Hunt / Heinemann / Baker
Keefe Jackson
Photograph: Ricardo Adame
Jim Baker, Steve Hunt, and Jakob Heinemann’s music moves between electroacoustic dialogues involving Baker’s ARP-2600 and free jazz-derived piano trio excursions.
Keefe Jackson Quartet features Jeb Bishop, Jason Roebke, and Quin Kirchner, with pieces by Keefe Jackson. Brent Burton of JazzTimes comments, "These guys do what seems to come naturally to Chicago-based outfits: They make freedom sound friendly.”
8:30 pm: Baker / Hunt / Heinemann
9:30 pm: Keefe Jackson Quartet
$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door
About The Artists
Jim Baker, Steve Hunt, and Jakob Heinemann first played together in 2022, coming together for a week of work involving two sets at the Hungry Brain and recording session. The trio later released these freely improvised recordings in 2024 on Clean Feed Records. Their music moves between timbral, electroacoustic dialogues involving Baker’s ARP-2600 and free jazz-derived piano trio excursions.
Jakob Heinemann is a composer, bassist, and sound artist whose work bridges improvisation, composition, and acoustic ecology. Originally hailing from Wisconsin, Jakob is now based in Los Angeles. Much of his performance practice engages deeply with free improvisation, while his compositions frequently involve just intonation, field recordings, and indeterminacy. He has released music on Clean Feed Records, Ruination Recording Co, Party Perfect, Aerophonic Records, as well as his own imprint, Kashe Editions. He currently serves as Vice President of the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology, and holds an MFA in Composition from California Institute of the Arts.
Jim Baker has been playing piano and synthesizer in and around Chicago and the world for a few decades, mostly in improvisational contexts. His work has been documented on more than eighty commercially released recordings, including recent and/or forthcoming work with the Extraordinary Popular Delusions, Michael Zerang, Avreeayl Ra, Christoph Erb, Junius Paul, and Urs Leimgruber. For a number of years in the 90s, Baker was the house pianist for the weekly Sunday evening jam sessions at the Velvet Lounge. In recent years, in his infrequent solo performances, he has played a mixture of free improvisation, interpretations of standards, and improvisation-infused interpretations of original compositions.
Drummer/vibist/composer Steve Hunt has been active in the Chicago improvised music scene since 1980, when he became a member of the Hal Russell NRG Ensemble. Between then and 1992 he had the opportunity to tour internationally and can be heard on six recordings (Nessa, PJP, ECM), contributing to many of the band’s compositions. Steve is also a member of Caffeine, a trio composed of Ken Vandermark and Jim Baker. Since 2005 has been a member of Extraordinary Popular Delusions playing weekly at Beat Kitchen in Chicago along with Mars Williams, Jim Baker and Brian Sandstrom, and often with Edward Wilkerson Jr. In addition, he has performed/recorded in various duo, trio and group settings with Dave Rempis, Jamie Branch, Rafael Toral, Jack Wright, Andre Caporaso, Christoph Erb, Urs Leimgruber and many others.
Keefe Jackson Quartet features Jeb Bishop, Jason Roebke, and Quin Kirchner, with pieces by Keefe Jackson. Their 2010 release Seeing You See (Clean Feed Records) garnered such comments as:
"a gathering of mature improvisers and old collaborators who swim in a certain stylistic idiom like fish in water." (Nikola Markovic, jazzin.rs)
"These guys do what seems to come naturally to Chicago-based outfits: They make freedom sound friendly." (Brent Burton, JazzTimes)
"it’s an uncommon mixture of the familiar and the distinctive that sets this music apart from the crowd." (Art Lange, Point of Departure)