Post-Punk joins Free Jazz! L.A. underground legend

When:
Tuesday, Jul 25, 2023 8:00p -
10:00p

Where:
Lilypad
1353 Cambridge St
Cambridge, MA 02139

EventScheduled OfflineEventAttendanceMode

Admission:
$18-15

Hosted by:
arlemski Alex Lemski

Categories:
Innovation, Music, Nightlife

Event website:
https://www.creativemusicseries.com/

A night of exploratory post-punk improvisational jazz featuring L.A. underground punk guitar legend with Joe Baiza (Saccharine Trust, Universal Congress Of), percussion by Matt Crane, and double bass by Damon Smith.


On Tour

The Joe Baiza Trio

Joe Baiza, guitar, L.A.

Matt Crane, drums, Providence

Damon Smith, bass, St Louis

Joe Baiza: his Punk days “..He has often been ahead of the curve with his musical thinking, playing intense instrumental jams a few years before his audience would be eager for them…”

 

What a tour:

7/20 Portland, ME

7/21 Providence, RI

7/23 Queens, NY

7/24 Recording

7/25 Lilypad

7/26 Kingston, NY

7/27 Baltimore, MD

7/28 Wash., D.C.

7/29 Richmond, VA

7/30 Phila, PA

 

Joe Baiza (born January 11, 1952)[1][2] is a punk rock and jazz guitarist whom Eugene Chadbourne cites as one of the most noteworthy guitarists to emerge from the Southern California punk rock milieu.[3]

Joe Baiza is truly one of the great guitarists to come out of the so-called punk rock scene of southern California, "so-called" because most of Baiza's music fits more into the category of free jazz or jazz-rock. He has often been ahead of the curve with his musical thinking, playing intense instrumental jams a few years before his audience would be eager for them, and bringing together the creative anarchy of improvised music with the independent attitude of the punk scene at a time when the two philosophies seemed mutually exclusive, at least to people whose brains were fuzzy from falling into the mosh pit.

Baiza is a founding member of the bands Saccharine Trust,[4] Universal Congress Of,[5] and The Mecolodiacs. He also performed guest guitar spots on several Minutemen tracks and played alongside Black Flag's Greg Ginn and Chuck Dukowski in the SST all-star jam band October Faction, recording two albums with them. Baiza was also part of the musical side project Nastassya Filippovna which featured Bob Lee (drums), Devin Sarno (bass) and Mike Watt (bass). He substituted for Nels Cline during Mike Watt's European and American tours behind his second solo album, Contemplating the Engine Room, in 1997 and 1998.[6] Also in 1997, he and Cline played (sometimes together) in the band Solo Career with Lee (drums), Richard Derrick (bass), Walter Zooi (trumpet) and Gustavo Aguilar (percussion); other guitarists in that rotating ensemble included Mario Lalli, Woody Aplanalp and Ken Rosser. Currently, he is in the reunited Saccharine Trust as well as the improvisational unit Unknown Instructors with former Minutemen Mike Watt and George Hurley.[7]

Punk, Then…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2Mr06MeF1g&t=234s

Free Jazz, now…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDoaC9UVtWs

 

For years Damon Smith was an influencial musician in the Boston Free Jazz scene, now a recognized world-class bassist in demand globally giving us the pleasure of hearing him live again!

                

Matt Crane: Increasingly, an influencial drummer/percussionist in Boston, now living in Providence, joining, complimenting numerous Free Jazz musicians to become a leader in our scene!


BIOS:

 

Guitar nuts first picked up on Baiza in the context of his band Saccharine Trust, one of the mid-'80s groups that made the SST label so interesting, at least for a short time. Fellow band member Jack Brewer and Baiza revived this band in 2001 and recorded a new album in Germany. The amusing name Universal Congress Of was at first just the title of a Baiza solo album in 1987, but evolved into a group whose three original releases became favorites of the electric jazz audience. Universal Congress Of toured frequently in both Europe and the United States. . Baiza's career also includes a trail of unfortunate incidents including accidents and several horribly violent attacks on his person; indeed, with a little bit of Hollywood seasoning and rewriting there is the stuff of a Steven Seagal action picture in there somewhere -  bio excerpts by Eugene Chadbourne.

 

Rounding out the trio are Damon Smith - bass and Matt Crane - drums.

 

Damon Smith studied double bass with Lisle Ellis and has had lessons with Bertram Turezky, Joëlle Leandré, John Lindberg, Mark Dresser and others. Damon’s explorations into the sonic palette of the double bass have resulted in a personal, flexible improvisational language based in the American jazz avant-garde movement and European nonidiomatic free improvisation. Visual art, film and dance heavily influence his music, as evidenced by his CAMH performance of Ben Patterson’s Variations for Double Bass, collaborations with director Werner Herzog on soundtracks for Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of the World, and an early performance with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.

 

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Matt Crane has been playing percussion since before he was in school. From playing in a fourth grade band on a drum set fabricated out of ice cream bins, to playing punk rock in the early eighties, to discovering jazz and playing with Ornette Coleman, his musical development has been continual and exponential. Focusing on pure improvisation since the early nineties, he currently lives and works in Rhode Island and continues to collaborate, perform, and record widely.

 

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