The Squid's Ear Magazine


Leap of Faith: Logical Consequences (Evil Clown)

Originally planned as an Axioms session, this Leap of Faith performance features PEK, Glynis Lomon, Chris Alford, Albey onBass, Vance Provey, Jose Arroyo, and Michael Knoblach, who transformed a dynamic sextet improvisation into a rich exploration of sonorities, blending wind, strings, percussion, and electronics to create a spontaneous, evolving soundscape marked by deep listening and adaptability.
 

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David Peck (PEK)-clarinet, contralto & contrabass clarinets, alto & tenor saxophones, piccolo oboe, tarota, 5 hole wood flute, melodica, theremin with moogerfooger, ms 20, moog subsequent, prophet, novation peak, syntrx, Linnstrument controllers, soma pipe, rubber chicken, noise tower, daxophone, almglocken, brontosaurus, & tank bells, Tibetan bowls & bells, wood blocks, log drums, gongs, plate gong, orchestral chimes & anvils, chimes, spring & chime rod boxes, array mbira,[d]ronin, 17 string bass, orchestral castanets, seed pod rattles, Englephone, danmo, gavel, flex a tone

Glynis Lomon-cello, aquasonic, voice

Vance Provey-trumpet, flugelhorn, vuvuzela, wind siren, flex a tone, spring & chime rod boxes, array mbira, hulusi, moog subsequnet, novation peak, nord stage 3

Chris Alford-guitar, guitar preparations, ocarina, glockenspeil, crotales, log drums, wood & temple blocks, brontosaurus & tank bells

Albey onBass-electric upright bass

Jim Lucchese-drums, log drums, wood & temple blocks, Tibetan bowls, seed pod rattle, shakers, chimes, brontosaurus & tank bells, cow bells


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Label: Evil Clown
Catalog ID: 9385
Squidco Product Code: 35529

Format: CDR
Condition: New
Released: 2024
Country: USA
Recorded live at Evil Clown Headquarters, Waltham MA 15 July 2024 by Joel Simches.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Leap of Faith is the core duet of the Leap of Faith Orchestra (LOFO) comprised of PEK on clarinets, saxophones, clarinets & flutes, and Glynis Lomon on cello, aquasonic & voice. The ensemble is based in Boston and dates back to the early 90s. We utilize a huge arsenal of additional Evil Clown instruments to improvise long works featuring transformations across highly varied sonorities. At times, the core unit has been a trio or even a quartet. The longest running core unit was comprised of PEK, Glynis and drummer Yuri Zbitnov, who played for the last couple of years of the archival period and the first 5 years of the reboot starting in 2015. The ensemble has always been highly modular, and our many recordings (well over 100) feature the core unit in dozens of configurations with a huge list of guests and occasionally as only the core unit with no guests. Currently, the core unit is the duet of PEK and Lomon and we are regularly presenting LIVESTREAMs to YouTube from Evil Clown Headquarters with other guest performers.

Its not unusual for Evil Clown Headquarters Livestreaming sessions to undergo some change in personnel between the initial planning stage and the performance. This set was planned to be Axioms which is the Ensemble featuring the poetry of Jane Spokenword, wife of bassist Albey onBass, who has appeared on many Evil Clown recordings by many Evil Clown ensembles. Albey and Jane currently live in NYC and are a bit less available to our schedule. A few years ago, Albey introduced us to guitarist Chris Alford who currently lives in New Orleans, but is from the Boston area. Chris visits family periodically, and when he does, I schedule sets around his availability. Axioms sets have included trios with Jane, Albey and me, quartets with Glynis added and a quintet with Chris added.

Chris reached out a month or so ago letting me know that he would be in town for roughly a month and I scheduled three sets for him: Metal Chaos Ensemble - One Step Beyond Logic which was already on the book, for last week, Axioms - Logical Consequences meant to be the second quintet Axioms edition, and Leap of Faith - Correlations for one day later. I don't usually schedule sessions on adjacent days, but Albey is travelling up from NYC for two sets, so I scheduled two back-to-back sets to make it easier for Albey to make it.

Anyway, Jane was unable to make the session, so I repurposed it as a Leap of Faith set. Last week, I got an email from Jim who was the drummer scheduled for the Tuesday that he could not make that set, so I switched him over to Monday and I added Vance Provey, one of our regular trumpet players.

Albey had asked if he could bring along Jose Arroyo, a conga player, to the Tuesday set, so I added Michael Knoblach on percussion to that set. So, the Tuesday Leap of Faith set will have a two-person percussion section instead of the planned drummer Jim.

Pure improvisation, as we practice it at Evil Clown, is much less sensitive to personal changes than most other styles of music where sudden changes can present problems. The sextet we landed on for Logical Consequences is comprised of strong and experienced improvisors who created an excellent work transforming over a broad range of sonorities across the duration of the performance."-David Peck, from the liner notes


Artist Biographies

"PEK (aka David Peck) is a multi-instrument improviser who plays all kinds of instruments including saxophones, clarinets, double reeds, percussion, electronics and auxiliary sound making devices of all kinds.

PEK was born in 1964 and started playing clarinet and piano in elementary school. In 7th grade he started saxophones, first on alto, then switching to tenor in high school. He spent 10 years playing in rock bands and studying classical and jazz saxophone with Kurt Heisig in the San Jose CA area before moving to Boston in 1989 to attend Berklee where he studied performance with George Garzone. While Berklee was an excellent place to study harmony, voice training and other important aspects of a conventional formal music training course of study, it was not a very good environment for learning contemporary (or pure) improvisation (apart from his work with George). PEK did find, however, that Boston had a thriving improvisation scene, and it was here that he developed his mature pure improvisation language.

During the 90s, PEK performed with many notable improvisers including Masashi Harada, Glynis Lomon, William Parker, Laurence Cooke, Eric Zinman, Glenn Spearman, Raqib Hassan, Charlie Kohlhase, Steve Norton, Keith Hedger, Mark McGrain, Sydney Smart, Matt Samolis, Martha Ritchey, Larry Roland, Dennis Warren, Yuri Zbitnov, Craig Schildhauer, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Leslie Ross, Rob Bethel, Wayne Rogers, Eric Rosenthal, Taylor Ho Bynum, Tatsuya Nakatani, James Coleman, B'hob Rainey and George Garzone.

PEK met cellist Glynis Lomon when they played together in the Masashi Harada Sextet which existed between 1990 and 1992. They developed a deep musical connection which they continued following the MHS; first with the Leaping Water Trio for a few years and then with the first version of Leap of Faith in 1994. Leap of Faith was very active in Boston from that time until 2001 and went through a series of several core ensembles which always included both PEK and Glynis. Other key Leap of Faith core members during this period were Mark McGrain (trombone), Craig Schildhauer (double bass), Sydney Smart (drums), Yuri Zbitnov (drums) and James Coleman (theremin). Leap of Faith was always a very modular unit with constantly shifting personnel and many different guests. The early Leap of Faith period concluded in 2001 with a dual bill at an excellent room at MIT called Killian Hall with George Garzone's seminal trio the Fringe.

At this time, PEK changed careers for his day gig, returning to college for a computer science degree and beginning to work in the structural engineering industry at Simpson Gumpertz & Heger. He became far too busy to continue the heavy music schedule, and preferring not to do music casually, he entered a long musically dormant period.

Flash forward to early 2014. PEK was a regular mail order customer of Downtown Music Gallery, the premiere specialty shop in Manhattan for free jazz, contemporary classical and other new music. While in New York on SGH business, he went down to DMG and had a lengthy conversation with proprietor Bruce Lee Gallanter about the early Leap of Faith period. He then sent Bruce a package of about 15 CD titles from the 90s and was pleasantly surprised when Bruce managed to sell nearly all of it. This public interest in the old catalog spurred PEK into getting back into performance. He reformed Leap of Faith with Glynis Lomon (cello, voice, aquasonic), Yuri Zbitnov (drums) and newcomer Steve Norton (clarinets and saxophones) and started to record and perform in early 2015.

Now having access to financial resources always absent in the early period, PEK began to accumulate a huge collection of instruments both for himself and also to expand the palate of Leap of Faith and the other projects soon to follow. He acquired new recording equipment and many new saxophones, clarinets, double reeds, metal and wooden percussion instruments, electronic instruments, signal processing equipment and other sound-making devices from many cultures. He revived his old record label, Evil Clown, and created reissues and new releases for much of the early period work by Leap of Faith and many of his other projects to sell at shows, DMG and the internet (around 100 archival titles).

The Arsenal of equipment has a grand purpose: To establish a large scale aesthetic problem to use the instruments to make long form broad palate improvisations with dramatic transformation and development. The very broad palate enables the long improvisations to evolve with very different movements and pronounced development over their length. PEK started the Leap of Faith Orchestra, a greatly expanded Leap of Faith, to achieve this purpose along with a number of smaller ensembles which are sub-units of the full orchestra including String Theory (focusing on orchestral strings), Metal Chaos Ensemble (focusing on metallic percussion), Turbulence (horn players), Mekaniks (electronics) and Chicxulub (space rock). In all, the Evil Clown roster includes over 40 musicians who contribute to one or more of the various projects, with PEK participating in all of them. Leap of Faith has also had some special guests like Steve Swell (trombone), Thomas Heberer (trumpet), Jeremiah Cymerman (clarinet) and Jim Hobbs (alto sax). The Leap of Faith Orchestra happens whenever several of these groups play together at the same time, or the ensemble exceeds 7 or 8 players. The Full Orchestra is a special case discussed below.

The current roster is comprised in part of: - Core Leap of Faith: PEK, Glynis Lomon, Yuri Zbitnov (Steve Norton has since left to go to Graduate School) - Percussion: Andria Nicodemou (vibes), Kevin Dacey (perc), Joe Hartigan (perc), Syd Smart (drums) - Strings: Jane Wang (cello), Clara Kebabian (violin), Tony Leva (bass), Mimi Rabson (violin), Kirsten Lamb (bass), Brendan Higgins (bass), Silvain Castellano (bass), Rob Bethel (cello), Kit Demos (bass), Matt Scutchfield (violin), Helen Sherrah-Davies (violin) - Piano: Eric Zinman, Peter Cassino, Emilio Gonzales - Horns: Dave Harris (tuba, trombone), Charlie Kohlhase (saxes), Bob Moores (trumpet), Sara Honeywell (trombone), Forbes Graham (trumpet), John Baylies (tuba), Dan O'Brien (woodwinds), Zack Bartolomei (woodwinds), Kat Dobbins (trombone), Steve Provizer (trumpet, baritone horn), Matt Samolis (flute) - Electronics: Greg Grinnell, Jason Adams (electric bass, electronics) - Guitar: Dru Wesely, Grant Beale, Chris Florio - Voice: Dei Xhrist

Evil Clown is documenting the ongoing solutions to this aesthetic challenge by creating limited CD editions and digital download albums of every performance and studio session by this array of ensembles. Interested audience can track the development of the grand scale project over the many releases - over 80 albums recorded and released so far between Jan of 2015 and March of 2017. All of the bands are highly modular, changing personnel and instrumentation with each meeting. The result is an enormous amount of music that shares the same fundamental improvisational language but differs from event to event greatly both in sonority (overall sound) and specific detail.

For the full Leap of Faith Orchestra, PEK composes a graphic notation score to guide the improvisation. The full Orchestra is comprised of roughly 20 players from the roster and performs twice a year. Two performances have occurred to date - The Expanding Universe in June of 2016 and Supernovae in November of 2016. Composition for Possible Universes is completed and the work will be performed on May 28, 2017 with another performance (score not yet begun) scheduled for November.

The scores use a device called Frame Notation where written English descriptions of the overall sonority desired and simple graphic symbols are given durations for each player on their part along with direction on when to play and when not to play. The directions are put in little boxes called frames which are arranged on a timeline and are simple enough to be immediately understood by the performers. Horizontal lines, called Duration Bars, extend across the page indicating when each Event (the Frame + the Duration Bar) begins and ends. An Event can be intended for the full ensemble, a defined group within the ensemble (for example, Metal Chaos Ensemble), a custom group (for example, Tubas), or an individual (for example, Andria Feature).

Parts are the full score annotated with Hiliters so that each player's instructions stand out. They can clearly see their individual instructions, but can also see the big picture, enabling far more knowledge about the pending actions of the rest of the ensemble than typical in pure improvisation. The players track the elapsed time on a very large sports clock. There is no melodic, harmonic or rhythmic information specified. This system allows PEK to compose detailed Ensemble Events without having to notate pitches or rhythms which would require significant rehearsal to accurately achieve."

-All About Jazz (https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/pek)
12/3/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Improvising cellist, vocalist and aquasonic player Glynis Lomon graduated from Bennington College in 1975 with a degree in Music/Black Music. At Bennington she studied with musician/composer Bill Dixon and continued to perform and record with his ensembles until his recent death. Glynis has also been privileged to play with Arthur Brooks, Jimmy Lyons, Cecil Taylor, Butch Morris, William Parker, Joe Morris, Greta Buck, Masashi Harada, Lowell Davidson, Raqib Hassan and many others. For almost a decade she and multi reed player PEK performed in the Boston area with their group Leap of Faith."

-Evil Clown Website (http://www.giantevilclown.com/bio-glynis-lomon-.html)
12/3/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

Vance Provey is a trumpeter and freelance musician, arranger, composer, and educator.He has played with various bands in the Boston area, including HealingNewtown and the Arts Festival.

-The Newton Bee (https://www.newtownbee.com/12132013/snapshot-vance-provey/)
12/3/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"New Orleans based improviser/guitarist/composer Chris Alford utilizes a spherical approach in his artistry. In one hemisphere is the deep tradition of jazz and blues languages of the past and in the other is avant-garde, unconventional, creative syntax. Warping the old with the new, Alford keeps his feet rooted in the ground all the while looking beyond the horizon. He is just as likely to galvanize an audience with peculiar, angular, sharp flourishes as he is to allure with luscious, atmospheric harmony and melodies. An openness to sound and collaboration allows Alford to shape and guide the music in an organic flow.

Alford earned music degrees from The Chicago College of Performing Arts and Belmont University. Alford has had the opportunity to study with Henry Johnson, Regi Wooten, John McLean, Joe Morris, Hank Mackie and Chester Thompson. Chris Alford has performed with legends of jazz and creative music including: Cassandra Wilson, Ra Kalam Bob Moses, 2Face Idibia, Jerry Jemmott, Rhonda Richmond, Leslie Hunt, Ezra Brown, James Singleton , Tim Berne, Albey Balgochian, John Sinclair, Reginald Veal, Algerbra Blessett, Jeb Bishop, Mino Cinelu, Dennis Warren, Mike Burton, Tim Green, Mike Dillon, London Branch,Luke Stewart, Aurora Nealand, Rob Cambre, Hellen Gillet, Gregoire Maret, Robert Walter, Grayhawk Perkins, Evan Gallagher, Matt Ulery, Reed Mathis, Michael Vatcher, Simon Berz, Dr.Jeff Albert and many more. Alford fulfills his passion for creative music education through his teaching, both in the community and at the University of Southern Mississippi, where he was on the Jazz department faculty from 2007- 2019."

-Chris Alford Website (https://chrisalfordmusic.com/bio)
12/3/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

Albey Balgochian performs on bass, who has performed with Cecil Taylor, Paul Rishell and has led his own band.

-Albey onBass Website (http://www.albeybalgochian.com/index.html)
12/3/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



Logical Consequences 1:10:20

Preservation of Truth Over Models 5:09

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Jazz
Collective & Free Improvsation
Boston Area Improvisers
Sextet Recordings
New in Improvised Music
Recent Releases and Best Sellers

Search for other titles on the label:
Evil Clown.


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