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 (now over 150) feature the various core units 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.

Alex Lemski is a promoter of improvisational music who arrived on the scene 7 or 8 years back.  He gets grants that allow him to rent the LilyPad so that the musicians can keep the door and not pay for the room.  People in the scene love his participation here and I am always able to raise a stellar ensemble for one of his shows.  For Spooky Action at a Distance, I decided to have an ensemble that is what I call “Balanced on Strings and Winds”.  A Balanced Ensemble contains an equal number of players each from several different timbre sets.  After adding a drummer, that could be a trio, a quintet, a septet, or a larger group.  I like the aesthetic problem of larger improvisation ensembles – difficult problems are interesting problems.  So, this set addresses two of my fundamental aesthetic concerns…

I decided to do septet.  The guest strings are Tom Swafford (violin) and Kit Demos (bass); the guest horns are John Fugarino (trumpet) and Michael Caglianone (woodwinds); the drummer is Eric Rosenthal.  Tom, Kit, and Eric have each been on several Leap of Faith sessions over the last few years and John and Michael are currently frequent regulars.  All these gifted improvisors have varying amounts of Evil Clown/Leap of Faith participation.  A very interesting group dynamic arises when the ensemble contains a mix of players who have very long histories with players who are newer, especially when the full unit is performing for the first time.

Since the pandemic and the significant advances in the Evil Clown Headquarters I have been doing far fewer public performances – we used to do perhaps 20 a year, and now it is a few a year plus many Livestreams.  In the old days, I filled my van full of equipment to the roof and I presented as broad a palate as I possibly could in live performance.  Nowadays, the broad palate concept is so well represented by the ECH Studio Livestreams that I take the opportunity to go light in Live Performance.  I left all the percussion, electronics and auxiliary instruments at home and went with 2 clarinets, 2 saxes and 2 double reeds.  So, this performance focuses purely on the Strings, Winds, and drum set.

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

PEK out 9/20/2023