The Music of Brian Blade | The Colin McIlrath Sextet

($20-$30 + DICE Fees | 6:30pm & 8:30pm Shows | 16+) Bassist Colin McIlrath and his sextet celebrate the life and music of Brian Blade, the drummer, composer, and bandleader behind the Fellowship Band. Colin McIlrath is a prolific bassist who has performed with the likes of Ethan Iverson, Sasha Berliner, Simon Moullier, Troy Roberts, etc. and is known nationally for being the Southern Arizona region's top bassist for music with contemporary stylings and harmonic complexity. Like the original 1998 Fellowship lineup, this band features pedal steel, guitar, and two saxophones. Eric Nakanishi (sax) Ryan Wheless (sax) Alex Oliverio (guitar) Bailey Zick (pedal steel) Colin McIlrath (bass) Kenji Lancaster (drums) On Brian Blade & his music: Brian Blade learned the drums by sitting in for his older brother in the band at Zion Baptist Church in Shreveport, Louisiana, where his father was pastor. At eighteen he moved to New Orleans to attend Loyola University and studied and played with Ellis Marsalis, Johnny Vidacovich, and Alvin Red Tyler. In 1992 he settled in New York and became a first-call drummer for Joshua Redman, Kenny Garrett, and Mark Turner. In 1997 he started a band of his own and named it the Fellowship. He spent more than two decades in the Wayne Shorter Quartet and has recorded or toured with Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Daniel Lanois, and Norah Jones. He is also a composer: the Fellowship catalog runs from its 1998 Blue Note debut to Kings Highway (2023), and in 2009 he released Mama Rosa, his first album as a singer-songwriter.