Improvisation Summit of Portland Archive of Events
CMG is proud to have Discordance wrap up this years 2023 Improv Summit! This will also mark Caspar Sonnet’s last run hosting the series, passing the torch on to the next curator. This performance will feature amazing local noise artists: CBSM (Cody Bra nt/Shane Mcdonell), Valarie 23, Slava Tannic and Moon Bladder! A show not to miss! Show at 8pm, $10 admission.
The Reed Showcase will be an evening of music performed by students of Reed College. There will be sets by both bands and soloists playing whatever kind of music they’d most like to perform, and the tastes are diverse—there will be rock, indie, folk, and punk, to name a few. Reed’s music scene has experienced a bit of a downturn since the pandemic, but these students show that the scene is making a comeback. Come for an evening of great music and support these student bands!
Esmé
Esmé is a musician and writer with an interest in the social application of creative work. They are a senior studying English and creative writing at Reed College. Their musical style draws on rock, jazz, folk and country. One day they hope to write their own songs. For now, they play the work of artists across genres—favorites include Stevie Nicks, Amy Winehouse, Lucinda Williams, and Janis Joplin.
Glass Eyed Tiger
About: we’re stuck in the era of guitar music and regularly cover 90’s rock favorites. But we’re also writing originals that blend indie idiosyncrasy and punk spontaneity. Drawing as much on Guided by Voices as on Neil Young, we aim to do something new with something that can’t get old.
Motorway South
Emerging out of a tiny grimy basement in Portland, Oregon, Motorway South is guitarist and singer Rachel Vogel and drummer Cleo Berryman. Drawing influence from giants such as Modest Mouse, Wilco, and Elliot Smith, their upcoming EP “Bottle Eve” is a sentimental collection of indie songs that are grainy, confessional, frustrated, recursive, hopelessly suburban, intimate in spite of/because of their equivocation, exact, disappointed,, half-remembered, and completely doomed (but in all the best ways).
Contemporary Music Industry Showcase
Join us for an incredible array of up and coming talent from Oregon State University Contemporary Music, Music Production, Jazz programs, and more. Featuring student led projects and original works! Guest faculty, too!
Original music from a variety of styles of music making. Everything from pop-punk, bossa nova, blues, singer-songwriter, jam band and live electronics and visuals.
Todd Sickafoose’s BEAR PROOF
Jenny Scheinman / violin
Adam Levy / guitar
Carmen Staaf / piano
Ben Goldberg / clarinet
Kirk Knuffke / cornet
Rob Reich / accordion
Allison Miller / drums
Todd Sickafoose / acoustic bass, composer
West Coast native Todd Sickafoose is a musical visionary. JazzTimes calls him “thoroughly
original” and “endlessly creative,” and the San Francisco Chronicle calls him “a captivating
improviser, imaginative composer, and master of collaboration.” He’s worked with an array of
amazing performers – the New Yorker has
referred to him as “Ani DiFranco’s secret weapon” and he is the Tony and GRAMMY award-winning orchestrator and music producer of Anais
Mitchell’s current Broadway hit “Hadestown”.
Tonight’s concert will be a rare performance of BEAR PROOF, an hour-long piece commissioned by Chamber Music America. Todd describes the music, which he composed specifically for this octet, as “a surreal meditation on BOOM and BUST.” Members of the all-star ensemble have played with a range of musical innovators, from Bill Frisell to Norah Jones, Dee Dee Bridgewater to Dr. Lonnie Smith, Tin Hat to Andrew Bird.
Keeping a band together, particularly among the mercurial community of jazz musicians, is no small feat. Other gigs beckon. Life outside of making art takes precedence. It’s a reality that makes the continued existence and progression of Portland quintet Blue Cranes feel so momentous. The ensemble — saxophonists Reed Wallsmith and Joe Cunningham, drummer Ji Tanzer, keyboardist Rebecca Sanborn, and bassist Jon Shaw — has been working together in a variety of formats since 2004, creating a solid body of work that has connected them to both the traditional sounds and the future-minded artists of their chosen genre.
What has kept them together, even as Cunningham has lived outside of Portland for the past few years, is strong personal and creative bonds. As a collective, their remit has always been to continually push their art further and further outside their comfort zones and to the edges of their abilities. It’s what fueled the group’s last album, 2021’s Voices, which found Blue Cranes recording for the first time with an assortment of vocalists (Laura Gibson, Edna Vazquez, Holland Andrews, Peter Broderick, Laura Veirs). And that desire to stretch even further beyond their previous work is at the heart of their new album My Only Secret. “I felt like I was getting in a rut, harmonically,” Wallsmith says. “I was trying to get out of that. To bring in more complexity and not do the same thing again.”
To that end, Wallsmith brought elements of twelve-tone and through-composition into his writing. “Semicircle” has an ever changing tonal center, while “Forward” keeps shifting and evolving in the manner of cloud formations being pushed along the sky. Cunningham, meanwhile, took on a nonlinear form of songwriting. “Gaviota” evokes the minimalist work of John Adams with its intertwining melodies and an extended coda that brings in some rattling percussion, the flute playing of John C. Savage, and the trombone of James Powers.
Another major shift for the band was to change the way they recorded My Only Secret. Created during the height of the quarantine, Blue Cranes altered their usual way of recording out of necessity, tracking each part separately and in duets across the studio window in Wallsmith’s basement. With some help from longtime cohorts Jason Powers and Todd Sickafoose, Wallsmith built the songs up using the individual components, usually adding Tanzer last in the process, because, he notes, “Ji is such an expressive player and is so in the moment, reacting to what’s happening. I felt like we’d lose all that otherwise.” Even with this temporal separation, says Cunningham, “it was like we were responding to each other. There was communication happening in the same space but at different times. And somehow it sounds like we’re playing live in the same room.”
What will always stay the same with Blue Cranes no matter how much they change as people, as players and as composers is the vibrant emotional core within the music they create. Each song on My Only Secret has a core memory attached to it, whether it is the birth of a child (“Sloan”), a parent’s comfort after the death of a beloved pet (“Rhododendron”), or the agony of the 2016 election results (“Forward”). They feel every moment of every song deeply, something which colors every note they play. “We’re a good emotional band,” says Cunningham. “We can go to that place.” The beauty of My Only Secret, like all of the work Blue Cranes has produced to date, is that they want anyone and everyone to join them.
Harlan believes in the power of music to comfort our minds and relax our bodies. As a cellist and multi-instrumentalist, his musical talents span across genres from classical music for meditation and wellness to hip hop. His diverse list of songwriting and producing credits range from Michelle Branch to The Late Show’s John Baptiste and the hip hop artist, Duckwrth. As a solo artist, Harlan has released four instrumental albums that have been wildly featured on playlists for mediation and wellness.
As a film and television composer, Harlan brings together all elements of his musical background. He has worked such talents as Lakeith Stanfield and had his music featured on such hit series HBO’S INSECURE and Hulu’s WOKE.
Harlan’s musical training began at the age of four, when he began playing the cello after seeing Yo-Yo Ma perform on television. Harlan went on to study with renown cellist Eugene Friesen at Berklee School of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.
Jonah Parzen-Johnson
Bio
Jonah Parzen-Johnson makes music for baritone saxophone & flute that challenges listeners with experimental textures & forms while embracing them with warm approachable melodies. A Chicago native and longtime Brooklyn resident, Jonah has performed solo in more than a dozen countries across four continents. Jonah has brought his music to festivals in Berlin & Helsinki, concert halls in Istanbul & Bruges, rock clubs in Rotterdam & Montreal, and Jazz clubs in New York & Chicago. His solo performances are a deeply intimate experience, as he endeavors to share who he is, how he sees our world, and the temporary moments of community that we can all embrace together.
“Autechre-esque pings, burbles and boings swirl together in the backs as Parzen-Johnson takes deep, chest rattling sax solos that scale the same ecstatic heights as Mats Gustafson but in a much more disciplined and mantra-like manner.”
– The Wire Magazine
“Parzen-Johnson’s vaguely alien compositions split the difference between the organic and the synthetic with a far-reaching, expressive sound that carries an indefinable beauty.”
– LA Times
“Jonah Parzen-Johnson drifts away from his jazz background toward a less defined terrain that suggests Brian Eno, film soundtracks, and the spaces between.”
– The New Yorker
Links
Website – https://jonahpj.com
Bandcamp – https://jonahpj.bandcamp.com
Youtube – https://youtube.com/jonahpj
Substack – https://jonahpj.substack.com
Instagram – https://instagram.com/jonahbaritone
Long Drive Theatre is a performance group led by Kaitlyn Petrik (director, text) in close collaboration with Richie Greene (music). Their first work, Six Monologues, was developed with Kate Kilbourne and Andy Raybourne and had its premiere in August 2021. Since then, they have been performing as a trio (Petrik, Greene, Kilbourne) bringing experimental performance to bars, bookstores, backyards, and other non-traditional venues.
@longdrivetheatre
@katalun
@richiegreene
Pacific Ambient Collective aka PAC is an electro acoustic ensemble consisting of core members Brandon Warren, Alex Arnold, and Timmy Barnett. They seek to stop time via stream-of-conscious improvisation, creating soundscapes that invoke the expansiveness of the Pacific Ocean.
Here’s a streaming link:
Sun 10.16
1905
830 N Shaver St
4pm Jack Radsliff’s Jam Session
7pm & 9pm
Miles Okazaki/ Dan Weiss Duo (NY)
Tix:
Mon 10.17 7pm
Blue Butler Studios
2400 SE Holgate Blvd
EXPERIMENTAL DISCUSSION
Building Community
w/ Honest Jams
& Roman Norfleet and The Be Present Art Group
Tues10.18 8pm
No Fun
1709 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Noah Simpson/ Domo Branch/ Mike Gamble
Space Jammerz
Wed 10.19 7pm
Speck’s
8216 N Denver Ave
Max Kutner (NYC)
Casual Decay
Lorin Benedict (SF)
Thursday 10.20 8pm
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St
and/Or you
meroitic
Lorin Benedict / Machado Mijiga
Friday 10.21 8pm
Leaven Community
5431 NE 20th Ave
David Torn / John Niekrasz / Mike Gamble
Alexis Mahler / Lindsay Dreyer
Mike Lockwood’s Safe Travels
Late night
1905
830 N Shaver St
11:30 pm
Carpe Diem w/ Machado Mijiga/ Garrett Baxter/Matt Sazima and Special Guest Lorin Benedict
Saturday 10.22
Old Church
1422 SW 11th Ave
David Torn + Corzi și Arcuri “Tall Tales (direct translations from the lost tongue)”
(NYC)
viola
Michelle Alany
Isabel Damman
Chibia
Alexis mahler
Cello
Harlan Silverman
Guitar
Mike Gamble
Alex Callenberger
Ryan Miller
TIX:
Late night 11:30pm
1905
830 N Shaver St
GOOSH w/ Machado Mijiga / Milo Fultz / Dario Lapoma special guest Lorin Benedict
Sunday 10.23 8pm
Fixin to
8218 N Lombard St
Round Robin Hosted by Machado Mijiga
w/ Haley Heynderickx
Denzel Mendoza
Alexander Thomas
Matthew Holmes
Logan Strosahl
David Berry
Lorin Benedict
TICKETS:
Monday 10.24 8pm
TurnTurnTurn
8 NE Killingsworth St
Halfbird
Maxx Katz
Touch System
Tues 10.25 8pm
NO FUN
1709 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Matt Mayhall’s Sift
Logan Strosahl’s New Normal
WED 10.26 8pm
XHURCH
4550 NE 20th Ave,
Aesthetic.Stalemate
Vern / Vo
Crystal Quartez
Sat 10.29 – 8pm
Discordance
Hosted by Caspar Sonnet
Leaven Community
5431 NE 20th Ave
Gabie Strong
Ian Wellman / Caspar Sonnet
Leather Jester
Cody Bryant
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20
Doors: 8pm
$15
PLEASE NOTE: For the safety of our customers, we will be requiring proof of full COVID vaccination to enter the venue, until further notice. More details at holocene.org/vaccine
Andrew Jones is a multifarious bassist, composer and songwriter who has recorded with folk and pop songwriters and modern jazz instrumentalists, performed with live hiphop and electronic bands and accompanied visiting experimentalists and theater productions via the Improvisation Summit of Portland and Time Based Art Festivals. Outside of town, Jones has had recurring work with artists from New York and Los Angeles- most recently a fourteen-month international touring stint with acclaimed songwriter/composer Julia Holter. However, among his closest musical compatriots he’s known mostly for his sometimes elusive solo-turned duo project The Crenshaw, whose full-length album features Jones singing poetic and sometimes tongue-in-cheek lyrics atop off kilter beats, warped synth samples and his own upright bass ostinatos. For his forthcoming record, Andrew is renaming that project ‘and/or you.’ Portland’s Creative Music Guild has invited him to assemble an expanded ensemble to bring his singular brand of dense and mysterious art pop to life for the 2022 Improvisation Summit of Portland, which will feature a rogue’s gallery of musicians:: Mike Lockwood (Drums), Max Kutner (NYC) (Guitar), Lily Breshears (Harp), Maxx Katz (Flute), Noah Bernstein (Alto Saxophone), Patrick McCulley (Tenor/other Saxophones).
meroitic is a sound & movement based project of black interdisciplinary artist & composer jamondria harris. Their work uses words, sounds, wires, instruments, textiles & what falls into their hands to engage with blackness, desire, spirit/source,narratology/folklore, & ontologies of liberation over& through sex, gender & embodiment.
Classically-trained, jazz-weathered, and eclectically inclined, Machado 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.
Lorin Benedict is an improvising vocalist (scat singer, essentially) who works in the areas of jazz and related music. He co-leads several small groups dedicated to playing highly structured music in a manifestly loose and playful way.
Visual art by Francis Wong: Francis Wong is a Chinese-American, multimedia alchemist based in Southeast Louisiana outside of New Orleans. His primary mediums include mixed media painting, photo/video, music and puppetry.
7pm John stowell, Matt Mayhall, Andrew Jones
8pm Miles Okazaki Solo Stream
9pm John stowell, Matt Mayhall, Andrew Jones
John Stowell
John is a unique jazz guitarist influenced as much by pianists and horn players as he is by guitarists. His original take on harmony, chords and improvisation sets him apart.
He has taught internationally for over 40 years in every educational setting.
His clinics are informal, hands-on and informative. In addition to music theory and guidelines for improvisation, John shares his professional experience with the business of music.
Matt Mayhall
Matt Mayhall is a percussionist, composer, session musician and educator. Over the past twenty five years he has gigged, toured, and recorded with an eclectic range of world-renowned performers in jazz, improvised music, singer-songwriter, folk, indie rock, indie pop, American roots music and performance art. He has released two albums of his own compositions: Fanatics (2020) and Tropes (2016).
https://mattmayhall.bandcamp.com/
Andrew Jones
Andrew Jones is an improviser, composer, and bassist in Portland. Since arriving in 2009, he’s been involved with the music community in a myriad of contexts: contributing compositions to jazz releases on the PJCE label, performing with rock, hip hop and folk groups and working with countless singer-songwriters. He’s also formed a long association with Portland’s experimental music community and Creative Music Guild, making multiple appearances at the Improvisation Summit of Portland and TBA performing with visiting musicians, collaborating with local dancers, accompanying theatre and presenting his own music. His main creative vehicle, The Crenshaw, is based on Andrew’s poetry, which he sets to electronic music. Those beat-pieces are then recreated with his warped synth samples, upright bass and a collaborator on drum set framing Jones’ voice. In 2019 he finished a fourteen-month international touring stint with acclaimed Los Angeles songwriter/composer Julia Holter. During the pandemic, Jones has turned to more session and audio production work; writing arrangements, contributing bass tracks, and mixing various new releases. In the coming year he plans to record The Crenshaw’s second full length album.
https://thecrenshaw.bandcamp.com/
Miles Okazaki is a NYC-based guitarist originally from Port Townsend, a small seaside town in Washington State. His approach to the guitar is described by the New York Times as “utterly contemporary, free from the expectations of what it means to play a guitar in a group setting — not just in jazz, but any kind.” His sideman experience over the last two decades covers a broad spectrum, from standards to experimental music (Kenny Barron, John Zorn, Stanley Turrentine, Dan Weiss, Matt Mitchell, Jonathan Finlayson, Jane Monheit, Amir ElSaffar, Darcy James Argue, and many others). He was seen prominently with Steve Coleman and Five Elements from 2009–2017. As a leader, Okazaki has released six albums of original compositions over the last 12 years, and is currently an artist on the Pi Recordings label. He has also released a six-album recording of the complete compositions of Thelonious Monk for solo guitar, published a book (Fundamentals of Guitar) with Mel Bay, taught guitar and rhythmic theory at the University of Michigan for five years, and holds degrees from Harvard University, Manhattan School of Music, and the Juilliard School.
2408 SE 16th Ave, Portland, OR 97214
Hosted by Caspar Sonnet and featuring:
Loren Chasse
Francisco
Kale Nixon
Caspar Sonnet
Maddie Villano
TJ Thompson
Catherine Lee
Juninna Lanning
Caspar Sonnet (born 1976, Los Angeles, CA) is a composer/improviser currently residing in Portland, Oregon. He has been composing and performing improvisational music since 1996. Sonnet’s multi-instrumentalist abilities include lap steel & voice. His work mainly focuses on physical movement/location in effection to sound, just intonation, rhythmic juxtaposition, instrumental augmentation, extended technique, mimicry and the use of hourglass as a way to influence improvisation. He has collaborated with talented artists such as Drew Wesley, Chris Cogburn, Ignaz Schick, Tatsuya Nakatani, Mike Gamble, Linda Austin, Gabie Strong, Zach Rowden, Henry Birdsey, Tom Weeks, Kevin Murray, Allie Hankins, Jordan Dykstra, Andrew Jones, and Jean-Paul Jenkins in recording, performing and improvising of music. He has also toured throughout Europe and the US. He has also held residencies with MOCA & REDCAT Studio in Los Angeles, and CMG Improv Summit, TBA at Disjecta and currently High Desert Soundings in Joshua Tree, CA
https://andromacherecords.bandcamp.com/
10:15 Posture Culture
9:30 Cyrus Nabipoor
8:45 Ryan Miller / Grant Pierce
8pm Noise Concerns
Cyrus Nabipoor
Organizing sounds and telling stories. Trumpeter and composer Cyrus Nabipoor’s singularly unique voice speaks of honesty, humanity, and the tragic beauty of existence. Warm and lyrical, with a unique sense of phrasing, he balances focused clarity with daring exploration. In both composition and improvisation, melody reigns. Through his pairing of trumpet and electronics, Nabipoor bridges the conceived dichotomy of nature & technology and explores new tonal possibilities.
Noise Concerns
Dan Sasaki (percussion) and Stephanie Lavon Trotter (electro-acoustic voice) create out-of-this-world sonic landscapes through free-improvisation and open scores bringing together their shared experiences in experimental noise, free-improv, Opera, and performance art
https://noiseconcerns.bandcamp.com/releases
Ryan Miller
Portland, Oregon’s Ryan Albert Miller is a forward-thinking guitarist, composer and improviser with a captivating new sound. An active member of Portland’s thriving creative music scene, Ryan uniquely fuses through-composition and nonlinear rock with avant garde leanings. Ryan has released 10 albums over the last 15 years in either full band collaboration or solo format. Active and past collaborations include U SCO, Teton, With Eyes Abstract, & Embedded Star Ensemble.
https://tentremors.bandcamp.com/album/held-radiant
Grant Pierce
Grant Pierce is a drummer and singer/songwriter living in Portland, OR. He is a member of the free jazz squall, Halfbird, and the heavy-psych band, Young Hunter.
https://grantpierce.bandcamp.com/
Alex Callenberger
Guitarist, synth wizard and cinematic expressionist Alex Callenberger creates soundscapes to dream to and swim through. Calling on the powers of acoustic, electronic and experimental instruments, he casts sonic spells that straddle and bind the genres of post-rock, ambient-techno, avant-garde, noise and folk-minimalism.
https://alexcallenbergermusic.bandcamp.com/album/redetermination
Brandon Warren
Brandon Warren is a drummer and producer based in Portland OR. He combines analog synths, virtual instruments , found sounds and drums to build ambient and meditative sound scapes. Posture Culture is a duo featuring he and guitarist/synthesist Alex Callenberger.
