LeRoy Bach + Mai Sugimoto / Jason Stein + Paul Giallorenzo + Ausberto Acevedo + Tyler Damon

-LeRoy Fredrick Bach is an American musician, composer, and music producer. He has hosted musical gatherings, fostered musical collaborations, and led bands in Chicago since 1990. Bach is perhaps best known for his work as a multi-instrumentalist in the band Wilco from 1997 through 2004.

-Mai Sugimoto is a saxophonist, composer, educator, and active member of Chicago’s jazz and creative music scene. Born/Raised, her debut album (Asian Improv Records, 2018), explores her Japanese American cultural and musical binary, juxtaposing, among others, a jazz rendition of a Japanese children’s song alongside compositions inspired by the American jazz idiom. Her first solo album, monologue (Asian Improv Records, 2021) was heralded as “one of the year’s most memorable sonic statements with its ferocious physicality and melodic sensibility” (Brad Rose, Foxy Digitalis). Sunlight Filtering Through Leaves (Asian Improv Records, 2024) is Sugimoto’s most recent album as a leader. “She breaks down phrases with the muscle and rigor of vintage Sonny Rollins spiked with a more feverish tone that clearly connects her to the ESP soul-streaked blowers like Charles Tyler,” declares Peter Margasak in his review for Nowhere Street. “[The album] conveys that singular joy of good improvised music, when it’s not about ripping solos but group unity. Naturally, I’m advising you all to pay close attention to Sugimoto from here on out.”

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-Jason Stein is among the mere handful of improvisers who play the bass clarinet exclusively. Stein leads the acclaimed trio Locksmith Isidore as well as his own quartet. He contributes to several of the leading bands on Chicago’s new-music scene and has brought a vital voice to the freest of free-jazz jams. Stein’s playing showcases an extraordinary expertise on the bass clarinet, which ranges from powerful post-bop lines to ear-grabbing wails in the altissimo range. Chicago writer Neil Tesser notes that “Stein’s playing has a rawboned swagger particular to Chicago jazz in all its manifestations – from the trad playing of Bud Freeman and Jimmy McPartland in the 20s, through the tenor titans of the 50s, through the adventurers who formed the AACM in the 60s, and right up to the city’s renowned modern cadre of new-music improvisers.” Stein moved to Chicago in 2005 and has since recorded for such labels as Leo, Delmark, Not Two, Atavistic, 482 Music, Clean Feed, Astral Spirits, and Northern Spy. Stein has performed throughout the US and Europe as both a bandleader and sideman and has amassed a discography of over 40 albums.

-Originally from Long Island, NY,  Paul Giallorenzo is a Chicago-based improviser, composer, producer, and sound designer using piano, synthesizer, keyboards, and electronics in a diverse range of contexts with a wide array of Chicago and international musicians in improvised, avant-jazz, experimental, and electro/acoustic music, performing regularly locally and throughout North America and Europe.

Giallorenzo’s work has been praised for its “inside-out” nature – his ability to push the boundaries of “conventional” jazz toward more freedom but also, on the other side, to bring a measure of structure to more avant-garde material. Writing in the online journal Point Of Departure, John Litweiler said, “His solos and aggressive duets are gems of after-Bop, after-Bley melody,” while AllAboutJazz.org lauded music that “smudges the lines between the tradition and the avant-garde.”

His work can be found on the Chicago-based Delmark Records and Austin-based Astral Spirits labels, as well as various other imprints including Leo Records (UK), Not Two Records (Poland), and 482 Music (NY).

Giallorenzo is the Artistic Director of the intermedia arts organization Homeroom and a co-founder and programmer of the music venue/art gallery Elastic Arts, producing hundreds of creative music concerts and art events in Chicago since 2001.

-Ausberto Acevedo is an award winning bassist, composer, improviser, and teacher performing regularly both live and in the studio. Ausberto has performed or recorded with a variety of musicians from around the world. Ausberto is a founding member of Resonance Arts, a nonprofit organization dedicated to presenting unconventional performance in unlikely spaces throughout the greater Chicago area. Finally, Acevedo teaches orchestra at Evanston Township High School in Evanston, IL

-TYLER DAMON (b. 1987, Cincinnati, Ohio) is a drummer, improviser and educator. He currently resides in Chicago, Illinois.

In addition to solo work, Tyler’s contemporary outfits include a longtime duo with saxophonist Dave Rempis, as well as a quartet alongside Rempis, Jason Adasiewicz and Joshua Abrams. He is found frequently in duet with tenor saxophonist Gerrit Hatcher, expanded in trio with bassist Andrew Scott Young. Where Were We, a triad completed by Erez Dessel on keys and Beth McDonald on tuba and electronics, was formed in 2023. Tyler is also often seen and heard accompanying guitarist Eli Winter in the company of Sam Wagster on pedal steel.
Tyler has earned recognition previously for extended duo exhibitions with guitarist Tashi Dorji. Their trio Kuzu, also featuring Dave Rempis, formed in 2017, leading All About Jazz to insist that their work “is for audacious listeners and it isn’t like anything else.” He has also been recognized for his past work with bassist Darin Gray as Duo Oninbo, the Mars Williams-led Exit Plan (with Brian Sandstrom & Steve Marquette), and Haley Fohr’s chameleonic Circuit Des Yeux, among many others.

Tyler has toured extensively in North America, Europe, Vietnam, & Colombia and is also regularly engaged with other artists, musicians and heads of various sorts across the American Midwest. His recorded output has been offered by myriad labels including Family Vineyard, Astral Spirits, Aerophonic, Trost, Magnetic South, Feeding Tube, Drag City, Matador, Three Lobed, Auris Apothecary, Sophomore Lounge, Amalgam, Longform Editions, Medium Sound, Long Gone Sound System, Let’s Pretend, Park 70 & his own Yoke (currently on a temporary hiatus).