HISTORY
The Mellow Edwards has existed since 1988 when Curtis Hasselbring persuaded John Dirac and Jerome Dupree to play with him at the Middle East Cafe in Cambridge MA. The group's repertiore consisted of hardcore versions of Don Cherry and Henry Threadgill tunes as well as Dirac's non-autobiographical opus, "the Green Haircut". Fourteen years, over a dozen musicians and many pieces of music later, Curtis took a giant leap into the future and renamed the group "The New Mellow Edwards." He composes the majority of the group's repertoire (with the exception of the occasional 80s rock/20s jazz cover) and plays the trombone and various odd noise-making devices. The other members of the group for the last three years have been Trevor Dunn, John Hollenbeck and Chris Speed,and although there has also been an illustrious cast of subs (a veritable who's who of people in Curtis's addressbook), the NMEs (as they are often called) have evolved into a top-notch performing unit who leave a trail of fried PA speakers, broken folding chairs and unused half-price drink tickets....
NEWS The NMEs will perform at the Knitting Factory's Search and Restore Festival on May 12th at 9:30. The Jean Michel Pilc trio will play at 8pm.
So far, the music press has been awful kind to our first release. We were listed among the best releases of 2006 by All About Jazz NY and placed #2 in the "debut" category of the "First Annual Village Voice Jazz Critics Circle Poll". Can't print 'em fast enough now! (2-3-07)
The first self-titled NMEs recording is here! It can be purchased via Amazon.com, the Downtown Music Gallery,Wayside Music and, of course, our Brooklyn-located homebase, Skirl Records. You can also purchase individual tunes (or the complete records in a digital format) through the Itunes Music Store. (4-11-06) Curha has taken on the NMEs. The elusive Curha is in the middle of his remix project involving tracks from the NME's first album. The pieces are reconstructions utilizing only soundfiles from the original NMEs sessions. (8-15-06)
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