Rob Clearfield Quartet

France-based pianist and composer Rob Clearfield presents his latest work Ashes and Diamonds: a five-movement suite exploring nature of transitions from one era to another, and how cataclysmic events bring about both positive and negative changes. Borrowing its title from Andrzej Wadja's 1958 film, Clearfield's cinematic approach to composition is on full display as he blurs the lines between contemporary classical and modern-jazz vocabularies and paradigms. A Chicago native now based in Marseille, Rob has collaborated with myriad artists including Makaya McCraven, Marquis Hill, Simon Moullier, Itamar Borochov, John Wetton, Eighth Blackbird, and Patricia Barber. Howard Reich of the Chicago Tribune writes, "In our very noisy world, Rob Clearfield's music arrives as a kind of balm."