Liner Notes by PEK

Leap of Faith is the core duet of the Leap of Faith Orchestra (LOFO) comprised of PEK on clarinets, saxophones, double reeds & 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.

Maximizing Intrinsic Uncertainty was planned as a septet with Albey onBass and Jared Seabrook. Albey is living full time in New York these days, so we only see him for sets a few times a year. As sometimes happens, he had a conflict and could not make it up to Boston for this performance. I was looking forward to having Albey on a set with drummer Jared Seabrook who is one of Evil Clown’s outstanding set drummers, but after I heard from Albey a few days prior, I heard from Jared the day of the set that he was sick and also not going to make it. 

One real advantage of pure improvisation is that it is very tolerant of change – I never cancel anything due to personnel changes. We solve the Aesthetic Problem posed by the resources available to the ensemble at the time of the performance, which includes the musicians and all the sound making devices. A sudden change in the performers merely changes the Aesthetic Problem posed and in no way interferes with our ability to mount the performance.

I like the septet sized Leap of Faith with bass and drums – it goes great when we have Glynis, an excellent guitar player like Chris Alford (in from New Orleans for this set), and the current star 3 horn front line of PEK, John Fugarino & Michael Caglianone. I was looking forward to that septet, especially since Albey and Jared would make a serious rhythm section. The last second change completely shifted the principal sonority set to a much more chamber kind of vibe with three horns and three strings. Leap of Faith has had many different configurations of instrumentation over the years and I’m pretty sure that this is a first.

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

PEK, 6/30/2026