STREAM Salon #2: Zak-Jak + Michael Peters and friends
December 7th, 2019
Averill Park, NY, United States
On Saturday, December 7th, our house on the hill was filled with performance, the second St. Rocco’s Electronic Art and Music (STREAM) salon, by Jack Wright + Zach Darrup (Philadelphia), Michael Peters (Oneonta), Matt Weston (Albany) and Alexis Bhagat (Albany). Featuring Zak-Jak improvising on guitar and saxophone, and playing with their friend Michael Peters; Matt Weston on percussion and electronics, and Alexis Bhagat performing a tribute to the poet John Giorno.
Participants:
Alexis Bhagat is a writer living in Albany and a founding member of St. Rocco's Poetry Collective. He believes in knowing poems by heart and wants to send you a letter.
http://nadalex.net
Michael Peters is a poet, writer, musician, fictioneer, visual poet, and is the author of Vaast Bin (Calamari) and other assorted language, art, and sound works. Recordings have appeared on labels
like the avant jazz and rock label Atavistic, among others, with the group Poem Rocket, as well as collaborations on labels such as Pogus and Luna Bistone Prods. Peters uses sound-imaging tactics
in both old and new media, promulgating semantic re-wirings, and wherever possible, some sort of aesthetic and/or ethical illumnination. See also: http://www.michael-peters.com.
Matt Weston plays percussion and electronics, and has performed throughout the US, Canada, and Europe. He has appeared on CNN, VH1, and CBS TV. He has studied and/or collaborated with Arthur Brooks, Bill Callahan/Smog, Bill Dixon, Kevin Drumm, Paul Flaherty, Charles Gayle, Milford Graves, Mary Halvorson, Le Quan Ninh, Bob Marsh, Ben Miller (ex-Destroy All Monsters), Roger Miller (Mission of Burma), Jim O’Rourke, Jeff Parker, Jack Wright, and many others. He has recorded for the Tautology, Sachimay, Breaking World Records, Imvated, Crank Satori, BoxMedia, and Drag City labels. He currently records for his own 7272Music label. In addition to his solo work, Weston is currently a member of the Arthur Brooks Ensemble V; and Arc Pair with drummer Amanda Kraus.
http://www.mattweston.com
ZAK-JAK is a duo of Jack Wright and Zach Darrup:
Jack Wright is a veteran saxophone improviser based mainly in Philadelphia. Since the early 1980s he has been touring through the US and Europe, finding interesting partners and playing situations (Recent Europe Tours). Now at 76 he is still touring widely, engaged with players outside music school careerdom and mostly unknown to the music press (Discography). His influence has extended through writings, most recently The Free Musics, published in 2017. As for his playing, he possibly has the widest vocabulary of any saxophonist, an expert at leaping pitches, punchy, precise timing, sharp and intrusive multiphonics, surprising gaps of silence, and sounds often animalistic and obscene. A reviewer for the Washington Post said, "In the rarefied, underground world of experimental free improvisation, saxophonist Jack Wright is king." For more info and sounds go to Spring Garden Music and for writing try this: Jack is Wright Wordpress See also Cadence Magazine Interview, July 2017, p. 55-73
Zachary Darrup is an improvising guitarist currently living in Philadelphia. During his early teenage years in the rural coal region of Pennsylvania a strange boy appeared like an angel, carrying a large cd booklet of wild musics of all sorts. This chance meeting at a pizza shop, plus tumultuous relationships with his home turf, school teachers, and other agents of law and rule enforcement led Zach to drop out and skip town, devoting himself to following music wherever it would take him--somewhere else. His techniques are informed by the musical possibilities of film language, jovial mockery and mimicry of plants, animals, and audience members, thoughtful room listening, word play, colors, and culinary experiments. A solo of Zach's on Yawncannon.
