Excerpt from PEK Liner Notes 

“… For Tom’s third set, Degrees of Freedom, we finally landed on the originally envisioned trio.  Tom and Glynis played extraordinarily well together, and since we were in the newly reconfigured studio, I was able to play a large number of the instruments from the Arsenal…” 

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.

Just before the pandemic, Leap of Faith did a performance as a trio with drummer Steve Niemitz at Bonnie Kane’s Friday night experience in western Mass.  On the bill with us was a stunning solo violin performance by Tom Swafford.  As I always do, I immediately moved to recruit Tom for some Evil Clown sessions.  He was living in NYC at the time, but was planning a move to Providence RI after 6 months or so.  Of course, the stupid virus kicked in, and it took almost 2 ½ years to finally get to this long-anticipated set.  That first set, Cosmic String Loops, also included bass wiz Kit Demos.

One of the last sets prior to the temporary shutdown of Evil Clown Headquarters for the big construction/conversion project was the Leap of Faith Chinese Orchestra debut performance with 3 Chinese musicians, Tom, Glynis and two bass players and Michael Knoblach on unusual percussion.  I titled this ensemble Leap of Faith Chinese Orchestra not because it is traditionally Chinese, but because it was Leap of Faith Orchestra with a strong Chinese presence.  It was a great performance bridging improvisation cultures and Tom made a great contribution.

For Tom’s third set, Degrees of Freedom, we finally landed on the originally envisioned trio.  Tom and Glynis played extraordinarily well together, and since we were in the newly reconfigured studio, I was able to play a large number of the instruments from the Arsenal.  I mostly played acoustic instruments, but I did play the Tim Kaiser electro-acoustic instruments and I introduced a brand new wind activated synth called the Soma Pipe.  I expected this to be a great set recalling String Theory and the early Leap of Faith string sessions featuring the great bassist Craig Schildhauer, and I was not disappointed…

PEK, 3/19/2023