ROULETTE presents
20 Greene St (between Canal and Grand St)
8:30 PM Admission $15 Students $10 MEMBERS FREE
TICKETS/RSVP: 212.219.8242
Roulette 228 West Broadway New York, NY 10013
contact: press@roulette.org http://www.roulette.org/

RHYTHMLAB
Sept 8: Joey Baron, Robyn Schulkowsky, Ikue Mori and Jim Staley: 8:30: concert


Rhythmlab is an ongoing collaborative experiment between Joey Baron and Robin Schulkowsky that explores the processes and dialogues of percussion-based music, by "letting sounds be sounds". The work is rhythm-centered and also sonic-centered, in the sense that the music is guided by the sounds of the actual material (in this case giant wooden bars). This run features two masters of sound and texture: trombone maestro Jim Staley and laptop wizard Ikue Mori. For Rhythmlab, Robin has hand crafted an array of original percussion instruments. Friday’s and Saturday’s events will feature a free afternoon open house during which visitors are welcome to come view and try Robin’s instruments, experience demos and speak with the artists about their work and process.

Robyn Schulkowsky studied music at the University of Iowa and the music conservatory in Cologne, Germany. She has serves as head of the percussion department at the University of New Mexico, where she performed with the New Mexico Symphony, The Orchestra of Santa Fe, and the New Mexico Jazz Workshop. After relocation to Germany in the early 80s, she began working with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mauricio Kagel, John Cage and Iannis Xenakis, presenting their works in tours that included the former Soviet Union, Korea, China, and major European music festivals. Since the late 80s she has collaborated with Derek Bailey, Nils Petter Molvaer, Kim Kashkashian, Christian Wolff, Sasha Waltz, and the Ghanaian drummer and composer Ghanaba, who she met during an extended stay in Ghana in 1997. Her current projects include a trio with Joey Baron and Fredy Studer and a music theater piece that will be premiered in Germany in February 2008. Her new work, “Armadillo”, was premiered in Italy this past June.

Joey Baron started drumming at age nine, and began performing professionally the following year. He settled in Los Angeles in 1975 to realize a dream of playing with the great jazz musician Carmen McRae, consequently becoming a much sought after singer's drummer. Since moving to New York City in 1983, Mr. Baron has continued to expand his scope and develop his musical ideas through collaborations with various artists including Red Rodney, Bill Frisell, Tim Berne, Ron Carter and John Zorn, with whom the collaboration continues to the present. Current projects include solo concert tours, duo concerts with Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell, his own band, "Killer Joey", The John Abercrombie Quartet, and the Schulkowsky, Studer, Baron drum trio.

Jim Staley, trombonist and composer, works primarily with improvisation, crossing genres freely between post-modern classical music and avant-garde jazz. He has collaborated for many years with other highly experienced improvisers, both dancers and musicians. Staley¹s recording projects include Blind Pursuits with Phoebe Legere and Borah Bergman; Mumbo Jumbo, different trio combinations with Wayne Horvitz, Elliott Sharp, Shelley Hirsch, Samm Bennett, Ikue Mori, Bill Frisell, Fred Frith and John Zorn; Jim Staley's Don Giovanni, with Mori, Davey Williams, Zeena Parkins and Tenko, plus several more. Staley also performs and records with the Tone Road Ramblers, a collaborative chamber-improv ensemble, together since 1981.

Ikue Mori began her musical activity playing drums with the seminal DNA band (with Arto Lindsay and Tim Wright) in the late 70s. During this time, she developed her unique method of performing improvisations with drum machines that eventually led to her creative uses of the laptop computer. She has since collaborated with many avant-garde performers including Zeena Parkins, Fast Forward, Mark Tomkin's Dance Company, Anthony Coleman, Shelley Hirsch, Fred Frith and John Zorn. She is a recipient of the Prix Ars Electronica Digital Music Award of Distinction. She has worked with Dave Douglas's “Witness Freakin" ensemble and John Zorn's Electric Masada. Current working groups include Mephista, with Sylvie Courvoisier
and Susie Ibarra, a quartet with Kim Gordon, DJ Olive and Jim O’Rourke, a duo project with Zeena Parkins, a trio with Haco and Aki Onda, and Hemophiliac with John Zorn and Mike Patton.