Laurie Towers is a bassist within New York City’s “downtown” scene of free improv, new music and punk-laden experimentalism. Over the past twenty-five years she’s brought her R&B-driven counterpoint and chops to venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn, sharing the stage with an array of musicians in the nexus between rock, jazz and the avant garde. Towers also made her mark in the upstate artists’ community of Woodstock NY where she was referred to as a “bass wizard” in a ‘Woodstock Times’ review. As a member of the Red Microphone, she recorded with revolutionary poet Amina Baraka for the legendary ESP-Disk label. Also a successful business owner and host of her feminist radio show, Towers’ tenacity and activism have guided her journey, offering a model of empowerment for women in the arts and more. Towers has also been a member of the Dissident Arts Orchestra from the start. Creating downtown-style improvised scores to silent films. On Halloween, the Orchestra crafted a unique soundtrack to the FW Murnau terror classic ‘Nosferatu’ with Towers’ pulsating, throbbing fretless bass offering the vampire a voice to be reckoned with. Capping off her rebel yell for women’s rights, Laurie Towers created ‘She’s Raising the Bar’, a weekly podcast, in 2012. As its producer and co-host, she’s engaged an array of woman actors, writers, vocalists and entrepreneurs and broadcasted her show live from the NYC Women’s March, in the heat of battle.

The Spirit of Billy Bang with Amina Baraka

http://laurietowers.net

http://wijsf.org