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 year or so 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. 9 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.  

At Evil Clown we do a lot of sessions with larger improvisation ensembles of 5 or 6 all the way up to orchestra size of 25. Large ensembles pose a very interesting problem to improvisation where the solution generally involves transformation through a series of distinct sonorites over the duration of the work. I am very interested in this sound-space and I have a very large Roster of musicians who want to participate so a lot of the sessions tend to be on the larger size.  We do, however, perform in small units as well: Lots of Leap of Faith trios and some duets have been performed, Perturbations is always no larger than trio, Turbulence and Metal Chaos Ensemble have done duets and trios, and there are PEK Solo albums. So, we have quite a few recordings with small units and the dynamic is very different: The interactions between the players are emphasized and the strength of those interactions that are present in the larger settings are revealed in stark contrast. In the large setting players need to use their skills to focus their contribution on the whole, in the small setting, players focus their virtuosity on close interaction with one or two others.

Albey is one of the strongest players in the Roster, and certainly the most well-credentialed. We have played together many times since 2017 and completely get each other’s musical language. Due to his reduced availability, we had not got an Axioms set into the schedule for a while – the last one was in 2023 – so the prospect of doing this again in the smallest possible unit with the strongest possible connection between Albey and myself and between our duet and the Poetry was exciting. Fundamental Statements is probably the best Axioms set to date. Jane is right on top of her stuff and Albey and I are stuck together like glue and as a unit providing extraordinary support to Jane’s Poetry.

Anyway, we had a terrific Livestream performance.  I really like this set and I bet you do too… PEK 7/11/2025