Spring & Summer 2024

Upcoming Shows, Spring & Summer 2024

– Wednesday, March 20th – Eli Winter trio (w/ Sam Wagster) w/ Jonah Parzen-Johnson, Dr. Pete Larson @ Trinosophes (1464 Gratiot Ave.), Detroit, MI

– Friday, March 22nd – Eli Winter trio (w/ Sam Wagster) @ Big Ears Festival, Boyd’s Jig & Reel (101 S. Central St.), Knoxville, TN

– Saturday, March 23rd – Eli Winter trio (w/ Sam Wagster) @ Big Ears Festival, Boyd’s Jig & Reel (101 S. Central St.), Knoxville, TN

– Monday, March 25th – Eli Winter trio (w/ Sam Wagster) w/ Ibex Clone, Wesley Wolffe @ Hi Tone (282 N. Cleveland St.), Memphis, TN

– Wednesday, March 27th – solo performance w/ Ben Fowler / Josh Olivo / Chuck Roldan trio @ Jefferson St. Music Studio (2051 W. Fountain Dr.), Bloomington, IN

– Thursday, March 28th – solo performance w/ Mere Man, Jordan Munson @ State Street Pub (243 N. State Ave.), Indianapolis, IN

– Friday, April 5th – duo w/ Mark Feldman w/ Josh Berman / Julian Kirshner / Jim Baker trio @ Marmalade (1117 W. Lake St.), Chicago, IL

– Thursday, April 25th – duo w/ Gerrit Hatcher w/ LeRoy Bach / Mai Sugimoto duo @ Fry Like An Eagle (2420 W. Fullerton Ave.), Chicago, IL

– Sunday, April 28th – trio w/ Gerrit Hatcher & Andrew Scott Young w/ Josh Berman / Keefe Jackson / Michael Zerang trio @ Hungry Brain (2319 W. Belmont Ave.), Chicago, IL

– Wednesday, May 1st – duo w/ Matt Shuff w/ Dani Dobkin / Matt Sargent duo, Jonathan Moritz / Mike Pride duo, Eternities (Bob Bellerue / Katie Porter) @ CuteLab (61 S. Ninth St.), Brooklyn, NY

– Thursday, May 2nd – Cartoon (double drums) w/ Animal Surrender @ Jerry’s On Front (2341 N. Front St.), Philadelphia, PA

– Saturday, May 4th – duo w/ Matt Shuff w/ Carnivorous Bells, Bill Nace / Anne Ishii duo @ Khyber Pass Pub (56 S. 2nd St.), Philadelphia, PA

– Saturday, May 11th  – duo w/ Dave Rempis @ The Spot Tavern (409 S. 4th St.), Lafayette, IN

– Sunday, May 12th – quartet w/ Dave Rempis, Joshua Abrams & Jason Adasiewicz @ Hungry Brain (2319 W. Belmont Ave.), Chicago, IL

– Saturday, May 18th – Where Were We (trio w/ Erez Dessel & Beth McDonald) @ Pro Musica (713 W. Wrightwood Ave.), Chicago, IL

– Sunday, May 19th – Where Were We (trio w/ Erez Dessel & Beth McDonald) @ Compound Yellow (244 Lake St.), Oak Park, IL

– Tuesday, June 11th – duo w/ Dave Rempis @ The Whistler (2421 N. Milwaukee), Chicago, IL

– Wednesday, June 12th – duo w/ Dave Rempis @ The Blockhouse (205 S. College Ave.), Bloomington, IN

– Monday, June 17th – Where Were We (trio w/ Erez Dessel & Beth McDonald) @ Fulton Street Collective (1821 W. Hubbard St.), Chicago, IL

– Friday, July 5th – duo w/ Dave Rempis w/ Drazek-Fuscaldo @ Hungry Brain (2319 W. Belmont Ave.), Chicago, IL

– Thursday, July 18th – Where Were We (trio w/ Erez Dessel & Beth McDonald) @ Color Club (4146 N. Elston Ave.), Chicago, IL

February 29, 2024   [permalink]  

Rambling Upon The Tail End of Summer

After a Summer largely spent away from the public eye I’m returning with a series of performances, the first of which is a particularly exceptional occasion. Please come celebrate the extraordinary gift Dave Rempis has bestowed upon improvising musicians and our audience here in Chicago for the last 20+ years on August 31st at Elastic Arts, his final night as head honcho of the Improvised Music Series. Our quartet, also featuring Joshua Abrams and Jason Adasiewicz, will be performing two sets. This series helped to introduce me as an improviser to Chicago years before I moved here and I cannot overstate the impact it has had on my life here, and generally, as a musician and as a listener. Thank you, Dave!

I am also excited to be back on the road again in trio with Eli Winter and Sam Wagster for a mostly Eastern US outing from September 5th-September 17th. We will have some new pieces in the mix…please make it out if you can – dates below:

– Thursday, August 31st – quartet w/ Dave Rempis, Joshua Abrams & Jason Adasiewicz @ Elastic Arts (3429 W. Diversey Ave.), Chicago, IL

Eli Winter trio dates

– Tuesday, September 5th – Eli Winter (trio w/ Sam Wagster) w/ Dave King / Chris Weller duo @ 21c Museum Hotel (167 W. Main St.), Lexington, KY

– Thursday, September 7th – Eli Winter (trio w/ Sam Wagster) w/ Mark & Joseph Mathis @ Petra’s Bar (1919 Commonwealth Ave.), Charlotte, NC

– Friday, September 8th – Eli Winter (trio w/ Sam Wagster), Three Lobed Records Annual Ritual of Summoning day party w/ Object Hours, Emily Robb, Nathan Bowles trio, Magic Tuber String Band @ Kings (14 W. Martin St.), Raleigh, NC

– Saturday, September 9th – Eli Winter (trio w/ Sam Wagster) w/ Susan Alcorn @ Rhizome DC (6950 Maple St. NW), Washington DC

– Monday, September 11th – Eli Winter (trio w/ Sam Wagster) w/ Major Stars, Thalia Zadek @ O’Brien’s Pub (3 Harvard Ave.), Allston, MA

– Tuesday, September 12th – Eli Winter trio (w/ Sam Wagster) w/ Asher White @ Machines With Magnets (400 Main St.), Pawtucket, RI

– Thursday, September 14th – Eli Winter trio (w/ Sam Wagster) w/ Lea Bertucci, M0nogamy (Storey Littleton & Livia Reiner) @ Tubby’s (586 Broadway), Kingston, NY

– Friday, September 15th – Eli Winter trio (w/ Sam Wagster) w/ BASIC (Nick Millevoi & Chris Forsyth) @ University Lutheran Church (3637 Chestnut St.), Philadelphia, PA

– Saturday, September 16th – Eli Winter trio (w/ Sam Wagster) w/ Steve Gunn / Ryan Sawyer duo @ Public Records (233 Butler St.), Brooklyn, NY

August 29, 2023   [permalink]  

In Memory of Pete Magadini

Photo by Jack Damon.

I would be remiss in not acknowledging the passing of my teacher, mentor and friend Peter Magadini (b. 1/25/42, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, d. 8/13/23, Boise, Idaho).

I met Pete serendipitously one evening while house-managing a show at Constellation in Chicago. I had been looking to sharpen aspects of my playing that I had been cultivating in a personal, visceral kind of way and was seeking a teacher in the city to help give shape to these sometimes successful, but often underdeveloped, musical gestures. I knew I was trying to punch above my weight and had been for some time. He passed me a card and gently urged me to get in touch. Sam Ospovat, who played that night in Ava Mendoza’s Unnatural Ways, shared that he had previously studied (“…and probably still should be…”) under Pete and likewise encouraged me to reach out to him. I went home that night and searched for some evidence of Pete’s work online and swiftly had my mind blown. He was unveiling a world of which I was largely unaware and I wondered what else he might reveal. So, I called him up. Ask and you shall receive.

By Summer’s end I was visiting Pete every other week or so at his South Loop condo where he lived with his wife Hélène and their dog, Ryder. His tutelage was tailored to each student’s needs, culled from over six decades of experience as a working drummer and a lifetime of kaleidoscopic study across many percussive disciplines and teaching methodologies, all held in equipoise. It took little time for him to discover the holes in my playing and set about remedying them. He had high expectations of his students and demanded serious work and effort, bolstering and refining our existing foundations and positioning us to carry these ideas in any direction we desired. It was the most focused period of study I’ve ever undertaken on the drums. Without Pete I would not be playing the way I am, nor would I have become a teacher myself.

Though he only ever asked to be compensated for hour-long lessons, he was exceedingly generous with his time. I’d typically spend two or three hours with him during many of our visits, and not just in dialogue about the drums. Pete was a great conversationalist, incredibly funny and never without a good story to tell. I’m not really sure where to begin, and I will surely leave many figures out, but the stories he shared with me about the social and musical connections Pete made in the world are staggering and multi-directional, so I’ll share a handful of them.

Pete told tales of developing as a performer in country & western bands while still only a teenager in Phoenix, and of working with legends such as Lee Hazlewood and Phil Spector in the studio. His familiarity with the genre eventually led to his later work with country music star Bobbie Gentry. Musically boundless by nature, his work was not confined to country or rock and roll. His ultimate musical love was jazz, and to greater musical experiments, in many forms. Remembering the earlier sixties in the Bay Area, Pete recalled jam sessions and lunches with a young Ferrell Sanders, known then as “Little Rock,” just before Sanders relocated to New York City and connected with Sun Ra who christened him “Pharoah.”

His interest in polymeters and polyrhythms seems to date back primarily to his time studying under Tabla master Pandit Mahapurush Misra at the Ali Akbar Khan School in Berkeley, California, 1967. Pete inferred that the demands of the class filtered out the would-be hippie dilettantes and was ultimately whittled down to only four students – one of which was Richard Alpert, better known as the new age spiritual teacher Ram Dass, just before his storied departure for India. I can’t speak on Ram Dass’ Tabla abilities, but Misra’s instruction, in great part, placed Pete on the path that would become his life’s work.

His 1970s period saw collaborations ranging from the aforementioned Ms. Gentry to Diana Ross, drumming for her on her first ever solo tour, to George Duke (prior to his work in Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, and who also appears on Pete’s 1975 Polyrhythm LP), to the Canadian Electronic Ensemble (music that is still unheard and unavailable to the general public, but is my favorite, and the most genuinely outside and forward-thinking, of all the work he shared with me privately). His resume likewise includes work with John Handy, Mose Allison, Chet Baker, Al Jarreau, Don Menza and Sonny Stitt, among many others. His career as a working musician extends far beyond what I am listing here, and largely only includes what Pete shared with me personally. Pete even developed his own prototype bass drum pedal which unfortunately never made it to market. Stated succinctly, his career bears the mark of a chameleonic, tenacious artist with an implacable drive for music and creative realization.

Pete’s pedagogical work is perhaps how he is best known and remembered, primarily in the field of polymetric and polyrhythmic studies. His two major works on polymeter and polyrhythms, Polyrhythms: The Musician’s Guide and Polyrhythms For The Drumset (originally Poly-Cymbal Time) remain unrivaled in the field. He also published several other music books ranging from early childhood art and musical education (Music We Can See And Hear), beginner and intermediate drum instruction (Learn To Play The Drumset), to rudimental variations for the trap kit (The Complete Drum Set Rudiments).

Aside from all that I’ve mentioned above, Pete was simply an affirming and encouraging figure to me. He was charitable with his gifts of music and teaching and I benefited significantly from his efforts and our time spent together. I am blessed to have crossed paths with him in this life.

So long, Pete.

(Pete’s obituary can be viewed HERE)

August 29, 2023   [permalink]  

April & May Action

Where does it come from and where does it go?

The cold spell seems to have finally broken here in Chicago, and for the last several days the Sun’s warmth has been draped upon me like a golden cloak, arriving not a moment too soon. Last month marked five years for me in the city and the photo above was snapped by Julia Dratel at The Hideout the day I “officially” arrived, mid-tour, after a wishy-washy dance between here and Bloomington for a third of a year, one foot in, one foot out, as is my way sometimes.

As usual I have a handful of shows on the horizon, including a last-minute sub for Mike Reed in a quartet with Fred Jackson Jr. on saxophone, Josh Berman on cornet and Jason Roebke on bass on the occasion of a Raque Ford art exhibit at Good Weather on S. Western Ave. The following week I’ll make a (for these days) rare appearance in the indie rock world w/ Eli Winter & Sam Wagster at Sleeping Village, and next month longtime friend and collaborator Dave Rempis and I are hitting the road for a string of dates across the American Rust Belt / Middle West. Please join us if you’d like…

– Saturday, April 15th – quartet w/ Fred Jackson Jr., Josh Berman & Jason Roebke @ Good Weather Artspace (1524 S. Western Ave.), Chicago, IL

– Friday, April 21st – Eli Winter (trio w/ Sam Wagster) w/ Cola (Montréal), Red Tunic @ Sleeping Village (3734 W. Belmont Ave.), Chicago, IL

– Sunday, May 21st – trio w/ Gerrit Hatcher & Joshua Abrams @ Hungry Brain (2319 W. Belmont Ave.), Chicago, IL

– Wednesday, May 24th – duo w/ Dave Rempis @ Blockhouse Bar (205 S. College Ave.), Bloomington, IN

– Thursday, May 25th – duo w/ Dave Rempis @ The Spot Tavern (409 S. 4th St.), Lafayette, IN

– Friday, May 26th – duo w/ Dave Rempis @ Institute 193 (215 N. Limestone), Lexington, KY

– Saturday, May 27th – duo w/ Dave Rempis @ TBA (presented by New Ghosts), Cleveland, OH

– Sunday, May 28th – duo w/ Dave Rempis @ Trinosophes (1464 Gratiot Ave.), Detroit, MI

April 13, 2023   [permalink]   Dave Rempis, Eli Winter, Fred Jackson Jr., Gerrit Hatcher, Jason Roebke, Josh Berman, Joshua Abrams, Sam Wagster, tour