Improvisation Summit Archive of Events
Wednesday, October 29th
Skyline Tavern
Portland, OR 97229
$15-30
8pm
Left Of Center
Yucky Jazz
Left Of Center is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Alex Meltzer and musical polymath Machado Mijiga, seamlessly blending free improvisation, loops, and step sequencing to create a sonic multiverse that exists in the pocket dimension between jazz, electronica, and avant-garde.
Multi-instrumentalist and Portland native Machado Mijiga wears many hats, both literally and metaphorically. Classically-trained, jazz-weathered, and eclectically inclined, Mijiga left the proverbial creative “box” at a very early age, with access to many instruments and a diverse musical background brought about by an intercultural heritage. Mijiga is a musical polymath; composer, producer, bandleader, educator, gear fanatic, and audio engineer, to name a few. Mijiga can be seen touring with GRAMMY-winning band, Portugal. The Man throughout the year, among the many Portland-based groups he leads and supports when back home. Authenticity and uniquity assume the locus of Mijiga’s artistic identity. Self-expression is the prime directive, and the medium of choice changes like the weather.
YUCKY JAZZ
Yuck is a Portland based musician who can often be found supporting other artists in the city.
They have a deep love for many styles of music and attempt to blend those influences together
to form a cohesive sound that is their own. From folk to gospel to jazz, you’re liable to hear it all
at any given Yuck concert.
Their solo electric project Yucky Jazz often features dear friends and combines raw virtuosic
instrumentalists with elements of hip-hop production and covers of unconventional songs that
ensures a fun evening whenever they step out.
Tuesday, October 28th
No fun
$15-30
8pm
Ozkat Ozkat
Duolant & Chris Rorrer
Electric Palace Ensemble
Okzat-Ozkat is a new collaborative project from Andre Burgos (Brown Calculus, Be Present Art Group), Chris Frank (Frank Irwin Quintet), Alex Meltzer (Korgy and Bass), Jessie Smith (Jessie Smith Big Band, Frank Irwin Quintet), Alexander Thomas (Frank Irwin Quintet, Isabeau Waia’u Walker), and Reed Wallsmith (Blue Cranes, Battle Hymns and Gardens).
The driving force behind Okzat-Ozkat is conversation — finding common ground through listening. It is about empathizing and being open to changing your point of view. It is about rhythmic, melodic, and textural diversity. It’s tension and release. It’s music to write or sketch to. Music to nod your head to. Okzat-Ozkat’s improvised pieces are for the creative and curious listener.
Duolant is the electronic music project of Portland-based producer, Jeff Mettlewsky. Introduced to the synthesizer at an early age, and eventually leading to years of taking piano lessons, the instrument remains a fixture and unifying element in both his composition and recordings. As an artist, Mettlewsky takes inspiration from the natural surroundings found in the Pacific Northwest, following an impulse that drives creativity and curiosity with sound and his music-making in its entirety. His works often explore the combination of traditional instruments with the more experimental elements of the studio. He has designed his own hardware effects that he regularly employs in his music. In 2023, Duolant released a pair of albums on two niche-paving English labels: Waxing Crescent and Woodford Halse.
Cellist Chris Rorrer is a session musician and educator, dividing his time between Southern California and Oregon. When asked to collaborate with other musicians in unfamiliar contexts, he is excited to offer a diverse skill set that complements any musical project in a very immediate way. Chris transitioned from violin to cello at age ten, being fascinated by its characteristic resonance and versatility. His work features an unmistakable attention to nuance that can be heard through unique phrasing and melodic choices. Rorrer seeks to build community, promote peace, and foster healing through his performances and recordings, contributing music that tells a shared human experience to a diverse audience. Chris earned his Master’s degree in cello performance from the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University, Long Beach, in 2020.
In 2020, the historic Skyline Tavern closed its doors to the public and quietly re-opened them to nature & improvisation. Amid wildfires and racial justice protests, Skyline Tavern Project obscured the western saloon facade of the Tavern by covering it in black fabric and forming The Electric ⚡️Palace Ensemble. (E⚡️P E)
Inspired by the spiritual music of John Coltrane’s 1965 “A Love Supreme”, the Electric ⚡️Palace Ensemble composed their 4-part “Transfiguration Suite” in tender response to Coltrane’s original prayer; crafted with love, played with hellfire.
In 2022, E⚡️PE filmed their first performance of the Suite during sunset to a rapt audience of Northern Red Legged Frogs, Great Horned Owls & Lichen.
Today that performance is projected onto the exterior windows of the Skyline Tavern Project every Wednesday evening for the public. And the forest.
“The Transfiguration of the Electric Palace”
Composed by Tate Peterson, Kris Stuart & Matt Cadenelli. Commissioned by Skyline Tavern Project. Creative Commons License 2022.
Performed for Improvisation Summit by Tate Peterson, Chelsea Luker, Jeffrey Langston, Edwin Coleman, Scott ray Becker.
Tate Peterson-Guitar, Effects
Resolectrics, Big E & the Stomp, Asher Fulero, Black Dogs of Skyline
Chelsea Luker-Saxophone, Flute.
The Quadraphonnes, Scott Law Band, Moon Music, Asher Fulero Band
Jeffrey Langston-Electric Bass
Antony & the Johnsons, Kivett Bednar Band
Edwin Coleman -Drums
Three Kings Trio, Lloyd Jones Trio, Kivett Bednar Band
Scott ray Becker- Percussion
Garbage Gurus, Black Dogs of Skyline
Sun 26th
Strum Guitar
$15-30
3pm
Lori Goldston + Mike Gamble
Lori Goldston plays written, traditional and spontaneous work on cello, and works as a composer, teacher, bandleader, and prolific, widely varied collaborator. Classically trained and rigorously de-trained, her voice as a cellist is singular, deeply textured and original, investigating thresholds, instability, and connections between far-flung modes of thought.
She lives in Seattle and performs in venues large and small throughout North America, Europe and Australia as a soloist and collaborator with composers, film makers, writers, theater directors, choreographers, visual artists, orchestras and bands including Earth, Nirvana, the BBC Scottish Symphony, Black Belt Eagle Scout, Helms Alee, Mirah, David Byrne, Terry Riley, Jem Finer, Jessika Kenney, Lonnie Holley, Trimpin, Stuart Dempster, Shelley Hirsch, Chloe Thompson, Mike Gamble, Rankin Renwick, Greg Kelley, Ghedalia Tezartes, Senga Nengudi, Ellen Fullman, Lynn Shelton, and many, many others.
Her work has been released on Mississippi Records, Sub Rosa, Nyahh, Relative Pitch, Beacon Sounds, Dasa, K Records, Broken Clover, Sofaburn, Obscure & Terrible, and Full Spectrum.
Mike Gamble is an adventurous guitarist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist whose work with improvisation and new technology predominantly inform his practice. 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, 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 in several groups including Neighbors, TWANS, 2uo, and GAMSIM. He currently holds a position as a Contemporary Music Industry instructor at Oregon State University, and as a guitar teacher at Reed College. He has been the Artistic Director of Portland’s long standing experimental music organization, The Creative Music Guild since 2016
Sun 26th
Swan Dive
$15-30
8pm
Annual Round Robin hosted by Marcus Rudolph
Marcus Rudolph is an exceptionally creative musician spanning swing, groove and a wide range of dynamics! He will joined by:
Xylyn Hathaway, AJ Stillabower, Alexis Mahler, Jack Maiolo, Rudolfo Lopez, Joshua Phillips
Friday October 24th
Desert Island Studios
1316 SE 12th Ave, Portland, OR 97214
$15-30
8pm
Lori Goldston + Chloe Alexandra Thompson
Ilyas Ahmed
Craig Burk
Classically trained and rigorously de-trained, possessor of a restless, semi-feral spirit, Lori Goldston is a cellist, composer, improvisor, producer, writer and teacher from Seattle. Her voice as a cellist, amplified or acoustic, is full, textured, committed and original. A relentless inquirer, her work drifts freely across borders that separate genre, discipline, time and geography.
Current and former collaborators and/or bosses include Earth, Nirvana, Mirah, Jessika Kenney, Ilan Volkov, Eyvind Kang, Stuart Dempster, David Byrne, Terry Riley, Jherek Bischoff, Malcom Goldstein, Steve Von Till, Lonnie Holley, Cat Power, Ellen Fullman, Maya Dunietz, Mik Quantius, Embryo, O Paon, Tara Jane O’Neil, Natacha Atlas, Broken Water, Ed Pias, Christian Rizzo and Sophie Laly, Threnody Ensemble, Cynthia Hopkins, 33 Fainting Spells, Vanessa Renwick, Mark Mitchell, Lynn Shelton, and many more.
Her work has been commissioned by and/or performed at the Kennedy Center, Sydney Festival, Cineteca Nacional de México, Tectonics Festival, Frye Art Museum, Time Based Art Festival (TBA), WNYC, The New Foundation, Paris Fashion Week, Northwest Film Forum, On the Boards, Seattle International Film Festival, Seattle Jewish Film Festival, Bumbershoot, Crossing Border Festival, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, Joe’s Pub, the Stone, University of Chicago, and venues large and small throughout North America, Mexico, Australia, and Europe.
Chloe Alexandra Thompson is a Cree interdisciplinary artist, director and composer. Her practice explores listening as a way of knowing and relating which is shaped by Indigenous resonance, spatial perception, and embodied vulnerability. Working with psychoacoustic tones, algorithmic systems, and sculptural spatialization as materials, she composes spaces that shift awareness, inviting deep relational encounters between bodies, technologies, and the land.
Thompson’s work has been presented by CTM Berlin, MUTEK (Tokyo & Montreal), Onassis Foundation (Greece & USA), ImagineNative, Pioneer Works, PICA, Performance Space New York, among others. A current Onassis ONX Studio member, she has participated in residencies at Pioneer Works, MIT OpenDoc Lab with the Indigenous Screen Office of Canada, and HERVISIONS x Arebyte (UK).
In January 2021, Cycling ‘74, announced Thompson as one of the first Max Certified Trainers. She has also worked as a Creative Director, Technologist, Artist, and Audio Direction for immersive experiences. Her sound design has been featured in the works of artists across the fields of music, performance, TV and film.
She was a founding member of the Working Consortium in developing First Nations Performing Arts.
Ilyas Ahmed has been releasing records as a solo & collaborative artist for almost 20 years. His most recent solo album A Dream of Another was released in 2023. He is also a member of the experimental rock band Grails whose last record Miracle Music was released this year. New solo album forthcoming in 2026. Ilyas lives and works in Portland Oregon.
https://ilyasahmed.bandcamp.com
Craig Burk first presented his music to the public on November 28, 1979 when he and his band played at the legendary CBGB’s in New York City. Their next performance took place a few weeks later at the equally legendary Max’s Kansas City.
Craig and his colleagues would play at all the popular venues during that Golden Age of the experimental/avant-garde music scene in downtown Manhattan (early 1980s): Mudd Club, Soundscape, Public Access Synthesizer Studio, Roulette, Inroads, 8 B.C., The Pyramid, John Zorn’s clubs The Saint and The Chandelier, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
At that time, Burk described his music as a blend of punk rock, free jazz, Broadway show tunes, industrial noise, Indian movie music, and French pop, as well as classical: ranging from Mozart’s operas to Schoenberg’s art lieder to the aleatory tendencies of John Cage.
Burk went on to perform his music for audiences in Europe and then in Portland. He was a founding member of the New West Electro-Acoustic Music Association (NWEAMO) and played a central role in the organization of NWEAMO’s first two annual festivals, which took place at Lewis and Clark College in 1999 and 2000. Burk presented original works at both events.
From 2007 to 2009, he hosted a radio program on KBOO-FM devoted to music from all genres around the world. Burk has also performed Italian popular songs from the 1960s to the present in Portland clubs, bringing to each his own very individual interpretation, inspired by his past musical explorations.
In 2021, Burk retired after over 30 years in international business. He then made the Reaper Digital Audio Work Station his instrument of choice. In his most recent works, he has used this software program to create collages of sound, arranging samples from past works (dating back to 1984) and fragments of newly recorded improvisations, using electric guitar, voice, trumpet, toys, and household utensils.
Burk has employed this collage approach in Dotted Outlines in the Air (2023), Save It for Anticlimax! and surprise me! (2024) Dix-sept petits exercices d’une humeur ludique (2024), Slouching Towards the Garden of Earthly Delights (2025), Familiar Faces! Sudden Geysers of Incense! (2025), and A Whole New Way to Use Black-and-White (2025). He describes these latest works as “atmospheric late-evening sounds for the lobby of a small hotel in some exotic locale — seasoned with a small dose of unrelenting provocation.”
All his works can be heard at: https://craigburk.bandcamp.com/ and https://www.youtube.com/@craigburk
Thursday October 23
Turn Turn Turn
$15-30
8pm
Reed Wallsmith/Lisa Lipton/Kyleen King/Shao-Way Wu/Tim DuRoche
Reed Wallsmith (alto saxophone) was born and raised in Portland, OR. He composes and performs with Blue Cranes, who have released six albums and several EPs, including the recently released full length My Only Secret (Jealous Butcher/Beacon Sound). His music and worldview have been influenced by many years of playing in the Northwest’s creative music scene, as well as formative years in the late 90s and early 2000s performing with musicians in Managua, Nicaragua. Wallsmith earned a BA in Latin American Studies from Carleton College, graduating with distinction with a thesis entitled The Role of the Musician in Post-Sandinista Nicaragua: The Work of Carlos Mejia Godoy 1973–2000. He has attended the Banff International Workshop in Jazz & Creative Music, received a Caldera Arts residency in composition, and several RACC Project and Professional Development grants. As a composer, Wallsmith has been commissioned by the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble, Heidi Duckler Dance (choreographer Carla Mann), Tere Mathern Dance, Golden Hornet Project (Austin, TX), and Filmusik. His compositions have been featured nationally on The Moth Radio Hour and appeared in commercials for Squarespace, Stereo Skateboards and Footjoy.
Lisa Lipton (clarinet) is the Executive Director of both 45th Parallel Universe and Opera Theater Oregon, and is a Co-founder/Co-owner of Mendelssohn’s, Portland’s first classical music-themed bar. Lisa was executive director of the Newport Symphony Orchestra for two years. A versatile instrumentalist, her appearances include performances with the Decibel festival, TBA festival, PDX Pop Now!, MusicfestNW, Astoria Music Festival, Salem Orchestra, Oregon Ballet Theater, Portland Opera, and in jazz trio Fredson the Jeffry alongside pianist and composer George Colligan and drummer Micah Hummel. A prominently featured soloist on the soundtrack for Golden Globe-nominated Sony Pictures Film French Exit featuring Michelle Pfeiffer, her discography also includes albums by Luz Elena (Y La Bamba) and Jim Brunberg.
Kyleen King (viola) is a session musician, string arranger and live performer based out of Portland, Oregon. With a keen attention to detail and an intuitive ear, she is able to find exactly what a song needs and then create the part. She is the former violist/violinist and backup singer in Grammy-winning artist Brandi Carlile’s touring band. Kyleen is the first-call violist/violinist/arranger for Portland’s top recording studios and has recorded on projects with My Morning Jacket, First Aid Kit, The Decemberists, and many more. Her desire to serve the song above all else, to be well-prepared, and to have a laugh are the defining elements of her career.
Shao Way Wu (contrabass) is a freelance jazz bassist and Portland resident who grew up in Hong Kong. He moved to the Bay Area in 1971 at the age of fifteen. For two decades Wu was a pillar of the Humboldt County, CA jazz community. His artistic spirit has been thriving in Portland, where he’s released a handful of albums and collaborated with a swath of northwest creatives. Current projects include Lie Very Still with John Savage, Mike Gamble, and Ken Ollis, Ryan Meagher’s Cowboy Jazz, Alan Cook Collective, JB Butler Trio, LTD TIME with Allie Hankins and John Niekrasz, Ike Levin Trio, WuBeDu with Noah Bernstein and Tim DuRoche, Chris Lee Duo, and regular appearances with the Extradition Series.
Tim DuRoche (drums/little instruments), originally from Minneapolis, has been based in Portland since 2000. DuRoche has worked with an array of US and European jazz and free improvisation innovators, including Burton Greene, Roscoe Mitchell, Thollem McDonas, George Sams, Lori Goldston, Rich Halley, John Gross, Gordon Lee, Eri Yamamoto, Dominic Duval, Damon Smith, Bill McHenry, Carei Thomas, Paul Plimley-Lisle Ellis, Jon Raskin, Perry Robinson, Phillip Greenlief, and Marco Eneidi, among others. Local ensembles have included Get Smashing Love Power, Battle Hymns and Gardens, The Kin Trio, and a decade-long association with the late bassist André St. James in innumerable settings. Select recordings include Conversations with Love and Death with Battle Hymns & Gardens (Bandcamp) Johnny Miss Mae from John Savage/André StJames/Tim DuRoche (Gold Lion Arts), Live in Our Time by Thollem, André StJames, Tim DuRoche (ESP-Disk), ReEmergence with Ike Levin and Shao-Way Wu and Timeless Memories from Joel Futterman and Ike Levin (Charles Lester Music), as well as three PCJE Records: Amazing Life with Ezra Weiss/Jon Shaw/Tim DuRoche; The Kin Trio’s Breathe with Sunjae Lee and André St. James, and Ryan Meagher’s Evil Twin.
Ben Woodman Trio
Ben Woodman is a guitarist, trumpet player, and composer based in Portland OR. This group, featuring Brent Carmer on bass and Sam Berrett on drums, seeks to expand the language and possibilities of the guitar trio. Embracing free improvisation, through composition, and the spaces in between – this band is a container for controlled risk, and an earnest response to creative discontent. Modern music with salt, sugar, and fat.
Jarret Tetsuo Domen
Jarret Tetsuo Domen is an adventurous guitarist and composer from Portland, OR. Jarret’s solo
music features explorations of the electric guitar which are highly manipulated by effect pedals
with an emphasis on texture, atmosphere, and improvisation. Jarret blends a variety of musical
styles to create a unique sound that channels his experience as an Asian American.
Wednesday, October 22nd
Swan Dive
$15-30
8pm
Xylyn Hathaway
Xylyn Hathaway has become a conduit of vulgar-beauty-jazz music that sinks teeth into the space it fills. She paints canvas into composition and wield an upright bass like bazookas, exploding hearts open peeled backwards into one bouquet of manic laughter from the pit of your chest.
Xylyn is a cherished figure and friend in our jazz community; born on Earth, one stones throw west from the palpitating heart of downtown Portland, Oregon.
A forager for chanterelles, she was raised on the farm in Newberg with Grandma. When Grandma died they lost the old farmhouse, red and white and alive in the decaying cherry walnut orchards. Grandma lives in Noble Pioneer Cemetery now, Xylyn in Southwest Portland.
As a band leader, Xylyn’s musical visions unfold and sprout behemoth architecture dimly lit, oozing spirits from the gills as it gasps for it’s first breath beneath thumps quantized in fractals. She propels a soloist or a broken poet off cliffs into jupiter’s hurricane eye.
She plays with cats like George Colligan, like Ron Steen, like anybody making big nasty music to be hurt and healed by in this wet crow city.
Xylyn Hathaway’s heart and music exude peace and play and oozing spirits, dancing between us, around us, below the violent ocean dismembered by big old stones.”
– David Barber
Tuesday October 21st
No Fun
$15-30
8pm
{[(gang radio)]}
Quivering Lip
Sila Lesa
Patrick McCulley
{[(gang radio)]} is a practice in improvisation with drones and patterns taking shape, becoming songs and soundscapes using trombone/guitar/pedals/cello/whatever may fit the sound.
the solo project of daniel morris (masonique, cryr, perseveration), {[(gang radio)]} has been based in portland, or since the early aughts, bringing a meditative, sometimes caustic, ambient soundtrack to the psychedelic movie behind the listener’s eyes. forever let the light shine, even if it’s the darkest light you can muster.
Ⓥ // Ⓔ
https://gangradio.bandcamp.com
Patrick McCulley is a Portland based saxophonist, educator, composer for alto, tenor, baritone, and bass saxophone that seeks to transform the instrument from a purely melodic instrument into an undefinable and unstoppable force of nature.
Quivering Lip is an experimental/harsh noise project based out of Portland Or and performed by
Dave Angiolini. It utilizes scrap metal, found objects, different forms of
microphones/amplification and feedback.
Sila Lesa is the evocative electroacoustic solo project of composer, saxophonist and sound artist David B. Collins, traveling a landscape of improvisation and fixed form, with melody, texture and timbre guiding the journey.
Mon Oct 20th
Portland Arts Collective
$15-30
8pm
Folknoize
Brent Carmer
Aurora Josephoson Anthony Stillabower and Joel Nelson
Wild Card of Cascadia
Folknoize – Portland. Oregon based repurposed found object/yard debris sound generating instrument builder. Multi-traditional-hack level-nstrumentalist Sound generating instrument hoarder
First experiments in creating sound began in 1951, Lutheran Hospital of Manhattan, West 144th Street, Harlem, NY.
Minimal formal music education, predominantly hands-on “self-taught” sound creator.
Links:
https://folknoize.bandcamp.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/sogatube
https://www.facebook.com/jerry.soga/
https://www.instagram.com/florabored/
Portland double bassist Brent Carmer creates meditative solo works that combine bow-heavy textures, looping, and ambient field recordings. A former jazz pianist, he draws on improvisation and extended techniques to weave soundscapes where bass and environment merge. Carmer often records in nature, allowing wind, birds, and water to become part of the music. With roots in Nebraska’s wide horizons and a background in computer science, his work balances openness and precision, evoking spaces where contemplation and sound converge.
Full-length videos: https://www.youtube.com/@brent.carmer
Wild Card of Cascadia is a trio from Portland whose immersive, spontaneous music emerges from omnivorous, adaptable, inquisitive working methods. In search of unexpected discoveries they deploy conceptual prompts, unexpected instrumentation, and game-like challenges. Their emphasis on electro-acoustic sound means they draw from a large array of instruments and techniques, from free improvisation to concrete composition. Wild Card’s membership includes established artists William Selman (Mysteries of the Deep, Critique of Everyday Life), Marcus Fischer (12k), and Paul Dickow (who records as Strategy), but the group’s sound is distinct from their individual projects.
https://wildcardofcascadia.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/wildcard.sound
Anthony J. Stillabower
Anthony has been hailed as ‘vaguely acousmatic’, ‘not doing anything special’ and ‘somewhat boring’.
As a composer, he makes scores for instrumental ensembles and electronics. As an improviser, he gigs and records albums using his
Aurora Josephson is a musician and visual artist who currently resides in Portland, Oregon. Building on the foundation of operatic training and a BA and an MFA in Music Performance from Mills College, she has forged a bold vocal style that is uniquely her own. To unleash the limitless range of sonic possibilities in the voice, Josephson employs a variety of extended and unconventional techniques drawn from the worlds of contemporary composition, improvisation, and rock. She has performed and recorded with Alvin Curran, Fred Frith, Dana Reason, Lisa Mezzacappa, Henry Kaiser, Joelle Leandre and William Winant, and musical groups Big City Orchestra, Flying Luttenbachers, Scott Amendola’s: Orchestra di Pazzi, ROVA Saxophone Quartet, T.D. Skatchit band and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
Joel Nelson is a Portland-based multi-instrumentalist and composer exploring the intersections
of folk tradition, experimental sound, and electronic music. Working with bagpipes, guitar,
organs, voice, and hand-built electronics including his current focus, the crank-powered
generator organ, he creates music rooted in drones, medieval modes, and microtonality. A
member of Silica Gel, Broken Crow, and the Sweet Wreath collective, with releases on
Mississippi Records, Joel’s practice embraces intuition, unpredictability, and deep listening to
uncover music that feels less constructed and more discovered in each unfolding moment
Blue Butler Studios
$15-30
8pm
Anais Maviel
elijah jamal asani
Anaïs Maviel is an artist, vocalist, composer & multi-instrumentalist dedicated to translating spiritual concepts to sensory experiences, using sound as medicine & alchemy. With traditional and experimental approaches, her works investigate the power of sound to shape reality, and emphasize the relevance of cultural hybridity. She navigates song, choral, instrumental, orchestral music and staging with a strong connection to cosmologies of sound and speech rooted in oral traditions such as mantra and ring shout. She strives to bridge the gaps between genres & to create a diverse, inclusive, yet sacred musical experience. Among her music collaborators, Alarm Will Sound, Craig Taborn, The Rhythm Method, Meshell Ndegeocello, Meredith Monk, Aruán Ortiz & William Parker. Collaborations with dance include Contra-Tiempo, Urban Bush Women, Merce Cunningham Trust, Okwui Okpokwasili & the Commons Choir. Visual arts collaborators include Sean Webley, Nene Humphrey & Steffani Jemison. Anaïs facilitates vocal liberation with a focus on the body, its environmental, archetypal and cosmic resonances. Both solo albums received international acclaim, and among the generous press shout outs, Jazz Right Now has called her a “unique aesthetic visionary”. She is an awardee of the 2019 Van Lier Fellowship, 2020 American Composers Forum Create, 2021-2022 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, 2022 NYFA Artists Fellowship, 2023 New Music USA’s Next Jazz Legacy, and a 2023 Herb Alpert Award in Music Composition nominee. Lastly, she holds a masters degree from Paris Diderot University in modern literature, aesthetics and contemporary thought, which led her to write about the stakes of music & utopia in the creolized world. One can read her essays & poetry in the form of intimate newsletters.
elijah jamal asani is an anti-discilplinary nigerian-american artist bred in chicago & based near
the river wimahl. as an abstract romanticist,, he navigates soft nuances && new hues of sacred
resonation
Sat Oct 18th
Blue Butler Studios
$15-30
8pm
Oleo Trio
Featuring Christian San Nicolas & Rodolfo Lopez
Celebrating the release of their debut bandcamp release, “First Impressions”, the Oleo Trio is exploring new ground at this year’s Improvisation Summit. Featuring Rodolfo Lopez on bass, Christian San Nicholas on sax w/ FX, and Joshua Phillips on percussion, guitar, and sax, with the theme of gravity. Using acoustic instruments, loops & delays, and harmonic effects, listen as these musicians communicate, echoing voices of their diverse heritage, through soul-reaching melodies.
Force Field, with Alan Cook on drums and percussion and Mike Murray on guitar and electronics, explore the world of improvisation and spontaneous composition from a unique perspective. Both players bring decades of experience to create dynamic musical tapestries full of color, texture, creativity and deep listening. Alan Cook Born in Ayr, Scotland, Alan Cook brings a dynamic and multifaceted perspective to the creative exploration of the percussive arts, with over 50 years of diverse musical experience which includes performing with Nigerian master drummer Francis Awe's Talking Drum Ensemble, competing to top international honors with the Misty Isle Pipe Band, ensembles large and small covering music in a wide range of genres, as well as extended experience in solo accompaniment for modern dance and performance art. Originally self-taught, from his early twenties on he had been professionally active in the Southern California area, as well as nationally and internationally for several decades, studying and performing with renowned musicians such as Dave Holland, Kenny Wheeler, Lee Konitz, Fred Katz, Bobby Bradford, Vinny Golia, and others. Since relocating to the Pacific NW in August of 2015, Alan has continued to be musically active on many fronts, most notably live performances in Seattle at The Chapel Performance Space and on air performances on the long running radio series Sonarchy, produced by engineer extraordinaire Doug Haire. In the Portland area, Alan has been actively involved with the Creative Music Guild, the Portland Story Theater, experimental film maker Pamela Chipman, singer/songwriter Noah Kite, and freelance work in jazz settings with a wide range of artists such as Nancy King, Paul K Ward, Harrison Richter, John Stowell, Ryan Meagher, Rich Halley, Noah Bernstein, legendary bassist Andre St. James, Andrew Jones, among many others. He is currently working on original creative improvised music, either spontaneously produced or compositionally directed, with SAMadhi, a quartet that features Noah Bernstein on alto sax, Mike Murray on guitar, Shao Way Wu on bass, and himself on drums and percussion. Since August of 2021, Alan has been the creative director of the ongoing Thursday’s the new Friday jazz series at Roland Wines in Longview, WA. Mike Murray Elements of jazz, rock, noise, microtonal and world traditions have all made their way into the music of Mike Murray. Whether involved in original composition, free improvisation, electronics, the great American songbook or somewhere in between, the guitarist is always pushing to explore new territory. Mike is a Berklee grad who has also received a masters degree in jazz studies from the New England Conservatory having studied with Jon Damien, Jimmy Giuffre, George Russell and Mick Goodrick. He has performed and/or recorded with CT free improv masters Paul Flaherty and Randall Colbourne, the late Thomas Chapin, Royal Hartigan, Scott Thornton, Matt Moran, Rich McGhee, Steve Marien and many others in and around the New England and New York areas. He now makes his home in the Pacific Northwest exploring creative music with some of the areas finest improvisers.
