The Madison Music Collective, Unofficial Productions, Fire Worship Studios and Escape Java Joint jointly and proudly present: A kickoff concert for the "Collective Escape" series of improvised music and the grand opening of Escape Java Joint's new space at 940 Williamson Street, featuring The JoAnne Pow!ers Chicago Trio with Sharp Stick In The Eye and the Connors/Kalfayan/Randolph Trio, on Saturday, June 13th.

In addition to celebrating the opening of the coffeehouse's new location, art gallery and music hall, the concert will be the first event associated with the Madison Music Collective's "Collective Escape" series of improvised music, featuring weekly performances by local, regional, national and international musicians. The series aims to fill a gaping vacuum in Madison's musical landscape by providing a regular venue for challenging and adventurous creative music. (The actual series will be on Tuesdays at Escape, starting June 23rd.)

The concert is headlined by the first Madison appearance of the JoAnne Pow!ers Chicago Trio. Uniting infamous Madison saxophonist JoAnne Pow!ers with Chicagoans Andrew Royal and Brian Sulpizio, the JPCT combines firey improvisation with propulsive rhythms and trance-inducing psychedelic soundscapes. Royal's complex textures and Sulpizio's unerring pulse mesh electrically with Pow!ers' ecstatic speaking-in-tongues for an unparalleled listening experience.

The Connors/Kalfayan/Randolph Trio re-unites saxophonist and flautist Brennan Connors, originally from Madison, with former Know Boundaries bandmate Jermel Randolph to explore collaboration between energetic instrumental improvisations and insightful spoken word. Joining them to round out this dynamic trio is local bassist Alex Kalfayan.

Additionally, the concert will feature the first reunion of saxophone trio Sharp Stick In The Eye in four years. Originally formed in Madison in 2004 by JoAnne Pow!ers, Brennan Connors and Ryan Novak, SSITE explores spontaneous compositions of unrelenting intensity. Bringing both Connors and Novak back to Madison for this historic occasion, the trio will be joined for this performance by intuitive Madison-area bassist Jennifer Pendur.

Promotional assistance for this event is being provided by 89.9FM WORT, Madison's Listener Sponsored Community radio station. The suggested donation is $7.

When: 7PM, Saturday, June 13th, 2009

Where: Escape Java Joint

940 Williamson Street

(Note the new location, behind LaRocca's Restaurant)

Who: The JoAnne Pow!ers Chicago Trio:

JoAnne Pow!ers - Saxophones

Andrew Royal - Violins

Brian Sulpizio - Drums

Brennan Connors/Alex Kalfayan/Jermel Randolph Trio:

Brennan Connors - Saxophones and Flute

Alex Kalfayan - Bass

Jermel Randolph - Poetry/Spoken Word

Sharp Stick In The Eye [plus one]:

JoAnne Pow!ers - Saxophones

Brennan Connors - Saxophones

Ryan Novak - Saxophones

Jennifer Pendur - Bass

Upcoming Related Events:

- Saturday, June 20, 8PM - The JoAnne Pow!ers/Jennifer Pendur Duo, Summer Solstice Concert @ Mother Fool's Coffeehouse, 1101 Willimson St.

- Tuesday, June 23 - The Collective Escape Series: The Patrick Breiner Trio @ Escape Java Joint, 940 Williamson St.

- Saturday, August 8, 8PM - Madison Music Collective Summer Music Summit with the Hanah Jon Taylor Quartet, the JoAnne Pow!ers Quartet, and TBA, location TBA.

More Information at:

www.mmcmusic.org

www.joannepowers.org

Performer Biographies:

JoAnne Pow!ers:

Free jazz outlaw JoAnne Pow!ers plays frequently in the Madison Area both as a solo act and with her trio (The aptly-named JoAnne Pow!ers Trio). Pow!ers also makes occasional appearances in the [sometimes literally] underground music scenes of New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Her frenetic saxophone abuse is often compared to that of Albert Ayler and Peter Brötzmann, with further influences from late-period John Coltrane and legendary Japanese free-improviser Kaoru Abe. With a tone that has been known to alternately peel the paint off of walls and lull angry babies to sleep, Pow!ers is known for her lightning-fast keywork, and heavy use of multiphonics and other extended techniques. While largely operating within the "Energy music" school of improvisation, Pow!ers' music also incorporates elements of the music of the Middle East and India. In addition to her trios, Pow!ers' collaborators have included New York percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani; Dave Rempis (saxophones), Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello), Tim Daisy (percussion), Jaimie Branch (trumpet) and Marc Riordan (percussion) of Chicago's thriving improvised music scene; extreme vocalist D.B. Pedersen, and the late multi-instrumentalist Lyx Ish.

Jennifer Pendur:

Jennifer Pendur evolved her eclectic multidimensional musical aesthetic from many sources, including early exposure to Cleveland radio during its experimental non-commercial heyday. As a child she cheerfully absorbed musical influences from anywhere and everywhere, discovering in her teens the works of John Cage, Morton Feldman, Arnold Schoenberg, Ornette Coleman, and Charles Mingus. The interplay of natural environmental sounds and "noise" has always fascinated her, and she began composing with magnetic tape in eight grade, when she became fascinated with collage and its application to sound and begged her parents for a tape recorder. While she has also studied French horn, piano, flute, guitar and dulcimer, her bass and her voice are her primary instruments at this time. She took up the upright bass after moving to Chicago in 1974, and has studied at length with the legendary Russell Thorne, and also recorded with him in the Giordanisti Trio and Emergency Theatre Ensemble. During her tenure in the Midwest improvised music scene, she has also performed with the likes of Donald Raphael Garrett, Chicago free-jazz legend Hal Russel (who began his avant-garde career with Russell Thorne in the Joe Daley Trio), and Milwaukee instrument-inventor Hal Rammel. She has appeared numerous times with the astonishing jazz-rock guitarist Elijah Israel (now tragically deceased) in the psychedelic jam-band Earthen Vessels.

Andrew Royal:

Andrew Royal plays violin and other bowed string instruments of his own devising. With his longtime band WUMMIN, Andrew toured extensively on the West Coast in 2008, playing with Gino Robair, Jon Raskin, Philip Greenlief, Ava Mendoza, Stuart Liebig, Jeff Kaiser, Bert Wilson, and The Evolutionary Jass Band. Since moving to Chicago in August, 2008, Andrew has performed regularly at such venues as the Empty Bottle, Heaven Gallery, Enemy, and Hotti Biscotti. Andrew frequently collaborates with Brian Sulpizio, Andrew Scott Young, Mike Forbes, Aaron Zarzutzki, Josh Manchester, and many other up-and-coming investigators of sound. On May 22, Andrew performed live on Northwestern University's radio station, WNUR 89.3 FM, in a duo with San Francisco percussionist Gino Robair.

Brennan Connors:

Madison-expatriate Brennan Connors plays tenor and soprano sax and flute in several contexts in Chicago's improvised-music landscape. Among his current projects are aggressive free-improv oufits Lunabile (with saxophonist Mike Forbes, bassist Andrew Scott Young and drummer Joshua Manchester), Asylum (with drummer Dan Siakel) and Origin of Animal. Before relocating to Chicago, Connors was involved in a wide variety of Madison-area groups, ranging from hip-hop and rock in Know Boundaries, to blues as a part of Tate's Million Dollar Band, to confrontational free-jazz of Sharp Stick In The Eye.

Brian Sulpizio:

Drummer and guitarist Brian Sulpizio performs in several diverse musical projects. Sulpizio fronts Chicago power-trio Health&Beauty, with influences ranging from Sonny Sharrock and Derek Bailey to the Dirty Projectors and the Sea and Cake. As an improvising drummer, he plays in Good Swift Goose, the Bell Quintet, WUMMIN, and the Nick Morrison Trio. Sulpizio also operates Chicago recording studio The Chateau, where he has recorded many of the city's most noted improvising musicians.

Alex Kalfayan:

Bassist Alex Kalfayan, a student of Richard Davis at the University of Wisconsin. Kalfayan has also worked with improvising ensembles at Hanah Jon Taylor's Madison Center for Creative and Cultural Arts.

Jermel Randolph:

Published poet Jermel Randolph is a highly-regarded spoken-word artist in the Madison area, known for his thought-provoking verse and highly individual flow. Randolph is best known as the vocalist and rapper for Madison-based rock, funk and hiphop group Know Boundaries, which won a Madison Area Music Award for best hip-hop artist in 2004.

Ryan Novak:

Ryan Novak is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist (primarily guitars and saxophones) and composer currently based in Wisconsin. Initially a home studio hermit recording a catalog of unreleased material in a variety of experimental styles, the later influence of "free-improvisation" inspired an interest in performing. Since then, he has played with unstable free-jazz group, The Bastard Trio (including a short tour to the East Coast), as well as in isolated performances with Tim Daisy (of the Vandermark 5), Tatsuya Nakatani and others.