Squidco

“… Joining the Boston free improvising duo of David Peck on clarinets, saxophones, clarinets & flutes, and Glynis Lomon on cello, aquasonic & voice–the core duo of Leap of Faith Orchestra–are Bonnie Kane on tenor sax, flute & electronics, and John Loggia on drums and percussion, capturing the extended title track and a brief, “possible outcome” as a summation. …”

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.

Bonnie Kane (tenor sax, flute, electronics) and John Loggia (drums) are great and very experienced improvisors who both live outside of the Boston area a few hours away.  Despite their remote locations, they are fairly frequent participants here at Evil Clown Headquarters, having performed with Leap of Faith and Turbulence Orchestra formations.  They have been regular musical partners with each other for years.

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.  Free Improvisation is most often performed by smaller units, with trios and duets being very common.  I also like ensembles of this size and we do perform less often with units of this size. 

The Leap of Faith edition for Quest for Uncertainty is a 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. 

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

PEK 11/12/2023