FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:


The Madison Music Collective and Unofficial Productions presents the
legendary cellist and keyboardist Russell Thorne with JoAnne Pow!ers and
Jennifer Pendur on Tuesday,  July 14th, 2009, as part of the Collective Escape
Series.


A classically-trained multi-instrumentalist, Thorne was a much-in-demand
performer in Chicago during the 1960s, performing regularly with such ensembles
as the Joe Daley Trio (described by Down Beat as the city's foremost "New Thing"
group; see RCA's groundbreaking "Live in Newport, 1963", with Thorne on bass,
Hal Russell (of NRG Ensemble fame) on Drums and Joe Daley on saxophones) and the
All Arts Academy Jazz All Stars.  One of Chicago's most prominent improvisors,
he worked with a broad range of internationally known performers ranging from
Louie Bellson to the AACM's Joseph Jarman.  He was a founding member of
Chicago's Emergency Theatre, an improvisational ensemble beginning in the  late
70's, and performed regularly as a member of the Giordanisti trio with Hal
Rammel and Phil Kurz.  Thorne's compositions are particularly influenced by his
association with John Cage and eastern philosophy, and he is also known for his
musique concrete
experiments of the 1970s and 80s.



In the 1980's Thorne relocated to Madison, Wisconsin, where he was a part of
the Madison music scene in the late 80s , performing regularly with his jazz
trio "Venus in Scorpio", as well as operating/curating an experimental
performing arts venue called "The Space" in the back of Madison's Prisca Magia
bookstore.


Thorne left Madison to resume operating The Occult Bookstore in Chicago and
concentrate on his composing, almost completely out of the public eye.  This
July 14th will be Thorne's first public appearance in Madison (and one of very
few anywhere) in almost twenty years, and a unique slice of Madison music
history.


"I thought Russell Thorne was a genius. He had classical training...and he knew
the modern classical compositional scene inside out, could improvise arco as
fluidly as LaFaro or Peacock could pizzicato -- sounded like a swinging Webern
string quartet. And it wasn't virtuoso bullshit; he was a structural thinker,
everything he played made sense, a new sense." --jazz critic Larry Kart


"At Chicago's Emergency Theatre in the late l980s, cellist Russell Thorne's
ability to instantly echo and elaborate the triolin's most rapid lines
continually pushed me to new levels of facility with the instrument...I had been
playing with cellist Russell Thorne in Chicago for several years and his methods
of processing amplified cello were an ongoing inspiration."
-- Milwaukee Improvisor and host of WMSE-FM's "Alternating Currents", Hal
Rammel


"I think that Thorne's playing on the RCA album is incredibly ahead of tis
time, getting into Gary Peacock territory before Peacock did..." -- Chuck Nessa


"Thorne is a stunning bassist--fleet, darting single-note lines alternated with
plucked and strummed chords, moving octaves, and a knowing use of rests. He
bears watching, as does this whole group."
-- From a firsthand account of: Caught in the act: Charlie Parker Memorial
Concert, Sutherland Lounge. posted to allaboutjazz.com


"...hearing in person the bass playing of Russell Thorne with the Joe Daley Trio
was a revelation. Thorne was the first bass player I know of who could create an
instantaneous combination of passion and order out of the new music's materials.
The quality of his arco playing has not yet been approached in jazz, and if the
kind of order he created owed something to modern classical composition (he had
symphony orchestra experience and knew his Boulez, Cage, and Barraqué), it never
had the sterility of so-called third-stream jazz."
-- Larry Kart, from "Jazz in searh of itself", Yale University Press, 2004


The Collective Escape Series is a series of improvised music presented every
Tuesday at 7PM at Escape Java Joint.  The series features weekly performances by
local, regional, national and international musicians.    The series aims to
fill a gaping vacuum in Madison's musical landscape by providing a regular venue
for challenging and adventurous creative music.


Russell Thorne - cello and keyboards
JoAnne Pow!ers - saxophones, cornet, flute
Jennifer Pendur - bass

Tuesday, July 14th
7PM
Escape Java Joint
940 Williamson St.Madison, WI

Suggested Donation: $7


Musician Bios:


Russell Torne:
See above


JoAnne Pow!ers:
Free jazz outlaw JoAnne Pow!ers plays frequently in the Madison Area both as
a solo act and with her trio (The aptly-named JoAnne Pow!ers Trio). Pow!ers also
makes occasional appearances in the [sometimes literally] underground music
scenes of New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Her frenetic saxophone abuse is
often compared to that of Albert Ayler and Peter Brötzmann, with further
influences from late-period John Coltrane and legendary Japanese free-improviser
Kaoru Abe. With a tone that has been known to alternately peel the paint off of
walls and lull angry babies to sleep, Pow!ers is known for her lightning-fast
keywork, and heavy use of multiphonics and other extended techniques. While
largely operating within the "Energy music" school of improvisation, Pow!ers'
music also incorporates elements of the music of the Middle East and India. In
addition to her trios, Pow!ers' collaborators have included New York
percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani; Dave
Rempis (saxophones), Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello), Tim Daisy (percussion), Jaimie
Branch (trumpet) and Marc Riordan (percussion) of Chicago's thriving improvised
music scene; extreme vocalist D.B. Pedersen, and the late multi-instrumentalist
Lyx Ish.


Jennifer Pendur:
Jennifer Pendur evolved her eclectic multidimensional musical aesthetic from
many sources, including early exposure to Cleveland radio during its
experimental non-commercial heyday. As a child she cheerfully absorbed musical
influences from anywhere and everywhere, discovering in her teens the works of
John Cage, Morton Feldman, Arnold Schoenberg, Ornette Coleman, and Charles
Mingus. The interplay of natural environmental sounds and "noise" has always
fascinated her, and she began composing with magnetic tape in eight grade, when
she became fascinated with collage and its application to sound and begged her
parents for a tape recorder. While she has also studied French horn, piano,
flute, guitar and dulcimer, her bass and her voice are her primary instruments
at this time. She took up the upright bass after moving to Chicago in 1974, and
has studied at length with the legendary Russell Thorne, and also recorded with
him in the Giordanisti Trio and
Emergency Theatre Ensemble. During her tenure in the Midwest improvised music
scene, she has also performed with the likes of John Coltrane collaborator
Donald Raphael Garrett, Chicago free-jazz legend Hal Russel (who began his
avant-garde career with Russell Thorne in the Joe Daley Trio), Madison's No
Earth Trio, and Milwaukee instrument inventor Hal Rammel. She has appeared
numerous times with the astonishing jazz-rock guitarist Elijah Israel (now
tragically deceased) in the psychedelic jam-band Earthen Vessels.


Collective Escape July Schedule:

July 7 - Randall Harrison (violin) and JoAnne Pow!ers (saxophones), solos
and duos

July 14 - Russell Thorne (cello and keyboard) w/JoAnne Pow!ers (saxophones
and Jennifer Pendur (bass)

July 21 - Kia Karlen (horn and accordion) and Goeff Brady (theramin and
percussion)

July 28 - Luke Polipnick (guitar and electronics) and guests


For more information, 608-513-3314.





































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