John Corbett (born 1963) [1] is an American writer, musician, radio host, teacher, record producer, concert promoter, and gallery owner based in Chicago, Illinois. He is best known among musicians and music fans as a champion of free jazz and free improvisation. In recent years he has become known in the visual art world as well through his Corbett vs. Dempsey gallery.
Corbett's activities include:
For many years he hosted a radio show on WHPK called Radio Dada. More recently, he has co-hosted a jazz show called Writer's Block on WNUR with fellow jazz writers Kevin Whitehead and Lloyd Sachs.
Ken Vandermark is an American composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist.
Mats Olof Gustafsson is a Swedish free jazz saxophone player.
The Triolin is an acoustic bowed metal instrument designed and built by Hal Rammel in 1991. He has described it as a nail violin gone awry. Thin metal rods sit perpendicular in a circular arrangement on the top surface of a triangular wooden resonator and the instrument is held in the other hand by an ornately carved chair leg attached to the bottom of the resonator. Thus, the rods can be bowed as the entire instrument twists and spins underneath. Several years later, when he began to experiment with amplification inspired by the live electronics of cellist Russell Thorne and the amplified table top arrays of Hugh Davies, he attached wooden rods to a flat wooden artist's palette. His amplified palette can be heard on the 1994 CD Elsewheres and, more recently, on "Like Water, Tightly Wound". In 2013 the triolin and four amplified palettes by Hal Rammel were added to the permanent collection of the National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota along with many other acoustic instruments he performed with in the 1990s in Chicago.
Fred Lonberg-Holm is an American cellist based in Chicago. He moved from New York City to Chicago in 1995.
Table of the Elements an American avant-garde record label created and owned by Jeff Hunt. Begun in 1993, the label’s 150-plus releases form a significant contemporary chronicle of American experimental music.
Zu is an Italian instrumental band from Rome. While their line-up of baritone sax, bass guitar and drums is typical of a jazz band, their hard-driving sound is indebted to punk rock and according to AllMusic "defies easy categorization". Zu have collaborated with a wide variety of musicians and been described as "masters at adapting to their guests' musical backgrounds".
Kent Kessler is an American jazz double-bassist.
Tristan Meinecke (1916–2004) was an American artist, architect and musician who spent most of his life and career in Chicago. He was married to television and radio actress Angel Casey. His widely varied body of work explored abstract expressionism, cubism and Surrealism, and included the invention of the split-level painting technique. In collaboration with architect Robert Bruce Tague, Meinecke built and rehabilitated many properties in and around Lincoln Park, Chicago.
Discography for jazz reedist Ken Vandermark. The year indicates when the album was first released.
Michael Zerang is an American jazz percussionist and drummer.
Raymond Strid is a Swedish drummer in the genre of free jazz and the new European improvised music.
Mazen Kerbaj is a Lebanese jazz and free improvisation trumpeter and comic book artist.
Frank Rosaly is a Puerto Rican American drummer, composer, and sound designer associated with a transparent compositional approach to drumming across various styles of music including jazz, improvisation, rock and experimental music. Rosaly also composes for film.
Ayé Aton, was an American painter, designer, muralist, musician, and teacher.
Astral Spirits Records is an independent record label specializing in free jazz, improvisation, and experimental music. Based in Austin, Texas, the label was founded in 2014 by musician Nathan Cross, who started Astral Spirits as a platform for "the new wave of heavy free jazz"; as the breadth of the label's offerings expanded, imprint Astral Editions became the home for its more experimental releases.
The Complete Yale Concert, 1966 is a live album by drummer Milford Graves and pianist Don Pullen. It was recorded in April 1966 at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and was released in 2020 by Corbett vs. Dempsey. The music was initially issued on two LPs: In Concert at Yale University (1966) and Nommo (1967), both released by the musicians on their SRP label.
Thomas Harry Kapsalis was a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a leading American abstract painter and sculptor.
Chicago 2002 is a live album by trombonist Paul Rutherford. It was recorded on April 26 and 27, 2002, at The Empty Bottle in Chicago, and was released later that year by Emanem Records. The album features an extended Rutherford solo followed by three tracks on which he is joined by saxophonists Lol Coxhill and Mats Gustafsson, trombonist Jeb Bishop, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, bassist Kent Kessler, and percussionist Kjell Nordeson.
Stone/Water is a live album by the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, led by saxophonist Brötzmann, and featuring an ten-piece ensemble. Documenting a performance of a single 39-minute work, it was recorded on May 23, 1999, at the Festival de Musique de Actuelle Victoriaville in Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada, and was released on CD in 2000 by Okka Disk. On the album, Brötzmann is joined by saxophonists Mats Gustafsson and Ken Vandermark, trumpeter and electronic musician Toshinori Kondo, trombonist Jeb Bishop, violinist and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, double bassists Kent Kessler and William Parker, and percussionists Hamid Drake and Michael Zerang.