CoPAC
and the Shaking Ray Levi Society present
Sunday,
January 26, 7:30 pm
Barking Legs Theater
1307 Dodds Ave
Chattanooga, TN 37404
$12
advance/$15 door/$5 age 25 and under
Facebook
event
This evening will feature astounding improvisational sounds from Minimal
Disturbance, accompanied by dancer Luciana
Arias (from Buenos Aires) and special guest
contrabassist Evan Lipson. The event will end
with a book reading from Jack Wright from his acclaimed tome about
improvisation, "The Free Musics," along with a question-and-answer
session.
The improvisational duo Minimal Disturbance, featuring saxophonist
Jack Wright and pianist Ron Stabinsky,
has the ability to shift from near-classical to near-jazz to
nearly insane, bringing in bits of melody from virtually anywhere,
kicking and screaming.
Ron Stabinsky is a member of the notorious jazz band Mostly Other
People Do The Killing (now a trio with Moppa Elliott and Kevin
Shea), and in 2018, he joined the reunited rock band Meat Puppets
and toured with them. In 2016 Ron finally released his first solo
album, Free for One, the culmination of more than a decade of
evolving his improvised solo language. It received four stars in
DownBeat and tied for number one debut of the year in the 2016 NPR
Music Jazz Critics Poll.
At 77, Jack Wright is one of a small number of musicians in North
America who have played free-form improvised music exclusively for
four decades. He is an original and virtuosic saxophonist, a
recognized improviser who is deeply lyrical, despite his wide
distance from the mainstream. With a command of the sax that is at
the top of his field with a passionate, kinetic playing style and
a huge sound vocabulary, he has been called “the most
indispensable musician of his generation” and “the reference par
excellence for all the generations who have followed.”
(Jazzosphere). The Washington Post has said "In the rarefied,
underground world of experimental free improvisation, saxophonist
Jack Wright is king."
After being a history lecturer and revolutionist in the late
sixties, Wright has been playing freely improvised saxophone
exclusively in the US and Europe and has been dubbed the “Johnny
Appleseed of Improvised Music” by the legendary guitarist Davey
Williams. He is among the few true believers in absolutely free,
unrestrained, unstructured, unselfconscious improvisation, played
at soberingly high levels of musicianship.
Luciana Arias is a contemporary experimental artist, dancer and
choreographer from Buenos Aires, Argentina, currently traveling
throughout Europe and the Americas, making art and performing for
brave, extraordinary audiences. Her art is challenging, requiring
remarkable venues and communities to bring it to life, and it asks
questions and brings awareness to issues such as women's health,
sexual identity, consent and human trafficking.
Evan Lipson has operated as a musician since
adolescence—intuitively seeking the liminal realms in which
intellect and instinct, history and myth, and creative and
destructive force intersect. Lipson most frequently tours playing
bass with Roughhousing (featuring Zach Darrup and Jack Wright). He
is also active with Virtual Balboa (featuring Ben Bennett and Zach
Darrup), a collaborative duo with dancer Luciana Arias, and The
Flying Luttenbachers. Lipson has recently composed music for
several films, as well as a number of collaborations with Duplex
Planet-creator David Greenberger. He also may or may not have some
degree of affiliation with an organization known as MEINSCHAFT.
Past units include Normal Love, Satanized, Wrest, Hisswig, and
Dynamite Club.
Secret Weave and the Shaking Ray Levi Society present
Sandy
Ewen: Solo Guitar Improvisations
Thursday,
January 30, 8:30 pm
Exile
Off Main Street
1634 Rossville Ave
Chattanooga, TN 37408
$7 door
Facebook
event
Bandcamp
Sandy Ewen is a sound artist, visual artist and architect. Ewen’s
audio practice focuses on extended guitar techniques,
improvisation, graphic scores and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Her unique approach to guitar incorporates a wide array of
implements – railroad spikes, sidewalk chalk, threaded bolts,
steel wool and other items become an arsenal of abstraction.
Born in Toronto, Canada in 1985, Sandy Ewen received a Bachelor of
Architecture from the University of Texas at Austin in 2008,
before relocating to Houston, TX and New York City, her current
home. Ewen has worked extensively with film makers, dancers, poets
and musicians to create films, audio recordings, sound
interventions and performance art. Ewen’s musical collaborations
include the trio Etched in the Eye, a duo with Tom Carter called
Spiderwebs, the trio Garden medium, and ongoing collaborations
with percussionist Weasel Walter and bassist Damon Smith.
For nearly ten years, Ewen has been the leader of an all-female
large ensemble. The ensemble conceptualizes and performs sound and
performance art, utilizing graphic and text based scores and
improvisational constraints. The ensemble performed with an
amplified bathtub at Diverse Works in 2016, and performed a suite
of installation-specific compositions for Francis Alÿs’ Fabiola
Project at the Menil. Sandy has spent much of the last few years
touring, performing solo sets and in collaboration with Steve
Jansen (tapes and electronics) and Maria Chavez (turntables)
around Europe. In years past, Ewen has performed alongside
Roscoe Mitchell, Keith Rowe, Lydia Lunch and many others, and has
performed and recorded with Jaap Blonk, Henry Kaiser and more. In
2014 she performed at San Francisco’s 13th Annual Outsound New
Music Summit, and she has made several appearances at Austin’s
annual No Idea Festival. Ewen’s visual work is closely tied to her
work in sound; she uses both mediums to explore texture,
composition and materials.
CoPAC, Service
After Service and the Shaking Ray Levi Society present
Chef
Neville Forsythe:
An Eclectic Celebration
Saturday,
February 1, 7:30 pm
Barking Legs Theater
1307 Dodds Ave
Chattanooga, TN 37404
$20
advance/door
Chef
Neville Forsythe impacted the lives of many in the city of
Chattanooga and beyond with his passion for the culinary arts
and his kindness. The Forsythe Family invites you to an evening
of fun and reflection as we celebrate his life and legacy. One
of the highlights of the evening, the band Fresh Mind found
their start at Mrs. B’s Reggae Cafe. Members of 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer
Orchestra from Atlanta,
another highlight of the evening, performed at Chef’s
Underground Cafe many years ago. Enjoy reggae, rock, jazz and
pop. There will be a DJ playing a selection of Caribbean music,
as well as some of Chef Neville’s favorite songs before and
after the live performances. The dance floor will be wide open!
The bar
will be serving Voodoo Rhum Punch, Chef Neville’s FAVORITE
signature cocktail that was featured at Mrs. B’s Reggae Cafe. It
will be served by its creator, Evan Lipson. Proceeds from this
event go to The Neville Osmond
Forsythe, Sr. Scholarship.
If you are
unable to attend the event and would like to donate to the
scholarship, click
here.
Article
about Neville
CoPAC
and the Shaking Ray Levi Society present
Larry
Ochs' Fictive
Five (Less One Live)
Thursday, March 5, 7:30 pm
Barking
Legs Theater
1307 Dodds Ave
Chattanooga, TN 37404
$15 advance/door
The
Fictive Five conjures wildly
imaginative stories in sound;
a collective music by a group
of extraordinary improvising
musicians, all framed by the
structures composed by Larry
Ochs. A founding member of the
Rova Sax Quartet, Larry Ochs
has worked with many of the
greatest musicians in Creative
Music: Steve Lacy, Fred Frith,
Wadada Leo Smith, Terry Riley,
Marilyn Crispell, John Zorn,
Nels Cline, Anthony Braxton
and countless others. His
newest ensemble is an update
on the classic New York
Contemporary Five and features
Larry’s Shepp-tinged tenor sax
along with some of the best
young players out of New
York’s Downtown scene.
With strong, soulful blendings
of composition and
improvisation, the Fictive
Five takes inspiration from
not only musicians (pianist
Cecil Taylor) but also visual
artists (William Kentridge)
and filmmakers including Spike
Kee, Wim Wenders, Kelly
Reichardt and Warren Sonberg.
This special concert at
Barking Legs Theater will
feature a quartet incarnation
of the Fictive Five with Ochs,
trumpeter Nate Wooley,
percussionist Harris
Eisenstadt and bassist Ken
Filiano.
In September 2013, Ochs was in
artist-in-residence at The
Stone in NYC. On two nights
that week he premiered this
quintet to enthusiastic
acclaim. But most importantly,
all five musicians were really
excited by what happened at
The Stone. The music was on
fire; the compositions sparked
their imaginations and left
plenty of room for continued
exploration. Because Ochs
lives in the San Francisco Bay
Area, and busy schedules made
it difficult to connect, The
Fictive Five did not perform
again until December 2014,
immediately followed by a
really focused recording
session. The music from that
session released October 2015
on Tzadik, the label curated
by John Zorn. A new
recording, Anything Is
Possible, was released on
Clean Feed in March 2019, in
time for the group's 2019
European tour.
Since 1978, Larry Ochs’
professional activities have
been primarily centered around
the Rova Saxophone Quartet,
which has made over
thirty-five European tours
plus numerous concerts
throughout the U.S. and
Canada, as well as recording
over 30 CDs/LPs as a quartet
and/or in collaboration with
other artists.
Nate Wooley is one of the most
in-demand trumpet players in
the burgeoning Brooklyn jazz,
improv, noise, and new music
scenes. He has performed
regularly with such icons as
John Zorn, Anthony Braxton,
Fred Frith, Evan Parker, and
Yoshi Wada, as well as being a
collaborator with some of the
brightest lights of his
generation like Chris Corsano,
C. Spencer Yeh, Peter Evans,
and Mary Halvorson. Wooley’s
solo playing has often been
cited as being a part of an
international revolution in
improvised trumpet.
Most active in jazz and
improvised music, as both a
bandleader and in-demand
sideman, percussionist Harris
Eisenstadt has performed all
over the globe, been awarded
grants from organizations such
as Meet The Composer, American
Composers Forum, Canada
Council for the Arts, and
appeared on more than 50
recordings since 2000,
including 15 as a
leader. Recordings
of his compositions since 2002
often appear on the Songlines,
Clean Feed, and 482 Music
labels, and are consistently
included on critics’ best-of
lists.
Active since the early '80s,
bassist Ken Filiano has since
contributed to dozens of
albums, most of them
pertaining to creative jazz --
from post-bop to free
improvisation. Based in
Brooklyn, Filiano keeps strong
ties with the West Coast. He
has recorded for Nine Winds,
CIMP, Knitting Factory, and
Clean Feed, among other
labels.
"...it's consistently fresh.
It breaks new ground while
working through the deep roots
of Ochs’ conception, invoking
Archie Shepp and Albert
Ayler..." - NYC Jazz Records
on "The Fictive Five"
CoPAC
and the Shaking Ray Levi Society present
David
Greenberger
Wednesday, June
17, 1:30 pm - CANCELLED DUE TO COVID
Barking Legs Theater
1307 Dodds Ave
Chattanooga, TN 37404
Free and open to the public
David
Greenberger
has been exploring
the nature of
conversation and
unique, often
ignored voices since
1979. Originally
focused on aspects
of aging, his work
has grown to include
individuals living
outside of or on the
fringes of much of
society’s awareness.
These books,
recordings and
performances
underscore the
dignity in what can
be ordinary or even
fragmented stories
and anecdotes—all
rich with a
conversational
voice. He continues
to be a keynote
speaker at
universities,
museums and
conferences on
aging.
At this special
event, Greenberger
will discuss his
latest project with
the ensemble Prime
Lens, a brand new
album with pieces
based on
conversations with
individuals at Signal
Centers in
Chattanooga, an
organization devoted
to helping people
with disabilities
achieve a life of
self-sufficiency. He
will also play
recordings from the
album, with the
participants from
Signal Centers in
attendance.
Funding provided by
the Shaking Ray Levi
Society, the
Tennessee Arts
Commission, and
ArtsBuild. The
Shaking Ray Levi
Society is an
ArtsBuild Community
Arts Partner.
Fred
Lane and
His Disheveled
Monkeybiters
Friday,
March 27
- BIG
EARS FESTIVAL
CANCELLED
Big
Ears Festival
Knoxville, TN
Rev. Fred Lane
(c. 19??) is a
simultaneously
enigmatic and
notorious
persona who is
responsible for
creating what is
arguably the
most obscure,
strange, darkly
comedic,
psychotic,
perplexing, and
uniquely
American music
that has ever
been recorded.
The collected
works of Fred
Lane constitute
an improbably
rare body of
music that
brazenly rides
the line between
order and chaos;
taking the
listener into
realms that are
all the way out,
and yet somehow
oddly (and
perhaps
unsettlingly)
familiar. It is
a music that is
impossible to
penetrate the
mystery of and
exists outside
of conventional
time in a
universe all of
its own.
The intrepid few
that
miraculously
stumbled across
these rarefied
recordings have
largely become
rabid &
cult-like
fanatics. One
especially
obsessive
lifelong fan
even created a
Rev. Fred Lane
documentary that
took over 19
years to
complete.
Remarkably, Fred
Lane and his
swinging
‘pataphysical
cult from an
alternate
dimension (SEE:
Ron ‘Pate’s
Debonairs
featuring Rev.
Fred Lane + Fred
Lane and his The
Hittite Hot
Shots) only
performed TWICE
in their entire
existence. All
of the band
members were
credited on the
albums with fake
aliases created
by Lane, with
monikers such as
Dick Foote, Omar
Bhag-dad-a,
Dimples LaCroix,
Ron ‘Pate, Abdul
Ben Camel, Cyd
Cherise, Shep
Estrus, E.
Baxter Put,
Whitey Stencil,
“Bill” The Kid
Dap, and Motor
Hobson.
Several bizarre
and fantastical
rumors surfaced
over the years,
some claiming
that Lane had
become a
demented recluse
and/or nazi
living in a
pyramid and
constructing
sculptures out
of vegetables.
Were any of the
rumors true? Was
it all some kind
of elaborate
ruse? Probing
deeper into the
story of Rev.
Fred Lane, one
discovers that
the character
emerged from the
mind of T.R.
Reed; a man who
grew up in rural
Tuscaloosa,
Alabama and
eventually fell
in with a crowd
of intensely
crafty &
diligent freaks
known as
Raudelunas.
Raudelunas was a
motley crew of
deviant Southern
artists and
musicians in the
mid-1970s who
modeled their
behavior &
actions off of
the early
European
Dadaists,
Surrealists, and
Futurists—
attempting to
freak out,
subvert, and
unleash as much
explosive mayhem
and chaos as
they could
possibly muster
upon their
stiflingly
conventional-minded
college football
town.
French
proto-Dadaist/symbolist
writer and
madman Alfred
Jarry (creator
of ‘pataphysics)
served as
something of a
patron saint.
Lane was
summoned into
being as a sort
of swaggeringly
megalomaniacal
MC for the
group’s various
presentations in
order to
terrorize,
humiliate, and
provoke the
audience. During
these years he
also began
creating bizarre
sculptures using
different
collage
techniques.
He also produced
several
publications
including “Naked
Women Overthrow
The Government
Quarterly”,
“Liquid
Basketball”, and
“Steamed Plywood
Triannual”.
Among
Raudelunas’
myriad
activities and
high jinks, they
were among the
very first
Americans to
perform and
record what
eventually came
to be known as
“free
improvisation”
(which they
initially
referred to as
“Headache
Music”)— a kind
of meta-music or
proto-music in
which
participants
don’t know what
they’re doing
until they’re
doing it.
LaDonna Smith
(aka D.P.B.
Smith) and Davey
Williams (aka
Cyd Cherise)
were two of the
more dedicated
players who
emerged from
this group and
quickly went on
to become
internationally
recognized
luminaries in
the field.
After the
release of “Car
Radio Jerome” in
1986, Reed/Lane
abandoned any
sort of public
or professional
involvement in
music in order
to pursue
crafting and
selling his
mobile
sculptures
(alternately
referred to as
“creachters” and
“whirligigs”) at
folk art
festivals all
around the
country— a
career path he
continues up to
the present day,
along with his
wife and fellow
artist Jeanie
Holland.
However, in
recent years,
prompted by
EXILE HOUR
co-host Evan
Philip Lipson
(aka Lipps
Epsom) with some
assistance from
Shaking Ray Levi
Society
co-founder Bob
Stagner (aka Fob
Stengel), Lane
began quietly
working in his
current home of
Chattanooga,
Tennessee on a
new album
entitled
“Icepick to the
Moon”. The album
was initially
conceived and
written in
collaboration
with Roger
Hagerty (aka
Dick Foote) in
the early 1990s
but was never
performed or
properly
recorded until
now (31 years
later).
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