Today! OutFest Jazz
+ 2 Poetry Readings

Sunday, August 7th, 4:30 & 5:30 pm (two sets)

OUTFEST! The second in our five-Sunday sequence of concerts presenting freely improvised “jazz on the avant side”

Jim Ryan’s Forward Energy plays two sets of intensely improvised music as part of our five-Sunday run of “free jazz” performances, organized by Bird & Beckett in conjunction with Outsound Presents.

Forward Energy comprises Jim Ryan on sax, flute and trumpet; Outsound’s own Rent Romus on saxes; Scott R. Looney on piano; Eric Marshall on bass and Tim Orr on drums.

A philosopher by academic training and a prolific author, Ryan took up music during the late 1960s while living in Paris. Already a fan of bebop, and a nascent bohemian in circles that included William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, he came under the sway of expatriate avant-garde jazz artists, including Archie Shepp, Anthony Braxton, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and Steve Lacy. When he returned to the U.S. in 1975, settled in California in 1987, and emerged as a force in the Bay Area improv scene in the mid-1990s, Ryan brought with him both a deep knowledge of jazz history and an uncompromising dedication to freedom of expression. Jim is a dedicated painter and musicians who brooks no compromise in creative matters…

OUTFEST! presents music that “ignores the boundaries, clambers across the structures, whispers in the tunnels, screams in the public square. Fractal geometries of sound in a den of books.” …to quote our own rather excited publicity! Heck, we’re excitable and trust you are too! If you’re in a rut, now’s the time to climb out… and if you’re not, well then you’re well primed for what we’ve got to offer on these final summer Sunday afternoons… join Bird & Beckett and Outsound Presents in this foray into the musical ideas that John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman, Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler and many more brought to the fore in the late 1950s and 1960s… ideas that continue to intrigue adventurous musicians to this day…

Next Sunday (8/14), it’s the Chuck Manning/Stu Pilorz Outfit; followed by Time is Now, Not Money, joined by sax player Kasey Knudsen on 8/21; and concluding with Lords of Outland, the band led by Outsound’s own Rent Romus, on 8/28.  C’mon out!

And don’t miss L.A.-based improvising pianist Connie Crothers, performing in tandem witih poet Paula Hackett on Monday, August 15th.  Connie is in town for a performance at the prestigious Chez Hanny house concert series, and is joining her long-time friend, the poet and jazz lyricist, Paula for this exploration of the jazz/poetry connection… So, be prepared to catch the Chuck Manning / Stu Pilorz Outfit on Sunday, and Paula & Connie on Monday!