New Weekly Series! – Glacial Wednesdays @ Dragonfly Lounge

Dragonfly Lounge (401 E Washington, under Bellini) – doors 8:30 – suggested donation $3

Improvised music trio GLACIER is starting a weekly residency at the Dragonfly Lounge, Madison’s newest music venue. While there are several excellent weekly residencies in town (particularly the New Breed jam session every Tuesday at the Cardinal), this will be the first weekly series in town in over ten years to focus primarily on improvised music. Each week will feature a special guest to round out the ensemble for the second set, beginning this week with Trevor Saint on extended range glockenspiel; next week violist Jen Clare Paulson will join the band. The Dragonfly is offering some pretty incredible drink specials, like half off house wine and rail drinks, so in addition to being a great hang, it will be the best spot in town for cocktails on a Wednesday night. Scott Gordon of the Isthmus wrote a great article about it here.

You can see/hear more about Glacier at their tumblr page here.

WRACK – Feb. 16th @ Audio for the Arts

http://www.kylebruckmann.com/wrack.htm

Thursday, February 16^th – Audio For The Arts (7 S. Blair St., Madison) – $8 general admission – doors at 7:30

WRACK skirts the boundaries of an ever-evolving tradition hovering at the crossroads of other traditions. It is both a chamber ensemble with a highly unusual instrumentation and a book of compositions tailor-made for the personalities of its members. While the compositions’ melodic and contrapuntal content is reminiscent of European-American classical modernism, their modular structures and improvisational procedures are heavily indebted to the innovations of the African-American Creative Music continuum.

Oboist Kyle Bruckmann founded the project in Chicago in 2002, enlisting trombonist Jeb Bishop, percussionist Tim Daisy, bassist Kurt Johnson, and violist Jen Clare Paulson. Their debut record on Red Toucan demonstrated the band’s “ability to combine turned-up flame with clear-headed attention to texture and space” and was hailed as “a document of exciting new directions from some of Chicago’s best players.” (Dusted magazine)

Bruckmann moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2003, but has maintained ties to Chicago’s vibrant avant-jazz and improvised music community ever since. During a 2005 homecoming visit, Wrack reconvened with bass clarinetist Jason Stein and bassist Anton Hatwich replacing Bishop and Johnson, who were unavailable at the time. The resulting album on 482 Music, Intents & Purposes, provides “dazzling proof that intricately arranged, angular modern jazz can be accessible and enjoyable.” (The Wire)

Wrack is touring in support of their new album Cracked Refraction, out on Porter Records. They will perform two sets of new music in the warm, intimate setting of Audio For The Arts.

Chikamorachi (Chris Corsano, Darin Gray) + Powers/Polipnick – Feb. 3rd, Audio For The Arts

http://cor-sano.com/chikamorachi/

Friday, February 3^rd @ Audio for the Arts (7 South Blair St., Madison) – $8 general admission – doors at 7:30

Since 2005 Darin Gray (upright bass) and Chris Corsano (drums) have performed side by side as Chikamorachi. Working either in a trio with saxophonist Akira Sakata or a quartet that adds Jim O’Rourke on guitar, they’ve released six albums to date, including 2011′s And That’s the Story of Jazz double CD and Live at Hungry Brain LP. The high-speed empathy that Gray and Corsano have developed over the years will be brought to the fore in 2012, when the duo strike out on their own for a tour of the Midwest. Neither member is a stranger to the possibilities afforded when the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic duties are left to an upright bass and drum duo. Gray’s group On Fillmore with Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche has been going strong for the past ten years. For his part, Corsano has gigged and recorded as a duo with double bassists John Edwards and Matt Heyner.

Darin Gray is best known as Jim O’Rourke’s go-to bassist for nearly 20 years, as half of the duo On Fillmore, and as the bassist for Grand Ulena, Dazzling Killmen, and Brise-Glace. As an improviser he has performed and recorded with among others: Loren Connors, Masami Akita (Merzbow), Josh Abrams, Jason Roebke, Axel Dorner, Kevin Drumm, Alan Licht, Thollem Mcdonas, and Jim O’Rourke. As a session bassist he has played on recordings by Will Oldham, Cheer-Accident, Rope, Bobby Conn, Daneilson Family, Early Day Miners, Bunnygrunt, Jim O’Rourke, etc… He has toured extensively in the United States, Japan, Brazil, Canada, and Europe.

Chris Corsano began a long-standing, high-energy partnership with saxophonist Paul Flaherty in 1998. A move from western Massachusetts, USA to the UK in 2005 led Chris to develop a solo music of his own, incorporating sax reeds, violin strings, pot lids, adhesive tape and other household devices into his drum kit. 2007 and ’08 were spent as the drummer on Björk’s Volta world tour. Returning back to the U.S. in 2009, Corsano shifted focus back to his own projects, most notably a duo with Michael Flower, Rangda (with Sir Richard Bishop and Ben Chasny) and solo work. In addition to the those mentioned above, he’s also worked with, among others: Evan Parker, Paul Dunmall, Nels Cline, Thurston Moore, Jessica Rylan, Jandek, Sunburned Hand Of Man, and Joe McPhee.

Madison’s own JoAnne Powers and Luke Polipnick will open the night with a series of improvised duets for winds and guitar ranging from the microscopic to the volcanic.

Friday, Nov. 4th – VOLCANO INSURANCE (Minneapolis/Madison)

7:30 (doors)
$7 at the door

Luke Polipnick – guitar/compositions
Chris Bates – double/electric basses
Joey Van Phillips – drums/percussion

Avant rock-jazz trio Volcano Insurance makes their return to Madison this Friday, bringing with them a new set of music composed by SBR veteran Luke Polipnick. This band has become the stuff of legend in the Twin Cities, performing infrequently enough to garner serious attention from the jazz cognoscenti at their rare live appearances. This year marks their fifth year as a working band, and their sound has distilled down from an “everything goes” compositional approach, to an ear-bending punk jazz aesthetic.

Oct 23 – DEAD CAT BOUNCE (Brooklyn)

UPCOMING SHOW:

Dead Cat Bounce (Brooklyn)

location: Audio for the Arts (7 South Blair, Madison)
time: 7:30
$8 at door

Jared Sims, Charlie Kohlhase, Terry Goss, Matt Steckler – saxes + winds
Dave Ambrosio – bass
Bill Carbone – drums

Featuring four saxophones of all ranges plus upright bass and drums, Dead Cat Bounce since 1997 has been the unique artistic vision of founder and composer Matt Steckler. Word of DCB’s high caliber as a performance ensemble has brought them to festivals and concerts nationally, and garnered distinctions from Meet the Composer, Chamber Music America, American Composers Forum, American Music Center, Boston Music Awards, Jazz Times, The Washington Post, Cadence and many others in the creative music community.

Dead Cat Bounce invokes Charles Mingus and the World Saxophone Quartet with their “tightly arranged, swirling contrapuntal reeds and multi-part, blues n’ roots-infused tricky compositions” (Jon Garelick, the Boston Phoenix). Their eclectic approach to rhythm is informed by traditions from the Caribbean, Deep South, Brazil, West Africa, Eastern Europe and Detroit. In Dead Cat Bounce, solo and collective improvisations energetically complement the poise of its ever-expanding compositional repertoire.