BoBo Gallery

An Evening with Aram Shelton’s Fast Citizens + Perlowin/Burkett

Thursday December 17th | Door at 9pm | $10 cover | limited seating

The Fast Citizens are the Chicago based sextet of Aram Shelton, Keefe Jackson, Josh Berman, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Anton Hatwich and Frank Rosaly. Formed in 2002 by Jackson, the Fast Citizens have decided upon a rotating leader chair and for their sophomore release Shelton has taken the reins as main composer. The title Two Cities reflects the geographic locale of Shelton, (currently based in Oakland, California), and his continued relationship with the active music scene in Chicago. Focusing on orchestration and structural variety, the Fast Citizens present a stylistically diverse album that includes hard swing, lush ballads, high-energy free improvisation, modern composition and Sun-Ra inspired grooves.

Fast Citizens continues to forge its own direction, reaching beyond formulaic conventions to embrace new forms. -All About Jazz

Their debut album, Ready Everyday (Delmark DE-571), was hailed by critics and described as “a meeting of highly skilled and individualistic players who channel their hard work into a cogent and coherent whole”. Two Cities documents the progress of this unique ensemble, comprised of increasingly visible members of the international jazz and improvised music community.

Excerpts from the liner notes by John Litweiler, author of Jazz After 1958, and Ornette Coleman, A Harmolodic Life:

There’s no comparing this music to any other. True, flashes of sound and song suggest kinship with other artists, and moreover, as Larry Kart pointed out in the Ready Everyday notes, jazz’s past has enriched Fast Citizens’ present: “These are the ears and sensibilities of musicians who know both their Ornette Coleman and their Sidney Bechet, their Morton Feldman and their Ruby Braff…” Yes, their sense of playing together has been refined by experience and big ears. More than that, and I think the reason this album is so moving, is each man’s strong sense of presence, immediacy….
Emphatically, all the Fast Citizens don’t just improvise — they compose on the spot, together. It’s what Shelton does, especially in The Twenty-Seven in the loveliest alto-sax solo I’ve heard Mr. Coleman came to town… He plays clarinet in In Cycles, building a musical edifice with spaced, broken phrases and stuttered notes, and in another alto style, with many notes, in his Two Cities trio improvisation… each of his improvisations has its own integrity, its unity, its sense of being composed on the spot.

Perlowin/Burkett is the improv duo of guitarist Shane Perlowin and bassist Joseph Burkett.

Saturday December 12th | Door at 8pm | $3 cover for Scrooges & Grinches

Music for the evening provided by Kipper, and kick ass visuals by Megan McAssKick.

Kippers says:

This is a no holds barred dance party. No sweater is too ugly. No song is too cheesy. No one is too cool. Get yourself a tacky christmas/hannukah/kwanza/cosby sweater and get to BoBo gallery to dance in the holidays.

An Evening with Rempis/Rosaly Duo and Lulo

Thursday December 10th | Door at 9pm | $10 cover | limited seating

Saxophonist Dave Rempis and drummer Frank Rosaly have performed and recorded together in countless projects since Rosaly arrived on the Chicago scene in 2001, including The Rempis Percussion Quartet, The Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten Quintet, The Outskirts, and The Thread Quintet. Both musicians have established themselves as prominent players in the active milieu of the Chicago jazz scene, and spend as much time on the road in North America and Europe as they do at home. Their duo, active since 2004, focuses on the wide-ranging possibilities inherent to free-improvisation. And while both musicians are comfortable in the more abstract sonic spaces pioneered by European improvisers, neither one shies away from hard-hitting grooves, nor are they afraid of melodies or swing. Having allowed this relationship to develop gradually over the years, they decided to record their first duo release for 482 music, a label with which each musician has a significant history.

ABOUT THE MUSICIANS

DAVE REMPIS

Over the last decade, Dave Rempis has emerged as one of the most active young players in the Chicago jazz and improvised music scene. Rempis graduated from Northwestern University in 1997 with a degree in anthropology, focusing in ethnomusicology, and a year spent at the University of Ghana, Legon in 1995-96. Since 1998, his work with the Vandermark Five as the “other” saxophonist has established him as one of the up-and-coming voices of his generation, and has also provided him the opportunity to perform extensively in clubs, concert halls, and festivals throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe. His own groups, including the Rempis Percussion Quartet, Triage, The Engines, The Rempis/Daisy Duo, and The Dave Rempis Quartet, have toured regularly throughout Europe and North America, and have been documented on the Okkadisk, 482 Music, Solitaire, Utech, and Not Two record labels. In addition to these groups, Rempis plays regularly with Ken Vandermark’s Territory Band, The Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten Quintet, The Outskirts, and the Rempis/Bishop/ Kessler/Zerang Quartet. His frequent ad hoc collaborations have included performances with Paul Lytton, Axel Doerner, Peter Brotzmann, Hamid Drake, Kevin Drumm, Paul Nilsson-Love, Tony Buck, and David Stackenas. As a founding member of the Chicago presenters’ collective Umbrella Music, Rempis curates a weekly concert series at Elastic, as well as the annual Umbrella Music Festival, now in its fourth year. Rempis has also been named as a Talent Deserving Wider Recognition in both the alto and baritone saxophone categories in the annual Downbeat Magazine International Critics’ Poll.

www.daverempis.com

FRANK ROSALY

Frank Rosaly is a percussionist and composer currently living in Chicago. Over the last 10 years he has become an integral part of the Chicago scene, navigating a fine line between the vibrant improvised music, indie-rock, experimental music, and jazz communities. He contributes much of his time to performing, composing, teaching, and organizing musical events, while managing a heavy touring schedule that takes him throughout North America and Europe.

Frank is currently active in many different groups. Some of these include Rob Mazurek’s Mandarin Movie, The Rempis Percussion Quartet, The Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten Quintet, Jeff Parker/Nels Cline Quartet, Matana Robert’s Chicago Project, Fred Lonberg-Holm’s Valentine Trio, Keefe Jackson’s Fast Citizens, The Jeb Bishop Trio, Jason Adasievicz’s Rolldown, Jorrit Dijkstra’s Flatlands Collective, The Chicago Lucern Exchange, and The Daniel Levin Trio. Rosaly also leads his own quintet, Viscous, featuring his original compositions. Other recent performances include collaborations with Peter Brotzmann, Tony Malaby, Anthony Coleman, Paul Flaherty, Marshall Allen, Louis Moholo, Eric Boeren, Ken Vandermark, Michael Zerang, and Walter Weirbos, among many others.

www.frankrosaly.com

Lulo is a rhythmic minimalist duo exploring pure sound through unconventional approaches to conventional instruments. It is the side project of Shane Perlowin and Ryan Oslance, guitarist and drummer for the band Ahleuchatistas.
www.myspace.com/lulolulolulolulo

Monday December 7th | Door at 9pm | $5 cover

Currently on tour supporting their second full length release “Ashes Grammar”, Philadelphia septet A Sunny Day in Glasgow have received critical acclaim for a sound that Pitchfork describes as:

…pop music masterfully puzzled together…from a group of writers strong enough to keep you humming and courageous enough to make you guess.

Playing with local favorites Ventricles who recently completed their first east coast tour.

Please join us this Friday from 5 to 8pm for a special Holiday Art Show + Sale opening reception. We’ll be featuring paintings, ceramics, drawings and sculpture created by local artists for you to peruse and purchase.  The gallery will also be open from 10am-6pm on Saturday Dec. 5th and noon until 5pm on Sunday. We look forward to seeing you!

Artists include:

Robin Van Valkenburgh – ceramic figurines
Gecko – ceramic tiles
Xati – paintings
Brad Reichardt – sculpture
Ted Harper – paintings
Ursula Gullow – paintings/prints
Beatriz Mendoza – graphite drawings

Enacting Exhausted Language / Exhausting Enacted Language

Tuesday November 24th | Door at 8pm | $3 cover

New media artist and UNCA assistant professor Curt Cloninger will discuss his art work and related research at this month’s Off the MAP event. Cloninger’s art undermines language as a system of meaning in order to reveal it as an embodied force in the world. His materials are spoken words, sounds, hand-written words, lines, objects coupled with words, objects as words, light, and time. He orchestrates these materials using video, software, performances, installations, and networks. By layering, restructuring, hashing, eroding, exhausting, and (dis)splaying language, he causes language to perform itself until its “meaning” has less to do with what it denotes and more to do with how it behaves.
This talk is in conjunction with Cloninger’s upcoming performance at Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center on November 29… info is here.

Curt Cloninger is an artist, writer, and Assistant Professor of Multimedia Arts & Sciences at the University of North Carolina Asheville. His work has been featured in the New York Times, ABC World News, and at festivals and galleries from Korea to Brazil. Exhibition venues include Digital Art Museum [DAM] Berlin, L’Instituto de México à Paris, Living Arts of Tulsa, and The Art Gallery of Knoxville. Cloninger also maintains lab404.com, playdamage.org, and deepyoung.org in order to facilitate a more lively remote dialogue with the Sundry Essences of Wonder.

The Media Arts Project presents “Off The MAP” a monthly series featuring  new media arts, artists, discussions, & screenings. For more information visit their website: http://www.themap.org/

SKYRATS: New Paperworks by Edwards Harper

Opening reception, November 21, 7:00–11:00PM

Artist’s website: http://edwardsharper.com/

An Evening with Tatsuya Nakatani and Dr. Eugene Chadbourne

Saturday November 11th | Door at 9:30pm | $10 cover | limited seating

Percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani and guitarist, banjoist and composer Eugene Chadbourne aka Doc Chad came together first circa 2007 when the former sent the following email message from his home in Pennsylvania to the notorious House of Chadula in Greensboro, North Carolina:
“Hello, I want to come South and play Johnny Cash train beat with you.”
Of course the Doc’s radar went up, having spent decades in an intense if sometimes inexplicable mangling of American country and western, Appalachian folk, rock and roll and international free improvisation and noise music.
Within months Nakatani had entered the geographical region known informally as “Cackalackee” and the two were performing in a series of club dates in Greensboro, Chapel Hill and Winston Salem. Several New York City shows followed including the legendary New Directions in Appalachian Music evening at John Zorn’s club The Stone during the 2008 Chadfest.
Scheduling problems prevented the duo from further collaboration, but here they are again in a weeklong swing that will take them not only back to the Carolinas but will include shows in Tennessee, Alabama and Virginia.
During the first go-round Doc Chad was delighted to learn that Nakatani had fronted a bossa nova band at various points in his career and could sing in Portugese. Thus, a small set of bossa was also added to the show which of course includes a tribute to Johnny Cash as well as a variety Doc Chad’s original songs from a catalog that has been expanding since since the early ’80s Shockabilly years.
In this period Chadbourne mostly focuses on these original songs, including a great deal of political and social satire. In collaborations as well as solo, these songs are launching pads for improvisations that are likely to go anywhere. The duet show also features solo sections by both performers.

Eugene Chadbourne – USA
BIOGRAPHY:
The task of describing the life and work of Eugene Chadbourne (aka Dr. Chadula) is more than daunting. His music is so unique, and his output over almost thirty years of music-making is so vast, as to defy description To that must be added so many other skills and important contributions to music. He is truly a Renaissance man, a rebel among rebels. When I first thought about both an anniversary festival and a special focus on improvisation and collaboration across traditions, Dr. Chad’s name appeared in red neon letters.

He began playing guitar at an early age. Noticing that girls liked The Beatles, he thought perhaps learning to play the guitar could lead to getting a girlfriend. Having rejected the other two paths to this desirable outcome, beating people up and being good at sports, he began to teach himself how to play. What began with a simple boyish dream and a Herman’s Hermits record turned into a musical odyssey that has connected the dots between the Appalachians and the edges of the known musical universe. Along the way, he’s taught himself the banjo as well as piano, bass and drums.

Eugene is a music lover who listens to the world with an open mind, which is reflected in his sets. A typical one could include the music of Thelonious Monk, Eric Satie, Merle Haggard, Phil Ochs along with his own. Some of the departure points may be familiar, but even if you have heard him play a song before, you won’t hear it the same way again. Each performance and each listening is unique. It has to be. To paraphrase an old saying “you can’t play the same note twice” and at the heart of improvisation is an awareness of music, the instrument, the place and all that has led up to that moment. The improvisational music scene can sometimes get a bit rarefied and oblique, but Eugene’s guiding star is his ongoing love for country music. It is not a repertoire customarily heard in New York’s The Knitting Factory or the avant-garde festivals of Europe, but Dr. Chad has made it so.

The list of artists he has collaborated with runs into pages. Camper Van Beethoven, John Zorn, Aki Takase, Jimmy Carl Black, and the Violent Femmes are just a handful, appearing in clubs, galleries and festivals and in one case, a command performance with Tony Trischka for William S. Burroughs.
He has also written widely about music, inventing the touring diary when he described his travels with Shockabilly in 1984, and creating books including I Hate the Man Who Runs This Bar. He is one of the founders of the “low-fi” or “low tech” movement that came to see thousands of artists creating and releasing their own cassettes (and now CDs) on their own labels. He has also inspired many as a creator of instruments. His electric rake has motivated many artists to build new instruments and expand the sonic landscape. When you combine all of the above with his penchant for speaking out loud and clear about what exactly the hell seems to be going on, you have an unforgettable artist whose connection to folk is both deep and wide.

Tatsuya Nakatani
-Percussionist-

BIOGRAPHY:
Tatsuya Nakatani (percussion) is originally from Osaka, Japan. In 2006 he performed in 80 cities in 7 countries and collaborated with 163 artists worldwide. In the past 10 years he has released nearly 50 recordings on CD.

He has created his own instrumentation, effectively inventing many instruments and extended techniques. He utilizes drumset, bowed gongs, cymbals, singing bowls, metal objects, bells, and various sticks and bows to create an intense, organic music that defies category or genre. His music is based in improvised/ experimental music, jazz, free jazz, rock, and noise, yet retains the sense of space and beauty found in traditional Japanese folk music.

In addition to live solo and ensemble performances he works as a sound designer for film and television. He also teaches Masterclasses and Workshops at the University level. He also heads H&H Production, an independent record label and recording studio based in Easton, Pennsylvania. He was selected as a performing artist for the Pennsylvania Performing Artist on Tour (PennPat) roster as well as a Bronx Arts Council Individual Artist grant.

David Zaig

“Weighting”

Curated by Ben Betsalel
Opening reception, October 10, 6:00–9:00PM

More info on the artist at his website.