The Long Jam - A live improvisational performance to benefit Inara

About this event

Improv Spaces @ Saratoga Arts presents

The Long Jam

A live improvisational performance to benefit INARA

Tuesday, October 22nd

7:30-9:00pm EST

Saratoga Arts Theatre at 320 Broadway, Saratoga Springs, NY

Suggested Donation $20 at the door for INARA

12+ regional musicians come together one night for a live improvisational session cycling in and out of a long jam. Embracing collaboration and a range of textures and tones, this evening will be one of listening and feeling collectively beyond ourselves.

INARA was founded in 2015 by Arwa Damon, CNN’s Senior International Correspondent, to fill in the gaps in access to life-altering services for children in communities impacted by human-induced and natural disasters. With the many events happening globally affecting children, this concert will benefit INARA with a suggested donation at the door.  

The evening’s program will consist of one long jam session in which musicians will be playing in and out of the session, creating a unique one-time experience. The musicians playing at this concert are some of the regions’ most talented artists working in improvisational music and come together as a part of monthly Improv Sessions with Improv Spaces. 

Featuring on

vocals | guitar | electric harp | double bass | sax | clarinet | percussion | multi-instrument

Adam Elabd

Max Caulkins

Alex Chang

Adam Forman

Jaha Orande

Jason Handron

Jason King

Nicholas Kopp aka djdrummernk

Justin Holden

Eddie Jowels

Adam Tinkle

Matt Weston

…

Contact: improvspaces@gmail.com

Improv Spaces is based in upstate New York in Saratoga County and Capital Region, developing projects that can help to serve as a hub in the region and provide resources for new music with a community of interdisciplinary collaborators locally and beyond. Improv Spaces is currently in residence with Saratoga Arts.
 

ARTIST BIOS

Max Caulkins is a game developer and amateur music maker. When she isn’t pulling her hair out in front of a computer or complaining about animation pipelines, Max can be found performing around Troy and the surrounding area, either on sax or keys or some combination of the two, usually playing her strange brand of electroacoustic improv. With a mix of melodic playing and spacious effects, Max aims to create landscapes that listeners can meditate to and get lost in, drawing them into a story about a place that doesn’t exist.

Alex Chang is an electric acoustic harpist and composer. Her musical practice finds its foundations in free jazz, indie rock, Celtic and new music, and her classical training. She explores entanglements and embodied practices through the concepts of free jazz and improvisation and the ways in which music moves through us and puts us in relation and dialogue with others. Her interest in collaborative practices attends to how improvisation opens up our sentience, our emotional and empathic relations around us and beyond as intertwined beings for connection and healing. Her work often focuses on the arts and environment and centering BIPOC communities. 

She is part of the Rock City Falls Trio, a cross-genre ensemble that often works interdisciplinary through collaborative improvisation. She completed a Jazz and Sonic Arts Music residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and premiered a new work Sharing a Woven Melody at the 2024 Gather Listen Hear Summer Arts Festival Jazz and Sonic Arts Concert. She is co-director of Improv Spaces with percussionist Adam Forman. @alexachang2000 (Photo credit: Jessica Tomaselli)

Adam Forman is a classically trained drummer/percussionist who has performed in a wide range of musical settings. His deep focus on improvisational practice and sensibilities allows for inventive syntheses of his experiences in experimental musical performance, including his punk and indie-rock influenced work.

Recently he’s been exploring composing and arranging. Adam’s arrangement of free jazz master Masahiko Togashi’s Pray was performed by the Rock City Falls Trio at their recent concert titled Equilibrium: a collaborative improv in September 2023.
(Photo credit: Jessica Tomaselli)

Jason Handron (b.1995) is a composer and bassist from Albany, NY. He has been featured as both a composer and performer at events such as the soundSCAPE Festival (Maccagno, Italy) and the New Music Gathering (Boston, MA). He currently performs with the Rock City Falls trio and teaches private lessons in the NY Capital Region.

Jason holds a B.M. in Music Composition from the State University of New York at Fredonia and an M.M. in Music Composition from Bowling Green State University.

Jason King, born and raised in Austin, Texas, from a lineage of musicians. He began playing guitar at age 11. He won local guitar contests between the ages of 15 to 17 resulting in a few televisions spots, radio play and interviews.

To further explore his interest in the vast landscape of sound Jason began building synthesizers and producing and mixing music. He plays a range of instruments, genres and styles. Among his primary influences are Aphex Twin, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Boards of Canada, Roy Buchanan and most music recorded between 1968 and 1990. Jason is also a conceptual artist, currently working on a series of 12 abstract paintings. He resides in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Nicholas Kopp aka djdrummernk is an artist, musician and educator whose work spans a wide range of genres across a variety of projects ranging from jazz, electronic, experimental noise, and musical theater. Thanks to eclectic background, he has opened for an uncommonly diverse collection of artists, from Mobb Deep to the New York City Ballet.

Justin is a guitarist/producer/engineer currently embracing the melting pot of group improvisational performance.

Eddie Jowels is a composer, musician, and educator based in Albany. His 20 year career has taken him around the world and has engaged him with a wide variety of music-making, education, and collaboration.

Eddie regularly performs and teaches privately throughout the local and regional area, and is one half of an Albany-based improvisation duo called Pig Butchering.

Adam Tinkle is a multidisciplinary artist, musician, and teacher residing in Troy NY. Committed above all to artistic community and collectivity, he once led an experimental children’s orchestra, has helped form numerous artist-run spaces, series and cooperatives, and, as a faculty member at Skidmore College, launched the Co-creation Initiative to forge networks of support between the school and justice-centering community efforts in the wider region. His current active musical projects include Sun Dogs (sci-fi spa-jazz), Seven Count (human-feel improv in thick electro-acoustic soundscapes), and Adam Tinkle and his Long-Awaited Wrinkle (troubador-esque songs in a nimble jazz-roots combo).

Matt Weston plays percussion and electronics, and has performed throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe. A student of Arthur Brooks, Bill Dixon, and Milford Graves, Weston has also collaborated with Ilyas Ahmed, Bill Callahan/Smog, Kevin Drumm, Mary Halvorson, Jeff Parker, and many others. His recordings have been hailed by Vital Weekly as “some of the best modern music,” and his 2023 double LP Embrace This Twilight was chosen for Bandcamp’s year-end Best Experimental Music list.