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All Music Guide:
In the '60s and '70s, much (if not most) contemporary improvisation was jazz-based. That began to change in the '80s, when a significant number of rock musicians began exploring the possibilities of free improvisation and new classical forms. Fred Frith is one of the more prominent. Co-founder of the underground British band Henry Cow in 1968, composer/improviser/guitarist Frith moved to the U.S. in the late '70s, where he began associations with such New York-based experimental musicians as cellist Tom Cora, harpist Zeena Parkins, saxophonist John Zorn, and percussionist Ikue Mori. Frith lived in New York for 14 years; some of his well-known ventures in that time included Massacre (with Bill Laswell and Fred Maher), Skeleton Crew (with Cora and Parkins), and his sextet Keep the Dog. In the '80s, Frith's compositional activities increased; he began writing for dance, film, and theater, and for such ensembles as the Rova Saxophone Quartet, Ensemble Modern, Asko Ensemble, and his own Guitar Quartet. Primarily known as an improvising guitarist, Frith has also performed on bass (with Zorn's Naked City) and violin (with Lars Hollmer's Looping Home Orchestra). Frith has played on albums by the Residents, Brian Eno, Amy Denio, and René Lussier, to name just a few. Frith was the subject of Step Across the Border, a documentary film by Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzels. By 2000, Frith was a professor of composition at Mills College in Oakland, CA, and continued to release a bevy of albums including Eleventh Hour in 2005. In 2007, Frith began the year by releasing Impur and The Happy End Problem on ReR, and followed them with Sugar Factory and a live album (recorded at the N.Y.C. venue The Stone) on the Tzadik label, and finished it with Cutter Heads with Chris Brown on Intakt. Frith was less prolific in 2008 but nonetheless released the fine To Sail, to Sail on Tzadik. He picked up the pace in 2009, as Still Urban and The Big Picture saw issue on Intakt. He continued with three releases in 2010, including Dictée/Liber Novus and Eye to Ear, Vol. 3, which appeared on Tzadik, and Live in Japan for ReR.
Wikipedia:
Cosa Brava is an experimental rock and improvisation quintet formed in March 2008 in Oakland, California by multi-instrumentalist and composer Fred Frith (Henry Cow, Skeleton Crew, Keep the Dog). The band comprises Frith on guitar, Zeena Parkins (Skeleton Crew, Keep the Dog) on keyboards and accordion, Carla Kihlstedt (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum) on violin, Matthias Bossi (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum) on drums, and The Norman Conquest on sound manipulation. All About Jazz described their music as "somewhere between folk, Celtic, modern chamber, Latin, funk, Eastern, and prog-rock".
Cosa Brava's first performance was in Oakland, California on 20 March 2008. They then went on to tour Europe in April 2008, playing in France, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. In May 2008 they performed at the 25th Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada, and in December 2008 at the Knitting Factory in New York City and the ICA in Boston.
Cosa Brava recorded their first album, Ragged Atlas in San Francisco in December 2008, which was released in March 2010. John Kelman in a review at All About Jazz said that the album "transcends time and genre" and is "one of 2010's most auspicious debuts". A second album entitled The Letter was released in March 2012.
Background
Fred Frith's career began as a "rock musician" with Henry Cow in 1968, but has since diversified into a number of different genres, from avant-garde jazz to contemporary classical music. He has written scores for film and dance, and music for orchestras and string quartets. He became Professor of Composition the Music Department at Mills College in Oakland, California in 1999. The motivation behind the formation of Cosa Brava arose out of Frith's nostalgia for rock music. He said, "I really miss what you can do with a rock band. I miss developing material through the push and pull of cooperative rehearsals, I miss what happens when you move away from 'the parts' and start formulating things with a collective ear, I miss the single-minded commitment to a group identity."
Frith had previously worked with Zeena Parkins in Skeleton Crew and Keep the Dog, and had collaborated with Carla Kihlstedt on several albums. The Norman Conquest had been a student of Frith's at Mills College.
