Luggage Store Creative Music Series
1007 Market Street SF
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8:15 pm Carey/Benedict/Arkin
Ian Carey - trumpet
Lorin Benedict - voice & Jon Arkin - drums
9:00 pm nooisc
Bill Noertker - basses, Mark Oi - electric guitar, Bethany Schwarz - electronics

Guitarist Mark Oi and bassist Bill Noertker first met in the mid-90s when Oi was playing with John Tchicai and Noertker was playing with the After the End of the World Coretet. When Tchicai moved to France in 2001, Oi moved to Seattle. That was the same year that Noertker formed his working ensemble, Noertker's Moxie. By 2014 Oi had returned to the Bay Area.
Since then he and Noertker have been meeting weekly to hone their unique musical lexicon through the use of non-standard compositional techniques, improvised harmonic textures, cell structure pieces, juxtapositions of incongruent melodic lines, neo-classical formations, telepathic improvisational dialogues, and the blurring of standard electric guitar/electric bass roles.
They released their first CD on Edgetone Records in the spring of 2018.
Most recently they have been working on textural improvisations using looping pedals, prepared instruments, and extended techniques. They are sometimes joined in this endeavor by electronic musician Bethany Schwarz.
Bethany Schwarz creates a sonic experience that gives the listener an opportunity for personal discovery. With emphasis on tone and texture, her sound has been described as "meditative soundscape". While most of her work to date has been electronic cassette-based recording, she is increasingly working with non-electronic timbres in live, rock-and-roll-influenced experimentation.

Quickly recognized as a formidable improviser, Carey performed around the Bay Area with top-notch ensembles including: the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, the Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, Tony Corman’s Morchestra, Anthony Brown’s Asian American Orchestra, Matt Small's Crushing Spiral Ensemble, accordionist Rob Reich’s Circus Bella All-Star Band, the Fred Randolph Quintet, the Nathan Clevenger Group, and the Adam Shulman Sextet; and shared the stage with vocalists Suzanna Smith, Ed Reed, Lorin Benedict, and Betty Fu, pianists Ben Stolorow, Anne Sajdera, and the late Don Alberts, and saxophonists James Mahone and Dayna Stephens, as well as visiting luminaries including pianist/composer Satoko Fujii and Grammy-winning trumpeter/arranger John Daversa. But his ambition was always to create a band focusing on his original material. He got the chance when he landed a regular spot at Financial District watering hole The House of Shields in 2002. The gig lasted for four years, enough time to develop a book of dozens of original tunes. “We got to take a lot of musical chances on that gig,” Carey says. “I don’t think the owners were particularly big fans of the music, but there were three of them, so it took them four years to get around to firing us.”

As an artist, Jon Arkin does not fall neatly into one tidy category, genre, or medium, yet his work can always be relied upon to exhibit certain qualities: uniqueness, balance, and inspiration. He is known & sought-after as a drummer, composer, and digital media wrangler.
Arkin’s latest projects incorporate his self-designed hybrid electro-acoustic setup, which blends a vast palate of digital textures with organic sound. Drawing upon his extensive background as a tinkerer, hacker, and an aficionado of all styles of music, his work brings a multitude of elements together within the contexts of traditional composition, spontaneous composition, and algorithmic indeterminacy. He can be seen & heard using this setup with the Schimscheimer Family Trio (with saxophonist Kasey Knudsen and keyboardist Michael Coleman), with clarinetist Ben Goldberg (as a duo, and in other Goldberg projects), as a solo performer, and in collaboration with various other artists.

Lorin Benedict is an improvising vocalist (scat singer, essentially) living in Emeryville, California. He attempts to introduce more structurally involved elements into the field of vocal improvisation. Most of his work in this area is centered loosely in the jazz idiom. Recently, Lorin has co-led small groups (duos, trios) in which the roles of the musicians are somewhat mutable even in contexts where highly structured forms are being played. Examples include Bleeding Vector with Berkeley guitarist Eric Vogler, and another duo project with east bay saxophonist Kasey Knudsen. Together, these three musicians jointly lead the trio project, The Holly Martins. He has also co-led another duo project with Brooklyn-based drummer Sam Ospovat. Lorin joined the fold of musicians rather late in life, at the age of 31, after many years of listening to recordings and live performances, many of which involved members of his immediate family (all of whom are/were orchestral musicians in the western classical tradition).

Cost: $8-$15 sliding scale

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