Graffiti Photographic
Mike Reed’s Myth/Science Assembly
This project is commissioned by the Experimental Sound Studio’s Creative Audio Archive, with generous support from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation
Mike Reed is on a mission. With three acclaimed albums, his band, People, Places and Things, has celebrated, paid tribute to, updated, and in some cases collaborated with heroes of Chicago jazz whose achievements during the ’50s are overlooked or in danger of falling off the cliff of collective memory. Artists like Walter Perkins, John Jenkins, Julian Priester, Wilbur Campbell and Ira Sullivan. Artists without whose sturdy foundation today’s exceptional crop of Chicago players would be a lot poorer.
Tonight, in a specially commissioned performance, Reed and an amazing young cutting-edge band drawn equally from New York and Chicago will explore the music and mythology of another key Chicago player from the era, Sun Ra. The basis for the work is the Experimental Sound Studio’s archive of some 700 hours of rehearsal tapes, masters, live recordings and vocal recitations left behind by Sun Ra. Some of those sounds will be the basis for newly composed music, while others will be used as samples and electronic backgrounds at Grant Park.
Reed, known as the man behind the Pitchfork Festival, will perform on drums and electronics. He’ll be joined by the Windy City alignment of vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, cellist Tomeka Reid, alto saxophonist Greg Ward, bassist Josh Abrams and electronics artist Nick Butcher. The New York contingent includes cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, drummer Tomas Fujiwara and two rising stars who together, and apart, have made some of the most exciting music of the past year: guitarist Mary Halvorson and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock. This should not be approached as a Sun Ra tribute, Reed emphasized, but an effort to make art out of unfinished pieces. The results could be magical.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4
Petrillo Music Shell
Mike Reed’s Myth/Science Assembly
5:00 – 5:50 pm
Mike Reed’s Myth/Science Assembly
This project is commissioned by the Experimental Sound Studio’s Creative Audio Archive, with generous support from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation
Mike Reed is on a mission. With three acclaimed albums, his band, People, Places and Things, has celebrated, paid tribute to, updated, and in some cases collaborated with heroes of Chicago jazz whose achievements during the ’50s are overlooked or in danger of falling off the cliff of collective memory. Artists like Walter Perkins, John Jenkins, Julian Priester, Wilbur Campbell and Ira Sullivan. Artists without whose sturdy foundation today’s exceptional crop of Chicago players would be a lot poorer.
Tonight, in a specially commissioned performance, Reed and an amazing young cutting-edge band drawn equally from New York and Chicago will explore the music and mythology of another key Chicago player from the era, Sun Ra. The basis for the work is the Experimental Sound Studio’s archive of some 700 hours of rehearsal tapes, masters, live recordings and vocal recitations left behind by Sun Ra. Some of those sounds will be the basis for newly composed music, while others will be used as samples and electronic backgrounds at Grant Park.
Reed, known as the man behind the Pitchfork Festival, will perform on drums and electronics. He’ll be joined by the Windy City alignment of vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, cellist Tomeka Reid, alto saxophonist Greg Ward, bassist Josh Abrams and electronics artist Nick Butcher. The New York contingent includes cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, drummer Tomas Fujiwara and two rising stars who together, and apart, have made some of the most exciting music of the past year: guitarist Mary Halvorson and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock. This should not be approached as a Sun Ra tribute, Reed emphasized, but an effort to make art out of unfinished pieces. The results could be magical.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4
Petrillo Music Shell
Mike Reed’s Myth/Science Assembly
5:00 – 5:50 pm