Monder, Tim Miller, George Garzone, Frank Carlberg, and many others.

ELECTRONIC PRESS BUNDLE

2016 EARPRINT ALBUM PRESS RELEASE
Accessible here (Braithwaite & Katz)

STREAMING AUDIO ("BOARD ROOM")
Accessible here

HI-RES PHOTOS:
Photos by Jonas Tarm: "Inception," "Boardroom"
High-res album cover by Jackson Epstein: "Earprint"

EARPRINT (2016) DIGITAL BOOKLET (PDF)
Accessible here

COLLECTED PRESS

"Like the best of the younger groups, Earprint extends the jazz traditions while at the same time working them into hip, freewheeling new shapes. This debut recording captures a lot of the energy and sense of possibility of modern jazz." - Jerome Wilson, All About Jazz​ (4 stars)

"Earprint has vitality, a youthfulness that is refreshing; they also understand what creative music can do, where it can go when you take chances (like jazz players have been doing since the days of Buddy Bolden)." - Richard Kamins, Step Tempest

"...post-Ornette post-bop that manages to be both knotty and transparent, fractured but also lyrical and swinging, rambunctious and balanced." - Jon Garelick, Arts Fuse