Liner Notes by PEK

Leap of Faith is the core duet of the Leap of Faith Orchestra (LOFO) comprised of PEK on clarinets, saxophones, double reeds & 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 (now over 150) feature the various 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.

Besides Glynis and Yuri, there are other performers from the Archival Period who are still around and have played in the Contemporary Period sessions.  Some, like drummer Syd Smart and pianist Eric Zinman were involved right away after the 2015 reboot.  I have found some others more recently who are now frequent participants like trumpeter John Fugarino who has been on board for a couple of years.  Recently, guitarist Tor Snyder, who I played with in Raqib Hassan’s ensembles in the mid-90s has made the trek up from New York 3 times in the last few months. 

All three of Tor’s sets have included Albey onBass and Glynis.  Those three make a hell of a string section, let me tell you…  Albey, Vance and Tor have all recently played quite a bit with drummer Dennis Warren.  Dennis also played with Raqib bands in the 90s.  Raqib’s large Ensemble Mogra actually included three trap set drummers:  Dennis, Yuri and Syd Smart, who are all participants in the Evil Clown Contemporary Period.  He currently lives in Springfield MA where he also has a nice studio in his house.  Albey, Vance and I did a great quartet session at Dennis’ FMJRE Springfield studio last fall, and now this session is Dennis’ first visit to Evil Clown Headquarters.  I think this is an excellent sextet edition of Leap of Faith.  The combination of this great string section with two horns and the large drum set piloted by Dennis Warren produced an excellent concert length performance livestreamed to YouTube.  Looking forward to variations on this lineup in the future.

I like this set and I bet you will too…

PEK out 1/21/2024