duo B. vs. SPELUNKER enter the Bird & Beckett arena
Saturday, August 19th at 5pm!
$20 cover charge, byob. Reservations – 415-586-3733.

New original trio music and covers by creative music heroes Threadgill, Braxton and more!

The Bay Area improvising drums and bass duo of Jason Levis and Lisa Mezzacappa, as duo B., joins forces with Italian saxophonist Piero Bon Bittolo, aka SPELUNKER (boasting a new album by that name). Together, they’ll whip up a program of new compositions composed by members of the trio, plus new arrangements of music by creative jazz luminaries.

As duo B., Mezzacappa and Levis have explored the farthest reaches of wide-open improvisation and gnarly composition for more than 15 years, immersing themselves in the music of Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill, Cecil Taylor, Wadada Leo Smith, and others, and releasing three records. They are a first-call rhythm section backing up local jazz heroes such as Phillip Greenlief, Cory Wright, Nathan Clevenger, Sarah Wilson, and others.

Special guest from Ferrara, Italy, woodwind player Piero Bittolo Bon is one of the leading lights in Italy’s creative jazz community as a composer, bandleader and side person, co-leading the Tower Jazz Composers Orchestra and releasing recordings on the Clean Feed, El Gallo Rojo and Aut record labels.

https://pierobittolobon.bandcamp.com/album/spelunker
http://www.duobmusic.com

It all got underway Tuesday the 15th at the Makeout Room — sparking a musical conflagration of major proportions that’s scorching the ears of the Bay Area this week, with flareups in Nevada City, Palo Alto and Los Angeles, as touring Italian saxophone experimentalist Piero Bittolo Bon and Bay Area superstar bassist Lisa Mezzacappa romp across the landscape, enlisting a cross-section of Northern California’s amazing experimental music community.

Piero and Lisa arrive at Bird & Beckett with drummer Jason Levis Saturday afternoon at 5.  Don’t miss this chance to hear some amazing music in Glen Park!

Sunday night, the three musicians are off to a double duty engagement across the Bay at the Temescal Arts Center–an epic late afternoon pairing of two large ensembles comprising 17 superstars of the scene in  Jordan Glenn’s Improv Sextet and the 13-piece duo B. Experimental Band with Danishta Rivero, Cory Wright, Beth Schenck, Ben Davis and Mark Clifford (just to name the musicians we’ve heard here at Bird & Beckett in the past)!

Monday, Piero, Lisa & Jason get on the road to Los Angeles to reprise the fire of duo B. vs. SPELUNKER for the SoCal crowd at Oracle Tavern, then off goes Piero to points unknown to us!

SPELUNKER is the solo project of Piero Bittolo Bon, a multi-instrumentalist and composer based in Ferrara, Italy. Using a custom made microphone system attached at different locations on his alto saxophone, Bittolo Bon captures unearthly resonances and vibrations from his acoustic instrument, channeling and sculpting these frequencies into trance-like polyrhythms, dreamy grooves and immersive soundscapes. Without the use of looping pedals or computer manipulation, Bittolo Bon feeds these captured tones into synthesizers, drum machines, and stompboxes in real time, further manipulating the raw material in his improvised performances. The layered and kaleidoscopic effect of his in-the-moment composing creates a sound world that conjures an elusive and seductive folk music orchestra from another planet. The original recordings were edited and curated by Maurice Louca, a key player in the Cairo and Berlin experimental music scenes (Kharkana, Dwarfs of East Agouza, Elephantine).