Heliacal Rising of Sothis at Transition East (L-R: Naydja Bruton, Fred Jackson Jr, Adam Zanolini, Sharon Udoh; photo by James Hollis)
Andrew Sudhibhasilp, Jake Wark, Ben Dillinger
Elastic director Adam Zanolini presents his ensemble celebrating the life and work of AACM artists; a new trio lead by Jake Wark kicks off the evening.
8:30 pm -
Jake Wark - saxophones & electronics
Ben Dillinger - bass
Andrew Sudhibhasilp - guitar.
9:30 pm - Heliacal Rising Of Sothis
Adam Zanolini - bass
Naydja Bruton - drums
Fred Jackson Jr. - saxophone
Ben Lamar Gay - cornet
Sharon Udoh - piano
(all members on additional voice, electronics, objects)
$15 / $10 w/ Student ID -
Tickets Available at the Door
About the Artists
Adam Zanolini's Heliacal Rising of Sothis is a project dedicated to the work and teaching of Kelan Phil Cohran. Cohran was one of the co-founders of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) as well as the founder of the Affro Arts Theatre. His seminal group the Artistic Heritage Ensemble generated numerous recordings and launched many careers. Cohran was a prolific composer, bandleader, and father of all the members of Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. Phil's exploration of culture, history, astronomy, music, herbalism, mathematics, and language were highly influential among the community of musicians that rose during the Black Arts Movement and subsequent artistic schools in Chicago. However, Cohran's importance as a musician, organizer, teacher, and scholar has been under-appreciated. The ensemble performs works Zanolini composed whilst studying with Bro. Phil, or with inspiration from his teaching with the goal of spreading this knowledge. The ensemble, formed in 2022, is comprised of Zanolini, Fred Jackson, Jr. (sax) (two current AACM members) along with Sharon Udoh (piano) and Naydja Bruton (drums) (two participants in Elastic Arts’ Dark Matter Residency program for emerging artists of color.) The ensemble has performed at Elastic Arts, Transition East, the Promontory, Old Town School of Folk Music, Rebuild Foundation's Kenwood Gardens, and Oakland Museum and Garden as part of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival’s Artist Corps program. In 2024, the group toured South Africa, performing in the Journey to Jazz festival in Prince Albert, at Chimurenga in Cape Town, and at the South African State Theatre in Pretoria. In February/March 2025, the group toured Switzerland, performing at the Jazzwerkstatt festival in Bern as well as in Basel and La Chaux-de-Fonds.
Adam Zanolini is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, ethnomusicologist, writer, and arts organizer based in Chicago. He is the Executive Director of Elastic Arts Foundation in Chicago and former Associate Director of Arts for Art, presenter of the annual Vision Festival of avant-jazz in New York City. He is also co-founder of the Participatory Music Coalition (PMC), and he is an active member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Adam has served on the Board of the Live the Spirit Residency, producer of the annual Englewood Jazz Festival, for over ten years. Adam plays flute, double bass, saxophone and other instruments, performing regularly with PMC, the AACM’s Great Black Music Ensemble, Sura Dupart's Sidepocket Experience, with Angel Bat Dawid and the Brothahood, and with Gira Dahnee in addition to his own projects, including the Heliacal Rising of Sothis. He received his PhD in music with a certificate in Africana Studies from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 2016. Adam’s highest ambition is to be a community musician: to cultivate and share knowledge through music in order to help heal, strengthen, and empower the Black community. https://www.adamzanolini.com/
Fred Jackson Jr. is a saxophonist, composer, teacher, and member of the AACM. His career began in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he performed with Kafele Bandele, The Mike Foster Project, Troy Davis, Mark Whitfield, Lashawn Gary, Roland Guerin, Donald Edwards, Nicholas Payton, Brice Winston, Alvin Batiste, Doja Composure, Quamon Fowler, Wes Anderson. He migrated to Chicago and performed with Vincent Davis, Maggie Brown, Magic Carpet, Jimmy Bennington, Carrazz/Pati, Crosswinds, Corey Wilkes, Harrison Bankhead, Avreeayl Ra, Perry Wilson, Saalik Zyiad, and others. Jackson holds a BS in music from Southern University, and a Masters in Jazz Studies from Depaul University. He has studied the music of the African diaspora extensively, and had the honor of performing with some of Ethiopia’s finest musicians, including Abonesh Sedinew, Tigist, and Teddy Akililu. Jackson teaches at St. Symphorosa and St. Mary’s Star of the Sea School. He also works on his newest venture, the Spacetronic Music label, and plays with sitarist Shanta Nuerulla and his band Erudition Project. He was recently awarded a Fresh Works, New Voices grant from the Jazz Institute of Chicago. https://www.hydeparkjazzfestival.org/fredjackson
Sharon Udoh is a gay first-generation Nigerian-American composer, pianist, arranger, bandleader, and vocalist. Her work abandons genre and is expansive, focusing on human complexity, order within chaos, and emotional connection. She often takes the stage under the name Counterfeit Madison; her performances have been described as a warm bowl of soup, a tornado, a jalapeño pepper, a Jackson Pollock painting, a bulldozer, dangerous yet kind, and magnetic. She’s new to Chicago and has an absurd millennial addiction to sparkling water. Find out more at counterfeitmadison.com.
Naydja Bruton AKA Rhythm Ninja Drums is a session drummer, teacher and composer living in Chicago who helps her students externalize emotion through music. Naydja has held the Dark Matter Residency at Elastic Arts and was the curator of the monthly Timbre Tribe series and jam session at Elastic. https://vocalo.org/chi-sounds-like-naydja-bruton/
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Ben Dillinger is a bassist, educator, and composer from Chicago, Illinois. He performs a variety of musical styles on both electric and upright bass including Jazz, Rock, Pop, Brazilian, and Musical Theater. He is a founding member of various groups such as Astro Samurai and Imagery converter. He is also a sideman in many other projects around the Chicagoland area. As an educator, Ben has taught courses at Roosevelt University Chicago College of Performing Arts, Morton College, and The Chicago High School of the Arts.
Jake Wark is a saxophonist and composer who has been active in Chicago since 2014, when he relocated from upstate New York. Jake has released three albums as a leader, most recently Rejoinders, a collection of improvisations for solo saxophone and electronics released on Passerine Records in 2024. He can be heard in numerous groups as a sideman and collaborator in Chicago, and has appeared at many prominent festivals and venues for creative music in the Midwest.
A graduate of the Didier Lockwood Music Center in Paris (2011) and Marseille’s Conservatoire National à Rayonnement Régional (2014), Andrew Sudhibhasilp is a versatile jazz guitarist and one of few French musicians specialized in Touareg music. From 2015 to 2017, he participated in the project Les Impatients du Jazz produced by the festival Jazz des Cinq Continents, with music by saxophonist Fred Pichot. In his work with Les Impatients du Jazz, Sudhibhasilp performed with acclaimed special guests Eric Truffaz, Didier Malherbe, Eric Legnini, Glenn Ferris and Jerôme Regard. Since 2013, Sudhibhasilp has been an integral member of the Touareg band Terakaft, whose creators were also founding members of the Grammy Awardwinning band Tinariwen, from the Sahara Desert region of Northern Mali. With Sudhibhasilp on bass guitar, Terakaft has played sold-out tours throughout Europe and the U.S. In 2016, the project Desert Caravan was created as a mix of different Malian groups including Terakaft, Piers Facini, Afel Bocoum, and Ali Farka Touré Band. As a result of this fusion, Terakaft and Ali Farka Touré Band have toured together in Europe and the U.S. with Sudhibhasilp on bass guitar. In 2018, he participated in a residency produced by the Vitrolles jazz festival CharlieFree for the project Tartartar Brass Embacy with Famadou Don Moye of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, as well as organist Simon Sieger and trumpet player Christophe Leloil. With Leloil in 2020, he released an album of original music, OpenMinded. Now based in Chicago, Sudhibhasilp maintains strong ties in the French jazz scene, while beginning to work with a number of Chicago projects.