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Spring Garden Music


   




   
     

    	
        "Spring 
        Garden Music" began in 1982 as the name given by Jack Wright to a 
        bunch of raucous improvisers from Philadelphia with whom he was playing. 
        Some of these musicians lived in a house on Spring Garden Street, which 
        the 40-year-old saxophonist (now 68) had bought as an uninhabitable shell 
        a few years before. It became the name for the label of his first record, 
        and then more generally for the adventure of himself and his musical partners. 
        This music expanded and changed as he criss-crossed North America, and 
        also Europe, adding partners from everywhere, in performances and private 
        sessions. After a 15-year disappearance in the wilds of Colorado (during 
        which he studied, wrote, and painted--the above is from 1997), Jack returned 
        to the East Coast in 2003, and now lives in nearby Easton PA, on--amazingly 
        enough--a different street named Spring Garden. He travels even wider 
        horizons, and brings back players from afar to play at the house in Philadelphia 
        and elsewhere. He has been able to stock the house with improvisers, ready 
        to receive visitors interested in like-minded musical experiences. One 
        generation of these appears in the Phila. City Paper: The 
        House that Jack Built. 
        The current grouping consists of some die-hard improvisers from Portland 
        OR: Mark Kaylor, percussion; Heather Vergotis, sax and guitar; Sonny, 
        who is three and just plays; Kelvin Pittman, tenor sax; and a few Pennsyllvanians--Dan 
        Pell, guitar, drums and vocalist; Dan Levin, guitar, sax and bassoon; 
        and Johan Nystrom, percussion.

      

         The music is without known 
        structure or mainstream visibility, bold enough to be uncomfortable with 
        itself. This website opens the door to those who want to look in on this 
        kind of playing and some of the thought behind it. It is another room 
        in the house, where questions are raised about the fundamental direction 
        of our music, and every answer provokes further questions, even doubts. 
        The site is not just for the devotees of this obscure music, but for all 
        who love music that creates itself. We are searching for what will open 
        us to whatever lies within, which includes but is not limited to the musical 
        direction we have chosen.