Liner Notes by PEK

Leap of Faith is the core duet of the Leap of Faith Orchestra (LOFO) comprised of PEK on clarinets, saxophones, clarinets & 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.

Kane Loggia Hypothesis is a regular duet with Bonnie Kane (tenor sax, flute, electronics) and John Loggia (drums) who have played together for years.  Despite the fact that they both live a hour or two from Boston (in Holyoake MA and Brattleboro VT) they are relatively frequent Evil Clown contributors with both the Leap of Faith and Turbulence Orchestra ensembles.  They come into Waltham to Evil Clown Headquarters (near Boston) for Livestreaming shows and we travel to them for certain events.  For several years, Bonnie ran an improvisation series near to her house in Holyoake where Leap of Faith performed several times.  Unfortunately, the arrangement with that venue did not survive the pandemic.  More recently she has moved her Series to John’s Gallery/Performance Space (118 Elliot Street Gallery) which he owns in Brattleboro.  I performed there a few months back at a little festival put together by John, and this set, Interconnected by Testable Relations marks the first appearance by Leap of Faith at this new venue.

Most of the Evil Clown sets that Bonnie and John have been in on were with larger ensembles.  Turbulence Orchestra is especially big for a pure improvisation unit, frequently having as many as eight or nine horn players with bass and drums.  I have been interested in the aesthetic problem of large ensemble pure improvisation for years.  The Evil Clown Roster is very large (roughly 50 musicians) who have varying levels of participation.  Consequently, it is more common for our Livestreaming performances to have 6 or more players in the performance as well as the crew for audio and video recording. 

I also enjoy smaller units and a while back Bonnie and I discussed doing a Leap of Faith quartet edition with me, Glynis, Bonnie and John.  A few weeks ago, we recorded Quest for Uncertainty with this quartet comprised of two duets with each duet having a very long history.  I like this dynamic in improvisation since the long-standing musical relationships create multiple levels of interaction:  Both player to player and duet to duet. 

Interconnected by Testable Relations provides an opportunity to see the two ensembles separated into even smaller configurations: Leap of Faith as a trio with guest John Fugarino, and Kane Loggia Hypothesis with guest Ben James.  The two half hour sets presented on this recording are from two of the five ensembles performing at Bonnies show, Masters of Sonic Liberation 2 at 118 Elliot Street Gallery in Brattleboro.  All five bands were very different and the whole night was terrific. 

Anyway, I enjoyed this night, and I’m sure you will too!!  Check it out.

PEK 11/20/2023