Liner Notes by PEK

Albey onBass and his wife Jane SpokenWord were associated with Cecil Taylor’s final trio. Following Cecil’s passing they were in Boston for about a year in 2017-2018 and Albey performed a dozen or so times with Leap of Faith, Metal Chaos Ensemble and Turbulence. In November 2018, Albey and I had been discussing doing a duet, but we decided to include Jane’s poetry as a trio. This new Evil Clown Ensemble we called Axioms, which to me is an apt name for a band which features words – something that most Evil Clown sessions do not. They were in New Orleans for a couple of years and then for a while were splitting their time between their apartment in NYC and a place in the Boston area. This was another productive collaboration period where I scheduled sessions around Albey’s stays at the Boston hang. Then a couple of years ago, they started staying mostly in NYC and we have not seen him quite as often.

At this point, Albey has been on over 40 Evil Clown albums by half a dozen different ensembles. 10 of these albums are credited to Axioms, which is the Evil Clown Edition of his Poetry Project with Jane who is a great poet. They have been doing it forever and have done it with many notables from the NYC improvisation scene. The first Axioms Set was a trio with just the three of us, but most of the rest have been quartets with the addition of Glynis Lomon on cello, aquasonic and voice, and one added guitarist Chris Alford who Albey and Jane know from their stint in NOLA.  

For Axioms, I keep the ensemble size relatively small so that the ensemble does not overwhelm the poetry, so we have never been larger than quintet. This time I decided to ask John Fugarino (brass) and Michael Caglinone (reeds) to be the fourth and fifth players.  John and Michael are among my most frequent contributors at Evil Clown, and the three of us have performed together dozens of times in the last few years – a few times as just trio, but mostly as a core part of all the different Evil Clown Ensembles. We have become a very tight improvising horn section capable of both counterpoint and cacophony at the drop of a hat. The three of us are also seasoned performers of the Evil Clown Studio Instrument – my new term for the collection of percussion, electronic, string, and electroacoustic instruments that are permanently set up in the space.  

I was eager to see how this Axioms First would turn out – A set with this tight horn plus section supporting the poetry.  The last session, Fundamental Statements, I think had been our best to date – a bare bones trio, but I think Existential Generalizations is equally strong, and I’m super glad that Albey and Jane were able to drop by!

PEK 3/27/2026