pianist - composer - improviser
about dream brigade
On the heels of debut releases as bandleaders in 2024 described respectively as “an exquisite and stimulating work” (The Living Collection – All About Jazz) and “possess[ing] a grounding, mesmeric magic” (Abiding Memory – DownBeat Magazine), drummer Lesley Mok and pianist Phillip Golub joined forces as dream brigade. Their self-titled debut album, released March 14, 2025 on New York creative music imprint Infrequent Seams, is an immersive and captivating collection of improvisations that has earned wide international acclaim. Strikingly, it also features the duo’s highly personal interpretations of two jazz standards. On dream brigade, Mok and Golub break away from the rigorously composed constructions of their recent individual projects to allow their voices as improvisers and instrumentalists to speak for themselves.
Mok and Golub met socially in Boston, where they studied at Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory, respectively. Their collaboration began in 2021, when Mok invited Golub to perform a duo concert at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning in Queens, NY, in the months following the reopening from the COVID shutdown. Since then, dream brigade has performed regularly across the Northeast and Midwest, with recent engagements at The Jazz Gallery, CloseUp NYC, Spoleto Festival USA, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, The Bop Stop, and others.
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praise for dream brigade More impressive than such details is the overall rapport and interaction between Golub and Mok, which goes far beyond sound and rhythm into bracing compositional studies. -Peter Margasak in The Wire Magazine That was very nice [...] One thing I like about Lesley on this recording is that her ideas are very deliberate and intentional. It’s not tentative. She has a thing that she’s going for, and it’s intentional. I learned from that. And I’ve been really impressed with everything I’ve heard Philip do. I think he’s a voice to be reckoned with. -Terri Lyne Carrington in JazzTimes “blindfold test” In their effortless balance and the acuity of their ideas, Mok and Golub prove to be an inspired pairing. -David Adler in JazzTimes Top Releases March 2025 Individually, pianist Phillip Golub and percussionist Lesley Mok are among the most resourceful and individual composer/performers coming up in New York’s creative-music scene. Together, they’re dream brigade, with a compelling new self-titled album coming this Friday on Infrequent Seams that shows what happens when they throw caution to the wind for a set of spontaneous inventions and reconstituted canon, with exhilarating results. -Steve Smith (Night after Night) |
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about the artists
piano
drums
Phillip Golub, "a musician in fast ascent" (Wall Street Journal) and "[a] brilliant improviser" (JazzTimes), is a pianist, improviser, and composer based in Brooklyn, NY. Originally from Los Angeles, he creates highly original and expressive music, grounded in but not constrained by his engaged practice in jazz, creative music, and new music. Technically audacious, Golub sublates distant sound worlds, negating conventions, yet building on traditions.
Golub was nominated for the "Newcomer of the Year - International" category of the 2025 German Jazz Prize for his debut release as a bandleader, Abiding Memory (Berthold Records/Endectomorph Music). He was a 2025 Jazz artist in residence at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, SC and the Musician-in-Residence at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC for the fall semester of 2025.
Golub has been described by critics as "a polymath who elides any divide between improvised and composed music, or jazz and contemporary approaches [...] whose practice can't be contained by genre or discipline" (The Wire Magazine) and as an artist with "seemingly boundless creativity" (Downbeat). His recordings have been praised as “cutting edge” (Sequence 21), while containing “a profound concept […] triumphant […] fascinating” (Pop Matters). As a player, he has been noted for bringing “assurance, charisma, and infectious enthusiasm” (Steve Smith) to his performances and manifesting “exhilarating energy, charisma, and a canny ability to transform the complex and even inscrutable into sophisticated yet joyful noise” (Allmusic.com).
Golub is in demand as a pianist on New York’s jazz, creative music, and world music stages, performing and recording with a wide variety of artists such as Layale Chaker, DoYeon Kim, Lesley Mok, Anna Webber, Amir ElSaffar, Brad Shepik, Aynur Doğan, and Seajun Kwon. He has performed across the world at venues and festivals in Europe, North America, and Asia.
In addition to leading his own bands and projects, Golub deeply values collaboratively led projects. Golub co-founded the collective Tropos with his colleagues at the New England Conservatory, which released its debut record Axioms // 75ab in 2020 to mark the 75th birthday of Anthony Braxton. A new formation of the ensemble, featuring Yuma Uesaka (clarinets), Ledah Finck (violin), Aaron Edgcomb (drums/percussion), and Golub, was the 2023 recipient of Chamber Music America's Ensemble Forward grant. Tropos worked with mentor Darius Jones on the music for their album Switches, on Endectomorph Music. Golub also performs in a collective duo with Lesley Mok, under the name dream brigade. Mok and Golub released their debut self-titled album on Infrequent Seams.
Golub has an unwavering commitment to honoring the genealogy of jazz. He has played numerous times in bands led by jazz legend Cecil McBee and worked extensively with Wayne Shorter and esperanza spalding on their opera … (Iphigenia). He continues to play a crucial role in the Shorter estate, digitizing and preparing manuscripts for publication. Golub holds masters degrees from The New England Conservatory (Jazz Performance) and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (Composition).
Golub was nominated for the "Newcomer of the Year - International" category of the 2025 German Jazz Prize for his debut release as a bandleader, Abiding Memory (Berthold Records/Endectomorph Music). He was a 2025 Jazz artist in residence at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, SC and the Musician-in-Residence at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC for the fall semester of 2025.
Golub has been described by critics as "a polymath who elides any divide between improvised and composed music, or jazz and contemporary approaches [...] whose practice can't be contained by genre or discipline" (The Wire Magazine) and as an artist with "seemingly boundless creativity" (Downbeat). His recordings have been praised as “cutting edge” (Sequence 21), while containing “a profound concept […] triumphant […] fascinating” (Pop Matters). As a player, he has been noted for bringing “assurance, charisma, and infectious enthusiasm” (Steve Smith) to his performances and manifesting “exhilarating energy, charisma, and a canny ability to transform the complex and even inscrutable into sophisticated yet joyful noise” (Allmusic.com).
Golub is in demand as a pianist on New York’s jazz, creative music, and world music stages, performing and recording with a wide variety of artists such as Layale Chaker, DoYeon Kim, Lesley Mok, Anna Webber, Amir ElSaffar, Brad Shepik, Aynur Doğan, and Seajun Kwon. He has performed across the world at venues and festivals in Europe, North America, and Asia.
In addition to leading his own bands and projects, Golub deeply values collaboratively led projects. Golub co-founded the collective Tropos with his colleagues at the New England Conservatory, which released its debut record Axioms // 75ab in 2020 to mark the 75th birthday of Anthony Braxton. A new formation of the ensemble, featuring Yuma Uesaka (clarinets), Ledah Finck (violin), Aaron Edgcomb (drums/percussion), and Golub, was the 2023 recipient of Chamber Music America's Ensemble Forward grant. Tropos worked with mentor Darius Jones on the music for their album Switches, on Endectomorph Music. Golub also performs in a collective duo with Lesley Mok, under the name dream brigade. Mok and Golub released their debut self-titled album on Infrequent Seams.
Golub has an unwavering commitment to honoring the genealogy of jazz. He has played numerous times in bands led by jazz legend Cecil McBee and worked extensively with Wayne Shorter and esperanza spalding on their opera … (Iphigenia). He continues to play a crucial role in the Shorter estate, digitizing and preparing manuscripts for publication. Golub holds masters degrees from The New England Conservatory (Jazz Performance) and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (Composition).
Lesley Mok is a New York City-based percussionist and sound artist. Their work is guided by a continual search for the connection between the mundane and the divine, the experience and manipulation of time, and a desire to capture emotional dissonance and complexity. Lesley is inspired by American experimental music as informed by the lineage of the AACM, sounds and textures from the natural environment, Afro-Cuban folkloric traditions, drumline, and songwriters and composers like Arthur Russell and Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Lesley’s ongoing explorations with composition and improvisation are most notably documented in their debut album The Living Collection (released May 2023 on American Dreams Records). The album, described as “an exquisite and stimulating work” by All About Jazz and “a singularly personal statement” by Jazz Trail Magazine, was named International Debut Album of the Year at the 2024 Deutscher Jazz Preis.
Other work include stilled leaf-chatter (2022), bird in its chest (2022), pooling light (2021), but I forced to mind my vision of a sky (2020), and she smashed the enclosure (2020).
Lesley is a recipient of the 2024 ASCAP Fred Ho Award, 2022 Resident Artist at Roulette Intermedium, 2021 Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award, Hermitage Fellow, and the 2021 Van Lier Artist at the Asian American Arts Alliance. Their work has been commissioned and performed by International Contemporary Ensemble, Metropolis Ensemble, and JACK Quartet.
As a percussionist, Lesley has collaborated with Tomeka Reid, William Parker, Ingrid Laubrock, Craig Taborn, Mary Malvorson, Kenny Barron, Cory Smythe, Jen Shyu, Kalia Vandever, Fay Victor, Rafiq Bhatia, and James Brandon Lewis among others. They have performed throughout the Americas, Asia, and Europe, including the Met Museum, Roulette Intermedium, SF Jazz, The Boston Museum of Fine Art, Forbidden City Concert Hall, Unerhört Festival, Jazzowa Jesien, Cologne Jazz Festival, moers festival, Panama Jazz Festival, and Dominican Republic Jazz Festival.
Lesley’s ongoing explorations with composition and improvisation are most notably documented in their debut album The Living Collection (released May 2023 on American Dreams Records). The album, described as “an exquisite and stimulating work” by All About Jazz and “a singularly personal statement” by Jazz Trail Magazine, was named International Debut Album of the Year at the 2024 Deutscher Jazz Preis.
Other work include stilled leaf-chatter (2022), bird in its chest (2022), pooling light (2021), but I forced to mind my vision of a sky (2020), and she smashed the enclosure (2020).
Lesley is a recipient of the 2024 ASCAP Fred Ho Award, 2022 Resident Artist at Roulette Intermedium, 2021 Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award, Hermitage Fellow, and the 2021 Van Lier Artist at the Asian American Arts Alliance. Their work has been commissioned and performed by International Contemporary Ensemble, Metropolis Ensemble, and JACK Quartet.
As a percussionist, Lesley has collaborated with Tomeka Reid, William Parker, Ingrid Laubrock, Craig Taborn, Mary Malvorson, Kenny Barron, Cory Smythe, Jen Shyu, Kalia Vandever, Fay Victor, Rafiq Bhatia, and James Brandon Lewis among others. They have performed throughout the Americas, Asia, and Europe, including the Met Museum, Roulette Intermedium, SF Jazz, The Boston Museum of Fine Art, Forbidden City Concert Hall, Unerhört Festival, Jazzowa Jesien, Cologne Jazz Festival, moers festival, Panama Jazz Festival, and Dominican Republic Jazz Festival.
Contact for booking or other inquiries
phillip@phillipgolubmusic.com
lesleywmok@gmail.com