"Erez Dessel (USA 1998) is an improvising pianist and composer living and working in Chicago, Illinois. He holds a BM in jazz piano from the New England Conservatory of Music. Dessel's work explores the piano as a vehicle for human connection. A primary part of his practice is the history of the instrument as a tool for storytelling and world-building. His current group activity includes the bands Edition Redux, Look Both Days, Ra Bishop, and Banana Acid; as well as frequent work as a solo performer. Dessel created and curates the Night School series, which presents video artists and improvising musicians in a spontaneous performance context. Dessel has toured nationally and internationally, including performances in Europe and Korea and festival appearances at Edgefest, the Catalytic Sound festival, the Madrid jazz festival, and the Wels Music Unlimited festival. His concerts and recordings have received critical acclaim, with releases on Endectomorph Music, Ornette Coleman Fiend Club, Audiographic Records, and Amalgam Music, and in 2025, he was selected as an Arts Club of Chicago fellow. He has worked continuously both as a performer and organizer in Chicago, recording in an array of contexts with many internationally renowned musicians (including Ken Vandermark, Tim Daisy, Kim Alpert, and Ben Hall)."

Detroit-based percussionist Ben Hall is a member of groups Burning Graveyard Lights, Cass Chamber, Death Knell, Graveyards, Hell And Bunny, Jack Wright Nonet, KillDevilHills, Machine Yardz, Mêlée, Psalm Alarm, The New Monuments, Traum, and Trauma, and leads his own Ben Hall's Racehorse Names.

"Mai Sugimoto is a saxophonist, composer, and active member of Chicago's jazz and improvisational music scene. "A compelling performer" with "dry-champagne tone and lyrical lines" (Chicago Tribune), Sugimoto draws inspiration from her upbringing in Japan and her roots in jazz to compose and perform from her unique multicultural experience. Born/Raised, her debut album (Asian Improv Records, 2018), explores this cultural and musical binary, juxtaposing, among others, a jazz rendition of a Japanese children's song alongside compositions inspired by the American jazz idiom. Sugimoto is also a core member of the quartet Hanami, whose two albums similarly mix Japanese culture into creative music. Mai has performed three times at the Chicago Jazz Festival: in 2015 with Hanami, in 2019 as a leader, and in 2018 with renowned bassist Tatsu Aoki, with whom she frequently plays, including appearances in his Fred Anderson Legacy Band. Her first solo album, monologue (Asian Improv Records) was released in March of 2021."

"Marvin Tate (born 1959) is an American artist, poet, and singer-songwriter from Chicago.

Tate was born in the North Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago in 1959. Tate attended the University of Illinois at Chicago, studying with Sterling Plumpp. In 1983 Tate moved to New York City, moving back to Chicago in 1985.

Tate lives and works in Chicago, IL. Tate is the author of Schoolyard of Broken Dreams (Tia Chucha Press, 1994) and The Amazing Mister Orange (Curbside Splendor, 2014). His honors include grants from the Poetry Foundation and the Illinois Arts Council.

In the mid-1980s, Tate started performing at open mics and slam poetry competitions around the city, and was a regular participant in the Uptown Poetry Slam.

In 1990, Tate became Chicago's poetry slam champion, after which he was featured on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. In the early 1990s Tate was a member of Uptighty, with Leroy Bach (Wilco) and Dan Bitney (Tortoise), and hosted a local talk show called Talk-A-Riot-Y. Tate won a poetry slam hosted as part of Lollapalooza 1994. In 1997, Tate appeared with David Sedaris on This American Life.

Tate fronted the experimental poetry/funk band D-Settlement from the 1990s to early 2000s, which released three albums from 1997 to 2002 as Marvin Tate's D-Settlement. The Chicago Tribune wrote: "By merging ferociously honest poetry with various black musical traditions, Tate stands as heir to Chicagoan Oscar Brown Jr., the veteran urban griot whose lyrics long have decried racism and social injustice."

In 2004, Tate appeared on the compilation reVerse with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Alexi Murdoch, Lou Reed and Mark Strand. In 2005, Tate performed the poem "My Life to the Present" on Def Jam Poetry. In 2014, Joyful Noise released the album Tim Kinsella Sings the Songs of Marvin Tate by LeRoy Bach Featuring Angel Olsen, an album interpreting Tate's songs. In 2017, the Jazz Institute of Chicago invited Tate to perform Langston Hughes' poem "Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz." Tate adapted it into "A Great Day in the Neighborhood - Echoes of Langston Hughes," incorporating film, dance, and jazz instrumentals from Greg Ward and Ben LaMar Gay.

Tate is represented by Hana Pietri Gallery in Chicago, IL. In 2019, Intuit: The Center for Outsider Art presented an exhibition of Tate's artwork, Looking at You From a Distance Not Too Far: Work by Marvin Tate.Poetry

Tate's influences include Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Charles Bukowski, Ivor Cutler, Stephen Dobyns, doo-wop, gospel, and the blues. The Chicago Tribune notes of Tate's writing: "Though it's often funny or absurd, the work's most striking aspect is the calm sense of melancholy consistent in every piece..." "-Wikipedia