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PEK

Texture and Transformation: PEK & His Grand Aesthetic Challenge

PEK (aka David Peck) is a multi-instrument improviser who plays all kinds of instruments including saxophones, clarinets, double reeds, percussion, electronics and auxiliary sound making devices of all kinds.

PEK was born in 1964 and started playing clarinet and piano in elementary school. In 7th grade he started saxophones, first on alto, then switching to tenor in high school. He spent 10 years playing in rock bands and studying classical and jazz saxophone with Kurt Heisig in the San Jose CA area before moving to Boston in 1989 to attend Berklee where he studied performance with George Garzone. While Berklee was an excellent place to study harmony, voice training and other important aspects of a conventional formal music training course of study, it was not a very good environment for learning contemporary (or pure) improvisation (apart from his work with George). PEK did find, however, that Boston had a thriving improvisation scene, and it was here that he developed his mature pure improvisation language.

During the 90s, PEK performed with many notable improvisers including Masashi Harada, Glynis Lomon, William Parker, Laurence Cooke, Eric Zinman, Glenn Spearman, Raqib Hassan, Charlie Kohlhase, Steve Norton, Keith Hedger, Mark McGrain, Sydney Smart, Matt Samolis, Martha Ritchey, Larry Roland, Dennis Warren, Yuri Zbitnov, Craig Schildhauer, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Leslie Ross, Rob Bethel, Wayne Rogers, Eric Rosenthal, Taylor Ho Bynum, Tatsuya Nakatani, James Coleman, B’hob Rainey and George Garzone.

PEK met cellist Glynis Lomon when they played together in the Masashi Harada Sextet which existed between 1990 and 1992. They developed a deep musical connection which they continued following the MHS; first with the Leaping Water Trio for a few years and then with the first version of Leap of Faith in 1994. Leap of Faith was very active in Boston from that time until 2001 and went through a series of several core ensembles which always included both PEK and Glynis. Other key Leap of Faith core members during this period were Mark McGrain (trombone), Craig Schildhauer (double bass), Sydney Smart (drums), Yuri Zbitnov (drums) and James Coleman (theremin). Leap of Faith was always a very modular unit with constantly shifting personnel and many different guests. The early Leap of Faith period concluded in 2001 with a dual bill at an excellent room at MIT called Killian Hall with George Garzone’s seminal trio the Fringe.

At this time, PEK changed careers for his day gig, returning to college for a computer science degree and beginning to work in the structural engineering industry at Simpson Gumpertz & Heger. He became far too busy to continue the heavy music schedule, and preferring not to do music casually, he entered a long musically dormant period.

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8
Album Review

Leap of Faith Orchestra: The Photon Epoch

Read "The Photon Epoch" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Composer, multi-instrumentalist, bandleader and label founder, PEK is an audacious experimenter. Beyond that, there are no appropriate labels for the music associated with his numerous groups on his Evil Clown label. Listen to the Leap of Faith Orchestra on The Photon Epoch and you will find yourself at thirty-thousand feet, in a place with few identifiable landmarks, and then just trust that PEK will land the plane. Twice each year, the Evil Clown family of groups convenes as ...

12
Album Review

Leap of Faith Orchestra: SuperClusters

Read "SuperClusters" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


On two occasions each year, composer and multi-instrumentalist PEK (David M. Peck), gathers together his Evil Clown collective for live recordings. Culled from Leap of Faith, String Theory, Mekaniks, Metal Chaos Ensemble and their respective off-shoots of each, the players form his massive, eighteen-member Leap of Faith Orchestra. For the SuperClusters session, the group assembled at Longy School of Music at Bard College with a specially written score that takes advantage of the individual sub-groups' previous experiences.As LOFO ...

17
Album Review

PEK: Leap of Faith Orchestra - Possible Universes

Read "Leap of Faith Orchestra - Possible Universes" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Possible Universes is the latest release from the multi-faceted Leap of Faith collective. In the orchestra formation, the group has released some half-dozen recordings but the “full" orchestra is a biannual occurrence where the normally fifteen-piece ensemble grows. On this album, the collaborative expands to twenty-four musicians and, as always, the long-time anchors are composer and reed player PEK (David Peck) and cellist Glynis Lomon. As is often the circumstance in Leap of Faith Orchestra recordings, the album ...

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1

Performance / Tour

Jazz this week: James Carter Organ Trio, Gary Peacock, Spektral Quartet, and more

Jazz this week: James Carter Organ Trio, Gary Peacock, Spektral Quartet, and more

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman

As March comes into St. Louis in mostly lamb-like fashion, the first week of the new month offers several intriguing jazz and creative music headliners on local stages, plus an assortment of performances from local musicians in a variety of styles, and a rare chance to see a film scored by Miles Davis on the big screen. Let's go to the highlights... Wednesday, March 2 Saxophonist James Carter returns with his organ trio for the first of four nights at ...

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Performance / Tour

Anna Maria Jopek: Polish Diva's 2014 North American Tour

Anna Maria Jopek: Polish Diva's 2014 North American Tour

Source: Michael Ricci

By Ernest Barteldes Although Polish singer Anna Maria Jopek is well-respected and recognized by fans in Europe and also the numerous artists she has worked with over the years (including Pat Metheny, Tomasz Stanko and bassist Richard Bona), she has yet to be discovered by mainstream jazz/world fans in North America. It is hard to gauge why she hasn't yet been more widely discovered Stateside, but one possibility could be the fact that she is a bit ...

81

Recording

Ernie Krivda Stokes the Flames with "Blues for Pekar"

Ernie Krivda Stokes the Flames with "Blues for Pekar"

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards

Tenorist Ernie Krivda has unassumingly been at it for decades, building up a rather voluminous discography of hard swinging jazz with roots in the hard bop of the mid-late '50s through early sixties. Many of those disks are quite fine; many were made for the Cadence-CIMP label complex Bob Rusch heads. And herewith, a new offering [Blues for Pekar (Capri 74110-2)] (dedicated to jazz writer/critic Harvey Pekar) for his quartet-quintet (tenor, piano, bass, drums and an added trumpet/fluegel on four ...

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Recording

Ernie Krivda - Blues for Pekar (Capri, 2011)

Ernie Krivda - Blues for Pekar (Capri, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland

Harvey Pekar was most well known as a graphic novelist, but he was also a huge jazz fan and occasional critic. He receives a fine tribute on this album, a strong disc rooted in the bebop and hard-bop firmament of jazz, and played with a passion and joy that is infectious. Ernie Krivda plays tenor saxophone, joined by Claude Black on piano, Marion Haydenon bass, Renell Gonsalves on drums and Sean Jones or Dominick Farinacci sitting in on trumpet. Krivda ...

181

Video / DVD

Jason Parker Quartet / Nick Drake / Jay-Z Mash-up by Hip-Hop Producer Spekulation - "Can't Knock The Hustle"

Jason Parker Quartet / Nick Drake / Jay-Z Mash-up by Hip-Hop Producer Spekulation - "Can't Knock The Hustle"

Source: Jason Parker

Seattle's Jason Parker Quartet has recorded their latest album Five Leaves Left: A Tribute To Nick Drake, due out next month. Parker sent the mixes to his friend, hip-hip producer Spekulation for his input, and in return got back a 6 tracks cut up and remixed with Jay-Z lyrics! “Can't Knock The Hustle" is the first single from the “Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em" EP by Spekulation, available February 29th. “Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em" is a 6-track ...

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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Anna Maria Jopek

Jazz Musician of the Day: Anna Maria Jopek

Source:

All About Jazz is celebrating Anna Maria Jopek's birthday today!

Anna Maria Jopek

“I couldn\'t think of anything more inspiring, motivating and ear opening than working with Pat. He\'s been my first and most important mentor for years, but to actually make music with him was the most thrilling experience in my life..... more

Website | Photos | Articles

Follow Anna Maria Jopek

Put AAJ's Musician of the Day box on your ...

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Recording

The Friday Morning Listen: Regina Spektor - Far (2009)

The Friday Morning Listen: Regina Spektor - Far (2009)

Source: Something Else!

By Mark Saleski Lots of review sites have already posted their best-of lists for 2010. We here at SomethingElse! are still in heavy consideration mode. Every single evening for the past couple of weeks we have been locking ourselves into the SomethingElse!Study with our slippers, smoking jackets, top-shelf brandy, and sharpened pencils. Now don't you laugh...Nick looks absolutely swank in that jacket! Besides, it's quite important to get cozy because this is no easy work. A ton of music has ...

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Obituary

Correspondence: On Harvey Pekar

Correspondence: On Harvey Pekar

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey


407

Obituary

Harvey Pekar, Jazz Critic

Harvey Pekar, Jazz Critic

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

Harvey Pekar died this week at the age of 70. He will, inevitably, be more widely remembered for his seriously adult American Splendor comics and the movie they inspired than for his jazz criticism. As a writer about music he was—no surprise—eccentric and uneven but at his best wrote with precision and frankness about what he heard in his careful listening. Here is the conclusion of his Austin Chronicle review of the reissue of the Miles Davis Cellar Door Sessions. ...

112

Obituary

Harvey Pekar, 'American Splendor' Creator, Dies at 70

Harvey Pekar, 'American Splendor' Creator, Dies at 70

Source: Michael Lorenz

Harvey Pekar, whose autobiographical comic book American Splendor attracted a cult following for its unvarnished stories of a depressed, aggrieved Everyman negotiating daily life in Cleveland and became the basis for a critically acclaimed 2003 film, died on Monday at his home in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. He was 70. A spokesman for the Cuyahoga County coroner's office said that no cause of death had yet been determined. Capt. Michael Cannon of the Cleveland Heights Police Department, which was summoned to ...

On Leap of Faith: "Alien yet familiar, bizarre yet completely fascinating. Expanding, contracting, erupting, settling down, always as one force..." - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG

On Helix... “…This is no-holds-barred improvisation in its most challenging, uncompromising form… there are some hair-raising moments along the way capable of startling and challenging even the most experienced listeners of freely-improvised music. ‘Helix’ is a striking example of what can be done by larger ensembles within the realm of free improvisation…” - Troy Dostert, The Free Jazz Collective

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