Formed in the spring of 2000. Drummer, Chico, and bassist Kit had been performing together for several years beforehand and through a Captain Beefheart connection Chico, sensing a good fit asked saxophonist Alonzo to come rehearse with them. In a free improv session out in Kit’s barn the chemistry clicked, and they never looked back.
With a common interest in free improv jazz, obscure world music, 1960’s Italian soundtracks, outsider music and fellow new music performers we have developed, between the three of us, a common musical base. A fluent lingua-musica that allows us to create performances by conversing in this language. Because of this intuited communication our spontaneous compositions often come off sounding like rehearsed written pieces, when in fact they are made up on the spot. The sounds in our performances range from quiet textural sonic atmospheres to fiery aggressive free-jazz.
What is Out-Bop?
Out-bop is a coined term meant to point in two directions. One to the past and to bebop and one to the future and out/outside-beyond music. Bebop is the resurgent modern jazz movement of the late 40’s early 50s that was active among a small cadre of musician who longed to make music that was vital and new. They felt no urge to appease popular sentiment, actually quite the opposite, as they purposefully made music to challenge their audience. Bebop was urban and gritty and streetwise. It was also technical and difficult to play but for the initiated. It’s a curious historical note that jazz critics of the time maligned these innovators who are now lionized by the current jazz establishment. You won’t find the technical musical notation of bebop in our music (except in occasional quotations or in mutant form) but we very much aspire to the energy that inspired that original art form. They created because they were driven by their artistry and kinship and commitment to a new musical form. The ” out” of out-bop can be taken as a variety of flavors. It can be Outrageous or Outsider. But mostly it refers to the avant-garde which by definition is always ahead of the mainstream and hence outside of it. Out-Bop, put together is music that reflects on jazz improvisation roots,not in an academic-repertory way, but in an artist-energy way and throws it into the flames of the future where it is incenderized in an air of mystery and awe. In the 60’s it was The New Thing or Fire Music today it is Out-Bop.