In February 2023, the day after saxophonist Zoh Amba and drummer Chris Corsano finished up a duo tour of the west coast they entered the studio with guitarist Bill Orcutt. From this session came an album released summer 2023 called The Flower School. Chris and Bill are decades long collaborators perpetually adapting, adjusting, and challenging one another so that every performance by their duo seems to spring from a different inspirational source, but this was the first time Orcutt and Amba had ever played together. Through the recording session it is obvious that the level of communication and rapport between the trio feels eternal. 

This performance will be the West coast premiere of the trio of Zoh Amba, Chris Corsano and Bill Orcutt performing music from their new LP “The Flower School.”

———————————————————

One of experimental music’s most influential guitarists, Bill Orcutt weaves looping melodic lines and angular attack into a dense, fissured landscape of American primitivism, outsider jazz, and a stripped-down re-envisioning of the possibilities of the guitar. Whether he’s playing his decrepit Kay acoustic or gutted electric Telecaster (both stripped of two of their strings, as has been Orcutt’s custom since 1985), Orcutt’s jagged sound is utterly unique and instantly recognizable, and is compared with equal frequency to avant-garde composers and rural bluesmen. The New York Times has called him a “powerful musician… a go-for-broke guitar improviser,” and described his sound as “articulated sprays of arpeggiated chords and dissonance.”

Zoh Amba is a composer and instrumentalist from Tennessee residing in New York. Her music blends avant-garde, noise, and devotional hymns.  Before studying music at the San Francisco Conservatory Of Music, New England Conservatory and studying with David Murray in New York, she spent most of her time writing and practicing saxophone in a remote forest near her home alone where she started to develop her distinct sound and approach. Today, her powerfully unique avant-garde music is full of folk melodies, mesmerizing refrains, and repeated incantations. Amba released her first two records in 2022. Her debut record O, Sun which was produced by John Zorn and released on his prestigious label Tzadik. Zoh Amba’s second record, Bhakti features Micah Thomas, Tyshawn Sorey, and Matt Hollenberg. Bhakti has become the moniker for Amba’s ongoing live and recording ensemble project with ever changing members, Amba also has a regular band with musicians Shahzad Ishmaily, Jim White (Dirty Three), and Steve Gunn.

Chris Corsano is a drummer who has been working at the intersections of free improvisation, 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, Paul Flaherty, Mette Rasmussen) 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 150 albums and touring in an ultra-wide array of collaborations, Corsano has developed a highly personal musical language through ecstatic free improvisation, extended percussion techniques, and an innovative approach to the drum kit that includes resonating drum heads with bowed strings and circular-breathed reeds. He’s been called “one of the world’s great drummers” by The Guardian, “a peripatetic ace of the avant-garde” by The New York Times, and “arguably the most riotously energetic and creative drummer in contemporary free jazz” by Wire Magazine.

TWANS

Welded from the fruits of their own labors, TWANS set out to dispel current myths, question ideologies and sardonically allude to artistic nuances one would commonly dismiss. Between the three entities that are Mike Lockwood (drums), Andrew Jones (bass), and Mike Gamble (gtr) there exists an unyielding desire to connect in another dimension and utilize that interplay to heighten the worth of their songs.

https://twansmusic.bandcamp.com

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.

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.

For 40 years, Craig Burk has been producing singular and uncompromising music that successfully blends elements of punk rock, free jazz, psychedelia, folk, Broadway, Bollywood, industrial noise, and classical – from Mozart’s operas to the art lieder of Schoenberg to the aleatory tendencies of John Cage.

Now in Dotted Outlines in the Air, Burk reaches deep into the body of his work and yanks hard, pulling the inside out to create a new unsettling sound that challenges all the norms. 

Burk will give a short talk on the creation of his new piece, play it in its entirety, and welcome questions or comments.

Dillon Nadler is a guitarist, composer and educator based in Portland, Oregon. He can be heard around the Pacific Northwest performing in a variety of scenarios, from freely improvised collaborations and avant garde original music to tradition honoring solo and small group jazz.

Dillon works to create an aesthetic that synthesizes the vast improvisational traditions of jazz with the textural sensibilities of popular electric guitar playing. Regardless of the material being performed, Dillon strives to create a culture of honesty, exploration and support within the music.

Eden Holland is an Upright Bassist and Modular Synthesizer operator living in Portland, Oregon. They can be heard in a wide variety of environments, ranging from the Pop-Jazz stylings of Cyrus Nabipoor Quartet, to the high-octane free improvisations of their co-lead duo with Dillon Nadler.

Drawing on influences from the great Bassists Charlie Haden, Gary Peacock, and Ron Carter, Eden takes an active role in any musical environment they are a part of. Eden is newly working to incorporate the Moog Matriarch Synthesizer into free improvised environments, presenting new soundscapes and techniques to the idiom of free music. Eden engages the music from an attitude of deep listening and artistic liberty, while maintaining the responsibility and tradition of the improvising upright bassist.