Don Byron Ivey-Divey Quartet

Don Byron brings the Ivey-Divey Quartet to the Annex for two nights this November, marking the live return of a project he recorded for Blue Note in 2004 with Jason Moran on piano and Jack DeJohnette on drums, Ralph Alessi and Lonnie Plaxico joining on select tracks. The record took its cue from Lester Young’s 1946 trio session with Nat King Cole and Buddy Rich: three players, no bassist. Byron, drawn to Young’s trio with its ability to hold avant-garde and straight-ahead impulses in the same breath, “really playing into the sound” -- adopted that configuration as a working frame, insisting at the time that Ivey-Divey was not a repertory record. 

“Ivey-divey” was Young’s own term, evoking a kind of permanent sadness: a way of moving through the world via the blues. Byron placed Young’s material alongside his own compositions, including “Abie the Fishman,” inspired by a Marx Brothers routine. The album earned a 2005 Grammy nomination for Byron’s bass clarinet solo on “I Want to Be Happy,” which JazzTimes described as outrageous and sublime.

The 2026 edition reworks that chemistry with Luis Perdomo on piano, Drew Gress on bass, and Dru Heller on drums, while Byron moves between clarinet, bass clarinet, and tenor saxophone. With bass now occupying the center of a framework the 1946 session left open, the ensemble’s internal connections run deep. Gress and Perdomo recorded together on Perdomo’s Universal Mind, a 2012 session with DeJohnette. Heller is a Byron veteran, both on the road and through his work on Byron’s score for the PBS American Masters documentary Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes Feeling Heart.

Don Byron (clarinets, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone) has spent three decades resisting the boundaries of any single genre. His musical formation spans classical clarinet study with Joe Allard and Third Stream studies with George Russell at the New England Conservatory. He emerged from New York’s Downtown scene in the 1990s with Plays the Music of Mickey Katz and Bug Music, his project devoted to the music of Raymond Scott and John Kirby. Since then, he has moved through salsa, hip-hop, funk, klezmer, German lieder, hard rock, and swing-to-Downtown jazz, reworking each idiom from within its own craft. His accolades include a Grammy nomination for the bass clarinet solo on “I Want to Be Happy” from Ivey-Divey, a 2009 Pulitzer Prize finalist designation for Seven Etudes for Solo Piano, and a Rome Prize Fellowship that same year. He was an MIT Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Professor in 2007–08 and is also known as a composer, arranger, and social critic, as well as a member of the Black Rock Coalition.

Drew Gress is one of the defining bassists in contemporary improvised music, a sought-after collaborator whose credits include Tim Berne, Ralph Alessi, Uri Caine, Ravi Coltrane, Fred Hersch, John Hollenbeck, Tony Malaby, Marc Copland, Bill Carrothers, Mat Maneri, and Simon Nabatov. As a bandleader, he has released work spanning Joint Venture on Enja in the early 1990s, Jagged Sky, Spin & Drift, and 7 Black Butterflies. The Spin & Drift quartet earned the Guardian’s recognition as the best jazz concert in London in 2002. Gress has also held residencies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and the University of Colorado Boulder, with support from SESAC, the NEA, and Meet the Composer. He lives in New York.

Luis Perdomo, born in Caracas in 1971, brings a Grammy win, a decade with Ravi Coltrane’s quartet, a founding role in Miguel Zenón’s quartet, nine albums as a leader, and more than 250 sideman credits. His work includes the Grammy-nominated albums Influx, Esta Plena, and Alma Adentro. He studied with Harold Danko at the Manhattan School of Music and Sir Roland Hanna at Queens College, where he now teaches, alongside appointments at Berklee and Oberlin. The New York Times has noted his deep sonority, rhythmic aplomb, and ear for useful dissonance, while The Village Voice called him a remarkable improviser. His 2012 Universal Mind session with Jack DeJohnette and Drew Gress provides a musical connection already embedded in this quartet.

Dru Heller has spent two decades developing an expressive, interactive approach as a drummer, composer, and bandleader. He has toured and recorded with Byron, Ron Miles, Greg Osby, Art Lande, and John Ellis, and was featured on Byron’s original score for the PBS American Masters documentary Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes Feeling Heart. Based in Denver since 2013, Heller is a first-call musician throughout the region, valued for his active listening and empathetic approach to teaching. He serves on the faculties of Metropolitan State University of Denver and the University of Colorado.

Byron is the curatorial brief in one career — an artist who redefines every genre he touches while staying rooted in craft and lineage, which is the posture LOOVE exists to platform. Ivey-Divey is the method at its clearest, a Lester Young tribute Byron insisted was not a repertory record, the past carried forward as working material for a living band, and two nights at the Annex give that band room to be a band, capital as medium, the support arriving as time and a room. The relationship predates this booking — Byron last appeared at Loove in Dean Bowman's Blue I project alongside Kevin Ray, Kelvyn Bell, Bobby Zankel, and Tony Lewis.