Living Daylights

Living Daylights is a jazz-funk power trio originally from Seattle composed of Jessica Lurie (alto/tenor sax, flute, vox), Arne Livingston (bass), and Dale Fanning (drums).  During their first incarnation, from 1995 to 2005, they recorded four albums and toured extensively in the United States and abroad, including performances and tours with several legendary artists, including Wayne Shorter, John Scofield, Groove Collective, Robert Walter, Maceo Parker, and Soulive.  The members, who now live in Brooklyn, NY, Portland, OR, and Berkeley, CA, have reunited to perform at festivals and special events, including the recent Earshot Jazz Festival in Seattle (Oct. 2014) and High Sierra Music Festival's 25th Anniversary (July 2015).  

Video from Living Daylights performance at I-Spy, Seattle, 2002 (from the making of the documentary series Icons Among Us: jazz in the present tense, courtesy of Paradigm Studio):

https://vimeo.com/75846101

Discography

• Falling Down Laughing (1995)
• 500 Pound Cat (1998)
• Electric Rosary (2000) w/ special guest Bill Frisell
• Night of the Living Daylights (2003) LIVE w/ special guest Elizabeth Pupo-Walker

A Seattle bred composer and woodwinder, Jessica Lurie performs and records worldwide with The Tiptons (formerly The Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet), Zion80, and Living Daylights, and collaborates with local and national artists such as Ellen Fullman, Amy Denio, The Indigo Girls, The Shakin’ Ray Levis Society, Eyvind Kang, and Wayne Horvitz. In addition to composing for dance, film, and multi-media performances, her musical experience includes work with Booker T. Jones, The Posies, Sleater Kinney, and being a featured soloist with The Berkeley Symphony. She plays saxophone with wailing abandon, and is as comfortable with the squeals and squonks of a John Zorn or Pharoah Sanders as she is with a melodious thing ala Sonny Rollins. She has a rich discography beyond her work with LIving Daylights:

• Jessica Lurie: Motorbison Serenade (2000 Zipa Music)
• Billies: Short Cuts (2003 Spoot & Zipa)
• Jessica Lurie Ensemble: !Zipa Buka! (2003 Zipa Music)
• Tiptons: Tsunami (2004 No Man's Land/Spoot & Zipa)
• Tiptons: Surrounded by Horns (2004 Stockfisch)
• Jessica Lurie and Andrew Drury Duo: This is what its like to be (2005 Zipa Music)
• Tiptons: Drive (2005 Spoot & Zipa)
• Jessica Lurie: Licorice and Smoke (2006 Zipa Music )
• The Tiptons Sax Quartet: Laws Of Motion (2008 Spoot & Zipa)
• Jessica Lurie Ensemble: Shop of Wild Dreams (2009 Zipa Music )
• Jessica Lurie Ensemble: Megaphone Heart (2012 Zipa Music )
• Tiptons: tiny lower case (2014 Spoot & Zipa)

Arne Livingston’s freelance history earned him warm-up slots for such diverse legends as Youssou N’Dour, Thomas Mapfumo, Willie Nelson, and James and Livingston Taylor. In the Boston area Arne played with Joshua Redman, Roy Hargrove, Bob Moses, and Antonio Hart.  Living Daylights encouraged a new direction in electric bass and Arne is well recognized for his contribution to widening the role of the electric bass in modern music. Arne’s playing, and the success of Living Daylights, earned him a full-page feature in the Fall ’99 issue of Bass Player Magazine.  He went on to play with Steve Kimmock and other artists following the Living Daylights while moving to Portland, OR, to advance business opportunities and raise his family.

From being called, “a drummer to watch closely in the coming years” by Modern Drummer magazine in the 1990's, to his present-day sonic explorations with the Bay Area-based Materialized and other groups, Dale Fanning has been on the cutting edge of rhythmic studies and execution.  He was the drummer on the Smithsonian Institutes’ “Safarini; Music of African Immigrants”; he co-wrote and produced Magdalen Hsu-Li’s GLAMA nominated national release “evolution”, and has recorded and performed with Wayne Horvitz, Critters Buggin’, D.J. Nasir, Mark Whitfield, Pete Droge, Jerry Joseph, Shelly Doty and Omar Torrez.