Afro-Caribbean improvisational trumpet-and-percussion duo Aquiles Navarro & Tcheser Holmes, are longtime friends, collaborators, devotees of New York City’s creative music scenes, and members of celebrated free jazz collective Irreversible Entanglements. In September of 2014, Navarro and Holmes self-released an album of improvisations that they’d recorded in Panama earlier that summer. The following spring, they were invited to perform at The Silent Barn in Brooklyn, an event organized by Musicians Against Police Brutality as a benefit for the family of Akai Gurley (a Black man who was killed by a NYPD officer). The duo took the stage immediately before a formalizing performance by Camae Ayewa (aka Moor Mother), Keir Neuringer and Luke Stewart, a trio that would soon adopt the name Irreversible Entanglements, as well as Navarro and Holmes themselves.
In the Fall of 2019, Navarro and Holmes went into the studio again, booking two after-hours sessions at Brooklyn’s S1 Studios. The resulting album – Heritage of the Invisible II – reveals Navarro and Holmes stepping firmly into the limelight of progressive music-making.
Aquiles Navarro on Trumpet & Tcheser Holmes on Drums
Frankie’s After Dark takes place every Friday and Saturday at Frankie’s Jazz Club in downtown Vancouver and is curated by Tim Reinert of Infidels Jazz. Shows start at 11:00PM and tickets are $10.