No Idea Festival 2010 // Seeds + Systems

Remi Alvarez
Saxophone(s), flute(s)
México City

visit artist website

Remi was born in Mexico City, Mexico. He studied transversal flute at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música from 1975 to 1979 with Rubén Islas.

Self-study formation in saxophone, his professional debut was with Cuarteto Mexicano de Jazz in 1984. Later, he moved to New York City and continues his studies of composition and improvisation at the Creative Music Studio with Anthony Braxton, George Lewis, Roscoe Mitchell and Don Cherry. He studied a bachelor in jazz at the Escuela Superior de Música (ESM - INBA) from 1982 to 1987. In 1988, he traveled to Paris where his musical development was strengthened by taking classes with the composer-sax player Steve Lacy.

Since 1991, he has been a professor of saxophone and jazz at the Escuela Nacional de Música from Universidad Autónoma de México (ENM - UNAM).

Foundator of Cráneo de Jade, with whom he has co-produced and recorded three CD’s. Invited to the Festival Internacional de Jazz Plaza in La Habana, Cuba, in 1997. In October 2005, Cráneo de Jade performed at the Palacio de Bellas Artes as a part of the “Los Diez Grandes del Jazz”, a tribute to the pioneers of jazz in México. In April 2007, Cráneo de Jade atended the VII Festival Internacional de San Luis Potosí.

Currently, he is a member of Antimateria, Cráneo de Jade & FAS Trio ensembles; he plays a duet with Gabriel Lauber and runs his own trio: Remi Álvarez Trio. He has performed live with musicians like Sabir Mateen, William Parker, Hamid Drake, Joe Morris, Mark Dresser, Cooper-Moore, Elliott Levin, Rodrigo Amado, Dennis, Stefan and Aaron González, Ernest Dawkins, Vinz Vonlanthen, Michael Vatcher, Tayeb Laoufi and the Gnawa Spirit from Morocco. He has performed live and recorded with the Camerata de las Américas. In June 2006, he was invited to play in the Vision Festival, the most important free jazz festival in New York by Dennis González, Texan trumpet player.

Ingebrigt Håker Flaten
Double bass
Oslo, Norway/Austin

visit artist website

Ingebrigt studied Jazz at the Music Consevatory in Trondheim, Norway, from 1992-95 with bass player Odd Magne Gridseth. Since ’95 he has been a professional musician, shaping and refining his sound by touring extensively all over the world with some of the most diverse and important improvisers on the international circuit today. Ingebrigt has ongoing transcontinental projects with musicians from the undergrounds of New York, Chicago, Austin and Houston, and have participated on more than 100 recordings.

Ingebrigt is currently focusing on his work in the Scandinavian ensembles Atomic and The Thing, both of which have toured Europe, Japan and the U.S. regularly over the past decade. He also leads his own quintet and is a member of the bands Free Fall, The Electrics, Townhouse Orchestra, The Outskirts, Dave Rempis Percussion Quartet, Scorch Trio, Trinity, IPA, Daniel Levin Trio and Atomic Schooldays.

Håker Flaten represents a special era in Norwegian bass tradition. Inspired by Jimmy Garrison, Richard Davis and William Parker, as well as European bassists such as Barry Guy, Dave Holland and Peter Kowald, he provides an historical continuity of the instrument’s tradition, and as such, improvisation. Ingebrigt’s bassplaying also draw inspiration and energy from his deep roots in the bustling Norwegian jazz scene. This can be summarized by placing him and his contemporaries in the great lineage of Norwegian progressive jazz musicians that include the famed Jan Garbarek, Arild Andersen and Terje Rypdal, as well as the less well-known pianist, Svein Finnerud, and bassist, Bjørnar Andresen, all of whom were key figures in shaping Norwegian avant garde jazz into the sound we have today.

Today, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten is one of the great ambassadors of the Norwegian sound, carrying this strong tradition further, both musically and geographically. He is constantly pushing and challenging himself, seeking out collaborations that hold a promise to lead to new and unheard territories.

Stefan Gonzalez
Drums
Dallas

visit artist website

Born into the tradition of jazz and creative music, Stefan Gonzalez enjoyed a rigorous and diverse musical education under the tutelage of his father, iconic trumpeter Dennis Gonzalez. After mastering his instrument at an early age, Stefan has worked to push the creative envelope beyond the perceived limits of style, genre and form. Stefan’s diverse influences allow him to move seamlessly between Mariachi, iterations of rock and hardcore, jazz and creative improvisation.

Stefan’s list of musical influences give voice to the power and immediacy of his furious, blistering and graceful musicianship of his knock-your-fucking-head-off music: "Grindcore movement late 1980’s-now, Anarcho Punk Movement of the early 1980’s and early 1990’s, Avant Garde Jazz movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s, Noise, Punk Jazz, Harmolodic Theory, World Percussion, Thrash, Speed Metal, Ancestral Beckonings, Hopefulness/Hopelessness, Optomistic Nihilism, Downfall of Morality, Torturous Mortality, Life, Marijuana, and most importantly the disgust I feel for my immediate environment and the legions of idiots spawned from it."

Still in his early 20’s, Stefan has collaborated with musicians from around the world in concerts and recording sessions in several countries and continents. Collaborations include: Yells at Eels, Luis Lopes’ Humanization 4tet, German Bringas, Famoudou Don Moye, Remi Alvarez, Alvin Fielder, Sabir Mateen, Chris Parker, Oliver Lake, Tatsuya Nakatani, Curtis Clark, Daniel Carter, Faruq Z. Bey and the list goes on..

Stefan’s music is a rare blend of maturity, dynamism and sheer power not to be missed.

Aaron Gonzalez
Double bass
Dallas

Aaron Gonzalez was born November of 1980, in Dallas. He was born into art and music, surrounded by that of his father, Dennis Gonzalez, and Dennis’ various associates since early life. He took lessons in cello and piano, and settled on the bass violin at age 10, playing in school orchestras up through high school, eventually taking private lessons in a program called Young Strings, sponsored by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in high school.

During his high school years, he began playing regularly in bands with members of his immediate family: Trio Brujos (accordion driven trio playing traditional Mexican musics); and Akkolyte (a punk/grindcore duo). This led to the formation of Yells at Eels, featuring his father and both brothers as the core trio, with other instrumentalists, playing a fusion of various styles of jazz and improvised music. Both Akkolyte and Yells at Eels began touring the US, Canada, and Europe in 2000. Yells at Eels have played with Tim Green, Sabir Mateen, George Cartwright, Douglas Ewart, Oliver Lake, and Famoudou Don Moye. They have also toured the U.S., Portugal, and Poland with Portuguese saxophone great Rodrigo Amado.

During the last seven years, Aaron has played with a number of local experimental and rock bands, including MFM, Life-Death Continuum, Aphonic Curtains, Bundle of Joy, Mazinga Phaser II, Unconscious Collective, Pantheon Bar Vanguard, SUBKommander, and The Good Sons. He has played in various improvisational settings with members of Dallas ensembles such as Tidbits, Zanzibar Snails, and the Monks of Saturnalia, as well as with around the US with such notables as Douglas Ewart, Tatsuya Nakatani, Damon Smith and Matt Lavelle.

He is currently composing music for two new large-scale improv fusion groups, 20Scream of Love and Blaze a Smiling Rainbow, both slated for public presentation later in the year.

Dave Dove
Amplified trombone with effects, screw tracks
Houston

“Screwed Anthologies” was originally commissioned by labotanica for the exhibit “Screwed Anthologies”. Learn more: about DJ Screw, DJ Screw interview, Screwed Up Records and Tapes.

Trombonist, improvisor, composer, and educator David Dove grew up learning his horn in the public school band program, while at the same time playing electric-bass in punk rock groups. Before he was out of high school, he began a period exploring a wide variety of musical styles (including 6 years in the band Sprawl). In the early 1990’s, he became dedicated to free improvisation, intensively experimenting with a small group of like-minded Houston musicians (including New Zealander Paul Winstanley and the then-trio Charalambides). A degree of isolation, an eclectic musical background, and a commitment to creativity eventually led him to conceive of a new approach to music education. In 1997, Dove started working at MECA, an inner-city arts community center, where he began to develop this approach. In 2000, Pauline Oliveros (an important mentor) invited him to start a branch of The Deep Listening Institute (DLI) to further his education goals and bring contemporary musicians to Houston. In 2006, DLI Houston became Nameless Sound, an independent, Houston-based organization. Nameless Sound reaches over 1500 young people in Houston every year through creative music workshops in public schools, community centers, homeless shelters, and refugee communities. Dove has given performances and workshops all over the US and some internationally (Mexico, Canada, Scotland, Vietnam, Germany). He has collaborated with many of his favorite local/national/international artists (some very well known, some less known).

Lucas Gorham
Guitar, lap steel guitar, effects, loops
Houston

“Screwed Anthologies” was originally commissioned by labotanica for the exhibit “Screwed Anthologies”. Learn more: about DJ Screw, DJ Screw interview, Screwed Up Records and Tapes.

Guitarist, lap steel guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter Lucas Gorham first met Dove when he was a teenager in 1999. Lucas was playing guitar in a local ‘rock-en-español’ band. Nurtured on his parents’ record collection and turned on to Cecil Taylor by a hip math teacher, Gorham fit right in with Nameless Sound’s Youth Ensemble. By the time he was 19, Gorham was not only a fine improvisor, he’d gained (through Nameless Sound) experience in workshops with some of the premiere names in creative music (including Pauline Oliveros, Joe McPhee, Eugene Chadbourne, Sam Rivers, Leroy Jenkins, and William Parker). Gorham went on to be a key player in Houston’s music scene (both ‘underground’ and ‘above ground’). He fronts (and writes for) for Grandfather Child, an energetic and hard-rocking band with a soul/gospel influence, performing Gorham’s heart-felt songs. Heavily influenced from his time playing in a charismatic church, Gorham calls his music “church music without the religion”. Gorham’s ecstatic tendencies are even stronger in his “Sad Gorilla” solo sets, where three guitars (two lap steels), his voice, and some looping pedals weave a raw-but-soulful web of grooves (and deconstructed grooves), soul, boogie, drone, noise, and improvisation (sometimes done in ‘guerilla’ style public performance). Gorham isn’t chained to his vision. His wide range and open spirit has made him one of the most active collaborators in Houston’s busy improvisation scene.

Jesse Kudler
Guitar, electronics
Philadelphia

visit artist website

Jesse Kudler, born 1979, improvises on cheap consumer devices: a no-name electric guitar, hand-held cassette recorders, radios and transmitters, various small junk, and pedals/electronics. He uses a computer to assemble his recorded music. Kudler’s work often operates on the extremes of volume, demonstrating an interest in the subtleties that can arise from intense softness or loudness, and it is marked by special attention to the stereo field. Recent interest has focused on both internal (electronic/radio) and external (microphone/speaker) feedback. Beyond simply exploring non-pitched sounds, Kudler investigates their use in creating improvised structure.

Kudler attended public school until Wesleyan University, where he studied music with Ron Kuivila, Alvin Lucier, and a little bit with Anthony Braxton, among others. He eventually became active as an organizer and performer in improvised, experimental, and electronic music, forming a regular duo with fellow student Jonathan Zorn and leading the large electronic improvising ensemble Phil Collins. Kudler has also worked as a recording engineer for various projects.

In his various travels, Kudler has performed with Matt Bauder, Kyle Bruckmann, Chris Cogburn, James Coleman, Tim Feeney, Marcos Fernandes, Brent Gutzeit, Horse Sinister, Bonnie Jones, Jason Kahn, Mazen Kerbaj, Pauline Oliveros, Bhob Rainey, Vic Rawlings, Christine Sehnaoui, Mike Shiflet, Jason Soliday, Howard Stelzer, Christian Weber, Matt Weston, Jack Wright, Jason Zeh, and many others. He has toured the United States several times.

Jesse Kudler lives in Philadelphia. Current and recent projects include: HZL, an environmental electronics duo with Tim Albro; a duo with Ian Fraser; Tweeter, a treble-intensive noise trio with Alex Nagle and Eli Litwin; Benito Cereno (with Dustin Hurt, Chandan Narayan, Tim Albro, and Ian Fraser); duos with Chris Cogburn and Christian Weber; solo performance and recording; and various ad hoc groupings.

NB: His last name rhymes with “muddler.”

Chris Cogburn
Percussion
Austin

visit artist website

Percussionist Chris Cogburn is an active performer, educator and organizer, currently living in Austin, Texas. Current projects include an electro-acoustic trio with avant-vocalist Liz Tonne and Baltimore electronic musician Bonnie Jones, duo collaborations with Vancouver percussionist Jeffrey Allport and a trio with México City based Visual artist Antonio Domínguez and guitarist Fernando Vigueras.

Cogburn has led workshops on creative music making around the U.S., Canada and Mexico, working in contexts as diverse as inner-city community centers, homeless shelters, public and private high schools, Universities and Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening Space.

Interested in inter-media collaborations, Cogburn recently traveled on the Wave Books Poetry Bus, performing solo and with poet Joshua Beckman, with a final performance at James Turrell’s Roden Crater.

Beginning in the summer of 2003, Cogburn has hosted an annual festival of improvised music - the No Idea Festival - showcasing a handful of Texas’ premiere creative musicians in collaboration with improvisors from around the U.S., Europe, Japan, Mexico, Canada and beyond.

Nick Hennies
Percussion
Austin

visit artist website

Nick Hennies is a percussionist and composer from Louisville, KY. He received his M.A. in percussion from the University of California-San Diego in 2003 where he studied with renowned percussionist Steven Schick and performed with the percussion group ‘red fish blue fish’, the SONOR Ensemble, and in a duo with trombonist Tucker Dulin.

After relocating to Austin, TX in 2003, Hennies founded The Weird Weeds with Aaron Russell and has performed regularly with the Austin New Music Co-op in addition to numerous solo concerts and frequent collaborations with local and visiting musicians. He has worked with Arnold Dreyblatt, Radu Malfatti, Dave Gross, Rick Reed, Brent Fariss, Eugene Chadbourne and many other composers and improvisers from the United States and abroad. Other notable appearances include the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella Series, Festival Agora (Paris), the No Idea Festival (Austin), and with Jandek in his first ever U.S. performance.

In addition to performing, Hennies studied composition with Herbert Brün and Stuart Saunders Smith, hosts Commercial Suicide on 91.7 KOOP Austin community radio, and is a steadfast promoter and organizer of experimental music events in Austin.