Three minifestivals would group composers by regions.
(Chinen) Robert Hurst Quartet (Tuesday and Wednesday) The bassist Robert Hurst has long been a fine small-group composer, as well as an underappreciated bandleader.
(Nate Chinen) GREGG AUGUST (Tuesday) Mr. August, a highly capable bassist, has also proved himself a sensible small-group composer in the Cedar Walton vein.
It isn't that Mr. Shorter, probably jazz's greatest living small-group composer and a contender for greatest living improviser, shouldn't be going outside his territory; the lessons of 20th-century classical music have become inseparable from his composing.
GREGG AUGUST SEXTET (Thursday) With "Late August" (Iacuessa), Mr. August, a bassist, proves himself a sensible small-group composer in the Cedar Walton vein; his band includes the trumpeter John Bailey and the drummer E.J. Strickland.
7 30 and 9 30 p.m., Jazz Standard, 116 East 27th Street, Manhattan, (212) 576-2232; cover, $20. (Chinen) ROBERT HURST GROUP (Tonight and tomorrow night) Mr. Hurst, a bassist with a deep and earthy tone, has long been a resourceful small-group composer, as well as an underappreciated bandleader.
Few Americans know that Copland was a member of a radical composers' group.
Instead of being organized into groups, composers were interwoven throughout the program, which featured rarities like "Sur Une Tombe" by Guillaume Lekeu, remembered primarily for his Violin Sonata.
It is studiously attentive to jazz of the last 40 years, specifically, a line of small-group composers like Paul Bley, Ornette Coleman, Andrew Hill and Marty Ehrlich, all of whom have written fairly romantic music while experimenting with rhythm and harmony.
110 2 ‡a Slank (Musical group), ‡e composer, ‡e performer.
