2400 SE Holgate Blvd, Portland, OR 97202
The Creative Music Guild “Outset Series” and Music Portland Music Month co-present a monthly residency from CMG Artistic Director/guitarist Mike Gamble at Blue Butler Studios in SE. The series will be held every Saturday and feature a trio of improvised music each accompanied with a solo set from a different special guest each week. This event was also made possible via the support of RACC. A portion of every ticket purchased for Portland Music Month shows goes straight to the Echo Fund to support creative project grants for independent musicians.
CHRIS CORSANO is a New York-based drummer who has been working at the intersections of free jazz, avant-rock, and experimental music since the late ’90s. He’s a rim-batterer of choice for some of the greatest contemporary purveyors of “jazz” (Joe McPhee, Mette Rasmussen, Zoh Amba) and “rock” (Sir Richard Bishop, Bill Orcutt, Jim O’Rourke), as well as artists beyond categorization (Björk for her Volta album and world tour, Michael Flower, Okkyung Lee). Appearing on over 180 albums and touring in an ultra-wide array of collaborations, he’s a renowned solo performer in his own right, with a new solo record due out next year on the Drag City label. He’s built a highly inventive musical language through ecstatic free improvisation, extended percussion techniques, and the augmentation of his kit with circular-breathed reeds and bowed strings that coax new resonances out of the drums’ heads. Corsano’s been called “one of the world’s great drummers” by The Guardian, an “ace of the avant-garde” by The New York Times, a “powerhouse drummer” by Rolling Stone, and “arguably the most riotously energetic and creative drummer in contemporary free jazz” by Wire Magazine. Spin ranked him as one of the “100 Greatest Drummers of Alternative Music,” and in 2017, he received the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.
Maxx Katz
Maxx Katz is a multi-instrumentalist and composer whose work draws on vocabulary from heavy metal, contemporary classical, free improvisation, and performance. A classically trained flutist with an M.A. in Music from UVA, Katz uses flute, electric guitar, and voice as instruments of transformation. Maxx has toured extensively across the U.S. and Europe. They were a resident at the 2019 Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music with Vijay Iyer and Tyshawn Sorey, and Atlantic Center for the Arts with flutist Nicole Mitchell. They compose work for ongoing ensembles including Yelling Choir, Floom, and Ixnay.
Mike Gamble
Mike Gamble is an adventurous guitarist and multi-instrumentalist whose work with electronic modes of composition are integrated endlessly into his setup. Gamble has spent the last 20 years immersed in the creative jazz, experimental rock and improvised music scene primarily in NYC, with close ties to New Orleans, Burlington, Boston, San Francisco and now the Pacific Northwest. He has had the pleasure of recording over 50 albums and has been touring the states, Canada, and Europe with his critically-acclaimed guitar trio The Inbetweens, Mike Gamble Solo,, and alongside doom-metal originators Earth. His more recent collaborators include Bobby Previte, Todd Sickafoose, Nels Cline, Wayne Horvitz, Esperanza Spalding, Matt Chamberlain and Lori Goldston.
Since relocating to Portland, Mike Gamble has dived into the jazz and experimental, Pop, Indie Rock, and electronic/modular scene and gigs 4-7 times a week. He currently holds a position as a Contemporary Music Industry instructor at Oregon State University, and a guitar teacher at both Willamette University and Reed College and is the Artistic Director of Portland’s long standing experimental music organization, The Creative Music Guild.
