"As someone familiar with Michael Bates' work, I wholeheartedly recommend taking special note in the "Outside Sources" project! Michael Bates is a fantastic bassist and an engaging composer who, along with saxophonist Quinsin Nachoff and drummer Mark Timmermans, is performing some really interesting new music. Michael is a very dedicated and professional musician and his band would be a welcome addition to the current new music scene. Definetly worth checking out!"

...Michael Bates's new release (Clockwise) is right up there with new releases by Drew Gress and William Parker. The playing by all in the band is passionate and Bates' pulse propels Nachoff, Johnson andDavis through a set of fantastic music. These guys take no prisoners. One of the best releases of 2008! Recommended highly.

…Michael Bates' growing boldness as a composer earmarks 2007 as a banner year….this emerging innovator plays at the crossroads of structural experiment, contrapuntal rapture, and inarguable charisma…. Outside Sources …is more than just an assemblage of improvising musicians, this road-tested ensemble showcases Bates' musical and interpersonal relationships, both.

Taking equal inspiration from both Western classical music and lasting modern acts like Bad Brains to Joni Mitchell, Bates is a deservedly lauded performer and composer. On record and on stage, Bates' original works blur the line between composition and improvisation, leaving the listener in a vertiginous space where hundreds of years of musical tradition teeter at the knife-edge of a decidedly modern zest for experiment.

Outside Sources….offer a peek into an engaging and up-and-coming musical mind….a watershed for enthusiasts of improvised performance, cutting-edge composition, and star performers on the rise.

"With his new album, Bates demonstrates his rock solid composing skills and enviable technical faculties.... Simply put, Bates has the ability to make a huge impact on the existing state of modern jazz!"

An irresistible searching quality permeates every second of the disc...St Helen bursts with contrapuntal interplay between the musicians; melodic and rhythmic motifs are tossed around and developed across the texture. Like a Mingus piece, it's difficult to tell where the improvising begins and the writing ends...

Bates is an important and characterful voice on his instrument also. An ethereal flutey arco tone at the top of the bass's range endows Partly Innocent with magic, before double stops and pizzicato bass notes fill the texture at the piece's conclusion.

Outside Sources's elastic structural approach, saturated with creativity and energy and channelled through strong compositions, makes for a remarkable disc. A fine balance indeed.- Mathew Simpkins

This quartet...evokes the intimacy and interplay of a chamber ensemble, with deft arrangements that find the instruments slipping almost imperceptibly between written and improvised playing.

Saxophonist Quinsin Nachoff was the perfect foil for Bates's quietly lyrical writing, but it was the understated virtuosity of trumpeter Russ Johnson that ultimately lifted the music to the stratosphere."

“This music should be filed under “And Now for Something Different...” and be proud of it. Perhaps best classified as avant-garde jazz, A Fine Balance actually defies categorization in the same way progressive art often does….

Bates’ musical vision is one of freedom, but not at all costs. His compositions can be at once melodic and confounding. But no matter what, this is a thoroughly enjoyable recording, steeped in the the last forty years of the jazz tradition, which should occupy the CD tray for quite some time.”

"When it comes down to music, he achieves a fine balance. He has all the right ingredients: a jazz sensibility, an open approach to classical music, a tingly edginess, and a sense of adventure.

Bates has a band that helps him along in no uncertain terms. Reed specialist Quinsin Nachoff is exciting as he lays bare unusual vistas in his improvisation; Kevin Turcotte, one of the finest trumpeters around, slips compactly into the mould and brings his own vision into play; drummer Mark Timmermans adds textures and accents that broaden the palette. The main protagonist, of course, is Bates, whose writing gives the musicians the room to change shape and density..."

“A FINE BALANCE is filled with surprising twists and turns, stops and starts and is in between modern jazz and (third stream) classical, blending both seamlessly….this is indeed a most auspicious debut on the consistently engaging Between the Lines label. Thoughtfully composed, nicely crafted and very well played.”

"As a composer...tunes like Charcoal and Prodigal show off his knack for writing quirky original music with unique shifting meters and textures...His playing is beyond reproach, and coupled with his compositional skills complete a package that makes him a player to watch."

"A Fine Balance...a fascinating new album with a wild range music from crazy improvising to simple heartfelt themes..."

This new recording by bassist Michael Bates has pop music appeal. I’m not talking about saccharine-covered smooth jazz elevator music, but a jazz record that hooks you and draws you in, with not so much catchy tunes as engaging ideas.

...Different spins of this disc find differing aspects that attract the listener...The clarity of their sound reminds you of the seriousness of fine music making.

...If jazz music had “hits” and its own Jazz Dick Clark, we would certainly see this disc on his list.

Outside Sources is a gem just waiting to be appreciated by a larger audience. It manages to navigate that most difficult and rarely travelled road leading to accessible experimentation. It’s always forward–thinking but it’s also beautiful and within the grasp of even the most casual jazz fan.

Canadian bassist Michael Bates' debut recording comes encrusted with some heavy praise—both Mark Helias and Dave Douglas offer enthusiastic words of support for Bates' instrumental and compositional abilities. Celebrity endorsements should necessarily be taken with a dose of skepticism, but if Outside Sources is a true indication, we'd do well to hear them out.... As a bassist, Bates has a huge tone and gift for moody ostinatoes that recalls Greg Cohen—emphasizing clarity and melody over flat technical prowess for a highly controlled and tasteful style....Bates' compositional talent are largely beyond reproach...a musician well worth hearing at this formative stage of what promises to be an extensive career.

Michael Bates leads a splendid trio that generates an uplifting spirit of interplay and creative engagement that the players sustain throughout, from the free dialogue of "FREELY" to the Ornette-like swing of "Potassium". Timmerman's hand drumming and Nachofff's distinctive clarinet combine to shape atmospheric improvisations like the fluid "Tunisian" and the dream jouney of "Tradewinds". The leader shows his virtuosity in the evocative "Intervention/and then there was Luz" but it is his creative promise as a composer that is refreshing...Recommended.

Monday evening found me back at the Film Board for the second night of Next Wave featuring Michael Bates...His quartet Outside Sources ripped it open right from the start with his original “On Equilibrium.” There was nothing tentative about the collective improvisation that hung on an ascending-descending phrase...Bates wrote an intriguing arrangement of Prokofiev’s Cello Sonata in C Major for the quartet that was both engaging and somewhat unsettling...

...As a composer, Bates serves up melodic modernism and contrapuntal elegance; admirers of Ornette Coleman and Dave Douglas will likely approve.

Michael's music is anchored not only by a deep understanding of the work of postwar modern jazz composers and improvisors but by a level of bass-playing performance skills that allow his own unique voice to speak with assurance and equanimity as evidenced on his latest recording, "Outside Sources".

Nine tracks of futurish speculation are heard here from a trio led by bassist Bates, who wrote all nine pieces, with the always-intriguing Quinsin Nachoff playing tenor sax and clarinet and Mark Timmermans on drums and percussion. The leader contributes sensitive, adroit and atmospheric solos for music that represents a jazz form way past hard bop and the mainstream.

Outside Sources succesfully confirms Michael Bates' commitment to exploration. Bates and bandmates Quinsin Nachoff and Mark Timmermans push most of music's conventional boundaries and the blur of understanding inspires 61 minutes of musical interest...Each musician plays on the margins of musical literacy to encompass our full attention... Outside Sources is an excellent experimental jazz record.