Sunday 26 April 2026, 7.30pm
Josh Berman is a cornetist, improviser, composer, and music presenter. An essential contributor to Chicago’s active free jazz and improvised music scene, his work encompasses performing in a variety of highly collaborative formats, while also creating performance opportunities for musicians, having produced hundreds of shows in Chicago over the past 25 years. He has led the acclaimed bands Old Idea, Josh Berman and his Gang, and his own trio. His recordings can be found on Chicago’s legendary Delmark Records and Austin’s Astral Spirits Records.
Tonight’s concert will celebrate his trio’s brand-new release Everybody Else’s Life, Too (Corbett vs. Dempsey). Here Berman appears again with a distinctive mix of free jazz, sound, and improvised music. In this grouping, his long-time musical companion Jason Roebke is on double bass, and the master drummer Chris Corsano – who is active in nearly all areas of experimental music – completes Berman’s dynamic trio. For the second set they’re thrilled to be joined by their dear friend and admired London colleague Alexander Hawkins.
Josh Berman / cornet
Jason Roebke / bass
Chris Corsano / drums
The diversity of Jason Roebke’s musical associations make him one of the most sought after bassists, composers, and educators in Chicago and beyond. He composes music that is extreme in its pairing of silence and explosive gestures. His music is rooted in jazz and takes inspiration from experimental music, noise, and improvisation. Solo performance and a duo with dancer Ayako Kato are also at the forefront of his creative activities. As a double bassist, his playing is intensely physical, audacious, and sparse. The Chicago Reader described his work as “a carefully orchestrated rummage through a hardware store.” Roebke studied privately with saxophonist and composer Roscoe Mitchell as well as legendary double bass pedagogue Stuart Sankey. In 2009, he was awarded the Fellowship in Music Composition from the Illinois Arts Council. Roebke tours widely in the US and Europe.
CHRIS CORSANO is an upstate NY-based drummer who has been active at the intersections of collective improvisation, free jazz, avant-rock, and noise music since the late 1990's. Corsano is one of the greatest drummers working today, developing a percussive language of extraordinary amplitude and infinite resources. His collaborations stretch from free jazz greats (Joe McPhee, Evan Parker, Paul Flaherty & more) to noise mavens (Jandek, Bill Nace, C Spencer Yeh etc) and pop superstars (Björk). Capable of generating narrative out of permanent ecstasy, Corsano never ceases to be profoundly affirmative and imposing of his language, and being an absolute and charismatic virtuoso, he simultaneously is one of the most noble and generous improvisers of the few last decades.
A move from western Massachusetts to the UK in 2005 led Corsano to develop his solo music - a dynamic, spontaneously-composed amalgam of extended techniques for drum set and non-percussive instruments of his own making: e.g. bowed violin strings stretched across drum heads, modified reed instruments, and stockpiles of resonant metal. In February 2006, Corsano released his first solo recording, The Young Cricketer, and toured extensively throughout Europe, USA, Australia, and Japan. In 2009, Corsano returned focus to his own projects, including a duo with Michael Flower, Vampire Belt (with Bill Nace), Rangda (with Richard Bishop and Ben Chasny) and his solo work, further expanded in its use of contact microphones and synthesizers. In 2017, he received the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artist Award.
Corsano's dedication to collective improvisation has led to collaborations with many kindred spirits and his appearance on over 150 records and 1000 live performances. He's worked with, among others: Paul Dunmall (released by ESP-Disk), Joe McPhee (Roaratorio), Okkyung Lee (Open Mouth), Earth Ball (Upset The Rhythm), Nate Wooley (No Business & Astral Spirits), Jim O'Rourke & Akira Sakata (Drag City), Merzbow (Family Vineyard), Jessica Rylan (Load Records), John Edwards, Nels Cline, Heather Leigh, Ghédalia Tazartès and Sunburned Hand Of Man.
https://chriscorsano.bandcamp.com/music
