Saxophonist Vinny Golia and his Trio Comes to the CMC

Plus Lords of the Outland

As a composer Vinny Golia fuses the rich heritage of Jazz, contemporary classical and world music into his own unique compositions. Also a bandleader, Golia has presented his music to concert audiences in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the United States in ensembles varying dramatically in size and instrumentation. Mr. Golia has won numerous awards as a composer, including grants from The National Endowment of the Arts, The Lila Wallace Commissioning Program, The California Arts Council, Meet the Composer,Clausen Foundation of the Arts, Funds for U.S. Artists and the American Composers Forum. In 1982 he created the on-going 50 piece Vinny Golia Large Ensemble to perform his compositions for chamber orchestra and jazz ensembles. The Saturday night, Golia and his trio, featuring Garth Powell on drums/percussion and Matthew Goodheart piano perform at the CMC on Capp Street, as well as the Lords of the Outland.

A multi-woodwind performer, Vinny's recordings have been consistently picked by critics and readers of music journals for their yearly "ten best" lists. In 1990 he was the winner of the Jazz Times TDWR award for Bass Saxophone. In 1998 he ranked 1st in the Cadence Magazine Writers & Readers Poll and has continually placed in the Downbeat Critic's Poll for Baritone & Soprano Saxophone. In 1999 Vinny won the LA Weekly’s Award for "Best Jazz Musician". Jazziz Magazine has also named him as one of the 100 people who have influenced the course of Jazz in our Century. In 2006 The Jazz Journalists Association honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Golia has also contributed original compositions and scores to Ballet and Modern Dance works, video, theatrical productions, and film. As an educator Vinny has lectured on music & painting composition, improvisation, Jazz History, The History of Music in Film, CD & record manufacturing and self-production throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico, New Zealand and Canada. He currently teaches at California Institute of the Arts. In 1998 Golia was appointed Regent's Lecturer at the University of California at San Diego. In 2009 Vinny Golia was appointed the first holder of the Michel Colombier Performer Composer Chair at Cal Arts.

Vinny has been a featured performer with Anthony Braxton, Henry Grimes, John Carter, Bobby Bradford, Joelle Leandre, Leo Smith, Horace Tapscott, John Zorn, Tim Berne, Bertram Turetzky, George Lewis, Barre Phillips, The Rova Saxophone Quartet, Patti Smith, Harry "the Hipster" Gibson, Eugene Chadburne, Kevin Ayers, Peter Kowald, John Bergamo, George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennick, Lydia Lunch, Harry Sparrney and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra amongst many others.

For a percussionist/composer - time, rhythm, and pulse are undeniable, non-negotiable components of the craft. Yet, the sonic domain remains for many, a peripheral concern. Timbre is not only of equal importance; it is an integral part of the harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic construct. All four exist in the parallel sub-division of frequencies and waves. This relationship demands understanding, discipline, and mastery. In Garth Powell's music, these elements are meticulously combined, creating a transcendent force enveloping the listener. Ultimately, we are drawn into the ecstatic, and the inexplicable.

As a veteran of the Trans-Bay-Area Improvised Music Community, Garth has performed or recorded with a sizeable number of the worlds preeminent artists within the field. He is just as much at home with classical orchestral and world percussion as the trap set. On stage, his large collection of percussion instruments (many of which Garth designed and/or adapted to his own needs) can be a visual treat by themselves. He also makes use of pre-recorded tape and electronically altered voice in performance.

Performing professionally since age 17, native San Franciscan Matthew Goodheart has gained an international reputation as an improviser, composer, and sound artist. His works have been performed throughout the US, Canada, and Europe, and have been featured at the International Spectral Music Festival, June in Buffalo, Klappsthulfest, and The Illuminations New Music & Arts Festival, among many others. He has been the recipient of the Nicola DiLorenzo Award, the A.H. Miller Prize in Composition, the New Langton Arts Award, and a William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Honorary Fellowship.

In addition to numerous solo CDs, he has recorded as part of Zen Widow, the Glenn Spearman Trio, the Marco Eneidi Creative Music Orchestra, and Gino Robair’s “I, Norton: An Opera in Realtime.” He has performed with such luminaries as Wadada Leo Smith, Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros, Glenn Spearman, Gianni Gebbia, Vladimir Tarasov, and Jack Wright, and works frequently with the new music ensemble sfSoundGroup. He is the founder and curator of Evolving Door Music, and has lectured and taught internationally, including Mills College, Eastman School of Music, Cal Arts, the Music Conservatory of Coimbra in Portugal, and Istanbul Teknikal Univeristy. He is presently a candidate in advanced standing at the University of California at Berkeley, where he is pursuing a Ph.D. in music composition.

The Lords of the Outland

Created by Rent Romus in 1994, the Lords of Outland is a rotating collective of like-minded musicians focusing on modern jazz, free jazz, and sound art. Their albums range in a series of theme based productions from the music of Albert Ayler to sounds inspired by literary authors such as Edgar Allen Poe, Frank Herbert, H.P. Lovecraft and Phil K. Dick. In 1995 Romus submitted a video to the then fledgling BET Channel's National Network Show "Jazz Central". As the judges looking balefully into the camera visibly struggling with a rendition of Eric Dolphy’s “Out to Lunch”, Romus knew this was the direction to take.The group currently features CJ Borosque no-input pedals and trumpet, Philip Everett drums, percussion and electronics, and Ray Schaeffer electric basses, lead by Rent Romus on alto, soprano, C-melody saxophones, voice, and electronics. Other performing artists who have participated in the Lords of Outland include Jason Olain, Vytas Nagisetty, Andrew Borger, Bill Noertker, John Tchicai, David Mihaly, Toyoji Tomita, Joel Harrison, Tom Nunn, Doug Carroll, Andre Custodio, Jesse Quattro, Jonas Westergaard, and Vinny Golia.

Saxophonist Rent Romus is a force spanning over twenty years of D.I.Y. music production, performance, and curation. He is heavily involved in stretching past the confines of standard music forms performing his original compositions and improvisations in a wide variety of musical settings. From 1986 to present day Romus has recorded and released twenty two recordings as a leader featuring a cross section of new up and coming musicians as well as seasoned veterans of the improvised arts which have included Jason Olaine, Steve Rossi, Chico Freeman, John Tchiai, Jonas Müller, Stefan Pasborg, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Thollem Mcdonas, and Tobias Fischer to name a few.

He is also focused in presenting and supporting the local experimental and avant-garde community at large with his grass-root philanthropic vision for total artistic self expression and freedom from generic branding through his label Edgetone Records and his curator work with Outsound Presents.

CJ Borosque is a well known bay area based improviser and noise and modern (and video) artist. Her art is a blending of genres pulling from abstract and avant-garde traditions. She is considered locally and internationally as a noiscian, and a visual artist whose home is in the underground music of San Francisco. She has preformed at the NorCal Noise fest on several occasions, The Big Sur Experimental Music Festival (2003/04), The Oakland Noise festival and twice at the Spring Reverb experimental music festival in San Diego. Most recently, she played Spring Reverb with the Band "Lords of Outland".

CJ Borosque plays tumpet and analog FX boxes configured in a “no-input” design which allows for the creation of sonic feedback and feedback sounds without the use of a typical sound source... her noise projects are currently created using the electrical signal that is within her gear. She also sometimes plays other various electronics and Instruments: her fascinations include, art, cooking, sound, noise, sculpture (sonic and tactile), Installations, silent films, avant-garde films and videos, modern, impressionist and surrealist art, jazz, world and classical music.

Ray Schaeffer currently performs on fretless 6 string , fretted 4 and 8 string basses using a host of electronic effects that are incorporated to be part of the instrument. After studying music theory and upright bass in high school and junior college, Ray has performed in a diverse array of ensembles from full orchestra to folk rock bands, and experimental improv groups going back to the 70s.

Phillip Everett began music at the age of 9 on clarinet shortly there after moving on the drums when he was 13 where he began his studies in junior high school with Warren George from the Stan Kenton band. Warren believed in trial by fire and stuck Phillip in a room alone for an hour a day, told him to learn drum rudiments, and put him in advanced orchestra & marching band the following semester. That trial led him directly to Bartok, Debussy, and Gershwin as well as New Orleans style 2nd line marches. Furthering his studies he sought after George Marsh and Eddie Moore where he was taught the finer subtleties of the drums. Phillip states, “These guys taught me to relax and trust my own instincts and that pursuit of one's own uniqueness was not a negative quality”

Happy Holidays!

"A night featuring the many facets of multi-woodwind master Vinny Golia"
Saturday, Dec 17 2011 8:00 PM

8:00 PM The Lords of Outland
CD release reduxII of Edge of Dark and new compositions
Rent Romus saxophones, CJ Borosque trumpet/electronics, Philip Everett drums/electronics, Ray Schaeffer bass, Vinny Golia saxophones, double reeds

9:00 PM Powell/Goodheart/Golia trio
Improvisation and holiday tunes
Garth Powell drums/percussion, Matthew Goodheart piano, Vinny Golia saxophones, double reeds

The Old Friends Festival Comes to Berkeley

The Old Friends Festival (OFF) highlights the best of the 1990's Bay Area creative music scene with a power packed line-up featuring: the Rova Saxophone Quartet playing a Tribute to Bay Area tenor saxophone great Glenn Spearman, local legend Ralph Carney, Pluto, Pamela Z, Gino Robair's Improvcore Orchestra 3000, Dan Plonsey’s New Monsters, and a re-union of the avant jazz group The Manufacturing of Humidifiers, all in two action-packed nights.

Curated by Steve Horowitz ("Super Size Me" and so much more) & part of the Berkeley Arts Festival, the OFF takes place on Friday, December 9th, and Saturday, December 10th, 8pm both nights. Admission is sliding scale, suggested donation $10-20. The Berkeley Arts Festival space is located at 2133 University Avenue, just of f the corner of Shattuck, in beautiful Downtown Berkeley.

The OFF features a wide array of musicians and bands from the heyday of the Bay Area creative music scene of the 1990's. For those of you who were not there or are just way too old to remember, the 1990's were an amazingly active decade for all sorts of cross currents in what became to be known as the Improvcore music scene in the bay area. Some high and some not so high profile shows were centered at a club called Olive Oil's on the piers in San Francisco (before there was a ballpark there, now called Jellys) and Beanbender's, in the Berkeley Store Gallery, in downtown Berkeley.

The steady stream of talent was simply awesome, from bands like Pluto, the Molecules, ROVA, The Humidifiers, Eskimo, and the Splatter Trio, to individual performers like Ben Goldberg , Ralph Carney and Glenn Spearman. . . the list goes on. The late Stephen Lucky Mosko, long time conductor for the SF contemporary music players was even featured. Many of the musicians in these groups are still making vital music and have been performing locally and internationally for years. The OFF festival may just be a once in a lifetime chance to see many (not all, no way to do that) of the progenitors of the bay area creative music scene together again for the first time in a long time. Regardless of style or genre, the OFF festival is fundamentally a gigantic celebration of the talent, depth and musical diversity of the Bay Area.

This year's festival is curated by composer/bassist, Steve Horowitz who moved away from the bay in 1996, to live in the Netherlands for four years, and then Manhattan for ten. Steve finally returned to the city for good, and being back is what sparked the idea for this mass conflagration. "The number of fantastic players and bands in SF is overwhelming, and I think a festival like this will go a long way to remind people of that fact," said Steve. "I can remember so many fantastic shows and bands, I just wanted to see us all together again”

Rick Rees, one of the original promoters of Olive Oils and the Improvcore scene, now living in Pacifica remembers, "Those were heady musical days, there was a real sense of community and shared purpose among the groups. The Improvcore orchestra got started at Olive’s, different bands that played each other's music in a large ensemble format. Best of all was the Battle of the Improv Bands: Splatter vs Scatter, conducted by Willy Winant. I am sure I still have the official zebra jersey he wore and the “trophy” made by Tom Nunn buried in the garage somewhere.” Composer/Saxophonist Dan Plonsey ran a creative music series called Beanbender's in downtown Berkeley for many years.

Everyone played there, Fred Frith, Roscoe Mitchell, and even the Sun Ra Arkestra. "Beanbender's often seemed to book itself," says Dan. "We'd get calls and e-mails from some of our favorite musicians from all over the world, and they'd come and play in this abandoned bank which was in legal limbo. Once or twice we had no electricity, so we had to run an extension cord to the pizza place next door. Or the guys running seminars upstairs would complain about our noise, or they'd book a party, and we'd run up to complain about their noise. But people would always come to the shows -- somehow we almost never lost money." “I would expect nothing less than some new major musical moments from these players and this festival," says Steve. "We will get to see a re-union of Pluto (now called Lost Planet, get it!) playing with Ralph Carney and a very special ROVA tribute to the late great Bay Area, Saxophonist Glenn Spearman titled, 'Extrapolation of the Inevitable -- Rova Channels Glenn Spearman."

Steve Adams explains, “Rova will perform in honor of the late Glenn Spearman, the great tenor saxophonist who was also a dynamic force in the Bay Area music scene. ROVA had the chance to make music with Glenn on many memorable occasions, including the sax octet Figure 8 and the thirtieth anniversary concert of Coltrane’s Ascension. His playing and spirit were an inspiration to many in these parts and we will be making music dedicated to his lasting influence.”
Horowitz concludes, “In many ways, this is a dream come true, to be able to come back to town and work with these folks again. Completely inspiring, I really think this festival is going to rock!”

The Old Friends Festival
Friday, December 9th, and Saturday, December 10th
Sliding scale admission (suggested donation $10-20)
2133 University Avenue - just off the corner of Shattuck, in beautiful Downtown Berkeley

Allen Clapp and his Orchestra Comes to the Hotel Utah

Plus John Moremen's "Flotation Device"



Producer, singer and songwriter Allen Clapp, the resident genius behind the pop enclave known as Mystery Lawn Records in Sunnyvale, is back, perhaps with his greatest effort to date. Clapp and his lovely partner in crime, bassist Jill Pries have culled the very best minds and musicians in the Mystery Lawn garden shed to flesh out Clapp's latest pop opus, "Mixed Greens". Armed with members of his own "Orange Peels", "The Corner Laughers", William Clere and a host of others to harvest and grow some of the best crops to ever spring from the mind of Clapp, and a very rich and verdant mind it is.

Readers of Beyond Chron will know that I have shown a predilection towards instrumental music, so when Clapp sent me Mixed Greens, I was blown away by the opening cut, "Picnic at the Hermitage", a gorgeous pop dirge that was frankly like nothing I'd ever heard from him before. Reminiscent of Clapp's production of the Corner Laugher's earlier hit, "Stonewords", (a personal favorite), Clapp's stripped away vocals, piano and keyboard textures immediately captivated me and only hinted at what else might be in store.

Clapp's other instrumental, "In the Halls of the King of the Land Beyond the Sun", had Clapp's beloved organ, Fender Rhodes, a vintage Roland Space Echo and British flavored pop-groove we've tasted before in his albums with the Orange Peels. Still quite edgy, yet sweeter, a distinction that separates this album from the aforementioned "Peels".

Mixed Greens also features some of Clapp's niftiest acoustic/electric guitar work and pretty groovy songwriting. I particularly enjoyed the "twangy" edge of "Treeline". Clapp and the Orchestra really rocked it on this one. I'm a little ol' "skool", so forgive me if it also triggered any memories of shows back in the day with Mick Fleetwood and my beloved Christine McVie.

Clapp's "Downfall No. 3" and I'll confess, I couldn't stop listening to "Back 2 Normal", another one of my personal favorites that actually reminded me of something from Todd Rundgren's "Something/Anything" era; another departure for Clapp that illustrates his pop virtuosity.

On songs like the piano driven "All or Nothing", "If the Wind is Right", the beautiful "Autumn Heart" and "The Winter in You", Clapp and his "orchestra" really captured his sound in ways not heard on any of his previous efforts; expansive, full, yet delicate and thoughtful.

Allen Clapp and his Orchestra's "Mixed Greens" is perhaps his best crop to date, and his greenhouse, aka the "Mystery Lawn Studio" has become something of a sustainable garden of musical delights. Sometimes you can indeed, go "back to normal", but I'm hoping Clapp and his Orchestra stay just a little bit crazy.


John Moremen's Flotation Device



What more can I say about the talented, multi-instrumentalist and composer John Moremen? Moremen has recorded and performed as a guitarist or drummer with a wide array of musicians and genres; Half Japanese, Roy Loney and the Phantom Movers, the Orange Peels and the Neighbors - and his own recording career has seen releases on the Bus Stop Label and Popstatic Records - but in a way, this is Moremen's debut album.



As a solo artist, Moremen's work has traditionally fallen into the power-pop category, but "Flotation Device" (2011, Mystery Lawn Music) finds the man coloring way outside the lines.



Eschewing the distraction of lyrics and vocals on this collection of tunes, the arrangements become more evocative and mysterious - allowing Moremen to paint pointillistic impressions of moments in time and imaginary landscapes. 



On "Flotation Device," Moremen is like a jazz great playing in a fictional rock band made up entirely of himself. Performing all the instrumental parts on this album, Moremen freely navigates between drums, bass and guitar while never losing site of the end goal: songs that move, shake and rattle with palpable energy.



Call it 21st century mood music; call it a West-Coast guitar freakout; call it what you will - John Moremen is entirely at home in the grooves of this record, and whether you're from the left coast or right, it places you square in the mindset of this gifted San Francisco composer.


Allen Clapp and his Orchestra + John Moremen's Flotation Device
Friday, December 2 @8:30-11:30 pm
Hotel Utah Saloon
500 4th Street & Bryant, San Francisco, CA 94107