Birgit Ulher
Born 1961 in Nuremberg, she studied the visual arts, which still have an important influence on her music. Since moving to Hamburg in 1982 she has been involved in free improvisation and experimental music. Since then she has "established a distinguished grammar of sounds beyond the open trumpet" (jazzdimensions.de). She performs solo, with dancers, working ensembles, and one-time collaborations with musicians from around the world. She has been organising the festival of improvised music Real Time Music Meeting for over ten years.
Music performances in Europe, USA and the Middle East, together with UNSK (Birgit Ulher / Martin Küchen / Lise-Lott Norelius / Raymond Strid), the Trio PUT (with Ulrich Phillipp and Roger Turner), Nordzucker (with Lars Scherzberg and Michael Maierhof), Heiner Metzger, Jürgen Morgenstern, Martin Klapper, Tim Hodgkinson, Dorothea Schürch, Rhodri Davies, Robyn Schulkowsky, John Edwards, Michael Zerang, Damon Smith, Lou Mallozzi, Gino Robair, Martin Blume, Ute Wassermann, Albert Márkos, Sven Ake Johansson, Gene Coleman, Ernesto Rodrigues, Heddy Boubaker, Tim Perkis, Nate Wooley, Bryan Eubanks, Tanaka, Ariel Shibolet, Christoph Schiller and Sean Meehan.
Festivals:
Densités Festival, Wesnes-en-Woevre, 2009, http://www.vudunoeuf.asso.fr Edgetone New Music Summit, 2008, San Francisco Soundfield Festival 2007, Philadelphia FONT Festival of New Trumpet Music 2007, New York Kaleidophon Ulrichsberg 2007, Austria, http://www.jazzatelier.at Festival für improvisierte und komponierte zeitgenössische Musik 2006, Basel Ausklangfestival 2006, Hörbar Hamburg On the Outside Festival 2006, Newcastle with Daniel Carter, Roy Campbell, William Parker, Hamid Drake, Gail Brand, Pat Thomas and Gerry Hemingway amonst others. http://www.ontheoutsidefestival.co.uk Blurred Edges 2006, Hamburg i and e Festival 2006, Dublin, http://www.i-and-e.org High Zero Festival 2005, Baltimore, Maryland http://www.highzero.org Plain Music Festival 2005, Warsaw Suoni e Sound 2002, Elba Festival Unerhört 2001, Wendland Jazzwoche Hannover 2000 Szünetjel Festival 1999, Budapest (Tim Hodgkinson, Albert Márkos, Johannes Bauer, John Edwards, Rhodri Davies, Dieter Ulrich, Söres Zsolt) LEM Festival 1999, Barcelona Warsaw Autumn 1998: International Festival of Contemporary Music. European Improvisation Orchestra (with Tim Hodgkinson, Albert Márkos, Martin Klapper, Krzysztof Knittel, Raymond Strid amongst others) Radio- and TV broadcast Konstanzer Jazzherbst 1995 und 2001 HumanNoise Congress 1995, Wiesbaden Jazzfestival Schaffhausen 1995 Rote Fabrik, Zürich 65 (Dorothea Schürch, Marianne Schuppe, Hannah E. Hänni, Co Streiff, Birgit Ulher, Stevie Wishart, Claudia Ulla Binder, Robyn Schulkowsky), Radiobroadcast DRS Canaille Festival 1992, Frankfurt Jazzfestival Hannover
Leonel Kaplan
From Argentina - trumpet
Leonel Kaplan has been part of the improvised music scene since the early 2000, performing and recording throughout South America, Europe and U.S. with musicians like Lê Quan Ninh, Michel Doneda, Axel Doerner, Xavier Charles, Ivar Grydeland, Diego Chamy, Bhob Rainey, Greg Kelley and Christof Kurzmann between many others. He is also part of groups like “Silo” (w/Nate Wooley & Audrey Chen), “Dog” (w/Tatsuya Nakatani), “Diasporas” (w/Ly Thanh Tiên & Didier Lasserre) and “ACK” (w/Tetuzi Akiyama & Edén Carrasco).
Recordings of Kaplan's music have been released on labels such as Utech Records and Creative Sources.
Lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
http://leonelkaplan.wordpress.com/
Jack Wright
Alto, soprano, tenor saxophones; piano Born Pittsburgh PA in 1942 and grew up around Philadelphia and Chicago. He began playing saxophone in 1952, with private instruction; meanwhile also singing in groups large and small through 1964, after which he ceased playing music. Attended Lafayette College in Easton PA, where he studied European history and literature and graduated 1964; Johns Hopkins University, MA in European history, 1972; taught history at Temple U. 1968-72, after which he left the academic world. In this latter period he was involved in left politics, organizing on a community level. In the late seventies he returned to music in earnest, and began playing free improvised music on the saxophone, and piano. He sought out partners in NY and the East Coast, then in 1983 began extensive tours in Europe, which continued until 1986. In the US his partners were Toshi Makihara, Jim Meneses, William Parker, Todd Whitman; in Europe he performed with Hannes Bauer, Joe Sachse, Wigald Boning, Lars Rudolph, Wittwulf Malik, Peter Hollinger, Bernhard Arndt, and Andreas Stehle, touring Germany, England, Switzerland and Italy. In 1984 he began touring the US, either as soloist or with his European partners, Roger Turner and Lars Rudolph, and an American dancer from Chicago, Bob Eisen. In this period of the eighties his music would be considered free jazz, very full and expressive. He was known for playing in places that had never been exposed to free improvisation, and encouraging young players everywhere, such that Davey Williams titled him the “Johnny Appleseed” of North American free improvisation. In 1988 he moved to Boulder CO and got involved in painting and writing, continuing his private study of European literature and philosophy. Yet he was still playing regularly, as a member of the local community of players, and touring the US regularly. In the late nineties there was a resurgence of interest in non-idiomatic free improvisation in the US, especially coming from Boston, but increasingly throughout the country. In 2000 Wright did an extensive tour of the West Coast with Boston soprano saxophonist Bhob Rainey, and recorded with him in three different groups. His music became largely sound-oriented, using space, texture, and sustained tones, but always with a characteristic energy and musicality. He moved back to the East Coast in 2003 to be closer to his playing partners and now lives in Easton PA. Since then he has become closely involved with the New York scene. He has presented his music at most of the new improv festivals in the US: four years at High Zero in Baltimore, The Seattle Improv Festival, the SFALT Festival in the Bay Area, California, the Autumn Uprising in Boston, and the Improvised and Otherwise Festival in Brooklyn. In 2005 he performed at the Museum of Modern Art in NY in a mini-festival, Relay, involving 13 American and European players. In Nov. 2007 he performed with Andrew Drury at the N.O. (not only) Jazz Festival in Zagreb Croatia, and in Sept. 2008 with Olivier Toulemonde and Agnes Palier, as well as others, at the ContemporaneaMente Festival in Lodi Italy.
In recent years he has renewed his label, Spring Garden Music, which presents his own music and that of his partners.
He continues to seek out new partners, and in 2002 and every year since he has returned to Europe to that end. Those partners living in Europe with whom he has been playing most consistently the past three years are Alberto Braida, piano, Milan; Sebastian Cirotteau, tpt, Toulouse France; Michel Doneda, sop. sax; Phil Durrant, computer, violin, London; Michael Griener, drums, Berlin; Grundik Kasyansky, electronics, London; Agnes Palier, voice, Rambouillet France; Sharif Sehnaoui, guitar, Paris; Christine Sehnaoui, sax, Paris; Fabrizio Spera, drums, Rome; Olivier Toulemonde, percussion, Brussels Belgium; Guillaume Viltard, bass, London; and Sabine Vogel, flute, Berlin. He has been increasingly active in bringing European, especially French musicians to tour in the US (see "The Paris Experiment" in the Phila. City Paper). His most recent tours have been with trio of Guillaume Viltard, bassist, and Grundik Kasyansky, electronics, in France, the Netherlands and Belgium; with Michael Johnsen, midwest; with Fabrizio Spera and Gust Burns in the Northwest; with Andrea Neumann and Stephane Rives on the East Coast (the Snowball Tour, joining also with 11 other musicians); with Andrew Drury in the Balkans; with French soprano sax player Michel Doneda and percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani () in the US; with in Europe and the US East Coast; with Carol Genetti, vocalist, and Jon Mueller, perc. () in France and the US; with Pittsburgh electronicist Michael Johnsen and Sebastien Cirotteau of Toulouse, in Europe and the US; with Ben Wright, bassist, in the US; with the From Between Trio in Japan, France and the US (30 performances); ,with cellist Bob Marsh of the Bay area; in Europe with Nate Wooley, trumpet, of NY; a cross-country tour with Michael Griener percussion and Sabine Vogel flute of Berlin; US tours with Reuben Radding; with Phil Durrant ;and with Tom Djll from Oakland and soprano sax player Bhob Rainey. Wright has partners in most major cities of the US, with whom he plays on his tours, over sixty musicians with whom he is developing music. Among those of the past three years are: Ricardo Arias, balloons, now in Bogata; Alban Bailly, guitar, accordion, Phila; Jon Barrios, bass, Philadelphia; John Bennett, poet, Columbus OH; John Berndt, saxes and elect., Baltimore; Mike Bullock, bass, Boston; Gust Burns, piano, Seattle WA; John Dikeman, tenor sax, Budapest; Tom Djll, tpt, Oakland CA; Andrew Drury, percussion, NYC; ; Bob Falesch, computer elect., keyboard, Chicago; Carol Genetti, voice, Chicago; Morgan Guberman, bass, voice, Oakland; Andy Hayleck, bowed cymbals, electronics, Baltimore; Katt Hernandez, violin, Philadelphia; Kurt Heyl, tbn, Brooklyn NY; Michael Johnsen, electronics, Pittsburgh; Bonnie Jones, electronics, Baltimore; Andrew Lafkas, bass, NYC; Evan Lipson, bass, Phila.; Toshi Makihara, dr, Phila.; Denman Maroney, piano, Monsey NY; Bob Marsh, cello, voice, violin, Richmond CA; Matt Moran, vibraphone, NY; Jon Mueller, perc., Milwaukee WI; Tatsuya Nakatani, dr, Easton PA; Paul Neidhardt, percussion, Baltimore; Andrea Neumann, inside piano, Berlin; Mike Pride, dr, Brooklyn; Reuben Radding, bass, NYC; Vic Rawlings, cello, elect., Boston; Stephan Rives, soprano sax, Beirut Lebanon; Brandon Seabrook, banjo, NY; Wally Shoup, sax, Seattle; Phila.; Matt Weston, perc, Easthampton, MA; Nate Wooley, tpt, Jersey City; Ben Wright, bass, Questa NM
http://www.springgardenmusic.com/jackbio.html
Paul Neidhardt
From Baltimore-percussion, friction Baltimore's Paul Neidhardt is one of the countries most astonishing new music percussionists. A trained, highly disciplined player with a flair for complex textural sound produced by friction, Neidhardt's approach to improvising covers the majority of the terrain explored by the explosive side of European free music and subtle textural players like Sean Meehan and Jason Kahn, while retaining a freshness and flexibility of purpose all his own. His background playing rock and African music adds a potential for propulsive intesnivty to his playing not usually found in players so skilled in the arts of minimalist reductionism. Despite recovering from injuries that limited his time playing in recent years, he is a highly in-demand player, working with groups like Trokeneis, Death in the Maze, and Multiphonic Choir, as well as frequent collaborations with Jack Wright. He is currently a member of the Red Room collective and High Zero Foundation.
Mark Kaylor
Mark Kaylor was born and raised in rural Lancaster County Pennsylvania. He started playing drums in elementary school and received training from various old school "band" instructors before getting 2 years of hardcore drum corps rudimental training at the hands of a local guru. After playing in the school concert/orchesra bands, marching band, and various punk/hardcore bands in and around Lancaster and Philadelphia, Mark discovered Jazz while holding down a part time job at a record store. An impromtu move to Portland Oregon in 2001 made things REALLY happen: soon he was rubbing shoulders with the likes of Kelvin Pittman, JP Jenkins, Bryan Eubanks, Joe Foster, John Krausebauer etc. The formation of the 411 Collective in Portland as a space for improvised arts ushered in a true realization in Mark's playing. Out of these years Mark has learned much and continues to learn and play. No longer an advocate for one method or way of playing, Mark embraces any and all ways of making and constructing sound. He has played in numerous contexts the world over and is often found collaberating with local or visting improvisers, doing several solo drum performances a year, or performing with Hammer of Hathor, Kinetic Harpoon, CexFucx, Thee Oregon Artificial Limb Co. etc. Mark feels strongly that there is a magic in music and this he seeks to find each and every time he makes a sound.
Tyler Wilcox
Born in 1979 in silver spring maryland, raised in and around baltimore. Began composing glacial drone based tape music in 2001. Switched to reeds in 2003 with a desire to embody fleeting sound phenomena. Moved to Washington state in 2005 to experience wild nature in the cascades. Experiencing true silence and the white noise of nature slowed and opened his music. Current collaborators Gust Burns, Jeffrey Allport, Kelvin PIttman, Paul Neidhardt, Mara Sedlins, Wilson Shook, and Mark collins.
Jaime Fennelly
From- Waldron Island - electronics -
Keyboardist/electronicist Jaime Fennelly is a founding member of Peeesseye, the post-everything amalgam of minimalist rock, noise, folk, drone, psych, improv, sound poetry, and absurdity that has produced nearly twenty releases and performed over 150 concerts in Europe and the US since forming in Brooklyn, New York in 2002. Currently hailing from a small island in the Pacific Northwest, he is also a member of the elusive and rarely spotted quartet Phantom Limb & Bison (with Chris Forsyth, Chris Heenan & Shawn E. Hansen), is one-half of Manpack Variant and has had his music released by a wide spectrum of underground record labels, including Digitalis Industries, Sick Head, Invada, Locust Music, Misanthropic Agenda, Unframed, Utech, Chocolate Monk & Evolving Ear.
http://www.sswilloughby.com | http://www.peeesseye.com | http://www.manpackvariant.com | http://www.evolvingear.com
Wilson Shook
From Seattle - alto saxophone
Wilson Shook is an improvising saxophonist living in Seattle, Washington. Wilson’s music emphasizes focus, texture, chance and exploration. It exists in dialogue with its specific and contingent contexts; it is ‘new music’ in that it explores each new moment and seeks to develop a critical awareness of the present. Perhaps better characterized as ‘present music’, it is less concerned with staking out new musical territory than it is with creating relevant and personal communication that places equal value on intention and sensitivity. Sonically, Wilson's music is informed by lower case and minimalist aesthetics, while embracing the full range of his instrument. Always aware of balance and the fundamental importance of space, Wilson is especially interested in incidental or 'between' sounds: material that exists on the edges and in the cracks of the conventional sonic palate. Much of Wilson’s art concerns itself with the actualization of feminist and libertarian ethics. Investigating the interplay between artistic freedom and freedom. At large, Wilson views improvisation as a model of interaction that can inform diverse situations and relationships.
Wilson currently performs solo, as well as with the Gust Burns Quartet and in various ad hoc and piece-oriented collaborations. Previous and continuing collaborators include: Gust Burns, Nate Wooley, Bob Marsh, Gino Robair, Tyler Wilcox, Greg Kelley, Jaimie Branch, Joshua Manchester, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Jonathan Zorn, Michael Thieke, Robert Blatt, Jonathan Sielaff, Mark Collins, Tom Yoder, Tari Nelson-Zagar, Dave Knott, and the Seattle Improvisers' Orchestra. Wilson is the director of Gallery 1412, an artists’ collective and performance space, and is a member of the Seattle Improvised Music board of directors.
http://www.gallery1412.org/wilsonshook.html
Robert Pedersen
Robert Pedersen has recently focused his attention on photoresistor-controlled frequencies, experimenting with sepia light strobes in unison with oscillators and tape machines. Recently formed the band Glaciers with vocalist Lief Hall and percussionist Jeffrey Allport... and over the past three years was mixed up in some wild live performance as half of electronics duo Rough Noble. Much influenced by the unorthodox electronic music of Ken Roux. myspace.com/goldenglaciers
Rachael Wadham
Rachael Wadham is an improvising musician, composer and sound installation artist based in Vancouver. Her focus in much of her work is in repurposing old materials. After lifelong intensive studies in classical performance, Rachael has found solace in quiet minimalism.
http://youareagreatlistener.wordpress.com/
http://www.myspace.com/rachaelwadham
http://www.myspace.com/attndiamondshoppers
http://www.myspace.com/broochpost
Fred Lonberg-holm
Chicago based cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm has played and studied music in a variety of situations from the Juilliard School to the gutter. A former student of Anthony Braxton, Morton Feldman, Bunita Marcus and Pauline Oliveros, his primary projects are his Valentine Trio and The Lightbox Orchestra. He is also a member of a number of ongoing collective projects (The Boxhead Ensemble, The Friction Brothers with Michaels Zerang and Colligan, The Flatlands Collective, Keefe Jackson's Fast Citizens) as well as participating in numerous one off "ad-hoc" or in frequently convening ensembles. He also currently plays in groups led by Joe McPhee (Survival Unit III), Peter Brotzmann (Chicago 10tet), and Ken Vandermark (Vandermark 5, Frame 4tet, Territory Ensemble). Improvisors he has worked with include Jim Baker, John Butcher, Wilbert DeJoode, Axel Doerner, Mats Gustafsson, Charlotte Hug, Glenn Kotche, Peter Kowald, Nicole Mitchell, Torsten Muller, Jim O'Rourke, Jeff Parker, David Stakenas, Ben Vida, and Michael Zerang, He has contributed cello sounds to numerous recording projects by rock groups including Califone, Freakwater, God-is-my-co-pilot, L'altra, Smog, Super Chunk, US Maple, Wilco and many others.
Gust Burns
Gust Burns is a pianist, improviser, and composer based in Seattle, Washington. Gust is foremost an improvising pianist. He continues to develop new routes into improvisation on the piano, working with diverse areas of music such as silence, density, structure and alternative narrative approaches, extending traditional piano technique, and developing new techniques for inside the piano. Burns performs on both traditional piano - playing the keyboard - and ‘inside piano’ or re-assembled and altered piano soundboard and strings, with or without electronics. Burns counts diverse perspectives and lines of tradition as influences. Both jazz and classical traditions, the avant-garde lineages in Europe and America, the traditions of improvised music over the last 40 years, traditional musics from around the world, the hip-hop and grunge he grew up with… However, he does not attempt to assimilate these influences/ interests into one melting-pot musical identity. Instead, he seeks to further develop a relevant vocabulary and identity within several different areas of contemporary Improvisation. He also has a keen interest in how music functions as discourse within the social-political world at large and what this can mean to us as musicians/ listeners. In addition to improvising and composing, Burns is an organizer of improvised music in Seattle. Since 2003 he has been director of the Seattle Improvised Music Festival, North America’s longest running festival dedicated to Improvised Music. Burns is also director of Seattle Improvised Music, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and developing the improvised music community in Seattle, and co-founder of gallery 1412, a Seattle music space dedicated to new and experimental music and sound. In the Northwest, Burns has long-standing collaborations with Improvisers including Jeffrey Allport, Wally Shoup, Jonathan Sielaff, Kelvin Pittman, JP Jenkins and others. He maintains collaborative relationships with North American Improvisers including Bob Marsh, Jack Wright, Nate Wooley, Gregory Reynolds, Chris Cogburn, Andrew Lafkas, and others. Burns has also performed and recorded with Improvisers from abroad including Keith Rowe, Andrea Neumann, Tetuzi Akiyama, Stéphane Rives, Jason Kahn, John Edwards, Caroline Kraabel, Lori Freedman, Wade Matthews, rapper Adam ‘Dose One’ Drucker, and others. Burns has one recent release on creative sources, with Ernesto Rodrigues, Vic Rawlings, and David Hirvonen, and another on clean feed, with Wally Shoup, Greg Campbell, and Reuben Radding. He also runs his own label (tone action family) on which several other recordings can be found. http://www.rasbliutto.net/artists/gustburns.html
Paul Hoskin
As a soloist, Paul Hoskin does not involve his [compositional] self with Other selves. The eighty minute contrabass clarinet performance is both a statement and a refusal to engage with statement. What occurs is (or, as close to...) the strictly sonic. Multiple phonics, multiple (the complete array of...) dynamics. The musical range bears simply with limits--all of ours.
The history of Paul Hoskin qua soloist may be excessive. To say nothing of his global exercises. In any case, the first solo is via the bass clarinet (1981, Bellingham, WA). While dwelling in New York City, the development of contrabass clarinet "language" was initiated (1990). It has been presented throughout the USA...
Paul Hoskin began his musical work with a program of self-education, playing the bass clarinet exclusively. A native of Seattle, Paul lived on both coasts and traveled globally. Collaborations have included the orchestral as well as numerous smaller formations. Paul currently plays baritone saxophone and contrabass clarinet.
An accomplished solo performer, Hoskin extends the form both in terms of duration and sonority. His annual eighty minute contrabass clarinet solos were legendary. Performances take place in venues ranging from jazz festivals in Czechoslovakia to oyster bars in Jackson, Mississippi.
As a New Yorker (1987-1995), Hoskin worked in innumerable ensemble settings as well as developing his skills as a solo performer. This work
included the ensemble The Same (Chris Cochrane, Evan Gallagher, Ruth Peyser); trio Trigger (Fred Lonberg-Holm-cello, Leslie Ross-bassoon) and the Dierker/Hoskin/Meehan trio, with Baltimorite John Dierker on reeds and Sean Meehan with drumset. Though improvisation informs the work of these ensembles, compositional form (“language”) is an explicit element. Work with dancers (especially Linda Austin) also was a feature of Paul’s development. A longstanding member of a music/dance improvisation workshop, Hoskin worked on the development of vocabularies/structures that both dancers and musicians use.
Returning to Seattle, Paul involved himself with ensembles as well as countless ad hoc formations. Groups included: Tactile: Lori Goldston-cello and Robert Jenkins-guitar; UnFolkUs: Rob Bageant-chapman stick, Bill Horist-guitar, Eveline Mueller-Graf-percussion; BOLT: Angelina Baldoz-trumpet, Aimee Sullivan-saxophones, Greg Powers-trombone, tuba; Jerman/Hoskin/Horist: Jeph Jerman- percussion, Bill Horist-guitar. These groupings reflect Hoskin’s continuing involvement with improvisation. Paul, as founder of the Seattle Festival of Improvised Music (in 1986), continually assisted with organization of events as well. (Even re-fueled the aforementioned Festival in 1996.)
After moving to rurality (Clallam Bay and the Olympic Peninsula), Paul “vacates” from urban music life, as he re/hears to re/begin. From 2002 till July 2005. As Paul begins to play, re/joining with many of his “past” colleagues becomes the present and the future. (And his Astoria performance life began June 2005, at AVA Gallery with percussionist Jeph Jerman.)
Relocates to Astoria. Re/enters land of organizing and presenting exciting music as his own playing develops.
Seattle perfomance life also returns.
As an Astorian music, Paul Hoskin was the music curator at the Astoria Visual Arts Center. Three years of bringing musicians from all over the world to create in Astoria. While "feeling at home", Paul brought in his own version of creative music. Aside from regularly "sitting in" with traveling folk, Paul developed a fifteen to eighteen minute baritone saxophone "world." For outside summer land in Astoria.
Paul has returned to Seattle (March 2009). He curates Second Saturday music at the Collins Pub, 526 Second Avenue. Playing with saxophonists (Shook, Wilcox, Pittman), clarinetists (Canterbury & Zeifel), and many others. The initiator of Seattle's festival has returned.
Bill Horist
Bill Horist has become a Seattle institution since his arrival 17 years ago on the shores of Puget Sound from Michigan. Since his arrival, he's collaborated with numerous bands and noted artists in rock, jazz and beyond.
However, it has been his solo work that has garnered the most recognition. As a solo artist, Bill’s improvised, prepared guitar work is informed by Hans Reichel, Fred Frith, and Henry Kaiser, but shows a unique style and personality. He has received critical praise internationally from periodicals including The Wire and Alternative Press, and several of his recordings have made critics’ year-end lists. Bill was featured
in the March 2007 issues of Guitar Player Magazine and Earshot Jazz Magazine.
On this occasion, Bill will perform one of his expansive, genre-all-its-own, electric guitar explorations as well as collaborating with the other players.
Over the last couple months, Bill has been on tour in Europe and the US with Master Musicians of Bukkake, most recently opening for and performing with Six Organs of Admittance down the West Coast. Three new releases will be available before the end of the year: "Covalent Lodge" (LP/CD - North Pole Records) - a collection of acoustic guitar pieces augmented by several noted Northwest musicians, Tertium Quid's "Impossible Reefs" (LP/CD - New Ruins) - Tertium Quid is a collaboration with Illusion of Safety's Dan Burke and Diminished Men drummer Dave Abramson and finally "The Psoriasis Coast" (ltd ed CD - Aphonia) - a new collection of solo prepared guitar improvisations.
Chris Corsano
Chris Corsano is a multi-faceted drummer; a list of his collaborations attests to that fact. He's recorded and gigged with, among others, Paul Flaherty, Michael Flower, Björk, Jim O'Rourke, Thurston Moore, Evan Parker, Wally Shoup, Nels Cline, Jessica Rylan, Jandek, Six Organs of Admittance, Sunburned Hand Of Man, Okkyung Lee, MV&EE, Keiji Haino, Vampire Belt, Joe McPhee, Christina Carter and Heather Leigh Murray.
First captivated by free improvised music in the mid '90s after witnessing performances by TEST, William Parker, Cecil Taylor and others, Corsano began a long-standing high-energy partnership with Paul Flaherty in 1998. Moving from western Massachusetts to Manchester, England in 2005 and then Edinburgh, Scotland a year later, Corsano focused on developing an expanded solo percussion music of his own, incorporating sax reeds, violin strings and bows, pot lids, adhesive tape and other household devices into his drumkit. In February 2006 he released his first solo recording, The Young Cricketer. In 2007 and '08 he was the drummer on Björk's Volta world tour. With a move back to Massachusetts, 2009 heralds a return to his own projects, most notably his duo with Michael Flower and solo work, now revamped to include synthesizers and contact mics in addition to his drum kit and home-made acoustic instruments.
"Corsano, despite being arguably the most riotosly energetic and creative drummer in contemporary free jazz, does far more than merely bash his kit into submission. Playing loud does not mean abandoning subtlety, and Corsano's sudden shifts of texture and dynamics are a wonder to behold." - Dan Warburton, The Wire (April 2006)
"If I told you that percussionist Chris Corsano is equally persuasive playing ultradetailed free improv with Evan Parker, scorched-earth electric raga jams with Mick Flower, and primal dance beats with Bjork, I’d be telling the truth but selling him short. His excellent 2006 solo album, The Young Cricketer (reissued last year on Family Vineyard), covers still more ground—he’s also a hell of a one-man band. Augmenting his drum kit with a heap of odds and ends—kitchen implements, a violin, a couple bows, saxophone mouthpieces blown into plastic tubes—he creates scalding Tony Conrad-like string assaults, intricate layered gamelan-style patterns, reed-and-percussion freak-outs that sound like something lifted off a forgotten ESP free-jazz record, and a delicate collage of chiming and rustling you could almost mistake for a surreptitiously recorded tea ceremony. Corsano is also great to watch—sometimes a marvelous vision of fluid and purposeful motion, sometimes an outrageous ham." - Bill Meyer, Chicago Reader (Sept. 2009)
"...Chris Corsano, a young free player who already looks like becoming the most significant and syntactically advanced percussionist to come out of the free rock/jazz nexus. His playing is so exuberant and explosively alive that it transcends any kind of responsive playing, inhabiting instead a sublime zone where pure energy spontaneously gives birth to form." - David Keenan, Scottish Sunday Herald
C. Spencer Yeh
C. Spencer Yeh was born in Taipei, Taiwan 1975, moved to the US in 1980; studied radio/television/film at Northwestern University, and is
now based out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Yeh is active both as a solo and collaborative artist, as well as with his primary project, Burning Star Core. As an improviser, Yeh is focused on developing a personal vocabulary using violin, voice, and electronics. As a sound artist/composer, Yeh works with all aspects available surrounding a work, aurally and physically, as elements key to the cumulative experience. He is concerned not only with the sensual aspects of 'sound organization,' but the gestural qualities as well. Yeh has collaborated with a deep and ever-growing list of artists and groups, including Tony Conrad, New Humans with Vito Acconci, Evan Parker, Thurston Moore, Amy Granat with Jutta Koether, Justin Lieberman, John Wiese, Don Dietrich and Ben Hall (as The New Monuments), Prurient, and Jandek. He has performed at festivals and venues such as Sonar, FIMAV at Victoriaville, Frieze Arts Fair, No Fun Fest, High Zero, the 24 Hour Drone People at Fylkingen, The Kitchen, ZKM Karlsruhe, and has also exhibited visual art, sound, and video works internationally.
Wally Shoup
Wally Shoup plays unfettered, emotion-laden alto saxophone and has been involved in freely improvised music since the mid-70's. His playing combines the grit of free jazz and blues with an ear toward lyrical abstraction, all at the service of creating coherent music in the moment.
His early work in Colorado is documented on Scree-Run Waltz (1981), one of the first independently produced LP’s of American free-improvisation.
From 1981 to 1985, he worked with the Trans Museq Duo - Davey Williams and La Donna Smith - in Birmingham, Alabama and wrote reviews and articles for The Improvisor magazine while there.
Since 1985, he has been a central member of the Seattle improvised music. He has led many notable improvising Seattle groups and has been involved in organizing the Seattle Improvised Music Festival since 1987.
His work is documented on numerous labels, among them:
Leo Records (London) have released four of his CD’s
Strange-Attractors (Portland) have released two documents of his work with guitarist Nels Cline -Immolation/Immersion (w/Nels Cline and Chris Corsano) in 2005 and Suite: Bittersweet (w/Nels Cline and Greg Campbell) in 2006
Clean Feed, (Portugal) released The Levitation Shuffle in 2007.
Tyffus (Finland) released Blank Check (w/Paul Flaherty and Chris Corsano) in 2006
He has worked with a wide array of musicians, including Thurston Moore, Nels Cline, Davey Williams, La Donna Smith, Jack Wright, Paul Hession, Dylan Van der Schyff, Paul Flaherty, Chris Corsano, Reuben Radding, Toshi Makihara, Brent Arnold and many others.
His current Seattle projects include the Spider Trio (w/Jeffrey Taylor and Dave Abramson) and the Wally Shoup Quartet (w/Gust Burns, Bob Rees and Paul Kikuchi)
Wally was named one of Seattle’s 50 Most Influential Musicians by Seattle Metropolitan Magazine in 2009.
Additionally, he is a painter (represented by Vital 5 Productions) and writer, having published numerous articles about art, music & aesthetics.
Michael Johnsen
Instrument builder and performer Michael Johnsen was born in 1968 to German immigrants in Pennsylvania, where he continues to live. A tinkerer’s curiosity about electronic music led eventually to extensive private study and the design and construction of his own instruments. Drawing on the rich American tradition of experimentation and ingenuity, he has built up an integrated system/menagerie of devices specifically for live performance whose idiosyncratic behaviors are revealed through their complex interactions. Working almost exclusively on the analog end of the hypothetical digital/analog spectrum, his work is characterized by a relative lack of ideas per se, and an intense focus on observation, the way a shepherd watches sheep. The extensive patching of large numbers of devices produces teeming chirps, sudden transients and charming failure modes; embracing the dirt in pure electronics. His intention ultimately is to observe the instruments’ behavior as if a thing in nature. As an antidote to all that wire, he is equally devoted to the singing saw, a simple folk instrument. Most of what he might have learned has come from the natural world, like watching robins run. He is particularly fond of sounds that end.
He has played widely in the US and Europe in improvising and noise contexts, at large festivals, museums, squats, and kindergartens, including the Pittsburgh Biennial, Musique Action 2008 (France), Lampo, Issue Project Room, Karlsruhe Kunstverien, and three High Zero Festivals in Baltimore. Recent collaborators include C Spencer Yeh, Margaret Cox, Jerome Noetinger, Jack Wright, Pascal Battus, Thomas Lehn; also Michel Doneda, Michael Zerang, Joe McPhee, Bhob Rainey, Tom Djll, and Greg Pierce. His recordings are distributed in Europe by Metamkine.
Fred Chalenor
In order to talk about improvising in Seattle I explain how and who introduced me to the world of improvising in the first place. I moved to San Francisco in 1978 and had posted a note at a record shop looking for musicians interested improvising using unusual sounds and specifically the band Henry Cow and guitarist Fred Frith. My note was read by a couple of guys at the record shop, one of them played in the Rova Saxophone Quartet and the other was improvising guitarist by the name of Henry Kaiser who had just returned from England where he had played with Henry Cow. It was Henry Kaiser and guitarist, Owen Maericks, who introduced me to the world of improvised music by playing me records as well as recording a record with them and doing a gig or two. Moving to Seattle in 1981, I again met lots of interesting players and had opportunities to work in small groups. Among them was guitarist Myles Boisen and bass clarinetist Paul Hoskin. Both of them had a lot of experience working in the improvised music world.By 1983, I had moved to New York City where the Lower East Side was overflowing with many small music spaces where improvised music was thriving and experimentation was expected. Living in that neighborhood and house sitting for British guitar player introduced/allowed me to join several ensembles-one of which was called Angling. This group consisted of Chris Cochrane on guitar, Curlew saxophonist George Cartwright, harpist Zeena Parkins and myself on bass guitar. This was a collection of very interesting improvisers, some of which I still have musical partnerships with today: this being George Cartwright who's band I eventually joined called Curlew. This band released an all-improvised 12" vinyl record. To bring the story up to date, I now play improvised music in Portland, Oregon in the trio Office Products with David Chandler and guitarist Doug Theriault.
Jeffrey Mcgrath
Jeffrey McGrath was part and parcel of the beginnings of improvised music in Seattle. A participant in the Red Square in the Full Moon and the co-founder of FR3D (with Greg Powers), he enters the eighties creating. A drummer for the seminal band--Audio Leter--fronted by Sharon Gannon (voice, violin) and Sue Ann Harkey (prepared 12 string guitar). The early eighties version was a sextet: Gannon and Harkey with Robert Jenkins-guitar; Eric Muhs-bass guitar; Paul Hoskin-bass clarinet; McGrath-drums. Utterly and completely improvised in performance.
From 1984-1986, Jeffrey was part of PHT. Paul Hoskin-reeds; Robert Jenkins-guitar & euphonium; McGrath-drums & trumpet. The exploration of improvisation continues.
Although he is lost in Musical Theatre land, he is very pleased to be back playing with friends and colleagues.
Greg Powers
Greg Powers and his UW music education led directly and accidentally to a life of creative music exploration. A developer of the Red Square in the Full Moon in the late seventies. A campus scene--posters of a mysterious, barely legible form annouced the full moon and music. Folks spread out over the Red Square (with the light of the moon) making sound. (Paul Hoskin's first place to play with others.) A co-founder of FR3D (with Jeffrey McGrath); he jumps (or falls into) other creative music endeavours. As the eighties continues, a participant in the New Arts Orchestra--founded by Jeffrey Morgan and Paul Hoskin--with theatrical performances and open compositions. The initial Seattle Festival of Improvised Music was one of his locales as well.
In the late nineties, Greg was a part of BOLT--a reed/brass quartet devoted to improvisation. Angelina Baldoz-trumpet; Aimee Sullivan-saxophones; Greg Powers-trombone, tuba; Paul Hoskin-contrabass clarinet.
All this time, Greg studies Indian music--and it continues.
"Pran" is trombonist Greg Powers and didjeridu player Stuart Dempster improvising in the Dagarbhani style of Hindustani Music. Powers is the only trombonist in the world performing this ancient style of music. He is a pioneer in adapting Indian music to the trombone and, together with Dempster's droning Brass Didjeridu, creates a hypnotic texture that is true to the tradition.
Greg Powers is a disciple of the Dagarbhani tradition and has studied with Jeff Lewis, Ustad Farid'uddin Dagar, Uday Bhawalkar, Baha'uddin Dagar and Wasif'uddin Dagar in Seattle and Mumbai. As a Fulbright Fellow to India he studied with Ustad Yunus Hussein Khan in New Delhi. He is a graduate of the University of Washington where he was a trombone student of Stuart Dempster.
Web site: http://www.myspace.com/dhrupadtrombone
Chris Cochrane
Chris Cochrane is a guitarist, singer, songwriter, improvisor and producer.
He has worked with Tom Cora, Mark Kramer, John Zorn, Fred Frith, T Bone Burnett, Bob Ostertag, Derek Bailey, Ikue Mori, Nayland Blake, Zeena Parkins, Jim Staley, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Marc Ribot, Dennis Cooper, Paul Hoskin, Fred Chalenor, Myles Boisen etc...
He has founded the band "NO SAFETY" with Zeena Parkins; "SUCK PRETTY" with Dudley Saunders, Dom Richards and Ed Ware; he was a member of "CURLEW" George Cartwright's band; and has worked with visual artists and choreographers.
Chris and Paul Hoskin did guitar/bass clarinet duos, NYC 1983 (early stages of our improvised work). Became practically infamous. Chris introduces Paul to Jack Wright--doing a midwest tour in the mid-eighties. Cochrane visits Seattle twice in the mid-eighties. The second time was with Doug Henderson (NY creative musician) touring as Resistance. They were able to stay for the initial Seattle Festival of Improvised Music. Upon Hoskin's relocation to New York in 1987, Cochrane, Hoskin and Zeena Parkins form trio--doing improvisation land. Later that decade, Cochrane and Hoskin join with Ruth Peyser and Evan Gallagher to form The Same--a beyond-tune-improv quartet.
Web site: http://www.myspace.com/chriscochrane
Evan Gallagher
Evan is born in Jackson, MS, long, long ago in a much less free (music) period. Went to school at University of Southern Mississippi. He met George Cartwright, Bruce Golden, Jeb Stuart with whom he'd work on freeing up Jackson's music scene. Evan did meet the MEV at this time, as he continued his Jackson "freeing-up" project. Travelled to New York City with Davey Williams and LaDonna Smith, met Eugene Chadbourne and John Zorn to record The English Channel. In 1983, he leaves Jackson for New York and more schooling. Evan decides that NYC is "more free" musically. In 1987/8, he falls into the Amica Bunker (a NYC improvised music space...weekly performances. Booked by Doug Henderson, Fred Lonberg-Holm, & Paul Hoskin--in its early stages). He falls quite hard. Later, he meets Cochrane, Hoskin and Ruth Peyser--and The Same is formed. A seminal noise/jazz unit. Evan continues to improvise. Does a piece from his "The Theory of Incidental but Inevitable Control" at Wall-to-Off-the-Wall, Symphony Space. New Music America does not accept such, "theory concerts are not music". Continues to improvise, too much Cobra (finally banned by Zorn). Evan has become bored with metricallity, begins composing rhythmically--complex non-tonal music that sounds as if it were improvised, yet too difficult to play....And Evan still improvises, periodically.
Jeph Jerman
Jeph is born Agana, Guam. January 16th, 1959.
I have had very little formative musical training, outside from the two years of drum lessons I learned from listening to and playing along with records. My first musical experiences were in garage bands, which led eventually to paying gigs in bars with a large number of dance bands. In high school or thereabouts, I began experimenting with tape recorders and home-made sound devices. This practice continued and by the early 1980's, I was recording my own music alone and with a variety of musical aggregates, the best known of which are probably BLOWHOLE and HANDS TO. Blowhole was a free jazz/noise outfit that played semi-composed vehicles and musical games, lasting from 1991 until it's demise in 1998 or so. Hands to was my moniker for solo works using cheap sampling keyboards and tapes.
In the early '80's, I also ran a record and tape label, Big Body Parts, which released over 40 tapes, records and video tapes and published a magazine, After Birth. during this time I was also a music programmer (DJ) at KRCC FM in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
In the mid 1990's, I moved to Seattle where I eventually fell in with the local improvised music community, playing with as many people as I could. For a time I was a member of Wally Shoup's band PROJECT W. Seattle is where I believe I learned to listen, a practice which continues to this day. In 1999 I formed the first Animist orchestra, an ensemble dedicated to finding ways of playing music not based in self-expression. The orchestra played mostly natural objects (stones, pine cones, shells, etc.) and has performed many times up to the present day, most recently in Austin, Texas.
Currently, I continue to record and release many CD-Rs of many different kinds of sound, collage, improv, drone etc, and build crude self-playing soundmakers. My interest continues to be in what happens when we listen.
REMEMBERANCES....
I remember the first show I ever attended in Seattle, in the back room at the Speakeasy. It was a Climax Golden Twins gig with Doug Theriault on guitar for part of it and a very ill-at-ease looking Jesse Paul Miller squirming in a contact mic'd easy chair. Other things that leapt to mind this morning: the weekly sessions at Paul Hoskin's house, which later were held at Paul and David Nicholson's house with TWO pianos and a host of revolving players, the candles and the smoke...opening for Sonic Youth at the Moore Theater with Project W...weekly sessions at Anomalous Records with Aaron Wintersong and Dave Knott...the sounds from upstairs in the back room at the Speakeasy and how different people would react to them, using them or ignoring them while they played. Toshi Nakamura's set that totally entranced everyone... my first experience of synesthesia listening to one of Paul Hoskin's legendary 90 minute solo sets...the Tentacle and it's various members' conviction that music could indeed change the world...playing on Doug Haire's Sonarchy radio show for the first time and how it became easier each time I did it...
Greg Powers' habit of inserting bits of show tunes into just about anything we were playing...my elation during the first Seattle Improv Fest that I played and how I was unable to contain it...the unnamed quartet with Angelina Baldoz, Paul Hoskin and Lori Goldston that played some of the best music I've ever been a party to...Paul Hoskin's multi-reed orchestra...the all day play at Tari Nelson-Zager's house where I finally got to re-connect with Jack Wright...meeting and playing with John Butcher...attending Malcolm Goldstein's workshop...the summer of Cobra...
the sad and funny crumbling of Blowhole and the subsequent engagement with everything else...endless streams of gigs and sessions at people's houses blurring into a seamless musical life...
Web sites: http://www.flickr.com/photos/azanimist