New York-based alto saxophonist and composer Tim Berne is one of the most influential reedmen to come out of the "Downtown" milieu. Prefiguring a number of young New York musician-composers currently active, Berne's work has sought to seamlessly blend a range of sources including blues and R&B, pan-tonal composition, jazz and rock into one dynamic and creative whole. more ›

Though it might not be expected given the general climate of Austin music - which is to say jazz and improvisation gets less notice - one of the city's busiest players is a Norwegian-born contrabassist. Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (b. 1971, Oppdal) moved to Austin in 2010 and has consistently made his mark on the local scene, even assembling a Texas-centric sextet called The Young Mothers (with Flaten, trumpeter/spoken word artist Jawwaad Taylor, percussionist Stefan González, guitarist Jonathan Horne, saxophonist Jason Jackson and Chicago percussionist Frank Rosaly). more ›

Texas has become a sort of home away from home for a coterie of Scandinavian free-jazz musicians. Norwegian contrabassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, who had visited Austin and other parts of the state numerous times with the power trio The Thing (Paal Nilssen-Love, drums; Mats Gustafsson, saxophones), decided to settle here in 2008. More recently, Norwegian tenor saxophonist and composer Gaute Solaas has been making his presence known on the Austin scene following a similar relocation. Though he hasn't moved to the Lone Star State just yet, veteran Norwegian reedman Frode Gjerstad could be next - he's performed with small groups as part of the Epistrophy Arts concert series on several occasions and even brought his massive Circulasione Totale Orchestra to Houston in 2010. more ›

Sometimes two things are just so much more satisfying when they come together. Peanut butter and jelly, shotgun art, metallic objects in microwaves are all agreed upon combinations. But combining jazz and comedy? Local boundary- and button-pushing institution Church of the Friendly Ghost will mash these two into unholy marriage with their Comedy/Beat Fusion show this evening. more ›

One wouldn't necessarily assume all "heavy music" shares a common thread - in fact, sometimes it seems unfair to align the challenges of improvised music with brutal grindcore, shrill no wave gesticulation, and avant-garde prog theatrics. Each form of music certainly has its own rules and normative structure, and its own independent value. However, uncompromising art of whatever stripe should inspire respect, and the work that Weasel Walter puts into every one of his projects is plainly visible, whatever the subcategory. more ›

The improvised music world at large hasn't really caught on to Terrence McManus, a New York-based guitarist who builds and modifies his instruments to help create a muted field of sounds and non-gestural phrases, both roiling and understated. Though the guitar is often thought of in a principally soloistic role, McManus' philosophy tends toward emphasizing ensemble and collective orchestration - his master classes spotlight concepts of interactive, free/open, and ensembles within ensemble playing. more ›

It's not that Texas doesn't have its fair share of world-renowned musicians, but in the landscape of jazz and creative improvisation, very few intercontinental free music ensembles have their gestation in the Lone Star state. It's probably creditable in part to the dry and dusty shot up I-35 towards Dallas that gives the familial trio Yells At Eels (trumpeter-composer Dennis Gonzalez, bassist Aaron Gonzalez, and drummer Stefan Gonzalez) their restless rhythmic energy. But the landscape of experience also gives this father and sons combo a powerful and steely lyricism. The unruly-looking and technique-heavy Gonzalez brothers have metal-oriented projects like Akkolyte under their belts, but also classically formulated improvisational groups led by drummer Alvin Fielder and pianist Curtis Clark, among others. They're also fairly regular features in Austin, though one's familiarity with them might depend on how many free jazz or crust shows (!) one has attended in recent years. more ›

Rajah C performed with Hopps in New Orleans, and brings a group featuring former Sun Ra Arkestra percussionist Rahshah Amen, guitarist Ali Latyif and tubaist/bassist M.D. Noren to the Austin stage. Though the music of Coltrane is long past, dedication to spirituality and community in art is decidedly present. more ›

There's a lot of ground to cover on this subject and how jazz and western culture helped to "win" the Cold War, and tonight KUT DJ and Chronicle writer Jay Trachtenberg and Rabbi Neil Blumofe (a musician and historian who has recorded with saxophonist Alex Coke and percussionist Jason Marsalis) will engage it as part of the Cactus Café's Brews and Views series. more ›

Concertgoers and jazz/improvised music aficionados will get a special treat on Thursday when the Instant Composers Pool Orchestra returns for a one-night performance at AAMP as part of the Epistrophy Arts Spring Concert Series (the group's last stand here was in spring 2006). The Instant Composers Pool was founded in Amsterdam in 1967 by pianist-composer Misha Mengelberg (b. 1935 in Kiev, Russia), percussionist Han Bennink (b. 1942 in Holland), and reedman Willem Breuker (1944-2010; Breuker left in 1973). As a counter to the perceived conservatism expressed in Dutch jazz, the Instant Composers Pool produced their own concerts and recordings from the beginning; Mengelberg coined the term "instant composition" to reflect the fact that improvising musicians are really composing in the moment, espousing a fluidity between tune and extemporization, and that players draw on a wealth of musical experience to assemble music in real time. Mengelberg was trained early on as an architect, and also had some interaction with neo-dada and fluxus artists in Europe in the 1960s, which partly explains the irreverence and subversive theatricality that are often part of Instant Composers Pool performances. more ›

While April is jazz appreciation month, the Church of the Friendly Ghost is starting celebrations early on Sunday night with a double bill of progressive-jazz guitar improvisation in the form of Zevious Trio and guitarist Miles Okazaki and his septet. Both outfits hail from the international hotbed of young, creative music - New York - and while Austin certainly gets its fair share of veteran jazz and free improvisation appearances, there aren't too many shows featuring up-and-coming inside-outside players who are putting together some of the most innovative music on the international scene. more ›

The dictum of Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians has been an embracement of black music's past and present towards affirming, grounded self-determination. Thus, the phrase "Ancient to the Future" carries a lot of weight. Of a slightly younger generation than the AACM's founders, percussionist and bandleader Khalil El'Zabar (b. 1953 in Chicago) is one of the most dedicated keepers of the Windy City organization's flame. He studied African music at the University of Ghana and in 1975 became chairman of the AACM, as a significant sector of its membership (including its founding figures) had relocated to New York. more ›

Break out your spats and bowler hat, Annie's Café & Bar is bringing "Winter in New Orleans" to Austin with 1920s-style jazz and a French Quarter-inspired menu. This four-week series began Thursday, January 20 and continues January 27, February 3 and 17 from 7pm to 10pm. more ›

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Interdependent commentary has always been at the root of Coleman’s music, and is what helps to make it sound so natural, simple and easy, even with superimposed rhythmic and melodic lines or bursts of instrumental commentary. When he released Sound Grammar in 2004, recorded with the same quartet that will be appearing Thursday, some critics were assuming that he would reinvent the wheel for his first record in almost a decade. What they got was pure, classic Coleman. more ›

Bill Frisell is one of the most omnivorous figures in contemporary improvisation; Berkelee-schooled, he studied with the inimitable six-stringer Jim Hall as well as being influenced by such figures as Pat Metheney, Gary Burton, Julius Hemphill, Miles Davis, Carla Bley, Ry Cooder and Jimi Hendrix. His association with Downtown New York figures like keyboardist Wayne Horvitz and saxophonist-composer John Zorn resulted in the frantic, Ruins-like Naked City, but his own recordings for labels like ECM and Nonesuch looked toward fresh, Americana-inspired interpretations of popular song form, filmic vignettes and dusty atmospherics. His own compositions draw from a similar, if even more varied well, and from the early 2000s Frisell has explored Malian and Brazilian musics as part of an intercontinental project (resulting in the appropriately-titled disc, The Intercontinentals, on Nonesuch). more ›

It might be surprising that the sources for the wide-vibrato ballads and spiritually-freighted folk melodies of free jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler (1936-1970) were not all found in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio or in the American south, but rather in Europe. While his influences on the horn itself were brought from fragments of the American saxophone lexicon (and perhaps splintered further), a number of the songs that later became known by such titles as "Ghosts," "Mothers," "Children," and "Spirits" came from Scandinavian folk songs and, in some cases, popular French marches. more ›

Though not normally thought of as an Austin icon, reedman, improvising composer, inventor and activist Rahsaan Roland Kirk (1935-1977) will have his 75th birthday celebrated and his legacy honored at Austin jazz club The Elephant Room this Friday night, beginning at 9:30 PM. Performers and guests will include reedmen Alex Coke and Mike Meligner, trombonist Steve Turre, trumpeter Hannibal Lokumbe and Dorthaan Kirk, Rahsaan's widow. Both Turre and Lokumbe once worked with the esteemed reedman in his 1970s groups, and this evening will prove to be a fitting tribute to one of this music's most unique voices. more ›

Enjoy some cool jazz on a hot night this Saturday at Space12 with Amanda Monaco. She is based in New York and performs with her own quartet, a quintet called Playdate, another band interestingly titled Amanda Monaco's Deathblow, and she teaches at the National Guitar Workshop. more ›

The Austin Chamber Music Festival stretches out from traditional European concert music this Saturday with a performance by jazz piano trio The Bad Plus at UT's Bates Recital Hall. Certainly there's such a thing as chamber jazz (the bent-cool miniatures of reedmen-composers Teo Macero, Joe Maneri and Jimmy Giuffre, for example), but the music of The Bad Plus is an entirely different animal. more ›

Austin's Epistrophy Arts has a long history with multi-instrumentalist and improvising composer Joe McPhee. The long-running creative music concert series was inaugurated with solo concerts by McPhee and reedman Arthur Doyle back in 1998. In the ensuing twelve years, he has returned to Austin several times as a cooperative voice (with Scandinavian power-trio The Thing and multinational big band, the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet), but rarely has he been caught fronting a group. more ›

On Thursday night as part of the Epistrophy Arts spring concert series, Jordan will appear in a trio with drummer Hamid Drake and Norwegian bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, one of Austin's newest artist residents. Jordan and Drake have played together in various groups before, but this will be his first meeting with Flaten - expect the power-trio pyrotechnics to deliver handsomely. more ›

German reedman Peter Brötzmann is a welcome guest in Austin on Wednesday night; he's appeared in town with a number of different groups over the years as one of Germany's - and Europe's - best known ambassadors of jazz and creative music. more ›

One of Austin's newest residents, and one of the most unassuming musicians you'll ever meet, is free jazz bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (say ING-uh-brite Hoak-er FLAH-ten), an expatriate from Norway and one of the crucial figures on the European jazz scene. Born in 1971, he's long been associated with one of free jazz's most well-loved touring acts, The Thing, a group he co-leads with Swedish reedman Mats Gustafsson and fellow Norwegian, drummer Paal Nilssen-Love. On Friday, March 12, he'll join Chicago reedman Ken Vandermark and Norwegian pianist Håvard Wiik for a performance as part of Free Fall, a chamber-improvisation group, at Austin's AAMP. If you don't catch this performance, fear not: Flaten will be playing his new home base with some of Austin's finest in the near future. more ›

As a kickoff performance for the 2010 Epistrophy Arts concert series, promoter/curator Pedro Moreno brings Norwegian reedman Frode Gjerstad to Austin on Tuesday night. Gjerstad bills himself as "the other Norwegian saxophonist," in reference to the looming figure of Jan Garbarek, an internationally renowned tenor and soprano player whose name is synonymous with Norwegian jazz. more ›

Jazz fans can hit up KLRU tonight at 8 p.m. to catch a special In Context on Austin's jazz scene. Tonight's program features pianist James Polk and singer Pam Hart, as well as the Paris 49, among others. If you've got a jazz-on-tv itch to scratch but can't catch the show on-air tonight, check the In Context web site. more ›

Austin is very well-known as a town in which musicians of all stripes and talents can make a stand for their art, and usually be counted for it. But despite its accessibility to aspirants, journeymen (and women), well-known legends and the undersung, Austin hasn't quite put itself on the map as far as having a jazz foment is concerned. more ›

Between the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, founded 1965), Clifford Jordan and Sun Ra, and the trajectory from Hal Russell to Ken Vandermark, Chicago always seems to have something bubbling up in the jazz world. Lately a group of players have started coming into their own in the wake of these precedents, and made the year end lists rather top-heavy. more ›

If you're wondering if the people always shout whenever the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey goes out, we suspect the answer is no, as the trio produces music that we'd generally categorize more as "listening music" than "shouting music." JFJO's three-piece setup includes pianist Brian Haas, drummer Josh Raymer, upright bassist Matt Hayes, and guitarist Chris Combs. more ›