Saturday, May 27, 2023 7:30pm doors / 8pm sound Free/Donations Accepted RSVP Here
Personnel: Karl Evangelista (guitar, composition) with Francis Wong (sax) Lewis Jordan (reeds) Lisa Mezzacappa (bass) Rei Scampavia (keys) and Special Guest Andrew Cyrille (drums)
Filipino-American guitarist/composer Karl Evangelista presents “Bukas” (Tagalog for “Tomorrow”), a composition centered on intergenerational resistance and revolutionary music. “Bukas” combines prerecorded interviews, documenting the firsthand accounts of veteran artists with histories in musical innovation, with cutting-edge sounds drawn from the realms of jazz, electronic music, and noise. In doing so, this composition serves to both educate audiences on the stories of radical Black and Asian artists and thrust the narrative of free jazz into the realm of tomorrow.
“Bukas” features Karl Evangelista’s Apura ensemble, including special guest Andrew Cyrille (the legendary drummer of the Cecil Taylor Unit), Asian American jazz icon Francis Wong, Bay Area free jazz legend Lewis Jordan, daring bassist Lisa Mezzacappa, and Rei Scampavia, Evangelista’s partner in acclaimed experimental duo Grex. Apura’s 2020 debut record has been hailed as a “modern classic” (Free Jazz Blog) and “improv disc of the year” (Downtown Music Gallery).
Artist: Karl Evangelista Co-Producer: Francis Wong (Asian Improv aRts) Funded in part by: California Arts Council
Filipino-American guitarist/composer Karl Evangelista has been called “one of the most original instrumentalists and composers of his generation” (Signal to Noise), ranking among a new wave of musicians pushing the traditions of jazz and experimental music into the 21st century.
Evangelista has garnered wide acclaim for his work with the likes of boundary-breaking duo Grex, Andrew Cyrille, Fred Frith, Louis Moholo-Moholo, Trevor Watts, Scott Amendola, Ben Goldberg, Tatsu Aoki, and Francis Wong. He has presented at the Great American Music Hall, the United States of Asian America Festival, and Myra Melford’s New Frequencies Festival, and he is a prolific educator, community organizer, and arts activist throughout the Bay Area.
Master musician Andrew Cyrille is one the most celebrated drummer-composers in the history of jazz, performing with the likes of Mary Lou Williams, Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet, Kenny Dorham, Freddie Hubbard, Walt Dickerson, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Horace Tapscott, Muhal Richard Abrams, John Carter, Joe Lovano, Dave Douglas, Vijay Iyer, and Nigerian percussionist Babatunde Olatunji.
Andrew's contributions to free jazz and improvised music are legendary, including an iconic 11-year collaboration with pianist Cecil Taylor, several percussion groups featuring notable drummers such as Kenny Clarke, Milford Graves, and Rashied Ali, and work in both ensembles under his own leadership and the all-star Trio 3.
Lewis Jordan is an international touring and recording musician; poet; actor and playwright. He was a founding member of United Front, the seminal San Francisco Bay Area ensemble known for its originality, aggressive imagination and cultural synthesis. As a performer Jordan has bridged the worlds of music and the written word —through composition, saxophone and poetry.
In his career, he has focused on creative structures for improvisation, which has led to his work with artists from a range of disciplines. He has performed with dancers, poets, actors and musicians—including Brenda Wong Aoki, Anthony Braxton, Juan Ceballos, Scott Davis III, Lisle Ellis, Sara Felder, Danny Glover, Q.R. Hand, Mark Izu, Jon Jang, Kash Killion, Genny Lim, devorah major, James Newton…Donald Robinson, Ntozake Shange, Cecil Taylor and others, many presented in his Music At-Large series.
Lisa Mezzacappa is a San Francisco Bay Area-based composer, bassist, bandleader, and producer. Called “one of the most imaginative figures on the Bay Area creative jazz scene” by The Mercury News and “a Bay Area treasure” by KQED public radio, she has been an active part of California’s vibrant music community for more than 18 years. Mezzacappa’s activities as a composer and bandleader include ethereal chamber music, electro-acoustic works, avant-garde jazz, music for groups from duo to large ensemble, and collaborations with film, dance and visual art.
Mezzacappa has released her music on the New World, Clean Feed, NoBusiness, Leo, and NotTwo record labels, and she has been artist-in-residence at the Cité International des Arts in Paris, Fr; Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Headlands Center for the Arts and the Banff International Jazz Workshop.
Rei Scampavia is a musician, composer, and ecologist based out of Oakland, California. Her music explores the synthesis between experimental sounds and dark, surreal songcraft. As a performer, Scampavia has worked alongside the likes of Andrew Cyrille, Scott Amendola, Karl Evangelista, and Jordan Glenn's Beak, and she co-leads Bay Area multigenre duo Grex. Scampavia holds a Ph.D. in Entomology and Nematology from the University of California, Davis.
For over two decades Francis Wong has performed his innovative brand of jazz and creative music alongside such luminaries as Jon Jang, Tatsu Aoki, Genny Lim, William Roper, Bobby Bradford, John Tchicai, James Newton, Joseph Jarman, Don Moye, and the late Glenn Horiuchi.
Wong is renowned as co-founder of Asian Improv aRts, and he has been recognized as a California Arts Council Artist in Residence, a Meet The Composer New Resident, and a Rockefeller Next Generation Leadership Fellow.
