Liner Notes by PEK

Leap of Faith is the core duet of the Leap of Faith Orchestra (LOFO) comprised of PEK on clarinets, saxophones, clarinets & flutes, and Glynis Lomon on cello, aquasonic & voice. The ensemble is based in Boston and dates back to the early 90s. We utilize a huge arsenal of additional Evil Clown instruments to improvise long works featuring transformations across highly varied sonorities. At times, the core unit has been a trio or even a quartet. The longest running core unit was comprised of PEK, Glynis and drummer Yuri Zbitnov, who played for the last couple of years of the Archival Period and the first 5 years of the reboot starting in 2015. The ensemble has always been highly modular, and our many recordings (well over 100) feature the core unit in dozens of configurations with a huge list of guests and occasionally as only the core unit with no guests. Currently, the core unit is the duet of PEK and Lomon and we are regularly presenting LIVESTREAMs to YouTube from Evil Clown Headquarters with other guest performers.

Lots of Leap of Faith performances are credited to the Leap of Faith Orchestra. In the Evil Clown nomenclature, I just add an “Orchestra” suffix to the ensemble name when there are 8 or more musicians performing. Most improvisation is done by smaller ensembles like trios or quartets, and a large ensemble improvisation is a different category of aesthetic problem for the ensemble to solve. Like an orchestra this unit has enough players to have sections of instruments in instrumental groups – winds, strings and percussion.

All the players are current Evil Clown regulars or semi regulars with a history and it really shows. John Fugarino (brass), Michael Caglianone (reeds) and PEK (me, reeds) have played together on dozens of Evil Clown sessions in the last few years and have a well-developed 3-horn concept for an ensemble of this size. We all do a lot of doubling, not only on other wind instruments, but also on the percussion and electronic auxiliary instruments.

Glynis (cello) and Albey (bass) have played together on a lot of Leap of Faith sessions in the last 10 years. 

Albey is mostly in New York currently, but we still get him up here periodically. Chris was introduced to me by Albey. Albey worked with Chris in New Orleans when he lived there for a few years a while back. Chris is originally from the Boston area and visits family here roughly once a year. Albey brought him to a set a few years back and since then we’ve had him here for 7 sessions when he makes his visits to town.

Scott is our regular local bass player who is on most of the current Evil Clown sets that have bass. He plays an upright electric instrument. Michael Knoblach is our regular percussionist who is on most of the current Evil Clown sets that have percussion.

Nonlocality Becoming Manifest is an excellent example of large ensemble pure improvisation by expert improvisors with deep knowledge of each other’s process and musical language. It demonstrates dramatic transformation through discrete sonorities over the duration.

Anyway, I really like this set, and I bet you will too…

PEK 6/25/2025