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| Performer Bios / A-F A-F / G-L / M-S / T-Z JASON AJEMIAN Jason Ajemian is a bassist who's been living in Chicago for a little over a year. After graduating form WIlliam Paterson University where he studied with Rufus Ried and Kevin Norton, Mr. Ajemian traveled for a few years before moving to Chicago. Presently, he has a large group called 'and who cares how long u sink' that he writes for with Tim Daisy, Dan Sylvester, Matt Bauder, Jason Adasiewicz, Klye Bruckman and Todd Margasak - a trio with Dave Rempis and Tim Daisy called 'Triage' - an electro-accoustic band 'lake effect'; as well as, playing and writing for many other situations with accomplished musicians in chicago and elsewhere. top CHEFA ALONSO She has been practising and teaching improvised music since 1995 , as well as composition and performance of music for theatre and dance. As a member of the colective Músicalibre , she has organized the annual International Festival of Improvised Music Hurta Cordel. She has played with prominent musicians of the international circuits of improvised music : Vanessa Mackness , Philipp Wachsmann. She has played in the following festivals: Gaudi Festival of Improvisad Music (León, Spain), Music and daily sonority (Albi, France), "Periferias" (Huesca, Spain), Real Time Creation festival (Madrid, Spain), Hurta Cordel, Festival of Improvisation (Madrid, Spain), "Madrid en danza" (Madrid, Spain), Situaciones (Cuenca, Spain), "Improvisa" (Barcelona, Spain), El Grec (Barcelona, Spain), A Journey to Polynesia (Barcelona, Spain), La Flibuste (Toulouse, France), "Escucha (madrid, Spain), Experimental Music in Metronom (Barcelona, Spain), Iba (Barcelona, Spain), etc. Chefa Alonso is teacher of improvisation and saxophone in the public music school of Tres Cantos and in the "Aula de Músicas" of Madrid. She is coordinator of the VII Festival of Improvisation Hurta Cordel 2003. top TATSU AOKI Tatsu Aoki is one of the most recorded, talked-about bassists on the Chicago music scene. A prolific artist, composer, musician, educator and aconsummate bassist, he works in a wide range of musical styles, ranging from traditional Asian music and jazz, to creative free and experimental music. Aoki is founder and artistic director of the Chicago Asian American Jazz Festival, which debuted in October 1996 and had six straight successful seasons. Currently national in scope, the annual event is now known as "Asian American Jazz," and is held in several cities (San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles.) The 2002 Chicago celebration is scheduled for October 25-28, 2002. Aoki has recorded seven solo bass albums, nine duet albums with various other artists, 15 ensemble works, and has appeared as a guest artist on over 70 other albums internationally. With works ranging from solo to larger ensemble, from mainstream to avant garde, Aoki has worked with many musical legends, including Fred Anderson, Von Freeman, George Freeman, Malachi Favors, Maghostut, Don Moye, Mwata Bowden, John Watson, Sonny Seals and Francis Wong. Among the variety of works produced in the last 16 years, his solo bass performance and recordings are internationally acclaimed, and known for one of the most innovative approaches of the bass instrument. Aoki, who was named president of Asian Improv Records (AIR) in 1999, served as executive producer on Anthony Brown's Asian American Orchestra piece, Ellington-Strayhorn's "Far East Suite," (AIR0053), for which the label received a Grammy Award nomination in 1999. As a producer, Aoki has produced over 40 albums, including the legendary Max Roach and Jon Jang's "Beijing Trio," (AIR 0044), as well as projects in the hip hop arena, and a number of other projects in the Asian Pacific American arts, such as film and concert series. Aoki's most prolific work to date is, "ROOTED: Origins of Now," a four-suite, approximately 50-minute piece, which featured for its world premiere on August 26, 2001, a 12-piece big band in performance at Ping Tom Memorial Park in Chicago's Chinatown. Subsequent full house performances followed on September 1, 2001 at the Chicago Jazz Fest in Grant Park, and on October 27, 2001 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, as the highlight of Asian American Jazz Festival 2001: Chicago. Citing "ROOTED" as the most important work of his career, Aoki was recently named one of 16 inspirational "Chicagoans of the year" by the Chicago Tribune (December 30, 2001.) The Tribune stated that "ROOTED" had "come into its own as an eloquent, often dramatic merger of ancient Japanese music and experimental American jazz." "ROOTED: Origins of Now" the CD (S-SSD 0092 October 2001) is a project of The Jazz Institute of Chicago Sound Archive and Recordings, and is available via distributors SOUTHPORT and Asian Improv Records. As a producer, the Aoki name is behind a number of other significant projects in the arts, including recordings, film and concert series. Born in Japan the son of artisans, Tatsu Aoki is a graduate of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he received bachelor and master of fine arts degrees, and where he is currently an assistant professor in film. For more information about the artist, please see http://www.avantbass.com. Tatsu Aoki's albums are available for purchase online via the Asian Improv Records web site at http://www.asianimprov.com or call Asian Improv Records at (877) 243-3774. Or, check your local record stores. top PETER B Peter B takin the "trass" to make the "druss". it's a curse you say in d'lions ear montawns, nothin to do in the montawns but make a home, a love, and a... uh what is that? fallen oldie, who listens to the "message", took the lamb, made a glove. spilled oil on the counter, pollymouth brat gonna ruin my life, lay m'down nothin wrong with doin the galaxa well at least they hold hands... top JIM BAKER Jim Baker has been playing in and around Chicago as a pianist, keyboardist, and synthesist for more than two decades, mostly in improvisational contexts. He initially studied piano with Thomas Scott, of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and studied composition with Morgan Powell and Herbert Brun at the University of Illinois at Urbana. During the 1980's, Baker played frequently in groups led by saxophonist Harold Jones (aka Hal Raru), and also played in the Nicholas Tremulis band. After leaving the Tremulis group, Baker was an active participant in the then-nascent free improvisation scene, performing with groups including trombonist Bill Barnes; guitarist/xylophonist Rick Barnes; guitarist/banjoist Andre Caporaso; percussionist Steve Hunt, bassist Kent Kessler, shortwave radiotarist/hydrokalimbist Don Meckley; bassist/guitarist/trumpeter Brian Sandstrom; violinist/guitarist/cornetist Daniel Scanlan; mezzo-coloratura Gwendolyn Manter-Seminara; and percussionist/tubaphonist Michael Zerang. During the 1990s, Baker continued performing with many of the above, plus reedists Victoria Alexander, Fred Anderson, Anje Carnys-Soltis; Paul Fenner, Guillermo Gregorio, Cameron Pfiffner, Arthur Taylor, Richard Theodore, Ken Vandermark, Edward Wilkerson, and Mars Williams; trumpeters John Adkins, Curtis Black, Billy Brimfield, and Tony Mujica; guitarists Kevin Drumm, Jim O'Rourke, Tony Suto, Ben Vida, and Matt Wilson; bassists Josh Abrams, Harrison Bankhead, Michael Cristol, Dan Simon, Mitch Straeffer, Kevin Tkacz, Matt Thompson; bassist/cellist Louis Varro; oboeist Robbie Hunsinger; percussionist/trumpeter/reedist Hal Russell; cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm; trombonist/guitarist Jeb Bishop; cellist/keyboardist/vocalist Bob Marsh; violinist Terri Kapsalis; vocalist Gina McLaughlin; multi-instrumentalists Hal Rammel and Weasel Walter; and percussionists Joe Adamik, Ajaramu, Hamid Drake, Tim Keenan, Tim Mulvenna, Afifi Phillard, Damon Short, Grant Strombeck, Chad Taylor, Bob Vernae, Matt Weston, and Zaid. In 1995, the improvising trio Caffeine (Vandermark, Hunt, and Baker) released their debut CD on Okkadisk, and a California tour took the group to performances in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Berkeley. During 1996, Baker played at two European jazz festivals, both in sextets featuring reedists Ken Vandermark & Mars Williams (Vandermark's Chicago Improvisers group at Moers {Germany} [reedists Vandermark & Williams, with guitarist Jim O'Rourke, bassist Kent Kessler, percussionist Hamid Drake, & Baker]; and Witches & Devils at the Tampere Jazz Happening {Finland} [Vandermark & Williams, with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, bassist Harrison Bankhead, percussionist Steve Hunt, & Baker]). Also during 1996, a trio led by Baker, featuring Kent Kessler and Hamid Drake, with special guest tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson, performed at the Chicago Jazz Festival. Baker also performed in a trio with clarinetist/accordianist Rudiger Carl and guitarist Stefan Wittwer, during the 1996 FMP Festival in Chicago. 1997 included performances with: percussionist Zerang and reedist Steve Nelson-Raney at Woodland Pattern in Milwaukee; Steam (Vandermark, Kessler, and drummer Tim Mulvenna) at a jazz festival in London, Ontario, Canada; Broken Wire (Scanlan, Lonberg-Holm, Zerang, and Baker) at various clubs in Chicago; trumpeter Tony Mujica's group (at the Velvet Lounge, Bop Shop and the South Shore Jazz Festival in Chicago); Harrison Bankhead's quartet, featuring saxophonist Edward Wilkerson Jr., and percussionist Vincent Davis, (at a concert at Unity Temple, in Oak Park, IL.); Sludge 2000 [featuring guitarist Stefan Wittwer and bassist Marino Pliakis] at the Empty Bottle; saxophonist Arthur Taylor's quintet - (featuring trumpeter Billy Brimfield) at the Custer Street Fair, in Evanston, IL; percussionist Michael Zerang and vocalist Jaap Blonk, at Lunar Cabaret; pianist Steve Beresford (as a "surprise third set") at the Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music; percussionist Damon Short (in duet, and in a group performing music of Herbie Nichols), at Lunar Cabaret; reedist Ken Vandermark (in Caffeine, Steam, Witches & Devils, and other situationsn) at Lunar Cabaret & Bop Shop; and with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and saxophonist Michael Attias at Lunar Cabaret. During 1998, Baker performed with Michael Zerang at the Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music; and at the Myopic Books improvisation festival with a quartet including trombonist Jeb Bishop, bassist Josh Abrams, and percussionist Chad Taylor, which was recorded for future release on BoxMedia. Other performances during 1998 included a trio with Zerang and pianist Sten Sandell, several guest performances with Vandermark & Williams' "Cinghiale & Friends", (where other guests included Lonberg-Holm, O'Rourke, Bishop, Sandell, and reedist Peter Brotzman); ongoing performances with Scanbake, Witches & Devils, Caffeine, duets with percussionist Damon Short; a trio with Sandstrom and Hunt; a quartet with guitarist Tony Suto, Sandstrom, and Hunt; in groups led by cornetist Rob Mazurek, trombonist Jeb Bishop, flautist Michael Mason, and saxophonist Cameron Pfiffner; and with O'Rourke, Zerang, Vandermark, percussionist Steve Butters, and multi-instrumentalist Elliott Sharp. Baker was also part of a group assembled & conducted by writer/producer Art Lange (which also included O'Rourke, Lonberg-Holm, reedist Guillermo Gregorio, and percussionist Carrie Biolo-Thompson) that recorded the first complete recording of Cornelius Cardew's "Treatise" for future release (either on Hat Hut, or one of their subsidiary/affiliate labels [eg, HatOlogy or Hat Art].) Baker performs regularly as house pianist at the weekly Sunday evening jam sessions at Fred Anderson's Velvet Lounge (2158 1/2 S. Indiana, Chicago). His activities as a writer/composer have been ongoing during the past twenty years, and some of his compositions have been recorded by Steam and Broken Wire. Festivals: Chicago Jazz Fair - 1980 (with Hal Ra Roux/Jim Baker Quintet) and 1995 (with Brimfield,Taylor,Fenner,A.Brown,M.Cristol,L.Varro,Ajaramu,T.Colburn,Baker); Moers Music Festival (Germany) - 1996 (with Vandermark,Williams,O'Rourke,Kessler,Drake,Baker) Chicago Jazz Festival - 1996 - (Jim Baker trio with Kessler,Drake, plus Fred Anderson) Tampere Jazz Happening (Finland) - 1996 - (with Witches & Devils (Williams,Vandermark,Lonberg-Holm,Baker,Bankhead,Hunt]) FMP Festival (Chicago) - 1996 - (with Rudiger Carl, Stefan Wittwer, and Baker London Ontario Jazz Festival (Canada) - 1997 (with Steam [Vandermark,Baker,Kessler,Mulvenna]) South Shore Jazz Festival (Chicago) - 1997 (with Tony Mujica Sextet, w/Mujica,W.Garcia,Andy Goodrich,Baker,Bankhead,V.Davis) Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music (Chicago) - 1997 (with Steve Beresford) and 1998 (with Michael Zerang) Recordings: Michael Zerang/Jim Baker "Earth Sessions" (BOXMedia 2 CD) Broken Wire (Zerang, Baker, Lonberg-Holm, and guitarist/violinist/cornetist Daniel Scanlan) "Broken Wire" (Eighth Day) Steam (Vandermark, Baker, Kessler, and drummer Tim Mulvenna) "Real Time" (Eighth Day) Fred Anderson Quartet (Anderson, Baker, Bankhead, Drake) "Birdhouse" (Okka Disk) Caffeine (Vandermark, Baker, Hunt) "Caffeine" (Okka Disk) Ken Vandermark in four Chicago improvising trios (including Vandermark with Scanlan & Baker; M.Williams & Zerang; K.Kessler & H.Drake; K. Drumm & S.Hunt) "Standards" (Quinnah) Nicholas Tremulis (Tremulis,Reupert,Jones,Barnes,Barnes,Brand,Robbins,Woods, plus Ra Roux Abou [Harold Jones] and Baker) "Nicholas Tremulis" (Island) Nicholas Tremulis (Tremulis,Reupert,Schmitt,Brand,Alexander,Hal Raru [H.Jones],Baker,Thomas) "Marriage Made in Heaven/You Call This Living?" (Disturbing 7") (upcoming releases): Myopic Improvisation Festival (1998); (quartet with trombonist Jeb Bishop, bassist Josh Abrams, percussionist Chad Taylor, and Baker) (BOXMedia) Cornelius Cardew's "Treatise" (first complete recording) (Guillermo Gregorio, reeds; Fred Lonberg-Holm, cello; Carrie Biolo-Thompson, percussion; Jim O'Rourke, synthesizer & organ; Baker, piano & synthesizer; group organized/conducted by Art Lange) "Treatise" (HatOlogy) top HARRISON BANKHEAD (contrabass) One of the distinguishing characteristics of 8 Bold Souls has always been the preponderance of low sounding instruments. Pinning down the root of these fundamental sonorities is the contra bass where Harrison Bankhead holds court. Harrison is a native of the city of Waukegan just north of Chicago. His musical development was comprised of a variety of situations including studies at The Sherwood School of Music and Northeastern University. Currently, Harrison studies with Roger Cline of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.Harrison is known as a musician who appreciates a musical challenge. He has never shunned an opportunity to participate in new and exciting ensembles and concerts where creativity abounds. From flamenco, to classical, to gospel, to soul, Harrison has lent his unique bass styling to enhance whatever ensemble is fortunate enough to have his participation. Luckily he expends much of his musical energies with the 'Souls'. Additionally he has performed with Oliver Lake, Joshua Redman, Fred Anderson, Von Freeman, The Waukegan Symphony, Roscoe Mitchell, Billy Pierce, Billy Harper and many others. top MATT BAUDER Matt Bauder is a saxophonist and composer currently working on a masters in composition at wesleyan university. there he studies with anthony braxton, alvin lucier and ron kuivila. Before returning to school matt lived in ann arbor and chicago and was an active member of the improvised and creative music scene in the midwest. while living in chicago he led two bands: weary already of the way (jeb bishop, fred lonberg-holm, todd margasak, jason roebke, aram shelton), and white blue yellow and clouds (jason ajemian, tim daisy, todd margasak, jason roebke). among other projects he is also a member of the jason roebke quartet featuring jeff parker and chad taylor. he has also performed with phil minton, ken vandermark, kent kessler, jim baker, andrew d?ngelo, anthony braxton as well as many others. the debut weary already of the way recording is due out in april on walking road records. he has also recorded with the evercloser trio, warn defever, saturday looks good to me, and larval. www.home.earthlink.net/~siegebros/memorizethesky top JOHANNES BAUER JOHANNES BAUER was born in Halle/Saale in 1954 studied music in Berlin since 1979 he has been a freelance improvising musician and leader of several workshop bands compositions for improvising musicians performance amongst others in: Manfred Schulze Bl?serquintett, Ulrich Gumpert Workshop Band, "Doppelmoppel", "Slawterhaus", Fred van Hove Trio, Tony Oxley Orchestra, Peter Br?ann M?rz Combo. Discography (extract): Peter Br?ann Group: "Alarm", Tony Oxley Celebration Orchestra: "Tomorrow is here", Manfred Schulze Bl?serquintett: "Nummer 12", Cecil Taylor European Orchestra: "Alms/Tiergarten", Slawterhaus: "Live at Victoriaville", Bauer/ Nozati/ Van Hove: "Organo Pleno", "Conrad and Johannes Bauer-The concert at V?rsachlachtdenkmal Leipzig", Doppelmoppel: "Reflections" musical Projects with Johannes Bauer are: Fo(u)r Bones east German trombone quartet with Conny Bauer, Iven Hausmann and Joerg Huke top DAN BENNETT Dan Bennett was born in Ann Arbor Michigan on May 13 1980 and has been playing saxophone since age 9. He has played in and led a number of groups such as lotus, blue velvet, larval, transsubstantiation, shaky deal, as well as many impromptu large and small group performances around Ann Arbor, Cleveland, Chicago, LA, and New York. If he's lucky you've maybe heard of one of these groups. He plays Alto, Tenor, and Baritone saxophone as well as whatever else he can get his hands on. He enjoys fine dining, skateboarding, and days with turbulent and radical sky scapes. He feels very uncomfortable with self promotion/biographics and looks forward to regretting what he's written when it's in print somewhere that people will read it. top JOHAN BERTHLING Johan Berthling was born in Stockholm 1973. After studying at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Stockholm (1996-1998) he has worked as a freelance with jazz, improvised music and more. Berthling is currently working in these groups: Animes (David Stacken?s ? guitar, Raymond Strid ?drums), LSB (Fredrik Ljungkvist ? reeds, Raymond Strid ?drums), Sten Sandell Trio (Sten Sandell ?piano, Paal Nilssen-Love ?drums), Sandell ?Ljungkvist ?Berthling and Christer Both?Acoustic Ensemble. Some relevant projects: * Ume? Jazz Festival 1997 * Music for Stan Brakhages film ?og Star Man? 2 concerts in Stockholm 1998 * Festival for ?oung Improvised Music?openhagen 1998 * Gush ?10th year anniversary, Fylkingen Stockholm 1998 * Ume? Jazz Festival 1998 * Work for G?orgs Stadsteater ?rankenstein?1999 * Oslo Jazz Festival 1999, Sounds 1999 * Improvised Music Festival, Fylkingen Stockholm * Animes-tour in Sweden and Norway with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm ?November 1999 * ?rislag??Rikskonserter tour in Sweden w. Animes & William Parker Project ?February 2000 * ?ipeline??16-piece band w. 8 Swedish and 8 American improvisers, concerts in Chicago ?September 2000 * Animes ?tour w. German synthplayer Thomas Lehn ?October 2000 * Performances with Lindha Svantesson, Mark Wastell, Axel D?r, Roger Turner, Tomasz Stanko, Mats Gustafsson, Ken Vandermark, Jeb Bishop Johan plays on this SOFA record: SOFA 504 ?sten sandell trio ?standing wave http://sofa.norcd.no/musicians/johan_berthling.html top BIRDSHOW Birdshow is an improvising trio of Liz Payne (double bass, chimes), Terri Kapsalis (violin, concertina) and John Corbett (acoustic guitar). The group has been working together since 1999, often with special guests like Mats Gustafsson and Fred Lonberg-Holm. This intimate concert at Candlestickmaker will be a rare trio-only appearance by the ensemble. Payne is well known for her work with Town & Country and numerous improvising ensembles. Kapsalis is a founding member of Theater Oobleck and has performed in a wide variety of contexts, including the trio Van's Peppy Syncopators, which also features Corbett. top JEB BISHOP Trombonist Jeb Bishop has been active in new and improvised music in Chicago since 1993. He currently performs and records with groups including the Vandermark Five, the Peter Br?ann Chicago Tentet, the Chicago-Scandinavia quintet School Days, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm's Terminal Four, and his own Jeb Bishop Trio, and participates frequently in concerts of new and improvised music. His CD of improvised duets, 98 Duets, is available on the Wobbly Rail label, and features duets with Hamid Drake, Mats Gustafsson, Ken Vandermark, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Josh Abrams, and Wadada Leo Smith. The Chicago label Okkadisk has released the debut CD by the Jeb Bishop Trio, as well as The Brass City, an album of duets with Joe McPhee. In the fall of 2001, Okkadisk released Afternoons, the second CD by the trio, featuring guest guitarist Jeff Parker (Chicago Underground groups, Tortoise, Isotope 217) on several tracks. Bishop has also made guest appearances on recordings by Jim O'Rourke, Gastr del sol, Tortoise, Stereolab, David Grubbs, and Loren Mazzacane Connors/Alan Licht, and has performed with many leading improvisers, including Joe McPhee, Paul Lovens, Paul Lytton, John Butcher, Ernst Reijseger, Tobias Delius, Sean Bergin, Jaap Blonk, Wolfgang Fuchs, Georg Graewe, Jim O'Rourke, Kevin Drumm, Axel D?r, Zeena Parkins, Min Xiao-Fen, Sebi Tramontana, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Wolter Wierbos, Johannes Bauer, and Lisle Ellis. He has performed at Chicago's Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music, at the Victoriaville Musique Actuelle festival, at the Berlin Jazz Festival, and at festivals in Vancouver, Rive-de-Gier, Nancy, Mulhouse, Wels, Saalfelden, Clusone, and Mainz, among others. Selected recordings: 98 Duets, Wobbly Rail WOB004 Jeb Bishop Trio, Okkadisk OD12029 Jeb Bishop Trio/Quartet: Afternoons, Okkadisk OD12039 The Brass City (with Joe McPhee), Okkadisk OD12025 With Peter Br?ann: The Chicago Octet/Tentet, Okkadisk OD12022 Stone/Water, Okkadisk OD12032 With the Vandermark Five: Burn the Incline, Atavistic ALP121 Acoustic Machine, Atavistic ALP128 top LYNN BOOK Lynn Book sounds, sings, rants and wails the impossible into existence. Formerly known as "Chicago¹s most adventurous voice" (Corbett, Reader) she has been living in New York for the past eight years, performing the Œvoiced body¹ in one woman shows, concerts, radio dramas, CDs and media events. One of her current projects is a duo with percussionist / composer Kevin Norton (who she¹ll be performing with at Hothouse on July 20th) and Vox Risk Holler, 'the world's first performance art chorus' for which she composes, choreographs and conducts. For the Candlestick Maker performance, Lynn will be working her Œ"pliable, soothing and dangerous instrument" (Obejas, Tribune) + sampling and will be joined by long time collaborators Tatsu Aoki on extended bass and Lou Mallozzi on turn tables, CD players and SFX. link: www.voicelabnyc.com top BORBETOMAGUS Borbetomagus (Agaric) 1980 Work on What Has Been Spoiled (Agaric) 1981 Borbetomagus (Agaric) 1982 Barbed Wire Maggots (Agaric) 1983 Zurich (Agaric) 1984 New York Performances (Agaric) 1986 Snuff Jazz (Agaric) 1988 Seven Reasons for Tears (Purge Sound League) 1989 Borbeto Jam (Cadence Jazz) 1990 Experience the Magic (Agaric) 1991 Buncha Hair That Long (Agaric) 1992 Live at In-Roads (Japan. PSF) 1993 BORBETOMAGUS & FRIENDS Industrial Strength (Leo) 1983 BORBETOMAGUS AND VOICE CRACK Fish That Sparkling Bubble (UP06/Agaric) 1987 Asbestos Shake (Agaric) 1992 BORBETOMAGUS & THE SHAKING COELCANTH Borbetomagus and the Shaking Coelcanth (Agaric) 1991 SAUTER/DIETRICH Bells Together (Agaric) 1985 JIM SAUTER/DON DIETRICH/THURSTON MOORE Barefoot in the Head (Forced Exposure) 1990 (Shock) 1991 DONALD MILLER A Little Treatise on Morals (Audiofile) 1987 (Audible Hiss) 1995 If you don't think of jazz as a full-contact sport, you've obviously never spent any time in a room with the music of this durable upstate New York trio. "Punishing" doesn't even begin to describe the loud, assaultive ‹ and often earthily beautiful ‹ sound the members coax from guitar and two saxophones, instruments that here seldom uphold their conventional identities, thanks to innovative use of tone splitting, harmonic distortion and out-and-out brute force. Initially formed at the tail end of the '70s ‹ concurrent with, but not actually part of, New York's no wave scene ‹ Borbetomagus imbued its free-squealing with a vividly blue-collar style, evident in both the members' biker-ish appearance and the sheer brawn with which Don Dietrich, Donald Miller and Jim Sauter handle their various "axes." The first self-titled disc ‹ on which the core trio is abetted by sine wave master Brian Doherty (his work is reminiscent of Allen Ravenstine's more jagged essays in Pere Ubu) ‹ holds the seeds of what would become the Borbeto style, most notably Miller's jet-engine guitar roar, which occasionally wanes long enough to reveal him plucking strings like a mad harpist. It wasn't until the 1982 release that the sheer otherness of the group manifested itself fully. Early performances may have manipulated a fairly wide range of horrible noise, but this one set up stakes around a tiny patch of what would come to be sacrosanct ground for Borbetomagus. Improvising vertically rather than horizontally, there's no release, only tension heaped upon tension. The three members scrape at each other's sore spots and howl with raw fury when the scraping gets too close to the bone. There's nothing remotely cyclical in these untitled improvisations-highlighted by a spatially disconcerting piece recorded before a clearly befuddled audience in Nyack, New York in early '79 ‹ which sets Borbetomagus' new thing apart from even the radical blasts volleyed by Ornette Coleman et al. back in the day. The 40-minute improvised piece that makes up Barbed Wire Maggots, while mottled with passages that are identifiable as jazz ‹ notably a stretch of about five minutes in when Dietrich and Sauter trade fleet, squawking runs in the manner of Albert Ayler and Charles Tyler circa "Bells" ‹ is as otherworldly in its power as anything the trio has ever produced. There are moments when Miller's guitar re-creates the sound of a dentist's drill in the mouth of a screaming patient ‹ if the mic were attached to said patient's tonsils. Draining in every conceivable way. The double-album Zurich and New York Performances record a portion of the Borbetomagus live experience, but fail to capture the sheer density, the non-aural undertow that comes from immersion in the uncommon frequencies the trio tends to inhabit. The latter, recorded in three parts during the summer of 1986, is especially effective in establishing the band's ability to build something other than a tsunami of sound. Seven Reasons for Tears, on which tape-manipulation expert Adam Nodelman guests, is one of Borbetomagus' most insidious releases, underlaid as it is with a constant dream-state drone that lulls even while the players manifest the will to provoke. A real soul-tearer. The trio shifts gears to a degree on Buncha Hair That Long, which maintains the apocalyptic petitioning tone in a format that's considerably more discrete. Not only do the pieces have titles this time, the reedmen even make use of discernible phrasing: "Friendly Fire" practically ignites in a moment where the saxes, in unison, play what could pass for a baritone squonk variation on the coda from "Marquee Moon." To top it all off, the live-at-CBGB version of "Blue Jay Way" could easily reunite the Beatles for good if it were played in the presence of the surviving trio. Live at In-Roads is a sonically pristine reissue of an early cassette-only release documenting one of the band's confrontational New York shows. Borbetomagus takes on an entirely different edge when locked in a room with Norbert Moslang and Andy Guhl (aka the Swiss electro-shock duo Voice Crack). Creating rhythms without percussion and sophisticated harmonics without chords per se, they wrest both philosophical manifestos and tribal primitivism from the randomly generated sizzle that permeates Fish That Sparkling Bubble. On the follow-up, the bent is more clearly cerebral, with Moslang and Guhl imparting a more scientific approach to the voltage-sapping entreaties contained herein. The Shaking Coelcanth 10-inch incorporates the strangely Luddite electronics (mostly homemade patch synthesizers and radically deconstructed percussive devices) manipulated by Tennessee-based wiz Dennis Ray Levis, whose junkyard noise can also be sampled on albums released under the Shaking Ray Levis imprimatur. It's an exquisite mix of over (amplified) and out (of their mind) elements. The earlier Industrial Strength is quite a bit less powerful, not because the onslaught is any less fierce, but because the three Borbeto men tend to allow the multitude of fellow travelers too much autonomy. The excessively diffuse nature of the hit-and-miss improv clusters attest to the necessity of keeping free combos as compact as possible. Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore steps into ‹ and almost fills ‹ Miller's shoes on Barefoot in the Head. Playing with percussive force, Moore sticks to underpinning "All Doors Look Alike" (which features some remarkable high-end blowing by one of the reedmen) and leans into a leering grind on "Concerning the Sun as a Cool Solid" with such glee one can actually infer some truth behind the liner ‹ note assertion that he was begging to be "freed from the shackles of the Peggy Lee ‹ descended dogshit" of his day job. Bells Together is a deceptively simple description of the Dietrich/Sauter album, long stretches of which consist of the two saxists placing the bells of their instruments together and blowing ‹ a maneuver that seems to allow them to play each other's very lungs as much as the instruments themselves. Sauter has also played and recorded with the Blue Humans, an incendiary no-wave-cum-free-skronk outfit led by Ed Wood biographer Rudolph Grey, who can also count drummer Rashied Ali among his collaborators. Miller has provided jolts on several albums by drummer William Hooker (as well as the industro-trance group Lhasa Cement Plant). The guitarist's solo album, A Little Treatise on Morals, is given over to more subtle uses of space than most of his work with the band. There are certainly outbursts where power electronics have their way (especially on the grinding "Deploration") but, by and large, the textured string-play shows a kinder (if not necessarily gentler) side to the noise titan. top MWATA BOWDEN (baritone, tenor saxophone, clarinet) Having picked up 'one of those old, metal, silver clarinets' in church when he was twelve, Mwata soon found himself in the junior high school band and a couple of years later, playing at DuSable High School for one of the most revered figures in Chicago Black Music, Captain Walter Dyett. This was the man who had inspired and trained no less than Nat 'King' Cole, Johnny Griffin, Gene Ammons, Von Freeman, Richard Davis, Fred Hopkins, and other South Side music giants too numerous to mention.The rigorous musical training Mwata received at DuSable earned him a spot at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. As he came close to completing his music education degree, reality set in. On his teacher's advice, Bowden picked up a baritone saxophone and started working the big bands and the R&B outfits that were so popular in Chicago in the late 60's. No sooner had Mwata graduated than he was touring the country with the Chi-Lites, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Albert King and other R&B groups. And it was this time on the road that inevitably led him to the AACM, back home in Chicago. During the past several years, Bowden has gone beyond the stage of discovery into genuine mastery. In addition to the obvious technical virtuosity he commands on baritone saxophone and clarinet, he has been able to put together ensembles that develop his ideas on a somewhat larger scale. In his Sound Spectrum and Tri-Tone ensembles, for instance, he has presented long and complex compositions that nevertheless prove accessible to the uninitiated listener. Above all, though the AACM remains the constant in his musical life. Bowden is a former Chairman of the AACM. top CARLA BOZULICH Carla Bozulich is best known as the brash singer from LAñbased band The Geraldine Fibbers. Before that she was the gamine howler in the groove/sex/assault outfit Ethyl Meatplow. She plays in a few improvisation combos and collaborates often. She has one of the most unique voices in any genre. Her work seems to be at once brutally raw and weirdly visionary, yet still manages to lull. Carla's first band was a wacked out punk/art-rock project called the Neon Veins ('83-'84), where she got her first tastes of song structure throbbing in and out of improvisation. Concurrently, she appeared on a few tracks on an electronic/experimental music album released by her Neon Veins bandmate Gary Kail, called, "Zurich 1916, Creative Nihilism". Then there was The Invisible Chains, a demented minimalist disco band. They released an album on the Minutemen's New Alliance label. At 22, she co-created Ethyl Meatplow. Their sequenced insanity inspired folks all over the US to dance, disrobe, beat off, or beat them up. Several releases and five years later, the Industrial Dance Diva had written a few good country songs in her down time on the road. She formed The Geraldine Fibbers in 1993, during the last gasp of Ethyl Meatplow. It started out as a strictly country outfit. Audiences didn't skip a beat and just started showing up in cowboy boots instead of whipped cream and unwound cassette tape. When Meatplow broke up, Carla needed an outlet for the maelstrom inside her head. She brought it all together into the Geraldine Fibbers. They were well-loved by fans and the press alike. Having released some stuff through Sympathy For The Record Industry, they found themselves choosing labels out of a slew of monoliths that were promising remarkable things. After three widely-acclaimed albums, year 'round touring, ecstatic fans, low sales (by major label standards), the band was dropped in 1998. They scattered, but it was a good ride. Carla and Nels Cline (who joined the Fibbers for their second album) then created Scarnella, an open, often instrumental duo that favors improvisation as well as song structures. They recorded a self-titled CD for Smells Like Records in 1998. They did some touring and were equally at home (stylistically) playing with Low or the Boredoms. Carla scored an independent feature film called By Hook Or By Crook. An official Sundance selection for 2002, it got awards at festivals in the US and abroad. She's done some production and singing on Lydia Lunch's excellent new album. On a Tom Waits tribute, Carla's made many noteworthy guest appearance recordings, and was commissioned to score a production of Jean Genet's play, The Maids. Carla collaborates with many, many people often improvising at the drop of a hat. What's next? There are several possible directions... She's started work on a halloween album which she hopes to release on Easter Sunday, 2004. Also in the works are a solo album, finishing her book of horses and hopefully making a little film to accompany the Red Headed Stranger album. Carla Bozulich, girl unsinkable, will certainly be off somewhere working like an obsessive silkworm... at whatever she wants. top DAVID BOYKIN Composer and saxophonist David Boykin leads the Outet, a jazz quintet consisting of vocalist Glenda Baker, flutist Nicole Mitchell (Samana), bassist Josh Abrams(Sam Prekop Band, Town and Country) and drummer Chad Taylor(Sam Prekop Band, Chicago Underground Duo). The group is inspired by the tradition of Chicago musicians such as Sun Ra, Gene Ammons, Johnny Griffin and Sonny Stitt, and uses these local influences to help powerfully express the voice of the next generation of creative music. Boykin? bold sound, complex rhythmic phrasing, and fearlessly aggressive approach to improvisation lead the Outet with a forcefulness that touches the listener intimately. The group's full and lush sound is achieved by the members stretching themselves technically and emotionally. top ANTHONY BROCK Anthony graduated from North Texas State University and made his way to Chicago when he was on the road with legendary drummer Buddy Rich. He has performed with Woody Herman and the Mike Vax Big Band, and also was a member of the Chicago Theatre Orchestra. Anthony is currently performing and recording with the Dave Gordon Band and he is one of the most in- demand bass players in Chicago. top ZACH BROCK Zach Brock is a violinist at the forefront of his genre. He has been described by critically acclaimed trumpeter, educator, arranger and composer Orbert Davis as "...not just a violinist who plays jazz, but a jazz musician who happens to play the violin." Zach Brock's music is an amalgam of American jazz and original composition. Zach Brock is fast gaining notice from the critics. Jerome Wilson in the June 1999 issue of Cadence remarked that Zach "can wail, worry and screech like Jean-Luc Ponty", while WBEZ personality Larry Smith said that Zach is "the most exciting young jazz violin player in Chicago." In its September 1999 edition, the on-line music magazine Popcorn Music Review noted that Zach's musical collaborations constantly yielded "innovative sounds." Born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1974, Zach Brock was introduced to music at an early age by his parents. He left Lexington in 1992 to pursue his musical training in Chicago. Not long after leaving Lexington, Zach was studying and playing with critically-acclaimed Chicago trumpeter Orbert Davis. He had the distinct honor of appearing with Mr. Davis at the 1997 IAJE International Convention as a guest artist/clinician. Since arriving in Chicago, Zach has performed with such notable musicians as Von Freeman, Johnny Frigo, Willie Pickens, Orbert Davis, Kurt Elling, Jim Trompeter, Ron Perillo, Patricia Barber, Jim Cammack, Michael Arnapol, Larry Gray, John McLean, Kelly Sill, Marlene Rosenberg, Jim Ryan, Bobby Lewis, Mwata Bowden, Ari Brown, Jeff Stitely, Ron Blake and Dave Kikoski. top PETER BROTZMANN Born Remscheid, Germany on 6 March 1941; soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass saxophones, a-clarinet, e-flat clarinet; bass clarinet, tarogato. Peter Br?nn's early interest was in painting and he attended the art academy in Wuppertal. Being very dissatisfied with the gallery/exhibition situation in art he found greater satisfaction playing with semi-professional musicians, though continued to paint (as well as retaining a level of control over his own records, particularly in record sleeve/CD booklet design). Self-taught on clarinets, he soon moved to saxophones and began playing swing/bebop, before meeting Peter Kowald. During 1962/63 Br?nn, Kowald and various drummers played regularly - Mingus, Ornette Coleman, etc. - while experiencing freedoms from a different perspective via Stockhausen, Nam June Paik, David Tudor and John Cage. In the mid 1960s, he played with American musicians such as Don Cherry and Steve Lacy and, following a sojourn in Paris with Don Cherry, returned to Germany for his unorthodox approach to be accepted by local musicians like Alex von Schlippenbach and Manfred Schoof. The trio of Peter Br?nn, Peter Kowald and Sven-Ake Johansson began playing in 1965/66 and it was a combination of this and the Schoof/Schlippenbach Quintet that gave rise to the first Globe Unity Orchestra. Following the self-production of his first two LPs, For Adolphe Sax and Machine gun for his private label, BRý, a recording for Manfred Eicher's 'Jazz by Post' (JAPO) [Nipples], and a number of concert recordings with different sized groups, Br?nn worked with Jost Gebers and started the FMP label. He also began to work more regularly with Dutch musicians, forming a trio briefly with Willem Breuker and Han Bennink before the long-lasting group with Han Bennink and Fred Van Hove. As a trio, and augmented with other musicians who could stand the pace (e.g. Albert Mangelsdorff on, for example, The Berlin concert), this lasted until the mid-1970s though Br?nn and Bennink continued to play and record as a duo, and in other combinations, after this time. A group with Harry Miller and Louis Moholo continued the trio format though was cut short by Miller's early death. The thirty-plus years of playing and recording free jazz and improvised music have produced, even on just recorded evidence, a list of associates and one-off combinations that include just about all the major figures in this genre: Derek Bailey (including performances with Company (e.g. Incus 51), Cecil Taylor, Fred Hopkins, Rashied Ali, Evan Parker, Keiji Haino, Misha Mengelberg, Anthony Braxton, Marilyn Crispell, Andrew Cyrille, Phil Minton, Alfred 23 Harth, Tony Oxley. Always characterised as an energy player - and the power-rock setting of Last Exit with Ronald Shannon Jackson, Sonny Sharock and Bill Laswell, or his duo performances with his son, Casper, did little to disperse this conviction - his sound is one of the most distinctive, life-affirming and joyous in all music. But the variety of Br?nn's playing and projects is less recognised: his range of solo performances; his medium-to-large groups and, in spite of much ad hoc work, a stability brought about from a corpus of like- minded musicians: the group Ruf der Heimat; pianist Borah Bergman; percussionist Hamid Drake; and Die like a dog, his continuing tribute to Albert Ayler, with Drake, William Parker and Toshinori Kondo. Peter Br?nn continues a heavy touring schedule which, since 1996 has seen annual visits to Japan and semi-annual visits to the thriving Chicago scene where he has played in various combinations from solo through duo (including one, in 1997, with Mats Gustafsson) to large groups such as Octet/Tentet for which he wrote the charts. He has also released a number of CDs on the Chicago-based Okka Disk label, including the excellent trio with Hamid Drake and the Moroccan Mahmoud Gania, at times sounding like some distant muezzin calling the faithful to become lost in the rhythm and power of the music. top KYLE BRUCKMAN Oboist, electronic musician, improviser and composer Kyle Bruckmann has become a fixture in Chicago's thriving experimental music underground. He is a rare musical beast whose subversive instincts are appropriately matched by his dynamic technical capacity. With a history of conservatory training gone awry, Bruckmann combines the discipline of a classical foundation with the raucous sensibilities of Dada and punk in a dizzying variety of artistic endeavors. Since '96, he has lived in Chicago, where he teaches and free-lances as a classical musician while playing regularly with some of the city's most creative improvisers and sound artists, including Jeb Bishop, Jim Baker, Bhob Rainey, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Robbie Hunsinger, Michael Zerang, Guillermo Gregorio, and Olivia Block. Ongoing affiliations include EKG, an electroacoustic duo with Ernst Long, the Rosenberg Skronktet ("Anyone interested in how creative music develops will want to keep an ear on their progress," Kevin Whitehead, Chicago Sun-Times,) and the experimental punk powerhouse Lozenge. As a member of composer Gene Coleman's Ensemble NoAmnesia, he has collaborated with Polwechsel and performed works by George Crumb, John Cage, Charles Ives, Cornelius Cardew, Malcolm Goldstein, Karlheinz Essl, and John Wolf Brennan, among others. His debut CD of solo improvisations, "entymology," available through Barely Auditable Records, has been hailed as "an enchanting experience that expands the possibilities (and the comprehension) of the double reed family" (Fran?ois Couture, All-Music Guide.) A project of duo recordings is planned for release on Meniscus Records in early 2001. Lozenge's recordings are available through ToYo and Farrago Records. Bruckmann earned undergraduate degrees in music and psychology at Rice University in Houston, studying oboe with Robert Atherholt, serving as music director of campus radio station KTRU, and gaining academic distinction as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. His graduate study took place at the University of Michigan, where he studied oboe performance with Harry Sargous and contemporary improvisation with Ed Sarath. He has attended the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival in Maine, the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York, and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. top JEROME BRYERTON jerome bryerton has been working as a free improvising percussionist for the past eight years. in this time, he has worked with some of the most respected players in the world. in october he was once again aquainted with berlin multi-reedist wolfgang fuchs and san francisco bassist damon smith; presenting two concerts as well as recording a cd ( on balance point acoustics). in september he worked with bass saxophonist tony bevan; with bevan, he performed in san francisco with local improvisers scott looney and damon smith. last winter jerome toured in paris and monacco with chicago improvisers carol genetti and andrea polli. these performances were alligned with the multi media festival i.s.e.a. as, well as the monacco dance forum. jerome style strikes a resemblance close to the likes of european percussionist's paul lovens, paul lytton, and lee quan ninh. intent on using multi ethnic percussion as well as western percussion- simultaneously furnishing them with an odd assortment of orchestral metal and chinese cymbals/gongs. jerome's believes that it is necessary to keep intact many of the european aesthetics revolutionized in the sixties and seventies; but which is also crucial is the synthesis of wit and experience of a modern american improviser. as a side note, jerome has also worked with the following people: trumpeter axel doerner, reed player john butcher, guitarist henry kaiser, reedist peter van bergen, reedist jack wright, cellist fred lonberg holm, trombonist jeb bishop, and also bassist kent kessler. top MICHAEL BULLOCK Free improvisor Michael Bullock has played bass in 8 countries, on a dozen records, and in a variety of bands, touring extensively both solo and as part of various ensembles. He has also played with well-known improvisors such as Eddie Pr?ost, LG¦Quan Ninh, and Peter Kowald, in addition to working with numerous members of Boston's improvised music community. Two of his current obsessions include IIbasSpit, an electro-acoustic trio with Tucker Dulin (trombone) and Seth Cluett (bass, voice) which is planning a CD release this year; and an ongoing curiosity with acoustic feedback. Bullock has released recordings on such diverse labels as Emanem, Rounder, and Naxos. His first release as a leader, [there the eye goes not;] (Tautology 006), featuring rising stars Bhob Rainey, BrendaHopkins Miranda, and Tatsuya Nakatani was released in 1999. Of the disk, Derek Taylor of Cadence magazine said: "The real joy of this quartet is their shared origin which is translated into a confidence of purpose. . . [Bullock] and his peers are excellent examples of improvisers who are constantly and uncompromisingly exploring the unmapped nooks and crannies of audible sound." top JOHN BUTCHER John Butcher lives in London and has played the saxophone for about 25 years. He began at Surrey university where he was studying physics. Here, he played in a number of jazz groups with pianist Chris Burn and first participated in group improvisation via some of Stockhausen's so-called 'intuitive' pieces. On moving to London, to begin a Ph.D on the theoretical properties of charmed quarks, his musical activities included a stint at Sadler's Wells Theatre (with the London Contemporary Dance Theatre), tours with the New Arts Consort, concerts with Burn's BBC-award winning big band, and a jazz quartet residency at the White Hart, Drury Lane. Since leaving academia in 1982 he has focused on improvisation and 'new' music, and his playing now ranges through free improvisation, various structurings, his own compositions, multitracked saxophone pieces, work with pre-recorded tape, and also live electronics. He has toured and broadcast throughout Europe and North America, and was featured, playing solo, in the BBC TV programme Date with an artist. In the early 80s Butcher and Burn rehearsed and ran monthly concert at the Workers' Music Association in Notting Hill Gate. In 1984 they released their first LP Fonetiks, and also played and broadcast in Jon Corbett's Freelance (with Elton Dean and Joe Gallivan). The long term trio, with John Russell and Phil Durrant, formed in 1984 and has released a studio LP Conceits and two live CDs, Concert moves and The scenic route. Conceits was the first LP on Acta Records, a label Butcher continues to run. This trio was joined in 1988 by Paul Lovens and Radu Malfatti to form News from the Shed. Embers (with Jim Denley, Marcio Mattos and Chris Burn) formed in 1986. Various ad-hoc work in the 80s included a Rome concert in a soprano 4-tet (with Evan Parker, Trevor Watts and Lol Coxhill) and a DDR tour with Alan Tomlinson. Butcher continues to work with Burn in the group Ensemble (an evolution from the London Improvising Ensemble of 1985), which performs structured improvisations. His pieces Funforall, no stops only commas, and Southern Samba a go-go have been recorded on the Ensemble CDs Cultural baggage, Navigations and The Place 1991. Other semi-compositional ideas appear in the 4 saxophone multitracked pieces on the 1992 solo CD release, Thirteen friendly numbers. Since then solo concerts have become a particular project. These sometimes include short pieces for improvisation plus multitracked saxophone on tape. One such piece, Shrinkdown, is on the 1996 solo release, London and Cologne. A further solo release, Fixations (14) collects live recordings from the USA and Europe over a four year period to 2000. He first performed with the singer Vanessa Mackness at Derek Bailey's 1990 London Company Week. They released the duo CD Respiritus in 1994. In 1991 he formed Frisque Concordance with Georg Gr?e, Martin Blume and Hans Schneider. In 1992 he joined what became the final version of John Steven's Spontaneous Music Ensemble; A new distance contains their performance at the 1993 LMC Festival - the group's last recorded concert. Butcher has performed in many contexts with singer Phil Minton, whose quartet (including Veryan Weston and Roger Turner) has put out the CD Mouthful of ecstasy - utilising texts from Finnegans Wake. Another group is a trio (formed 1991) with Minton and Erhard Hirt which has released Two concerts. A trio with Derek Bailey and the tuba player Orren Marshall has released Trio playing whilst two live duos with Bailey appear on Vortices and angels, along with duos with harpist Rhodri Davies. Electronic music was an early influence on Butcher's approach to saxophone playing, and has become explicit in his electromanipulation duo with Phil Durrant. This has released Secret Measures and Requests and Antisongs Some commentators have described his wind trio with Axel Doerner and Xavier Charles as electronic music by acoustic instruments. The Contest of Pleasures records their performance at the 2000 Mulhouse Festival. Since first visiting the US and Canada in 1994, various musical connections have developed with North American musicians. A number of duos, including with Michael Zerang, Gino Robair and Fred Lonberg-Holm, are presented on Music on Seven Occasions, whilst his trio with Robair and Matthew Sperry debuted on 12 Milagritos. Duos with drummers seem to have proliferated recently, and include Points, Snags and Windings (with Dylan van der Schyff), Shooters and Bowlers (with Gerry Hemingway), and a BBC session with Steve Noble which can be heard in Real Audio at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/jazz/jon3/jon3010601fbutchnob.shtml. In 1997 Butcher joined the Austrian new music group Polwechsel. He appears on their CDs Polwechsel 2 and Polwechsel 3. Other work includes Hit and Run with John Edwards, and a trio with Andy Moor and Thomas Lehn. As is the case for most improvisers, a lot of music has been made in occasional, and even once-only groupings. These include: Derek Bailey's Company (90, 92, 95); Fred van Hove's t'nonet; Gr?e's GrubenKlangOrchester; Radu Malfatti's Ohrkiste; Steve Beresford's Orchestra and Butch Morris' London Skyscraper. In addition he has played in duo with musicians as varied as Fred Frith, Jin Hi Kim, Kaffe Matthews, Dave Tucker, Carlos Zingaro, Joe Morris, Jeffrey Allport, Veryan Weston and Martin Klapper. top JORGE CASTRO Guitarist since 1989. Experimenting with the instrument since 1996. I have produced albums for Public Eyesore Records (USA), Fusion Audio (USA), Eco Discos (Puerto Rico), Noise X (Puerto Rico) and Dreamland Recordings (Australia). Collaborated with Monotract's Carlos Giffoni on the album "Guitarras del Olvido y Pensamientos Dimensionales", released by Public Eyesoire in 2001. The reissued version of my first album "The Joys and Rewards of Repetition" (Public Eyesore - 1999/2001) voted one of the 10 best of 2001 by Dead Angel Magazine (Texas, USA). Performed and collaborated with many Puertorican and international artists like: TV Pow, Brent Gutzeit, Boris Hauf, Jeff Surak, Zan Hoffman, José Olivares, Fabian Velez, Robin Alicea, Mario Negron, Julio Morales, Ultra Milkmaids, Macroporno, Los Psiconautas and Superaquello. Parallel projects include Cornucopia, Control Activo del Ruido, Origami Subtropika, Megalopolis, Vultrapia and others still to come. Live performances have always relied on improvisation, adopting loop sampling and straighforward guitar playing to try to achieve a harmonious, droning mass. My performances have lasted anywhere from 10 minutes to 3 and a half hours. top JOHN CELEBI John Celebi is a versatile drummer/composer/pianist, active in the Chicago, New York and Detroit jazz scenes. Born in Detroit, John learned his early skills from Detroit jazz masters, before moving on to Roosevelt University, where he honed his composition and arranging skills at the Chicago College of Performing Arts. After graduation, John was in New York playing nightly in a bustling jazz scene with local, national, and international musicians, such names as Wessel Anderson, Roy Hargrove, and Eric Lewis. He also formed the Quartet, ŒVisions¹, performing with Australian bassist Matt Cloesy, Kenny Garrett sideman Toru Dodo on piano, and Detroit jazz star, Dean Moore II, on saxophones. Residing in Chicago at the moment, John is in the middle of a project with his trio that blends the styles of jazz, folk/pop, hip-hop and R&B. top JEFF CHAN Tenor saxophonist/composer Jeff Chan has performed across the country as both a leader of his own ensembles and as a guest artist with various artists, including Ernest Dawkings, Tatsu Aoki, and Jon Jang. He has performed in the Knitting Factory's New York Jazz Festival (1998), the Chicago Asian American Jazz Festival (1998 and 2000), the Malcolm X Jazz and Arts Festival (2000 and 2001), and the San Francisco? Asian American Jazz Festival (2000 and 2001). "Winds Shifting" (Asian Improv Records 0033), Chan's first recording project as a leader, has received critical praise in both national and international publications. In reviews of Winds Shifting, critics write "This recording... is yet another sign of what a creative hotbed for improvised music San Francisco has become (Michael Rosenstein, Cadence, October 1998)," and also "Remarkably mature for his years, Jeff Chan's performance stands out as a model of thoughtful musicianship (Sam Prestianni, San Francisco Weekly, January 14-20, 1998)." Projects include leading Turn of the Century, the 11-piece big fUn philharmonic, participating in Cadence recording artist Adam Lane's Full Throttle Orchestra and the Asian Improv Saxophone Summit with tenor saxophonists Wong and Dr. Hafez Modirzadeh. Chan is also co-founder of Alliance of Emerging Creative Artists (AECA), an organization committed to the development of emerging creative artists who represent the diverse communities of the San Francisco Bay Area. He has received an award from the San Francisco Arts Commission to compose an extended work for his ensemble, Turn of the Century and pianist Jon Jang. Chan is also Musical Director with modern dance company Facing East Dance & Music, and is working on his second CD recording as a leader to feature Chicago bassist Tatsu Aoki and New York percussionist Chad Taylor. Other artists that Chan has performed with include Genny Lim (poet), Mark Izu (bass), Dr. Anthony Brown (multiple percussion), Jin Hi Kim (komungo), Marco Eneidi (saxophone), Kash Killion (cello/bass), Glenn Spearman (saxophone), Donald Robinson (drums), and the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble (Kahil El?abar, Joseph Bowie, and Ernest Dawkins). top ERIC CHENAUX Eric Chenaux is a guitar player, who played in post-punk bands Phleg Camp and LifeLikeWeeds in the late 80? and early 90?. Since then, he has been active in the Toronto improvised and experimental music scene, performing with John Oswald, Pauline Oliveros, Michael Snow and others. His current projects include the free-improvising groups The Draperies and the Guayaveras, Cow Paws (performing the works of composer Martin Arnold) and The Reveries, a trio who sings jazz standards with guitars, harmonicas, nose-flutes, thumbreeds, saw and bass played on a metal ruler. Each person also has a tiny cell phone speaker, placed in their mouths, amplifying the others instruments and vocals. Recently he has co-founded the Rat-drifting record label with releases due out in early spring 2002. top ASIMINA CHREMOS asimina chremos is the rare improviser who achieved a high level of excellence as a ballet dancer before turning her attention to more contemporary modes of dance movement and performance practice. while a member of the pittsburgh ballet theater under the direction of ex-new york city ballet ballerina patricia wilde, chremos was fortunate to perform soloist roles in balanchine ballets. she later studied modern dance with helmut gottschild, ann vachon and others at temple university, as well as studying improvisation with simone forti, and ishmael houston-jones at the american dance festival and the naropa institute. her own work has been discussed in the book, dancing women: female bodies on stage by Sally Banes. top MICHAEL COLLIGAN Michael Colligan (dry ice, reeds and tubes) has worked with The Flying Luttenbachers, The Chicago Improvisors Group, Math, and a number of others including Kevin Drumm and Phil Niblock. top JEROME COOPER During the 1970s Cooper drummed alongside Leroy Jenkins and Sirone in The Revolutionary Ensemble. Now, as then, his commitment is to raise the cultural status of jazz drumming. Recorded live at Roulette and the Knitting Factory, during three gigs between 1995-98, this is an attractively melodic and intricately polyrhythmic solo percussion album. Cooper has absorbed lessons from drummers worldwide. He uses balaphones and talking drums and integrates secondary instruments, including an electronic keyboard and the chiramia, a double reed wind instrument. It says a lot that he can import aspects of gamelan without banality and make "My Funny Valentine" sound almost entirely unfamiliar. Julian Cowley, Wire Jerome Cooper: ?ave traveled to Africa, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Europe and Mexico. In these cultures there are drummers who once they get to a level in their art, can pursue a career as a soloist. This has not been the case in American music, but it must happen if Jazz is going to be considered American classical music. All instrumentalists must be able to have the option of becoming a soloist. So this ?for the past thirty years has been my goal; to improve the quality of American music. This is stated by a guy who has been working his way through the American soundscape with collaborators as Oscar Brown Jr., Steve Lacy, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Alan Silva, Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor and many others. Jerome Cooper elaborates further in the CD booklet: ?er dealing with polyrhythms I began to hear layers of sounds and rhythms. Divided into many parts and facets, the drum set and secondary instruments I use and play are all aspects of the drums. In the future there will be many changes and developments in the area of the mind ?so what we (humankind) think and hear, is what we shall see and hear. In order to play the drum set you must be able to manipulate four or five things at one time (i.e. bass drum, snare drum, high-hat, ride cymbals and maybe voice). An instrument? name and structure doesn? stop me from playing it like a drum. You have instruments that are structurally different from the drum, but which have the same characteristics in the approach to the drum (i.e. piano, balaphone and shoes with taps). In order to find the music of the drums, I had to change my assumptions and beliefs about music in relation to the drums, which is sound in the creation of multi-rhythms. [?] The chiramia is a wind instrument. It is played with double reed. Mine has six stops (some have three, four or two). They are from Mexico. To me, the chiramia is my voice synthesizer. In Mexico some musicians play it along with their drums. In my performance I use two, mostly played individually, but sometimes together. [?] During the period of the Revolutionary Ensemble (1971 ?1977) I would play the drum set and then go over to the piano. The problem was external duality. When Yamaha and Casio introduced the electronic keyboard and drum synthesizer, it became part of my drum set (i.e. bass drum, snare drum, high-hat, cymbals and electronic tonal rhythmic activator). [?] A lot of drummers carry and play percussion instruments (gong, whistles, bongos etcetera). I do the same thing, except all of my percussion instruments are synthesized into one instrument. Jerome Cooper b. George Cooper, 14 December 1946, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Jerome Cooper came up drumming with blues bands on Chicago's south side and stormed awhile with Rahsaan Roland Kirk. In Paris, he worked with Steve Lacy and the Art Ensemble Of Chicago, then quit the freelancing life to commit his energies to the influential Revolutionary Ensemble (1970-1977), which he co-founded. Despite surfacing briefly as Cecil Taylor's drummer, Cooper has, since 1978, concentrated primarily on solo performances in which he augments his drum kit with African talking drum and balafon and also plays chirimia (a high-pitched oboe of Spanish origin) and synthesizer. He cites shamanism as an important influence on his work and collaborates periodically with the similarly-inspired English performance artist Colin Gilder, Cooper providing the live soundtrack?both improvised and composed?to Gilder's plays and happenings. Jerome Cooper is a sparkling drummer and percussionist whose solos are noted for their form and pace. He develops short phrases into poweful intricate lines and explosive rhythms. top RUI COSTA Rui Costa (Lisbon, Portugal, 1968) dedicates himself, since 1996, to computer music and sound art. In an initial phase, from 1996 a 1999, the musical activity of Rui Costa consisted mainly of an exploration of the aesthetics, tools, and processes to be used. This period culminated with the release of part of his production in mp3.com (www.mp3.com ) and the ReBirth song archive (www.propellerheads.se ) and the edition of the No-Man's Bay e Incidents of Mirror-Travel CDs. The beginning of the collaboration with kanito dates back to this period. En 1999 Rui Costa participated, with the videoartist and writer Olga Viana, in the 8th Edition of the Laboratory of Artistic Investigation - LAB, organized by the Companhia RE.AL/Jo? Fiadeiro and which took place in Lugar Comum (a center of experimental arts located in Oeiras, Portugal). Their work consisted of two video pieces (He Walked Along the Coast and RYs*erie) and two musical compositions exploring the concept of memory as the reconfiguration of the real. In January and February 2000, Rui Costa dedicated himself to the Immemory project, which consisted of a series of improvisations for sinewave and noise generators, with subsequent processing using real-time collage techniques. The public presentation of this project occurred in Lugar Comum. Between January and August of the same year, he resumed the Loophole project, with which he proposed to work about the notion of dynamic and self-regenerative process. As a result, he released the CDs granular_footsteps_vol.1 & vol.2. In February 2001, Rui Costa participated in a Workshop directed by the French percussionist and improviser LG¦Quan Ninh and organized by Asociaci? Currently Rui Costa and kanito are working in a series of conceptual projects dealing with the Iberian rural space familiar to both musicians. Of particular interest are those activities that have been, for many centuries, an essential part of the identity of the people living in those regions but are now in serious danger of disappearing. Nodar was conceived as a highly experimental work, bordering on the edges between performance and installation, improvisation and composition, sound and vision. The starting point for this project was a videotape recording of a traditional pig slaughter held in a household of a small Portuguese village called Nodar. Drawing on notions of "affective memory" and "reality outside time", the work tries to set a neutral view towards this reality, emphasizing its "naturality". It consists of a video projection and a sound piece for laptop computers, which are so strongly entwined together that their evolution over time depends on each other's objective and subjective "characteristics" as much as on the artists' real-time manipulation. The first presentation of this work occurred at the Festival of Alternative Arts (Con-Mutaciones 2001) that took place in Zaragoza (Spain), last May. A second presentation was held in Nodar, on June 16th, 2001. Rui and kanito are currently revising some aspects of this work, such as the image manipulation software and the video footage, in order to prepare it for further presentations later this year. This project draws its title from a Spanish village of the same name, very close to the border with Portugal. It is currently in a preproduction stage, with many of its details and conceptual work still unfinished. Villalcampo is about old and dried out vineyards, old analog tapes, (loss of) memory. kanito and Rui Costa are at the moment working in the production of the new album by Dadajazz, a free jazz combo from L?n (Spain), and preparing a studio collaborative work with Parto, an improvised music group from La Coru?Spain). top JOHNATHAN CRAWFORD Johnathan Crawford is a graphic designer, drum builder and percussionist. He studied music at the University of Iowa under John Rapson and Dan Moore. After graduating in 2000 he moved to Chicago. He plays in orch-pop group Head of Femur (Greyday Productions) with singer-songwriter Ed Gray (Global Buddy), rock outfit Kaspar Hauser (RoosterCow) and in electro-acoustic duo Grey Ghost (482 Music) with Aram Shelton. top DANIEL D'AGARO Daniel D'Agaro was born in Spilimbergo (Friuli, Italy) in 1958. He started his professional activities in 1979, playing with the Mittel Europa Orchestra, an Italian big band that performed improvised music along with many international guest artists. In 1979 Daniel D'Agaro has moved to Berlin, and later on to Amsterdam, where he has resided since 1984. He has performed and toured with many musicians representative of the improvised music, among others Tom Harrell and Han Bennink. He was a member of many famous Dutch bands like J.C. Tans Orchestra, Sean Bergin's M.O.B. and has toured with the Caribbean group Frankie Douglas' Sunchild. He formed the Lingua Franca Trio with the American cellist Tristan Honsinger and the Dutch bassist Ernst Glerum. In October 1991 he composed and performed a piece commissioned for the international "October Meeting '91" festival in Amsterdam, for an ensemble which included improvisers and the Val Resia Ensemble, an ethnic string conclave from the Eastern Italian alps. In the fall of 1993 he toured with a project, consisting of his Lingua Franca Trio, the Griot singer from Senegal Mola Sylla and the computer and electronica specialist Richard Teitelbaum. Today the group features the original clarinet, cello and bass combination, plus the Senegalese singer Mola Sylla, percussionist Paco Diedhiou and dancer Issa Sow. Together with fellow tenorists Sean Bergin and Tobias Delius, D'Agaro leads the Trio San Francisco, a formation that combines many aspects of improvised music, such as South African Kwela, Jazz, Folk Music, etc. They perform on different sets of instruments, like saxes, clarinets, flutes and concertina. Recently he toured with his new project "Hidden Treasures, the unpublished music of Don Byas", a quintet featuring veteran trumpeter Benny Bailey and drummer Han Bennink, also appearing at the North Sea Jazz Festival 1996 at the Hague. top TIM DAISY Tim Daisy has been involved in the Chicago improvised music scene since 1997 and >has performed and recorded with many of the cities musicians. His current projects include Triage(with dave rempis and jason ajemian), Vandermark Five, Jason Roebke Trio(with aram shelton) Chicago Improvisers Group,and Unclocked (ernst karel,jason ajemian,aram >shelton,zoe buck). Other projects he has been involved with include Fred Lonberg-Holm's Lightbox Orchestra, Todd Munnik Quartet,Keefe Jackson's Project Project, Lake Effect(don smithivas,jason ajemian) and Arrive (aram shelton,jason roebke,jason adasiewicz) Tim has organized two improvised music festivals both at the now defunct Nervous Center and has showcased many of the cities veteran and younger musicians including Michael Zerang, Ken Vandermark,Jeb Bishop,Matt Bauder,Kent Kessler, Josh Abrams, Aram Shelton,Hamid Drake, Kyle Bruckman and Erst Karel to name a few. Tim has been playing drums and percussion for 14 years and has studied privately with Anthony Pinciotti,Tim Mulvenna,Hamid Drake, and Joe Varhula. top PAULA DAUGHTRY Formerly a painter and student of the classical cello, Paula Daughtry has spent her recent art-making uniting the arenas of visual and aural art. Paula improvises on the cello along with a series of projected slide images in what could be called a synthesis of free-improvisation and performance art. top ERNEST KABEER DAWKINS One of the life goals of Ernest Dawkins is to represent the African American cultural experience through his music. His musical art form reflects the rich background and cultural distinctions of African American life. He is one of Chicago's premier jazz saxophonist whose music reflects his extraordinary talent not just as a musician but a composer as well. He has recorded eleven CD's and is the founder and leader of his own group, New Horizons Ensemble. Dawkins started his musical career at the tender age of twelve when he learned how to play the bass and conga drams. At nineteen he became mesmerized by the sound of the saxophone while listening to his father's jazz recordings of Lester Young. But it wasn't until he heard the alto sax of Guido Sinclair that he knew this was the instrument he wanted to play. Within a week, he had purchased his first saxophone, clarinet and flute all for the meager sum of $24.00. He taught himself the music scale and then found he had to practice at Washington Park because he couldn't practice at home. Two weeks later Dawkins got his first lesson from members of the AACM. From there his illustrious career in music began. Dawkins also takes the time to share his musical genius and knowledge with Chicago's youth. He has been teaching music in the Chicago Public School system since 1989. Prior to that he worked with the Urban Gateways's Educational Performances Program for schools. He has also worked with the Chicago Park District as well. In 1978 Dawkins formed his own group New Horizons Ensemble, a group which today continues to create a sound that showcases their unique combination of jazz, bebop, swing, and avant garde. The Chicago Tribune describes them as " a band with an uncommon versatility that erupts into new music bursts of dissonance and color. This band can enlighten an audience while enthralling it." Dawkins has worked with a myriad of music greats which include: Ramsey Lewis, Muhal Richard Abrams, Lester Bowie, Edward Wilkerson, Jr., Henry Threadgill, Amina Claudine Myers, Anthony Braxton, Jack McDuff, Don Moye, Jerry Butler, and The Dells. As a world renowned musician, Dawkins has performed in Maputo Mozambique and appeared on local radio and television programs as well as workshops there. He's performed with Zina Nggawana in Pretoria and at the Hugh Masekela Club J&B in Johnanesburg both in South Africa. He is also working as a consultant to The Jazz Club De Maputo in Mozambique. He has composed music for the documentary film "Malcolm" in 1995 under the direction of Alan Siegal. In 1994 he was commissioned to write a three-piece suite honoring Rahsaan Roland Kirk for the King Arts Complex in Columbus, Ohio. He is the recipient of numerous awards and grants some of which include: Arts Midwest Meet the Composer Grant (1992), Apprenticeship Study Grant from The National Endowment for the Arts (1985-1986), Music & Performance Grant from the Chicago Office of Fine Arts (1984-1985), Talent Scholarship from Governors State University (1980-1981), the CAIP (Chicago Artist International Program)Grant from the Chicago Dept. of Cultural Affairs, The United States Information Agency, United Airlines and Lufthansa Airlines (1998). He holds a Masters in Music Education from Governors State University in University Park, Illinois and has studied music at the Vandercook School of Music as well as the AACM School of Music. Dawkins currently serves as Chairman of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), the oldest musicians collective, of its kind, in the United States. top JAY DEMKO Jay Demko has been an active musician for 15 years and has developed a highly energetic and unique drumming style. His overall style shows the influence of modern jazz/free jazz drummers and of more traditional styles from Africa and India. His strength lies in pattern and directional shifts within steady time, as well as in playing entirely free of tempo, propelling the music with implied pulse. Previous groups include the punk/emo pioneers LINCOLN, and the free form jazz/funk RARE BIRDS. top JEFF DORCHEN Every Saturday morning, raconteur extraordinaire Jeff Dorchen frankly delivers The Moment of Truth. The Dorch insists that this is the only time during the broadcast day in which the truth is actually heard. Playwright, composer, musician and actor Jeff Dorchen is well-known in the Chicago underground as a formidable figure on the fringe theater, avant-garde performance, literary and independent music scenes. His work has been produced all over Chicago, across a spectrum of venues from the underground (Milk of Burgundy, The Lab) to the fringe (Lunar Cabaret, Blue Rider Theater, The Neo-Futurarium) to the mainstream (Goodman Studio, Mercury Theater, Second City) and even on radio (Public Radio International, NPR affiliate WBEZ in Chicago, "This Is Hell!" on WNUR). His work has been the subject of articles in an equally broad spectrum of publications -- from the underground (PerformInk, Letter X, Lumpen Times) to the alternative (New City, Chicago Reader, LA Weekly) to the mainstream (Chicago Magazine, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Forward) to the academic (Johns-Hopkins' Theater Journal). Dorchen wrote numerous one-acts and four full-length plays as a founding member of Chicago's popular Theater Oobleck. Two of his scripts ("Ugly's First World" and "The Slow and Painful Death of Sam Shepard") were selected for the debut catalogue of the fledgling play-publishing house Chicago Plays, Inc. Dorchen's plays with his present company, Theater for the Age of Gold, have consistently been hits of Chicago's premier fringe theater festival, The Rhinoceros Festival. Dorchen cowrote Redmoon Theater's hit stage adaptation of Moby Dick, which was performed at Pegasus Theatre. Dorchen was commissioned by The American Composers' Project to write a libretto for an oratorio about Amelia Earhart. Dorchen's radio play, "The Golden Peacock", produced by Ira Glass, was heard on Glasss's popular Public Radio International program, This American Life. Dorchen is also the guitarist and vocalist for the klezmer band, Shloinke, which recently released its first CD. He is currently recording a solo project based on his popular, long-running one-man show, "The Life and Times of Jewboy Cain". He is also co-host of the satirical public affairs radio program, "This is Hel!l", on WNUR FM in Chicago. Dorchen's production company, THEATER FOR THE AGE OF GOLD, has, since 1994, been selected as one of four Chicago theater companies to be a yearly recipient of a special grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Dorchen has written, directed, and starred in every Age of Gold production since his founding of the company in 1992: "Birth of a Frenchman", a solo puppet-and-mask piece, followed the meandering narrative of Sardin -- a Frenchman inexplicably born to American parents, who appoints himself as the guardian of civilization through this American age of barbarism -- the ultimate outsider, whose absurd commentary highlights what is most tragic and comic in the human condition. It was originally produced at the old Curious Theater Branch in Wicker Park. Recently it was remounting at the 25th anniversary of the Grahamstown Arts Festival in South Africa. "The Croaking Fascist and the Armband Variations", a satirical examination -- through slapstick, farce, contemporary skit comedy, and science fiction -- of ethnic, racial, and class polarization from Hitler's 1933 Germany through present-day Chicago and on into the far distant future, when the overbearing ruler of the Earth, Hitlerina, must plead for her life before a jury of descendants of African-Americans who were exiled to Mars. "More Confusion for the Perplexed", a collection of simple, elegant, and brief tragicomedies which traced the political history of human weakness from Socrates to the present. "The Life and Times of Jewboy Cain", a solo play telling the story, in his own words and music, of an orthodox Jewish folksinger from the deep south, his quest for identity, and his brief rise and abrupt fall in the music industry. "I'm O.K., You're O.K., Jacques Brel is Alive and Well", an examination of sex roles and sexual anxiety filtered through burlesque gender images and popular music. "A Splice of Life" was produced in San Francisco and was Dorchen's first production to incorporate film, merging his talents as playwright and songwriter with the archival expertise of experimental filmmaker Ross Lipman. Text and music were woven around animation shorts and short subject films from the silent and early sound era to create a meditation on the way cinematic reality has seeped into our private lives. "Arrogant Living", an episodic collage cabaret developed in collaboration with diverse segments of the Chicago performance, literary, and music communities. 15 contributors with esthetic origins as diverse as agit-prop political theater, indie rock, world music, fiction and journalism lent their talents to six different episodes with titles such as "The Intoxication Show," "The Nixon Show," and "The Grandma Show." Dorchen's play Ugly's First World, originally written for and produced by Theater Oobleck, was remounted by Bill Cusack at the Actor's Gang Studio in Los Angeles in February, 1998. It was swell! "The Problematic Cartoonist", the story of a man who, while reading magazines in the waiting room of a doctor who is treating his daughter for a rare, terminal skin disease, becomes obsessed with the work of a cartoonist for The New Yorker. Their resulting correspondence reflects the descent of each of them into his own private morass of emotional narcissism. The play premiered at the Lunar Cabaret during 1998's Rhino in Winter festival. It will be restaged this year at this summer's upcoming Rhino Fest!!! See it!!! Look for the festival schedule in the Reader! Okay! Some of these titles are available by mail or electronics. Email Jeff and ask for them or anything else, including fiction -- completed or fragmentary -- and Jeff will tardily respond. top AXEL DORNER Born in K?26 April 1964; trumpet. Axel D?rner's first instrument was piano, which he initially studied at the conservatory in Arnhem, the Netherlands, from 1988 to 1989, and subsequently (1989 to 1996) at the Musikhochschule in K?From 1991 he studied trumpet with Malte Burba at the Musikhochschule. During the five years in K?eading up to 1994, he worked extensively with trumpeter Bruno Leicht, as The Streetfighters Duo, The Streetfighters Quartet (with Wayne Dockery and John Betsch), and The Streetfighters Double Quartet with, among others, Matthias Schubert and Claudio Puntin. During this time he formed the Axel D? Quartet with Frank Gratkowski, Hans Schneider and Martin Blume, and The Remedy with Sebastian Gramss and Claus Wagner (and guests Peter Kowald, Tom Cora and Matthias Schubert). Numerous radio, television and concert appearances were made with these groups. In 1994, D? moved to Berlin and the number of activities increased substantially to include: * Die Entt?schung with Rudi Mahall, Uli Jennessen and Jan Roder; and, with Alexander von Schlippenbach added to the quartet in a group that has performed all the compositions of Thelonius Monk * The Recepy with Zeena Parkins, Sebastian Gramss and Michael Griener * Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra * Improvisors Pool with Sam Rivers and Alexander von Schlippenbach * Aki Takase Sextet * Mis&Les (The music of Eric Dolphy) * a quintet with George Lewis, Evan Parker, Alexander von Schlippenbach and Paul Lovens * "Sechs kleine StÑke fù Quintett" and "Harke und Spaten" with Sven-È Johansson * Bob Rutman Steelcello Ensemble with Shelley Hirsch and Johannes Bauer * King 1bæýrchestæ * Butch Morris' Berlin Skyscraper * Lines with Martin Blume, Marcio Mattos, Phil Wachsmann and Jim Denley * Fred Van Hove's 't Nonet * SPOK-Ensemble with Aleks Kolkowski, Rudi Mahall and Matthias Bauer * Trios with: Sven-È Johansson and Matthias Bauer; Chris Burn and Alexander Frangenheim; Thomas Lehn and Phil Minton; and Fred Lonberg-Holm and Michael Zerang * Duos with: Mark Sanders; Robin Hayward; John Russell; Lol Coxhill; Wolfgang Fuchs; Rajexh Mehta; Michael Griener * Chris Burn's Ensemble * The London Jazz Composers Orchestra * Hedros with Mats Gustafsson, Gäter Christmann, Barry Guy and others * ananax with Andrea Neumann and Annett Krebs * Solo concerts Axel D?'s compositions include: * ýrxome, for 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, 4 saxophones, bass clarinet, 2 pianos, double bass and drums/percussion * Komposition fù 8 instrumente * Komposition fù streichquartett und trompete * Komposition fù trompete-solo Nr1, Nr2 * fielchuk (flute, violoncello, double bass, piano) * marchugk (trumpet solo) * treucht (3 trumpets) * larft (trumpet, trombone, tuba) Recordings 1993, The remedy JazzHaus Musik JHM 69. 1993, The morlocks, FMP CD 61. Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra. 1994, Smack up again, Two Nineteen Records 2-19-002. 1995, Die Entt?schung, Two Nineteen Records 2-19-001. Compositions by Thelonius Monk. 1995, Backgrounds for improvisors, FMP CD 75. Improvisors Pool with Schlippenbach/Rivers. ?, Requiem fù einen jungen Dichter, Sony Music 01-061995-10. Bernd Alois Zimmermann. 1995, Berlin Skyscraper '95, FMP CD 92/93. Butch Morris. 1995/1996, Lines, Random Acoustics RA022. 1996, Live in Japan '96, DIW-922. Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra. 1996, Suite for B... city, FMP CD 88. t'Nonet Fred Van Hove. 1997, Navigations, Acta 12. Chris Burn's Ensemble. 1997, Offline adventures, Leo Lab CD 057. Not missing drums project. 1997, Hidros one (1997), Caprice 21566. Mats Gustafsson. 00898 hits since 1 June, 1999 top HAMID DRAKE Drake's longest musical association is with Fred Anderson, with whom he has worked from 1974 to the present day. Through Anderson, he met and played with George Lewis and Douglas Ewart (late '70s). Another longtime association has been with Adam Rudolph, a percussionist whom Drake cites as one of his major influences along with Eddie Blackwell. Rudolph and Drake have worked together as a duo and in larger group contexts since 1976. Hamid also worked extensively with Don Cherry from 1978 until his passing in 1995. Since 1977 Drake has been a member of the Mandingo Griot Society. His more recent group contributions have been made with: Peter Brotzmann in a quartet with William Parker and Toshiro Kondo as well as a trio with Caspar Brotzmann, Pierre Dorge with the New Jungle Orchestra and small group projects; a percussion duo with Michael Zerang; and the Drake/ Kessler/Vandermark Trio. Also significant to Drake's career is his involvement with Reggae music. This began in the '70s with Michael Rose, The l-Tals, Sister Carol, The Heptones, and Africassa which later became the group Kwame and Wan Africa. He is currently working with Dave Anderson and the l-Lites. Hamid cites his sources of inspiration as Peter Brotzmann, Don Cherry, his parents Henry and Amelia Drake, Islamic Sufism and Tibetan Buddhism. top ROBB DRINKWATER Robb Drinkwater (Chicago) is performer and composer who can be found, from time to time, sharing a stage and sounds with various performers from the local, national, and international experimental music community. top KEVIN DRUMM Says the Reader's Peter Margasak, "Drumm has developed a guitar analogue to the computer-generated minimalism of FInland's Mika Vainia (of Panasonic) or Cologne's Pita and General Magic, exploiting intentional and accidental elements in disturbingly disjointed, highly abstract, chillingly beautiful soundscapes -- and erasing the already tenuous line between 'real' and 'artificial' music." Kevin Drumm lives in Chicago, and has quickly risen to prominence since the release of his debut self-titled record (Perdition Plastics) in 1997. He's released superb duo records with Taku Sugimoto and Martin T?treault (Particles and Smears), as well as an upcoming one with Ralf Wehowsky. top STURE ERICSON Sture Ericson (S) tenor-, baritone-, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, clarinet emerged during the 80-s and 90-s as a member of the internationally acclaimed Swedish group Position Alpha which during some years of extensive touring in Europe and with four LP-s and 2 CD-s recorded ("Don´t bring Your Dog", "The Great Sound of Sound", "Credo", "Möte i Monsunen", "Greetings from the Rats" and "Tit-Bits") made its impact on the European free music scene. In 2000 after having started collaborating with German free trumpet virtuoso Axel Dörner, the two formed The Electrics along with Swedish drummer Raymond Strid and Norwegian bass player Ingebrigt Håker Flaten. The Electrics combines elements from European Free Improvisation and Free Jazz and this personal brew has received warm response from audiences as well as critics at international festivals in Vancouver, Seattle, Nickelsdorf, Tampere and Mulhouse. The Electrics has released the album "Chain of Accidents" on Ayler Records. 2001 the trio Per-Son-Ell was formed with Martin Klapper amplified objects, lo-fi electronics and toys, Sture Ericson reeds and Rex Casswell electric guitar with preparations. This free impro-unit explores electronics and sounds created by extended techniques on their instruments and made their international debut last year with a successful tour in the UK. Per-Son-Ell has also collaborated with Rhodri Davies, Phil Minton and Roger Turner. Apart from these working bands Ericson has during the last years taken part in collaborations and performed with, among others, Derek Bailey, Steve Beresford, John Edwards, Michael Formanek, Barry Guy, Wilbert de Joode, Thomas Lehn, Poul Lovens, Andrea Neumann, David Stackenäs and Otomo Yoshihide. top DOUGLAS EWART The kaleidoscopic talents of Douglas Ewart has expressed itself in so many forms-instruments that double as sculptures, music that combines the traditions of four continents with fresh inventions, masks and costumes fit for rituals ominous or joyous, death-defying improvisations combining master musicianship and acting-that the whole might be mistaken for the work of a small culture rather than one man. Ewart is known in some circles as a maker of brightly colored rain sticks , man-tall totem flutes , percussion instruments, and panpipes. Elsewhere he is known as a maker of leather goods and instrument harnesses, or as past Chairman of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and instructor in the AACM School of Music-or yet again, as a performer or original music with Muhal Richard Abrams, George Lewis, Anthony Braxton, Mwata Bowden, Vandy Harris , and others. Finally, Ewart is known for his work as a lecturer, teacher, and workshop director throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan. Turning the kaleidoscope of his work over in one's mind, one sees how the various disciplines he practices interrelate, influence, and play off one another. The disciplines assemble on the stage of Ewart s mind much like the ensemlbes in which he works as sideman or leader. Douglas Ewart was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1946. At age six, he became acutely aware of different materials and textures around him and wanted to manipulate them for his own use. He began to experiment w ith the automotive parts and lumber in his backyard, building first a wooden scooter with ball bearings for wheels and moving gradually moving on to large two-seater vehicles. He also built colorful fighter kites that he could manipulate to cut the stri ng of an opposing kite-flyer when challenged. At ten he started to experiment with sound and designed musical instruments-tin cans were altered to become hand drums and pieces of wood were fashioned into rattles. When his family bought a rug rolled aroun d a piece of bamboo, he seized on the bamboo as a potential flute. Thus began what has become today a high art practiced by Ewart alone-the construction of sonorous totem flutes , as colorful as bamboo rainbows, adorned with wood-burned designs and haunting paintings. Ewart emigrated to the United States in June of 1963 and, until 1967, studied tailoring at Drake and Dunbar Vocational Schools. While developing the tailoring skills that stand him in good stead in his costume making, Ewart plunged back in to the musical world, studying theory, composition, saxophone, and clarinet at the AACM School of Music . His teachers, pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, woodwindists Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman, inspired him with their creative drive and their view that music was a life and death matter .For Ewart, this phrase means music as a bridge between cultural traditions and between activities ranging from instrument building to such entrepreneurial ventures as his own recording label, Arawak Records, which he founded in 1983 and on which he has released Red Hills and Bamboo Forest . His constantly evolving suite, Music from the Bamboo Forest , comprises six movements and employs a cornucopia of instruments, many of them hand-made, such as bass and alto flutes, shakuhachi, panpipe, and nay flutes, blocks, bells, gongs, and bamboon, which is a double-reed horn with a voice-like nasel sound. In line with Ewart s view that the audience should participate in some way in a musical performance, bamboo is passed from hand to hand during the playing of Music from the Bamboo Forest so that the audience can hold, touch and feel the source of the music. This suite evolves as Ewart travels, all the while playing his own music, and studying the music around him. In a ddition to performing and recording with master musicians such as Abrams, Henry Threadgill, and Mwata Bowden, Ewart has performed original compositions all over the world. Having become a master himself, Ewart is now in demand as a teacher. The interest his AACM instructors showed in the creative development of their students and the inclusion of their students in their original works inspire Ewart, now in his own teaching. In his own workshops, Ewart often guides students in building and learing to play flutes, whistles, shakers, and other intruments. Of the students, most of whom had never been introduced to crafts, he says, It reaffirms their belief in themselves . His workshops, lectures and exhibitions have been attended by enthusiastic students and patrons at venues such as the Contemporary Art Center (New Orleans, LA), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago, IL), the DuSable Museum of African-American Art (Chicago, IL), Urban Gateways (Chicago, IL ), the Creative Music Studio (Woodstock, NY), the Museum of Contemporary Craft (New York, NY), the Langston Hughes Center (New York, NY), the University of Illinois (Champaign, IL), Norfolk State University, the Riverside Museum (Baton Rouge, LA), the Wash ington Performing Arts Center, and the National Museum of American History (Washington, DC). He has served on advisory boards and panels for various cultural organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, and Arts Midwest. In 1987, Ewart was awarded the U.S.-Japan Creative Arts Fellowship by the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission which enabled him to spend a year in Japan studying the art of making and playing the shakuhachi flute. Mr. Ewart has initiated many musical ensembl es of note, including Douglas Ewart and Inventions, Clarinet Choir, Nyhabingi Drum Choir, Quadrasect, and Elements. As a performer, Ewart has performed with such notable muscians as Muhal Richard Abrams, Fred Anderson, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Davis, Robert Dick, Ameen Muhammad, Von Freeman, George Lewis, Leo Smith, Cecil Taylor, Alvin Curran, Kahil El Zabar, Joseph Jarman, Kalaparush, Roscoe Mitchell, Mwata Bowden, and many others. top MISHA FEIGIN Misha Feigin was born and raised in Moscow and is known as one of Russia's premiere guitarists. When he immigrated to the US in 1990, he left behind an established position in the Moscow arts scene highlighted by his four albums on the "Melodia" label, features on major radio and television shows, and national and international tours. He began recording free improvised music in 1986 in Moscow with Auction's Dimitry Matkovsky. He also performed with the Russian pop-folk star Janna Bichevskaya. The Russian independent radio station "Echo of Moscow" ended the three days of emergency broadcast after the failed coup in August 1991 with Misha's song "Gulp of Freedom." Since moving to the US, Misha has been active in both the folk and the improv scenes. He was featured on the American Public Radio program "Mountain Stage," at the WOMAD World Music Festival in Toronto and at the Winnipeg International Folk Festival. He has opened for Leo Kottke and shared his stage with Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary. Misha perfromed free improvised music at the Vancouver Jazz Festival, at the Birmigham Improv. Festival, and in New York at the Knitting Factory and "Tonic," where he also played with Elliot Sharp, Eugene Chadbourne and Ami Denio. Other performances have included John Russell, LaDonna Smith, Davey Williams, Craig Hultgren, Toshi Makihara, Peter Kowalt, Leonid Soybelman, Sergei Letov. Misha played in concerts in 47 US States, Canada, Israel, England, Scotland, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Russian and English are heard throughout Misha's dynamic performances, which incorporate original poetry and spontaneous storytelling. He plays classical and acoustic guitars, balalaika, keyboards, harmonica. Misha's music is a blend of various ethnic idioms and musical styles. His five US releases are "The Only One Road," "Only Once," and "Dreams" with original folk music in Russian and English on "Dreaming People Records," and "Spontaneous Folks' Music," and "June in Moscow" with free improvised music on "Spontaneous Folks' Records." Misha's German release is "Improv Songbook" (together with Robert W. Gerlach). Misha's latest CD on "Leo Records," "Both Kinds of Music," features duos with Elliott Sharp, Davey Williams, LaDonna Smith, Craig Hultgren, and Eugene Chadbourne. top SCOTT FIELDS Guitarist/composer Scott Fields is a genuine musical adventurer, as likely to explore complex systems of motivic structure as free improvisation. The question that follows, though, is ?n? For Fields is the kind of player whose simultaneous sureness and abstraction can easily blur the lines of method. ? Stuart Broomer, Signal to Noise top MICHAEL FLACK Michael was born and raised in Arlington Heights, Illinois. He received a B.A. in Music Education from Illinois Wesleyan University and attained a M.A. from Ball State Uninversity. Mike performs regularly with the Chicago Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra (CMJO) and the John Burnett Swing Orchestra (JBSO). He has recorded CDs with both groups. Mike has performed concerts before national and international audiences including the Macau International Music Festival in China. He was the director of the Electronic Music Program at Curie Metropolitan High School for the Performing Arts in Chicago, and currently Mike is the Assisatant Director of Jazz Studies at Ball State University where he is pursing a Doctor of Arts Degree in Music.Performing Credits: Randy Brecker, Ernie Watts, Bobby Shew, Tom "Bones" Malone, Joe LaBarbera, and Paul Wertico. top COR FUHLER Netherlands-based Cor Fuhler works in the improvised field of electronic and contemporary music scenes. Piano is his main instrument, and he seeks to take it (and many other keyboards) musically beyond usual perceptions. Fuhler also manipulates sounds through turntables, Mbiras, strings etc and filters them through a PowerBook or through analogue synths. He often builds his own instruments/instalations such as the Keyolin. Own groups / projects: In '95 he founded the trio, Fuhler - Bennink - de Joode (with Han Bennink - drums and Wilbert de Joode - double bass), which is one of his main vehicles for a jazz related way of improvising. In this trio he sometimes plays at the same time piano, organ, celeste, keyolin and melodica, thus instant arranging whatever they were instant composing. In Feb. 1998 they made a cd (Bellagram) and in Sept. 1998 a live cd (Zilch). They have played in festivals such as (Bologna-Italy '00) and Canada (Toronto, Saskatoon, Edmonton, >Calgary, Vancouver '00). A new homerecorded cd ("Snorstomp") is in the making. He has also been working on the mixing of improvisation with chamber music and theater. A major example of this is his group, from `90 to `96, Carduelis Carduelis (a/o. with Ab Baars). Another example is Wayang Detective in `95/`96 (a big project with improvisation, gamelan and shadow puppet play for which he wrote both the script and the music). Olympicnic is a theatrical concert about technological extremes: super 8 films, live fingercameras, powerbook, modular synths, shadowplay inside the grand piano and turntables. The Corkestra is his most recent initiative: 3 drummers, lots of keyboards, electronics, el guitar, double bass en 3 winds. ConundrumCd, a mini label, provides an alternative avenue to explore ideas by "computer dubbing" of various musical materials. In this >way the many facets of his musical activity can be overlaid. This is >a form of composition using his own performance on various >instruments from his collection. DJ Cor Blimey and his pigeon, "samples in all shapes". In 1999 he was commisioned to develop a solo "DJ" project in which he plays keyboards as well as turntables, >Powerbook and other samples. End '99 he, Anne La Berge and Steve Heather started an ongoing concert-series for electronic music: Kraakgeluiden. During these concerts he developed favorite set-ups such as: EMS+turntable (controling the filters/pitch causing unstable loops, noise and schratchy samples), keyolin and the Mbirinthesizer (oscilators/filters controled by thumb-pianos). Currently he is working on the combination of grand piano+powerbook (controling electromachines for inside acoustic sounds). top |
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