Biography
Fire of Space functions as a bold, rhythm-driven collective of musicians devoted to blending performance with instruction. Jordan McLean, a trumpeter and composer, launched the ensemble in New York City, where it includes trombonist Aaron Johnson, reed players Stuart Bogie and Michael Herbst, keyboardist Shoko Nagai, bassist Tom Abbs, and percussionist Geoff Mann. Each participant stands as a regular presence in the city’s experimental and spontaneous music circles. McLean, Johnson, Bogie, and Herbst have all appeared with Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, itself an extension of King Changó. Abbs and Nagai excel as improvisation specialists across multiple ventures, with Abbs having collaborated with Rashied Ali and Nagai directing her own group that regularly performs at New York City’s Knitting Factory. On drums, Mann has worked alongside saxophonist Ori Kaplan and joined Sona Terra, the outfit led by his father Herbie Mann.
The band assembled in the early 2000s around the dual aims of music and teaching, since several members also worked as educators and champions of the arts. McLean gives private lessons and serves as a resident artist with New York’s Learning Through an Expanded Arts Program. In 1997 Abbs established Jump Arts, an alliance created to generate performance chances for local artists. Herbst led Incubator, Inc., a nonprofit that raised funds to support creative projects, which produced murals, recordings, and hundreds of workshops throughout New York City and Philadelphia. After releasing their first album, Age of Epoch, in 2003, FOS chose to carry both its concerts and its principles on tour. The musicians traveled the East Coast, the Northeast, and the Midwest, appearing wherever an audience could gather—in clubs and cafés as well as house parties and unplanned living-room sessions—while also scheduling school visits and music workshops in many of the cities they reached.
The band assembled in the early 2000s around the dual aims of music and teaching, since several members also worked as educators and champions of the arts. McLean gives private lessons and serves as a resident artist with New York’s Learning Through an Expanded Arts Program. In 1997 Abbs established Jump Arts, an alliance created to generate performance chances for local artists. Herbst led Incubator, Inc., a nonprofit that raised funds to support creative projects, which produced murals, recordings, and hundreds of workshops throughout New York City and Philadelphia. After releasing their first album, Age of Epoch, in 2003, FOS chose to carry both its concerts and its principles on tour. The musicians traveled the East Coast, the Northeast, and the Midwest, appearing wherever an audience could gather—in clubs and cafés as well as house parties and unplanned living-room sessions—while also scheduling school visits and music workshops in many of the cities they reached.
Albums