$20 (General Admission, Seated)
Doors open at 7PM

Francisco Mora-Catlett (drums), Sam Newsome (soprano sax), D.D. Jackson (piano), Hilliard Greene (bass), Román Díaz (percussion)

Francisco Mora Catlett is a drummer, composer, and educator who began his musical career in Mexico City where he worked as a session musician for Capitol Records from 1968-1970. He studied music at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and with a Grant from the Mexican government from 1970 to 1973, he studied drums with Alan Dawson and composition at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. He left Mexico City with Sun Ra in 1973 and worked with him until 1980. In 1987, while in Detroit, he released his first album as a leader, the Pan-Afro project “Mora!”

Among the several grants he received, one was from the NEA to study with Max Roach in New York City. Mora Catlett worked with Roach's percussion ensemble M'Boom, appearing on two Blue Moon LPs, “To the Max” (1990) and “Live at S.O.B.'s” (1992), in addition to composing for Mr. Roach’s Uptown String Quartet. In 1993, he became a visiting professor at Michigan State University.

Mora-Catlett played on Detroit’s Techno producer Carl Craig's 1996 jazz/electronica fusion project “The Innerzone Orchestra” and “Programmed” (1999). The same year, using Innerzone cohorts Craig Taborn and Rodney Whitaker, Mora Catlett issued a second album “World Trade Music.” Following Mora Catlett's departure from Detroit in 2000 the Outer Zone Band’s first recording featuring Marshal Allen, Craig Taborn, and Carl Craig was released.

With his wife Danys Pérez Prades, known as “La Mora,” Mora-Catlett co-founded the “Oyu Oro Afro-Cuban Experimental Dance Company”, a dance-music project experimenting with music from the African Diaspora. Subsequent releases include: “Freedom Jazz Trio" and "New Under The Sun," featuring Francesco Tristano, “Live At The Bronx Museum”with Craig Taborn, “Andromeda M-31," featuring Taborn and JD Allen, the double CD “AfroHORN MX” (2012), AfroHORN's "Rare Metal" (2013) and "At the Edge of the Spiral" (2015-2016). In 2018, Mora-Catlett and Carl Craig performed a tribute to Sun Ra on French television. His solo electronic music project "Electric Worlds" was released on November 19, 2021. His new electronic project is “Cosmic Link” (2025).