Drummerless quartets feature on tonight’s Improvised Music Series, including a new group assembled by Christopher Dammann, and a rare appearance by Mad Myth Science, called “The next generation of Chicago Jazz” by the Quietus.
8:30 -
Christopher Dammann - bass
Robbie Lynn Hunsinger - oboe, saxophone, winds
Mabel Kwan - piano
Jason Stein - bass clarinet
9:30 - Mad Myth Science
Molly Jones - saxophones, flutes
Julian Otis - voice
Wilson Tanner Smith - cello
Ben Zucker - vibraphone, cornet
(all on additional little instruments)
$15 / $10 w/ Student ID -
Tickets Available at the Door
About the Artists
Mad Myth Science is the collective musical offering of Molly Jones, Julian Otis, Wilson Tanner Smith, and Ben Zucker. Their through-improvised performances present a rich cross-section of Chicago creativity, bringing experience in jazz and creative music, contemporary composition, electronics, and dance and theatrical performing arts together into a pageantry of sound and spontaneous rituals.
Their self-titled debut album, released in 2023 on Infrequent Seams, was featured in the Wire’s “Below The Radar” compilation, and described as “striking, and unlike anything else you’ll hear this year” (Phill Freeman, Stereogum).
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Christopher Dammann is a composer/bassist who lives in Chicago. He is lucky enough to have improvised with many of his favorite musicians, worked in a variety of bands, performed music for national television shows and ad campaigns. Recent work includes the score for Kera MacKenzie & Andrew Mausert-Mooney’s award winning non-fiction montage feature, Make A Distinction, the Restroy release, sketches, for ears&eyes records and IKZ (Toby Summerfield, Kevin Davis, and John Niekrasz) release I saw the Cryptic Problem of my Generation Destroyed on Chicago label, Amalgam music. Christopher’s current sextet (Scott Clark, Jon Irabagon, Edward Wilkerson, Mabel Kwan, James Davis) released its debut recording with Out Of Your Head Records, February 7th. Information about that project and recording are here. Christopher is a 2025 Illinois Arts Council Creative Catalyst Grant recipient. In addition to his work as a performer, Christopher is also proud to be a teaching artist with The People’s Music School of Chicago, Chicago’s largest tuition free music school.
Robbie Lynn Hunsinger is a boundary breaking media artist and virtuosic instrumentalist. Her finely tuned chamber music esthetic has been polished by decades of extraordinary performance with the world’s top orchestras and it is fully expressed in her beautifully strange and uniquely engaging intermedia events. She has become a true ambassador for the oboe, forging distinctive paths in free jazz, rock, bluegrass, shehnai and contemporary classical music as well as in her cutting edge multimedia performance and installation.
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. 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.
Mabel Kwan is a pianist and performer of experimental music. Her self-produced work is a meditation on sound, contradictions, and our perceptions of what is familiar or strange. She currently plays with STOMACHS, Honestly Same, Em Spel, the Jason Roebke Quartet, the Christopher Dammann Sextet, Kwan/Pauly/Shaw trio and Ensemble Dal Niente on keys, accordion, and synths.
You may also like the following events from Elastic Arts:
- Next Thursday, 19th June, 08:30 pm, Improvised Music Series: Brochure + Fred Jackson’s Double Helix in Chicago
- Next Sunday, 22nd June, 07:00 pm, CLEAT Series: Returning in Chicago
- Next month, 10th July, 08:30 pm, Improvised Music Series: Matt Piet, D Wibowo, Phill Smith in Chicago
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