Deep Archive (1984 – 1992)
Before Evil Clown
Click on California or Boston for Links to the Music from Each Period
(1984 – 1989)
(1989 – 1992)
This is the Deep Archive where I have placed selected really early work from 1984 to 1992 (prior to the Origins of Evil Clown). I left California to attend the Berklee School of Music in 1989 – so this period includes the time before I left, and the first few years after arrival. Before the move, I played with rock players in Santa Cruz and then in Cupertino, studied saxophone with a guy named Kurt Heisig, and spend a lot of time in the woodshed. It was a formative perdiod. I was listening to a lot of jazz and was very familiar with its history and primary movers. I was particulary interested in the transition from Hard Bop into Free Jazz and I listened estensively to artists like late period John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, Art Ensmeble of Chicago (and other AACM acts), Sun Ra and others – anything I could find in the used LP market. I really wanted to play with others with performance expertise in these styles, but never found anyone in California I could do it with. I fully expected that Berklee would recongnize this music as part of Jazz, and value my work in learning and understanding it, however, with a few exceptions (Notably my study with George Garzone) that was really not the case. Luckily, After the move, I quickly hooked up with Masashi Harada, Glynis Lomon and the Boston improvisation scene while attending Berklee. I had two very different simulataneous and deeply imersive music educations for those few years – music college where I studied theory, harmony, ear training and other formal concepts of a traditional music education, and playing in this scene of established improvisors. It was a transformative period. I have a lot of recordings (mostly on cassette tape) from this time that are not very well recorded by my current standards – although some are better than others. There are even some studio recordings from home studios and a few from professional recording studios. About 15 or 20 years ago I digitized all of the analog and DAT recordings I have from this period.
In the past, I limited any publication of my music to projects that I was the leader or co-leader of and that were in the pure improvisation style that I was able to fully embrace after I moved to Boston and found the large scene of mature free-bag players I never found in the Bay Area. When I started leading ensembles at the time the Masashi Harada Sextet disolved and Glynis Lomon and I formed our first band, Leaping Water Trio, I got a DAT machine and a good stereo mic and the quality of the recordings of live performances also significantly improved. Now that my credentials are fully established, I think some of this early material will be of interest in demonstrating where I was musically prior the beginning of Evil Clown. I did have a great deal of instrumental technique that I exercised in a very different setting, but working with experienced improvisors starting in 1989 brought it to a whole different level and context. This transformation is documented by the timeline of recordings on the Deep Archive California and Deep Archive Boston pages. These pages have links to a Deep Archive Page for each recording with notes.
I’m sorting through these recordings and pulling out things of particular interest and making a video with a static image on it since all of these materials were only documented on audio. I’m basing my selection on a few criteria: 1) Some event or performance of note, 2) Recordings made in Studios, 3) A representative performance or rehearsal example of a group that had many performances. 4) The only recording I have from a particular project (regardless of recording or performance quality), and 5) A composition of mine or an example of early leadership. I’ll post these on YouTube as the publicly posted way to listen. I am not going to produce CDs and Downloads and the other product that I make for the new releases of Evil Clown Projects. This work is interesting and relevant to the story of the development of the Evil Clown Aesthetic, but some was not under my direction, and not all of it is necesarily fully realized or well recorded. The Deep Archive Pages for each selection linked to from the below Deep Archive Page Images and the California and Boston Deep Archive Lists are like the Album Pages elsewhere on the site and have my notes and any other relevant content… At least for now, I’m going to place the below content chronolgically (as best as I can)…
In 2021 I wrote a lenthy essay posted on this site called: On Transformation Focused Improvisation: The History and Grand Aesthetic of the Evil Clown Record Label. The first two sections of this essay 1) Early PEK History, and 1A) Archival Period tell the story of the Deep Archive Period in more detail.
PEK – 10/30/2026
Deep Archive Links
Click on the image and then follow the links in the lower left to
the YouTube Video or the Deep Archive Page for the recording
