Grundik, Guillaume, and Jack at St. Marks Church in London, Nov. 11, 2007
full concert recording at: http://www.archive.org/details/trio_london_11-07

This trio toured Belgium, Netherlands, France--Normandy and Brittany in September 2008

mp3 of Jack and Guillaume playing in Lyon in April 2007 here

photo of Jack and Guillaume here

Jack Wright  After teaching at Temple University in the 1960s and leaving academia in the early 1970s to engage in radical politics, by the late 1970s Wright directed his energies into music.  He is one of a very small group of musicians in North America that has played improvised music exclusively since the 1970s.  Through years of near constant touring, often performing for audiences in cities and towns where improvised music had never before been heard, he came to be regarded as something of an underground legend. He has deliberately eschewed the conventions and socio-aesthetic limitations of musical careerism to pursue his own vision. Although his de-professionalized approach sets him apart from most musicians at his level of accomplishment, his art has always grown, expanded, and synthesized new information.  He is unquestionably an original and virtuosic saxophonist, a master improviser who is deeply lyrical, with humor never far away.
 
Today Wright tours frequently in Europe and North America (and in Japan in 2006), making new musical and human connections, bringing European musicians to the U.S. and bringing musicians everywhere together.  His inspiration has provided crucial impetus to hundreds of musicians and has even motivated several people to establish music venues in order to present him and other improvisers (e.g. Baltimore’s High Zero festival).  His vast list of collaborators includes some “name” luminaries (William Parker, Axel Dorner, Michel Doneda, Andrea Neumann, Denman Maroney, Bhob Rainey to name a few) but more significant are the many obscure greats he has played with.  He has made over 40 recordings (many published on his own Spring Garden label), performed in over 20 countries, and written extensively and insightfully about music and society for journals such as Improjazz (France) and Signal to Noise (US), as well as his own website.

For a full bio, writings, sound files and list of recordings visit his website: www.springgardenmusic.com

feature article in Signal to Noise Magazine, collaborations with French musicians , tours in europe 2002-2007

2001 interview with John Berndt and also other writings available in French here, as published in Improjazz Jan/Feb. 2004)

Guillaume Viltard

Born in 1975 in the North of Ivory Coast, I had grown up in a wild countryside with almost no music - but many natural sounds. Back in France at the age of 10, I was seized by a compulsive desire of music, listening to many sorts of music, and especially free jazz, to the great displeasure of my brothers who never appreciated Cecil Taylor for breakfast. I was dreaming about bass playing but started studying philosophy. By the whims of fate, I saw a double bass at a friend's flat. A few weeks after, I was studying at the Paris Conservatoire and having private jazz lessons. It was ages ago.

I gave my first improvised bass solo in 2003 (not without apprehension !) I have played with many artists of the French improv' scene, including Heddy Boubaker, Nusch Werchowska, Isabelle Duthoit, Alexandre Kittel, Catherine Jauniaux, Jean Pallandre, Mathias Pontévia, Etienne Brunet, Soizic Lebrat, Sébastien Coste, etc. I have also organised many concerts in Lyon where I lived from 2000 to 2007.

Living in London now, I'm working with the new improv' generation (Sebastian Lexer, Ross Lambert, James O Sullivan, Jerry Wigens and others…) Among my favourites are a really nice new trio with Jamie Coleman on trumpet and Ute Kanngiesser on cello ; a project for a double-bass duo with John Edwards, and also a quartet working both on compositions & improvisation with I-Chin Li (piano), Junjun Li (voice) & Tom Mudd (laptop). The trio with Grundik Kasyansky and Jack Wright is also a musical and human exiting experience.

website: /http://utofmu.free.fr/

Maman, regarde, j’ai trouvé un bruit…

Contrebassiste né dans la tête d’un enfant têtu, Guillaume Viltard est tôt contaminé par le virus de l’improvisation. Grand admirateur de Cecil Taylor et de Barre Phillips, il cultive d’abord la contrebasse auprès de jazzmen parisiens et autres maîtres de musique classique, tâte un temps de la chanson et des musiques tziganes, puis rencontre Joëlle Léandre et la réforme du régime des intermittents : ce seront les facteurs déclencheurs d’une orientation plus radicale.

L’improvisation libre, investie du délicat rôle d’antidote contre toute forme d’académisme, lui semble une alternative crédible, en tant qu’art de l’instant, aux dérives mercantiles à l’œuvre ici ou là. Fervent adepte de la rencontre (source de richesse artistique et humaine) il milite activement pour le développement d’une utopique free music.

À son initiative et sous ce titre - Utopic Free Music - des concerts on régulièrement lieux à la galerie Le Réverbère, à Lyon, depuis l’automne 2005. On a pu y entendre, outre quelques voisins (Olivier Toulemonde, Benoit Cancoin, Eddy Kowalski, Nicolas Desmarchelier et Yann Gourdon) : Antez, Aurélien Besnard & Patrice Soletti, Heddy Boubaker & Sébastien Cirotteau, le saxophoniste Cyril Darmedru, les contrebassistes Éric Brochard ou Camille Perrin, Élisa Trocmé, grande dame de la clarinette, ainsi que Jack Wright & Carol Genetti.

En plus de ses collaborations régulières – avec la pianiste Nush Werchowska (Mauvaises herbes), la danseuse Cia (Ciaume), un duo avec Soizic Lebrat (violoncelle), un autre avec Sébastien Coste (sax soprano) ainsi qu’un trio avec Chris Heenan (clarinette contrebasse & sax alto) et Alex Kittel (percussions) – Guillaume a joué (et rejouerait volontiers) avec de nombreux improvisateurs français et étrangers (Étienne Brunet, Dante Feijoo, Catherine Jauniaux, Mathias Pontévia, Laure Terrier, Isabelle Duthoit, Mathieu Werchowski, etc.

Grundik Kasyansky works in collaboration (improvisation, live installation, happening) and solo (composition, improvisation, installation, audio collage). He also designs sound for dance, theatre and film. For the last couple of years he has concentrated in live performance on "feedback synthesizer" - a kind of analog synthesizer oscillated by means of controlled feedback instead of VCO. This set up provides him with challenge, insecurity, ugliness and all other necessary tools in his search for the peace of mind and beauty. He formed Grundik+Slava http://www.grusla.com/ together with Slava Smelovsky in Israel on 1995. The duo quickly emerged as the key project in the Israely experimental and electronic scene. For the last ten years he collaborated with lots of musicians, dancers, filmamkers and artists including Frank London, Jack Wright, Chaos As Shelter, Victoria Hanna, Andrew Lafkas, Leonel Kaplan, Leandro Barzabal, Bonnie Jones, Alban Bailly, Gregory Reynolds, Ann Adachi, Arcady Freeman Kirichenko, Nori Jacoby, Ninni Morgia, Shige Moriya, Kan Katsura, Ximena Garnica, Dganit Shemy, Ofri Cnaani, Hagar Goren amon others. For more info please visit grundik's website

CDs: solo:

2007: Grundik Kasyansky, Floating Point: music for dance, Topheth Prophet - CDr
2006: Grundik Kasyansky, Live Journal 12.28.2005: feedback synthesizer solo, Rruido - mini CDr
2006: Grundik Kasyansky, Light and Roundchair, Creative Sources

with Grundik+Slava

2007: Xapmc, Rruido, CDr with drawings by Igor Krytogolov
2005: Frogs, Topheth Prophet/Auris Media, (with Victoria Hanna)
2004: For electronics and birds, Stateart
2003: Split, Ak Duck/Fact, (with Ambidextrous)
2001: Album for the Young, Earsay
2000: Polise, Earsay
1999: One Second Before the Planet Blows Up (Apocalyptic Album), Fact

with others

2007: Grundik Kasyansky, Leandro Barzabal, Somewhere between New York and La Plata (upcoming)

online
2006: Jack Wright, Grundik Kasyansky, First Meeting, Archive.org2005: Grundik Kasyansky, Leandro Barzabal, Collage, Kunstkamera2005: Nori Jacoby, Grundik Kasyansky, Open Window, Kunstkamera2005: Slava Smelovsky, Grundik Kasyansky, Arcady Freeman, Duets, Kunstkamera2004: Grundik Kasyansky, Slava Smelovsky, Victoria Hanna, Live in Jerusalem, April 15, 2004

Sound installation: 2000-2007: seven in US and Canada; two in Europe; one in Israel

Theatre and Dance: 2004-2007: eleven in US, Europe, and Israel

Video and Film: 1995-2007: music/sound editing on 23 films and videos, including video installation at Whitney Biennale 2006, award winning film at Festival del Film Corto, Bolzano, Italy, Official Selection of International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2003, first prize at Envideo 2005, and at Columbia Film Festival 2003

Collaboration

Musicians: Slava Smelovsky, Jack Wright, Frank London, Victoria Hanna, JC Jones, Chaos As Shelter, Ambidextrous, Igor Krutogolov, Andrew Lafkas, Gregory Reynolds, Ann Adachi, Nori Jacoby, Leandro Barzabal, Leonel Kaplan, Alban Bailly, Ninni Morgia, Bonnie Jones, Jeremy Slater, Leyna Papach, Lev Bomstein, Daniil Sinichkin, Arcady Freeman Kirichenko, Basya Schechter

Dancers and choreographers: Ximena Garnica, Juan Merchan, Deganit Shemy, Erika Tsimbrovsky Kan Katsura.

Artists: Shige Moriya, Naoki Iwakawa, Hagar Goren, Ofri Cnaani, Daniil Gertman, Max Tigay, Eugene Merman, Vadim Poundaev, Naeem Mohaiemen

Filmmakers: Gabriele Zamparini, Lorenzo Meccoli, Ori Kleiner, Naeem Mohaiemen, Jaime Vaca

Reviews

Microsound music at its best, but Kasyansky adds his own voice to the
genre. Frans de Waard (Vital Weekly)

A finely tuned exploration of the strange interstitial spaces between
sound events. Sam Davies (The Wire)

Interesting, thoughtful and unique tonalities that take the listener
on an unusual audio journey. (www.squidco.com)

Master of the assemblage. Bob Baker Fish (Cyclic Defrost)

"Light and Roundchair" is the first I've heard of Kasyansky's work and
gives good reasons to highly anticipate future music from him. Brian
Olewnick (Bagatellen)