Bhob Rainey to perform Monday, December 23 at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center

For the ninth year in a row, improvising saxophonist Bhob Rainey is coming back to St. Louis just before Christmas to perform at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center.

Rainey's concert, which this year also has been designated as part of LNAC's new "Quiet Music" series, will take place at 8:30 p.m., Monday, December 23. The performance also will feature music from Greg Farough and LNAC's own Mark Sarich.

Rainey (pictured) has played in St. Louis numerous times over the past decade and a half, both at LNAC and for New Music Circle. His most recent recording Levitate is the soundtrack to a film by Leah Ross, and was featured last month on the website Tiny Mix Tapes.

Admission for Bhob Rainey at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center will be $5 at the door.

LNAC to present Quiet Music Series, plus return of Nakatani's Gong Orchestra

Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center has announced two concerts next month that may be of interest to local fans of jazz and creative music:

* LNAC's new "Quiet Music Series" will debut at 7:00 p.m. Saturday, December 7, featuring all new electronic compositions by LNAC director Mark Sarich, Greg Farough and Nathan Cook.

According to an email from Sarich, "The Quiet Music Series seeks to bring to the St Louis artistic landscape (the) most recent investigations into the interface of silence, resonance, barely audible sound, and non-directionality in music." The series is inspired by the "largely European avant-garde musical initiative commonly known as the Wandelweiser composers...Strongly influenced by Morton Feldman, the music focuses on static sonic constructions with ample use of silence and the extreme quiet as compositional elements. The sometimes articulated, but ever present, desire is to place the listener more consciously within their environment."

"Quiet Music" events will occur on roughly a monthly basis, Sarich said. "We will be bringing at first regional artists from out of town and eventually include international composers of significance working along side our own local composers," he added. Admission to the December 7 "Quiet Music" concert is $5 at the door.

* A couple of weeks later, LNAC will present the return of improvising percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani's Gong Orchestra, at 8:00 p.m. on Friday, December 20. The group is composed of 10 musicians from the area who have been coached on Nakatani's percussion and conducting techniques and will present "an improvised performance demonstrating the versatility of the gong as an expressive instrument."

Nakatani (pictured) is an active participant on the international improv scene whose collaborators have included Eugene Chadbourne, Jack Wright and St. Louis’ own Darin Gray. His previous performances at LNAC include a date in April 2011 featuring an earlier incarnation of the Gong Orchestra, and his most recent gig there, a solo performance in October of last year.

Tickets for the Gong Orchestra performance will be $8. Because of the size of the ensemble, seating will be limited with tickets sold in advance via PayPal. Advance ticket purchasers will be asked to provide ID so they can be identified upon entry as the buyer, and names on the ID must match the names on the PayPal purchase. For more information, email LNAC's Tom Hill at tomhill.tch at gmail dot com.

"Election Tour for A Stranger America" coming Tuesday, June 11 to LNAC

This may be be an off year for national elections, but some of the issues that drive politics in the USA will be very much in play when Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center presents an evening of politically aware music and performance at 8:00 p.m. next Tuesday, June 11.

Headlining will be Jeffrey Young and Paul Pinto (pictured), members of the experimental music group thingNY. They'll be in St. Louis as part of their 17-city "Election Tour for a Stranger America," featuring the absurdly titled work, Jeff Young and Paul Pinto, Patriots, Run for Public Office on a Platform of Swift and Righteous Immigration Reform, Lots of Jobs, and a Healthy Environment: An Opera by Paul Pinto and Jeffrey Young Created in 2011.

Described as "a parody of contemporary politics," the half-hour piece focuses on issues of immigration and national identity. Young and Pinto collaboratively created the text, music, and staging, scoring the piece for their own voices, violin, percussion, turntable, and cardboard boxes. It incorporates sung and spoken words and instrumental music, both notated and improvised, tonal and not.

Continuing the political theme will be LNAC director Mark Sarich's “In Whose Interest,” the latest in a series of "spoken narrative operas" begun in 1997. The piece includes "avant-garde electronics, free improvisation, text as music, and political narrative, pointing at inconsistencies and deficiencies in our socio-political system." The title references a quote from the roman historian Cicero, who said that those seeking the source of a social inequity should ask “Cui Bono?” ("Who benefits?").

Saxophonist Dave Stone's trio will round out the bill. Tickets are $5 at the door.

Bhob Rainey to perform Sunday, December 23 at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center

In what's become a holiday tradition, improvising saxophonist Bhob Rainey will be back in St. Louis just before Christmas to perform at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center. The concert at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, December 23 also will include sets from composer Jack Callahan and epicycle, featuring Travis Snyder and Mark Sarich.

This is the eighth year running that Rainey (pictured) has played a late-December date at LNAC. A prolific collaborator both live and on record, his most recent album is When you talk, you hear from the other side, a limited-edition project with visual artist Nancy Bernardo that features her glass collages along with a vinyl LP of Rainey's music.

Admission for Bhob Rainey, Jack Callahan, and epicycle at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center is $5 at the door.

Jack Wright to perform Thursday, March 8 at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center

Saxophonist Jack Wright (pictured) is returning to St. Louis to perform at 8:00 p.m. Thursday, March 8 at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center.

The free-improvising reedman (and occasional pianist) has played here a number of times since the mid-1990s, both at LNAC and at various venues under the auspices of New Music Circle, but this will be his first show in St. Louis in four years. Opening the concert will be epicycle, aka LNAC's head honcho Mark Sarich.

Tickets for Jack Wright and epicycle at the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center are $5 at the door.

(Edited after posting.)

Bhob Rainey to play Thursday, December 23 at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center

This just in: Saxophonist Bhob Rainey (pictured) will return to St. Louis for a performance at 8:30 p.m. this Thursday, December 23 at the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center. According to Rainey's website, this will be the eighth year in a row that the Boston-based improvisor has done a pre-Christmas show at LNAC.

"Working with extended techniques, multiphonics and standing resonant frequencies, Rainey 'plays the room' more literally than any performer you will ever see," says the news release from LNAC. Billed as "a special holiday show of experimental music," the evening also will feature sets from St. Louis composer/performer Jack Callahan and epicycle, the project headed by LNAC's Mark Sarich. Admission is $5 at the door.

Mad Art Gallery to host "BioSonar" this Sunday, November 18

Echolocation Recordings, a new venture from musicians Eric Hall and Jeremy Brantlinger, has organized an event called "BioSonar" that will take place from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. this Sunday, November 18, at Mad Art Gallery.

Billed as both a festival and an "indoor picnic," the event will feature music and sound art from a variety of performers, including Hall and Brantlinger's group Peanuts, Ghost Ice, Mike Pitts, Y Toros, Andrew Hefner, Raglani, Ajay Khanna and Chris Smentkowski, Mark Sarich, Worm Hands, Dave Stone, Joseph Potthoff, Tony Renner, James Weber Jr., Catholic Guilt, and more to be announced.

As for the picnic, it's potluck; the event description encourages audience members to "bring a blanket or pillow to lay out on the floor as you enjoy the various approaches to non-traditional musics, food provided by the organizers and audience, video/film projections, books from local writers and publishers, and a mini-shop set up by Cherokee St.'s Apop Records (offering a hand picked selection of music to compliment the event). The cover will be $7, or totally free if you bring any dish that can serve 10 or more people."