Squidco Blurb

Turbulence Cosmocentric Edition, the extended horn section for the Leap of Faith Orchestra with the core of PEK on winds & percussion, Yuri Zbitnoff on drums & percussion, plus guest Michael Caglianone on saxophones, sheng, game calls and percussion, in an extended piece that holds reflections of Sun Ra’s work through powerful rhythms and diverse and unusual instrumental passages.

Squidco Staff

Liner Notes by PEK

I formed Turbulence in 2015 as I started to assemble players for the Leap of Faith Orchestra. Turbulence, the extended horn section for the Orchestra (along with guests on other instruments), also records and performs as an independent unit. We have had over 20 albums on Evil Clown with greatly varied ensembles. The only musician on all of them is myself. The sessions range from an early duet with Steve Norton and Myself (Vortex Generation Mechanisms) to a 5 horn band with bass and two percussionists (Encryption Schemes) to four albums by the side project Turbulence Doom Choir which feature myself, multiple tubas, percussion, electronics and signal processing, among other settings.

July’s Outpost 186 show was originally advertised as Leap of Faith. However, there was some scheduling confusion and Glynis did not have the date in her book for some reason. One of the advantages of the broad palate pure improvisation approach is that if one of the players happens not to make it the show can and does go on without difficulty. However, the band name Leap of Faith is only used when Glynis is present, so the ensemble is Turbulence, the wind instrument (sometimes with percussion) branch of the Leap of Faith Orchestra. In the Evil Clown nomenclature, the band names broadly apply to the general approach of the ensemble, rather than to a fixed list of performers.

The newcomer for that show, making his Evil Clown debut on The Conception of Sense session, is Michael Caglianone, a woodwinds player who has been around the Boston Improv scene forever, although we had never before encountered each other. He had a recording studio for a long time and recorded area notable free-scene players like Joe Manieri and Joe Morris as well as Glynis and others more directly involved with Evil Clown. He also had a long running improv band called the Zen Bastards that I knew of but somehow never encountered in person. Recently, Mission Creep, the rock (atomic punk go-go jazz) band of Greg Grinnell that Yuri and I play in, had a big performance on a bill with some great other bands – Rabbit Rabbit Radio (with the amazing violinist Carla Kihlstadt) and Cheer-Accident from Chicago. Anyway, Yuri recruited Mike to come on board Mission Creep for that show, making a three horn line up of that band for the first time since Steve Norton left us for graduate school in Maine. We both really enjoyed playing with each other and I immediately recruited him for Evil Clown. The Conception of Sense set was fantastic and I immediately made moves to schedule some more performances with this small format Turbulence ensemble.

In the 90s, Yuri and I played with the great sax player Raqib Hassan in a number of settings, including Cosmocentric Trio (two saxes & drums). Of course, this is the same base instrumentation as this new trio format, and during The Conception of Sense Yuri busted out the Sun Ra Saturn chant which was a staple of The Cosmocentric Trio! In Tribute to Raqib, we present the Turbulence Cosmocentric Edition – Son of Cosmocentric.

So, this outing is the second trio Turbulence set by this exact band. The Conception of Sense was performed at the Evil Clown monthly residency at Outpost 186 which is a small room – I usually bring a van full of stuff, but I am selective based on how many and which players will be there. Evil Clown Headquarters is much bigger, and especially for a smaller ensemble, there is much more room for instruments. Both environments have their advantages – OP186 forces us to select a narrower more specific pallet, which leads to sets with longer, more similar sounding sections, while ECH allows a much broader pallet including the heavy percussion instruments and electronics, which leads to shorter, more diverse sonorities, higher transformation rates, and more dramatic development. Check out both new albums to see the birth of a new variation of the Turbulence ensemble!!

PEK – 9/6/2019