Alfred Jarry was a French symbolist writer who is best known for his play Ubu Roi (1896). He also coined the term and philosophical concept of 'pataphysics.
John Zorn is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, contemporary, surf, metal, soundtrack, ambient, and world music. In 2013, Down Beat described Zorn as "one of our most important composers" and in 2020 Rolling Stone noted "Though Zorn has operated almost entirely outside the mainstream, he's gradually asserted himself as one of the most influential musicians of our time".
'Pataphysics is a "philosophy" of science invented by French writer Alfred Jarry (1873–1907) intended to be a parody of science. Difficult to easily define or pin down, it has been described as the "science of imaginary solutions".
Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improvisor.
Ubu Roi is a play by French writer Alfred Jarry, then 23 years old. It was first performed in Paris in 1896, by Aurélien Lugné-Poe's Théâtre de l'Œuvre at the Nouveau-Théâtre. The production's single public performance baffled and offended audiences with its unruliness and obscenity. Considered to be a wild, bizarre and comic play, significant for the way it overturns cultural rules, norms and conventions, it is seen by 20th- and 21st-century scholars to have opened the door for what became known as modernism in the 20th century, and as a precursor to Dadaism, Surrealism and the Theatre of the Absurd.
Alabama 3 are an English musical group founded in Brixton, London in 1995. They are best known for their track "Woke Up This Morning", which was used for the opening credits of the TV series The Sopranos. In the United States, the band is known as A3, to avoid legal conflict with the country music band Alabama.
Napoleon Murphy Brock is an American singer, saxophonist and flute player who is best known for his work with Frank Zappa in the 1970s, including the albums Apostrophe ('), Roxy & Elsewhere, One Size Fits All, and Bongo Fury. He contributed notable vocal performances to the Zappa songs "Village of the Sun," "Cheepnis," and "Florentine Pogen."
Volume Two is the second LP album by The Soft Machine, released in 1969. A jazz influence is added to the humour, dada, and psychedelia of their first LP The Soft Machine (1968).
The folgerphone is a wind instrument. Like the saxophone it is classifiable as a woodwind rather than brass instrument despite being made of metal, because it has a reed. The folgerphone is a modern experimental instrument, using an alto sax mouthpiece, with copper tubing and a coffee can. The instrument is not commercially produced, but constructed by musicians, and need not use a genuine coffee can, but any sounding box made of metal. Although it uses a sax mouthpiece, it is a cylindrical-bore instrument, and thus part of the clarinet family, but is played with finger holes, like a recorder, rather than with keys like a saxophone or modern clarinet. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is among the 422.211.2 subsection of reed aerophones.
Richard Barone is an American rock musician who first gained attention as frontman for the Bongos. He works as a songwriter, arranger, author, director, and record producer, releases albums as a solo artist, tours, and has created concert events at Carnegie Hall, Hollywood Bowl, SXSW, and New York's Central Park. He currently serves on the Board of Governors for The Recording Academy (Grammys), the Board of Advisors for Anthology Film Archives, and is affiliated with the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University and The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.
Guitar Solos 3 is the third in a series of three albums of improvised guitar solos by various musicians, and was released in the United States by Rift Records in 1979. Fred Frith coordinated and produced the series, which began with his 1974 debut solo album, Guitar Solos.
Speechless is a 1981 solo album by English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith of the group Henry Cow. It was Frith's third solo album, and was originally released in the United States on LP record on The Residents' Ralph record label. It was the second of three solo albums Frith made for the label.
Step Across the Border is a 1990 avant-garde documentary film on English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith. It was written and directed by Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel and released in Germany and Switzerland. The film was screened in cinemas in North America, South America, Europe and Japan, and on television in the United States, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and France. It was also released on VHS by RecRec Music (Switzerland) in 1990, and was later released on DVD by Winter & Winter Records (Germany) in 2003.
Reed Mathis is a bassist, producer, singer, and guitarist who is best known for his 15-year stint as co-leader of the Tulsa progressive jazz band Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. The Bay Area rooted player has also notably worked with Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann. He played with Steve Kimock Band, and is a former member of Tea Leaf Green.
LaDonna Smith is an American avant garde musician from Alabama. She is a violinist, violist, and pianist. Since 1974 she has been performing free improvisational music with musicians such as Davey Williams, Leland Davis, Michael Evans, Gunther Christmann, Anne Lebaron, Derek Bailey, Eugene Chadbourne, Misha Feigin, Michael Evans, David Sait, Jack Wright, John Russell, Sergey Letov, Toshi Makihara, Andrew Dewar and many other of the world's major improvisers. As a performer, she has toured the US, Canada, Europe, including Russia and Siberia, Korea, India, China and Japan. Her music is documented on dozens of CD and LP recordings, including Say Daybew Records - of Fred Lane & the Debonaires. She produced concerts and festivals in Alabama and the Southeast, including the Birmingham Improv Festival and the improvisorfestival. She serves on the Board of Directors of I.S.I.M., the International Society of Improvised Music. In 1976, LaDonna Smith co-founded TransMuseq Records with Davey Williams. In 1980, The Improvisor magazine began as an extension of I.N.: The Improvisor's Network, a grass-roots organization in New York City that attempted to connect improvising musicians across the U.S. LaDonna is editor-in-chief and publisher of The improvisor. She is a member of the Fresh-Dirt collective.
Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician is a novel by French Symbolist author Alfred Jarry which influenced Surrealism. It features Doctor Faustroll, a scientist who is born in 1898 in Circassia at the age of 63, and who dies the same year at the same age.
Crystals is an album by Sam Rivers released by Impulse! Records in 1974 in a stereo/quadraphonic format.
Caspar Babypants is the stage name of children's music artist Chris Ballew, who is also widely known as the singer of The Presidents of the United States of America.
Raining on the Moon is an album by American jazz bassist and composer William Parker's Quartet featuring vocalist Leena Conquest, which was recorded in 2001 and released on the Thirsty Ear label. Since the original album, the name has also come to identify the group from this record, including, on all subsequent releases to date, pianist Eri Yamamoto.
New Vintage is the tenth studio album by Canadian jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson released in 1977 on Columbia Records. The title is likely an allusion to new recordings of two 'vintage' titles included in the track list. "Maria" was first recorded on Maynard '62, and "Airegin" was first recorded in 1964 for the album Color Him Wild. The front cover plays on this theme, presenting a trumpet in an ice bucket in place of a bottle of champagne, while on the back cover, the cork is seen popping out of the trumpet's bell.
