“When the jazz, funk and progressive styles come together it can be a beautiful thing…Boston’s City of Four have been embracing this fusion for the past few years.” -Rob Duguay, Rock n’Heavy
City of Four brings an original brand of modern groove-based jazz, funk, and fusion to music venues across Boston and New England.
The band has received an “Outstanding Performance” recognition from DownBeat Magazine as a Blues/Pop/Rock group. Some of the original music in its catalog has also been recognized by ASCAP and MIX Magazine.
City of Four’s new LP, Vistas, is out now!
Other releases:
Meet the Band:
Mike Caudill / saxophones, EWI:
In addition to playing and writing for City of Four, Mike leads his own quartet and performs with many of the region’s premiere bands and jazz collectives, including with Guggenheim fellow Felipe Salles’ Interconnections Ensemble, which just released its third critically-acclaimed album. Mike has played saxophone in historic venues ranging from Boston’s Symphony Hall to legendary Manhattan jazz clubs like Birdland, Dizzy’s, and The Jazz Gallery.
Mike has had the privilege to perform on stage with iconic figures including Sean Jones, Warren Wolf, Ambrose Akinmusire, Randy Brecker, Dick Oatts, Dave Liebman, Sheila Jordan, Chico Pinheiro, and Karrin Allyson when he was a student. Mike is an active freelancer and is contracted to perform in concerts with nationally-touring groups across multiple genres, like with the platinum-selling rock group, 10,000 Maniacs, in some of their recent MA shows.
In 2019, Mike was named winning composer in the Ithaca College Jazz Ensemble Composition Contest for his piece, “That Familiar Connection”. As a composer, he has also received a Herb Alpert Foundation Young Jazz Composer award from ASCAP for his composition, “Time to Go”. Through the course of his college studies, Mike accumulated five music awards from DownBeat Magazine for his performances and musical arrangements. Mike is a commissioned composer of jazz, chamber, and symphonic music.
A graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Mike holds a Master of Music in Jazz Arranging and Composition. He earned his bachelor’s degrees at UMass in Jazz and Afro-American Music as well as Acoustics. At UMass, Mike studied with Felipe Salles, Lynn Klock, Jeffrey W. Holmes, and Tom Giampietro. Mike’s early saxophone mentors include William DiNuzzio and Corey Tunnessen.
Mike’s Links: Website – Bandcamp – Instagram – Youtube
Cat Tremblay / keyboards, synths:
Cat Tremblay (aka Catman) is a composer of experimental jazz/rock/funk music, a prolific producer of hip hop and electronic music (under the name Catman), and a jazz trained pianist and keyboardist. He holds a B.A. in Jazz Piano, as well a Master’s degree in Jazz Composition. As a composer, Cat has written countless songs and arrangements for ensembles of all sizes, including a six movement big band suite and over a dozen other compositions for big band or studio orchestra.
As Catman, he has constructed an abstract blend of jazz fusion, lo-fi, hip hop, R&B/Gospel, and psychedelia, which he puts to use in his experimental beats. His production work spans several releases, his most recent being the mixtape “At the End of the Day”, available on his Bandcamp. More recently, he has begun to translate his electronic music into compositions intended to be performed with live jazz ensembles, as he continues to explore the overlap between his two musical worlds.
Cat’s signature writing style uses lyrical melodies and dense harmonies woven intricately with sentimentality. A core component of his Catman production is the juxtaposition of these concepts with contrastingly hard-hitting drums and synthesizers. His interest in dense unusual textures often features in his harmonic and aesthetic compositional choices. Cat enjoys exploring new and unusual sounds with creative synthesis, effects, processing, and eclectic sampling. He is influenced by a wide variety of artists, including Herbie Hancock, Madlib, J Dilla, Flying Lotus, Knower, Knxwledge, Meshuggah, and Thundercat.
In addition to his work with City of Four and as Catman, Cat is the live keyboardist and musical director for rapper/producer Latrell James. He also performs with the group Foreign Movie, a jazz fusion project that leans heavily into funk and dance music. He regularly uploads his recent productions to his Instagram page, where he also has a running “Caturday” series, featuring new experimental productions every Saturday evening.
Cat’s Links: Facebook – Instagram – Soundcloud – Bandcamp
Eric Falter / bass:
The most recent addition to City of Four, Eric Falter has been a mainstay of the Boston Music scene for over a decade. A graduate of Berklee College of Music, Eric holds a professional diploma in professional music with concentrations in Jazz Performance and Arranging and Composition. He has studied with world renowned educators and Grammy award winning artists including John Patitucci, Jon Finn, Oscar Stagnaro, Jim Stinnett, and Bruce Gertz, among others.
Eric’s career as a professional bass player has brought him all over the globe. Notable performances as a sideman include “The Doo Wop Project” (featuring members of Broadway’s smash hits “Jersey Boys” and “Motown: The Musical”), “Don Lappin Band” (featuring members of “Allan Holdsworth”), and numerous first call studio appearances for Boston and New England Music Awards nominees. In Boston, he has been known as a band leader and has organized numerous residencies throughout the city.
Eric is a bass guitarist exclusively and prides himself on studying the greats to develop the sensibilities of the instrument and techniques such as playing with a pick, alternate finger techniques, detuning of the instrument, extended range, and slap bass playing. Some inspirations include James Jamerson, Jaco Pastorius, Pino Palladino, Steve Swallow, Chuck Rainey, Nathan East, Anthony Jackson, Victor Wooten, Hadrien Feraud, Janek Gwizdala, Derrick Hodge, MonoNeon and many more.
An avid player in the Boston music scene, Eric can be found playing in many different musical settings on any night of the week. His latest endeavor, a progressive rock/jazz fusion band called “LON” is expecting a full length release in the summer of 2023.
Eric’s Links: Facebook – Instagram – Soundcloud
Steve Wilkinson / drums:
In addition to City of Four, Steve is currently the drummer of LON, Strange Changes, Tom Dowd Group, and RetroCard, among other groups. His diverse and expansive performance experience has taken him all around Boston/Massachusetts, New York, throughout greater New England, and across the US and Canada. Steve is best known for his unique and dynamic sound as a virtuosic improvisational and expressive drummer drawing influence from his backgrounds in rock, jazz and hip hop, but his versatility has allowed him the experience of performing in a wide variety of other contexts, including his work with Latin Grammy winner Nella Rojas of Venezuela, country singer and NBC’s The Voice finalist Kristen Merlin of Nashville, and renowned singer Jaasiel Sança of Cape Verde, to name a few. In addition to his busy schedule as a performer, Steve teaches drum lessons both privately and through Milton (MA) Public Schools.
Hailing from the South Shore of Massachusetts, Steve has been playing music since he was 12 years old. Beginning as a classically-trained percussionist, he earned the honor of section leader in the Massachusetts Youth Wind Ensemble at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School, and he toured the UK with that band in the summer of 2006. He was also awarded first chair percussion in the Massachusetts All State Orchestra in 2007 and performed with that ensemble at Symphony Hall. When it came time to decide on a career, however, Steve turned his focus entirely to the drum set, and went on to earn his Bachelor of Music degree in Jazz Drums Performance from McGill University’s Schulich School of Music in Montreal, where he graduated with distinction in 2011. Since then he has settled in Quincy, MA.
Steve’s Links: Facebook – Instagram – Soundcloud