Introduce yourself to the most active improvisational musician certainly in Boston metro. And MORE LIKELY UNSEEN AND UNHEARD LIVE though he has been on the scene for 20+ years, as Dave Peck (aka) PEK especially during Pandemic times, has resorted to virtual activities non-stop, putting a damp on live performances and even recordings. Yet it could be stated his presence, music, playing (with multi-instruments), leadership and creativity has not been in our radar for far too long; why CMS is co-sponsoring and endorsing Leap of Faith (LOF) for you…to come out and find out why!
Dave Peck (PEK) – woodwinds
Glynis Lomon – cello, aquasonic, voice
Eric Rosenthal – drums
Nate McBride – double bass
Albey Balgochian – double/electric bass
Ellwood Epps – trumpet
The Creative Music Series & Evil Clown
present some
Music that liberates!
“I don’t have a half-speed for music, if I do it, I’m all in…”—PEK
If the Evil Clown record label is prolific on a per capita basis, then its founder is exponentially more inexhaustible. Its roots date back a little more than twenty years ago in Cambridge.
It’s a completely unorthodox approach to creative (think pure) improvisation…with extensive (creative music, Free Jazz) media coverage and an international reputation.
“For me, music making is essentially a cerebral, rather than visceral or emotional activity. My favorite thing about playing music is the deep concentration state that you enter when playing with other skilled improvisers; there is no prior planning”.
The musicians could best be described as a “collaborative collective” and in various formations turn out twenty-five to thirty albums each year. The core under Evil Clown is Leap of Faith, which, when expanded to the Leap of Faith Orchestra includes players from Metal Chaos Ensemble, String Theory, Turbulence and Mekaniks.
The groups under the Evil Clown umbrella are broken out by sound dynamics.
https://evilclown.bandcamp.com
Dave Peck (PEK)
Raised on a musical diet that went from Dave Brubeck to Pink Floyd and Frank Zappa,
PEK was born in 1964. He is a multi-instrumentalist who plays all the orchestral woodwinds in the saxophone, clarinet, flute and double reed families. He studied with George Garzone at Berklee in the early 90s. From 1990 to 2001 he was very active in the Boston Improvisation scene, performing with Masashi Harada, Glynis Lomon, William Parker, Laurence Cooke, Eric Zinman, Glenn Spearman, Raqib Hassan, Charlie Kohlhase, Steve Norton, Keith Hedger, Mark McGrain, Sydney Smart, George Garzone and other notables.
PEK abandoned music altogether while attending UC Davis for mathematics, a discipline that would later partially inform his music. As restless a student as he was a musician, PEK moved on to UC Santa Cruz to study philosophy and fell in with a group of musicians that set him back on a path toward music
He took a long hiatus to 2015 when he reformed the DIY record label Evil Clown and Leap of Faith, his band with Glynis Lomon from the 90s. Since then, Evil Clown has issued roughly 30 albums a year from the following PEK lead ensembles: Leap of Faith, The Leap of Faith Orchestra, Metal Chaos Ensemble, Turbulence, String Theory, PEK Solo, Expanse, Simulacrum, Axioms, Mekaniks, Sub-Unit No. 1, and Perturbations. Motable players include vibest Andria Nicodemo, violinist Mimi Rabson, drummer Steve Niemitz, trumpeters Bob Moores & Forbes Graham, and many others. A pivotal force in Leap of Faith—and other Evil Clown projects—is Glynis Lomon.
GLYNIS LOMON Improvising cellist, vocalist and aquasonic player Glynis Lomon graduated from Bennington College in 1975 where she studied with musician/composer Bill Dixon and continued to perform and record with his ensembles. Glynis has also been privileged to play with Arthur Brooks, Jimmy Lyons, Cecil Taylor, Butch Morris, William Parker, Joe Morris, Greta Buck, Masashi Harada, and many others. For more than a decade she and multi reed player Dave Pek performed in the Boston area with their group Leap of Faith.
Nate McBride, who was born in 1971, is a very versatile double-bassist and electric bassist, and has performed with such important musicians as Dennis Gonzalez, Pandelis Karayorgis, and Ken Vandermark.
McBride is a Boston native.
Albey ‘onBass’ Balgochian’s skills on bass covers the full spectrum of genres. A member of the Cecil Taylor Trio & Big Band they were awarded Best Performances of ’05, ’09, and ’16 – All About Jazz. He was the house bassist for the original “House of Blues” in Cambridge, MA., and a long time member of the 2 time Handy Award winner “Paul Rishell Band”. He has worked with among others; Darryl Jones (Miles Davis, Rolling Stones).Sun Ra’s Marshall Allen and Butoh dancer Min Tanaka. He has also collaborated with and produced cd’s with among others Nuyorican poet Miguel Algarin, and Beat Poet John Sinclair.
Ellwood Epps Born in Toronto in 1976, trumpeter Ellwood Epps lives and works in Boston, where he has quickly become active on the improvised music scene. In addition to leading Togetherness!, a sextet which plays music from South Africa, he can also be heard regularly with Eric Zinman, Gylnis Lomon, Matt Crane, Luther Gray, and Steven Lantner. Epps lived in Montreal for 16 years, where he co-founded the venue l’Envers, the weekly Mardi Spaghetti series, and the Festival of New Trumpet Music Canada.
Ellwood has played on over 100 records, including 40 as leader/co-leader, for diverse labels including Mr. E, Ambiances Magnetiques, &Records, Constellation, VICTO, Rogue Art, and others. He has performed with musicians from many parts of the world, including Steve Lacy, Josh Zubot, William Parker, Michel F Côté, John Butcher, Yves Charuest, Henry Grimes, John Heward, Marshall Allen, Lori Freedman, and Jean Derome.
Ellwood has also been active as a trumpet teacher and in teaching improvisation for 30 years, including the Studio d’Improvisation de Montréal, a popular series of workshops which ran over 10 years.
Drummer Eric Rosenthal is a former student of Ed Blackwell has studied and performed more than American jazz drumming; he has also delved into West African traditional and South Indian classical percussion. Rosenthal has performed and improvised with Anthony Braxton, Mat Maneri, Pandelis Karayorgis, Mario Pavone, and the Either/Orchestra. He has performed all over North America and Europe, and appeared in Greece at the Patras Jazz Festival, at Montreal’s North Sea Jazz festival, even at Finland
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