Larry Ochs (Rova Saxophone Quartet) unveils his latest musical collective featuring Lisa Mezzacappa, Darren Johnston & Ben Davis

In the perfect environment for close listening, Larry Ochs once again brings a new ensemble to Bird & Beckett and invites you, the listeners, to join the musicians in enjoying their spontaneous but carefully sculpted music as it happens, in real time.

Through repeated performances, musical discussions after shows, and rehearsals, this music slowly but confidently evolves. The audience and the performance environment matter. There’s no more perfect environment than Bird & Beckett to hear the intimate sound sculptures that Tales End will perform on February 28 @ 8:30 PM.

Conceptually, Tales End might be said to be administratively led by Larry Ochs. The music itself will develop collectively, with a small pool of like-minded musicians rotating in to listen, play, and respond, when available.

Ben Davis – cello
Darren Johnston – trumpet
Lisa Mezzacappa – acoustic bass
Larry Ochs – tenor and sopranino saxophones

Larry Ochs has been creating this kind of improvised music in the Bay Area since 1977, when he and his life partner Lyn Hejinian moved to Berkeley. Most notably, he has also been a member of Rova Saxophone Quartet since 1977, a music group that has spent most of the last 47 years performing world-wide, with an emphasis on spontaneously evolving but rules-based structures for improvised music. Tales End began its musical journey in 2023, and Ochs very much looks forward to seeing how it develops through this decade. For a look at his other touring bands, please visit: www.ochs.cc

Ben Davis has been concentrating on fusing his classical, jazz, and contemporary music experiences into a raw vehicle of acoustic expression. Originally from the UK, Ben has recently been seen and heard playing with great USA-based musicians such as Tomeka Reid, Mary Halvorson, Ben Goldberg, Chris Brown, Zeena Parkins, Nicole Mitchell, Gerald Cleaver, William Winant, and Roscoe Mitchell.

Darren Johnston is a well-known member of the Bay Area jazz and improvised music scenes. Since 1997, he has collaborated and recorded with an extremely diverse cross-section of artists – from straight-ahead jazz luminaries such as bassist/composer Marcus Shelby, to experimental icons like ROVA, Fred Frith and Myra Melford, and to bands and musicians in popular world-music idioms, while always maintaining his own unique voice in each context. Ochs and Johnston have been performing together since 2005, most frequently in the all horns trio Spectral, with Saxophonist Dave Rempis.

 

Lisa Mezzacappa is a Berkeley-based composer, bassist and producer who has been active in the Bay Area music community for more than 20 years. Her activities as a composer and ensemble leader include ethereal chamber music, electro-acoustic works, avant-garde jazz, music for groups from duo to large ensemble, and collaborations with film, dance, and visual art. Recent projects include Cosmicomics, a suite for electro-acoustic jazz sextet based on Italo’s Calvino’s stories about the origins of the cosmos; and the serial audio opera The Electronic Lover. She is a recipient of the Pauline Oliveros New Genres Prize from the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) and has been commissioned by the San Francisco Girls Chorus and Del Sol Quartet.