LuFuki’s Meditations Ensemble (Detroit) was put together to encourage audience contemplation through sound using the powerful messages of improvisation. Featuring special guests Chad Khouri and Airon Azure.

Alter Ego is an experimental duo consisting of pianists Mabel Kwan and Sharon Udoh. Tonight, they'll be joined by drummer/percussionist Bill Harris and saxophonist/clarinetist Edward Wilkerson, Jr. to form Alter Ego Plus.

8:30 LuFuki: Meditations

9:30 Alter Ego Plus: Harris/Kwan/Udoh/Wilkerson, Jr.

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

Luca Cimarusti is a Chicago-based musician who has spent over twenty years operating in experimental rock, punk, and heavy metal. His solo percussion practice focuses on repetition, resonance, and decay.

Station 4 is a Chicago ensemble employing texts and vocals, music and dance, to create a multi-sensory experience for its audience. Station 4 wraps its uniquely structured electro-acoustic improvisations around the spoken-word performance art of poet Kao Ra Zen augmented by dancers Tuli Bera, Heather Zimny, Karen Fisher-Doyle, and Mindy Meyers.

8:30 Luca Cimarusti

9:30 Mark Nagy’s Station 4

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

FLYDLPHN is a mixed chamber ensemble that advocates for collaborative, unrestrictive play, making extensive use of electro-acoustic, multimedia, and improvised performance. Chicago-based composer and sound designer Austin Gray Williams uses both traditional and exploratory compositional techniques with a generally maximal approach.

Jackson Jones Sugimoto: Three woodwind artists, three Chicago stalwarts, three vocal approaches. Structural situations by Keefe Jackson and songs by all three. Repetition, romanticism, and longueur are among the touchstones. Poised expressions and vibrating incantations, living on the edge.

8:30 FLYDLPHN

9:30 Jackson Jones Sugimoto

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

Two free-jazz groupings with all-star casts explode in a night to remember.

Chicago Microbes is Will Greene, Jason Roebke, and Phil Sudderberg.

Chrysalis is Ausberto Acevedo, Keefe Jackson, Jim Baker, and Dan Bitney.

Michael Cella (he/they) aka nnirror is an artist and software developer from the Midwest USA. He will improvise a set of abstract electronics with Facet, an open-source live coding environment he has developed, and Max/MSP.

Disaster Taxa is a polytempic suite of 21 miniatures for sextet, combining experimental jazz and free improvisation with multiple independent, simultaneous tempo streams. Live performance is enabled by networked software that serves as an animated 'conductor' for each part. Disaster Taxa was composed by Derek Worthington, and is performed by the new sextet Pulse Width Modulation, featuring Matt Riggen, Aaron Kaufman-Levine, Luc Mosley, Julian Quall, Daniel Thatcher, and Adam Shead.

8:30 nnirror
9:30 Pulse Width Modulation performs Derek Worthington’s Disaster Taxa

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

The trio of Josh Harlow, Luc Mosley, and Lily Finnegan will play a set and then lead an improvised music jam! Bring your instrument if you’d like to participate. Jammers get in free! Help us keep the Chicago Jazz Festival energy and inspiration going through the evening.

8:30 Harlow/Mosley/Finnegan

9:30 Open jam! Bring your instrument

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door
Jammers get in free!

Janna Lee is the vocalist of Snek Trio, a psychedelic free jazz party band, with Reid Karris and Erik Sowa. "The One That Got Away," her third solo album on Black Ring Rituals, was number three in The Wire's list of best noise releases of 2023. Ben Willis plays bass, produces music, and creates collaborative media. Janna and Ben will perform duo.

Joe Morris’ Counter Spectacle is

Joe Morris - bass
Aaron Kaufman-Levine - alto saxophone
Garrett Frees - tenor and soprano saxophone
Charlie Watson - trumpet
Caroline Jesalva - violin
Nick Alvarez - drums

8:30 Janna Lee + Ben Willis

9:30 Joe Morris’ Counter Spectacle

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

The quartet of Jeff Chan, Michael Perkins, Ausberto Acevedo, and Jacob Fawcett will make its debut at the Improvised Music Series. Blending Indigenous, Latin American, Asian, Electronic, Folk, and European Classical roots, the group brings a wide range of influences to the forefront, all while connecting through a shared love of swing, post-bop, free jazz, and free improvisation.This debut collaboration promises a night of open dialogue, and deeply felt groove.

Erez Dessel and Aaron Kaufman-Levine form a dynamic and innovative musical duo that bridges genres and traditions. Pianist Dessel and saxophonist Kaufman-Levine bring their unique voices into a shared space, exploring their original compositions and song forms through the lens of open improvisation. Their collaboration thrives on a deep mutual respect and an adventurous spirit, resulting in sounds that echo the human experience.

8:30 Dessel / Kaufman-Levine Duo

9:30 Chan / Perkins / Acevedo / Fawcett

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

Feral Nebula is a free improvised trio including Norman Long (electronics), Peter Maunu (guitar/violin/mandolin),  and Erik Sowa (drums/percussion).  Sasha Semina is a multimedia artist who specializes in immersive sound involving audio-reactive projection, interactive media, and vocal live-processing techniques.

Scott Rubin’s Digital Hands presents the imaginary exploration of a solo masked performer traversing questions of identity, meditation, and control through use of a camera-instrument.

The Dysnomia duo (James Ilgenfritz and Teerath Majumder) emerged from a need to critique received notions about machine learning, intellectual labor, and conceptual autonomy. Using a 5-string contrabass in a just intonation scordatura together with transducers and machine learning, the duo explores sound through the lens of trans-humanism, investigating the agency of the interface itself.

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

Erica Miller (they/she) is a cellist, improviser, composer, producer, and visual artist; Jack Langdon is a musician with concentrations in experimental music, minimalist documentary, and cultural politics; Jeff Kimmel is a clarinetist whose work encompasses improvisation and new and experimental music. The three artists will perform an improvised trio set.

Muscular Calves is Oui Ennui (synths), Emma Hospelhorn (flutes), Jordan Knecht (percussion), and Scott Meyers (guitar).

8:30 Erica Miller / Jack Langdon / Jeff Kimmel

9:30 Muscular Calves

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

Nick Zoulek, Ben Willis, and Casey Foubert will each perform a brief solo set, and then the three artists will play as a trio. Then, there will be an open improvised jam — bring your instrument! Jammers get in free.

The trio of Mai Sugimoto and Ed Wilkerson on woodwinds and Tim Daisy on percussion will play together for the first time.

This intergenerational double drum quintet features percussionists Vincent Davis and Lily Finnegan with Anisha Rush on saxophone, Emma Dayhuff on bass, and Will Greene on guitar/saxophone. Also a first time collaboration as a unit, although members frequently play with one another. High energy improvisation!

Avreeayl Ra’s Dream Stuff is Avreeayl Ra (drums), Edward Wilkerson (reeds), Peter Maunu (strings), Jim Baker (keyboards), and Jason Roebke (bass).

Levi Dayan is an artist and music journalist who is interested in approaching the intersection of improvised music, electroacoustic music, and noise from a DIY perspective.

Worthlis is the improvising duo of laptop musician Derek Worthington and bassist and analog electronics performer Ben Willis.

Norman W. Long (electronics) and Bill Harris’ (drums) collaboration goes back to 2020.

Sharon Udoh and Kyle Gregory Price will be an anomalous tornado spiraling in and out, up and down, only to put all the houses back down gently via the caring hands of experience, hope, community and musical salvation. They will be joined by Lewis Achenbach painting live.

Percussionist Avreeayl Ra (he/him) and trombonist Jeb Bishop (he/him) will appear as the first duo configuration of Ra Bishop, a quartet (usually) anticipating a spring 2025 album release on the Amalgam label.

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

IMS welcomes a group featuring Jorrit Dijkstra accompanied by a quintet of Chicago improvisers along with trio set by Emily Biesel, Ro Lundberg, and Norman W. Long.

Hatcher/Giallorenzo/Kirshner is a collaborative trio that has worked in improvised music of a free jazz character and is now beginning to delve into its members’ interests in repertory work and original composition. Their set will include pieces by Frank Wright and Cecil Taylor as well as original work and improvisation. Following their set we are having a New Year’s Open Jam led by series curators Ben Zucker and Ishmael Ali! Bring your instrument to jam! We’ll break off into small ensembles / short sets so everyone can play a bit. All ‘jam’ participants are admitted $free$ to the event!

8:30 Hatcher/Giallorenzo/Kirshner Trio

9:30 New Year's Jam led by Ishmael Ali and Ben Zucker, bring your instrument!! All welcome!

The Improvised Music Series concludes 2024 with a pair of duos demonstrating the strength of the scene across generations.

Hugo Flores García (he/they) is a computer musician, improviser, programmer, and scientist whose creative practice spans improvised and composed music for guitars, sound objects and electronics, sound installations, bespoke digital musical instruments, and interactive art. He will perform solo. Teiku uses their Jewish-Ukrainian ancestors’ Passover songs as source material for expansive improvisation. The group weaves through an adventurous set that maintains its ritualistic origins while simultaneously venturing into the unknown.

Kiroff/Spuzzillo Duo (Cleveland) will perform a round robin of improvised, micro-tonal songs infused with free jazz and electronics on microtonally altered Wurlitzer and fretless bass. Jacob Little Cloud Fawcett (Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Ojibwe) will be joined by fellow Chicago improvisors, Keefe Jackson and Ausberto Acevedo.

The Chicago Edge Ensemble features the compositions of Dan Phillips and the highly interactive and dynamic collective ensemble improvisations of Avreeayl Ra, Jeb Bishop, Josh Berman, and Krzysztof Pabian. The quintet will perform two sets at 8:30 and 9:30 pm.

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

Hanah Jon Taylor Quartet, including Kevin Carnes (percussion), Julian Reid (piano), and Emma Dayhuff (string bass), plays two sets.

Prodigal child Eli Namay returns with the 6th iteration of their sonic meditation for large ensemble, Sound Mass. Chicago turntable, cello, drums trio Hearsay performs a set.

Grace Papineau-Couture, aka Mountain Laurel, focuses on themes of drone and noise drawing on otherworldly and embodied experiences using the language of folk horror. Rami Gabriel and Karim Nagi (The Arab Blues) create an electro urban amalgam of Arab tradition and Chicago blues.

A night of three wide-ranging solo performances from distinct musicians from Chicago and Detroit.

Maria Elena Silva performs an intense, deconstructed interpretation of her latest work with Erez Dessel, Tyler Wagoner, and Scott Dean Taylor, and Bay-area saxophonist Phillip Greenlief and writer Claudia La Rocco unfurl their interdisciplinary project animals & giraffes with Chicago guests Tim Daisy and Kim Nucci.

This week’s Improvised Music Series features an all-star grouping of Chicago musicians, convened by drummer and composer Tommaso Moretti to flip the approach of his Inside Out project into electroacoustic abstractions. Opening the evening is Chicago-born, Bay Area experimental staple Andrew Jamieson, presenting solo piano deconstructions that are equal parts free jazz, gospel, and Ives-ian mashup.

This week’s Improvised Music Series welcomes a menagerie of musicians from Chicago and the Greater Midwest.

First time quartet of guitarist Seth Andrew Davis (Kansas CIty), violinist Alex Cunningham (St. Louis), bassist Andrew Scott Young (Chicago), and drummer Weasel Walter (Chicago) share the night with a duo of saxophonist Sarah Clausen (Chicago) and pianist Erez Dessel (Chicago).

Simone Baron (NYC) / Emily Rach Beisel (Chicago) duo, followed by a fresh new ensemble presented by The Bridge blending musicians from France and Chicago!

2 sets, starting at 8:30PM

$15/$10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door