DENIS BEURET
trombone, electronics
ELLIOTT LEVIN
reeds, words
WEASEL WALTER & MARC EDWARDS
drums
+ special guest MARSHALL ALLEN (Leader of The SUN RA ARKESTRA) on alto sax and EVI.

Denis Beuret was born in Semsales Delemont, Switzerland. He is a composer and trombonist in several contemporary music ensembles featuring jazz, improv, electronic music, and specializing in sound research.  He is a member of the SMS (Union Musical Switzerland) of SSRS (Syndicat Suisse Romande show) and JazzOnze + Lausanne, members of cultural associations ASM-STV, USDAM, MPSS, WIM Bern, JazzOnze + Lausanne, AMR Geneva, Lausanne, Eustace, Saignelégier Sets, New World Fribourg, Sion Farm Asylum, and Spiral Friburg.

Elliott Levin: Have you seen this man walking the streets of Philly? His signature single dread emits musical spores over sidewalks, music halls, and coffeehouses. Elliott is the ubiquitous Philadelphia musician. He has played with everyone, reading his poetry into his flute, literally, improvising with Charles Cohen, Rick Iannacone, and New Ghost, et al. Elliott studied music and creative writing at the University of Oregon. He also studied extensively with Michael Guera (former saxophonist with the Philadelphia Orchestra), Cecil Taylor (pianist/composer/improviser), and Claire Polin (flutist/composer). Elliott has performed with groups including Cecil Taylor’s Ensemble, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, Odeon Popes’ Sax Choir, Scram!, New Ghost, Atzilut (Fourth World), and Talking Free Bebop. He has collaborated in performance with poets Miguel Algarin, Gloria Tropp, Mbali Umoja, Marty Watt, and Frank Messina & Spoken Motion among many others. Venues have included Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The United Nations, The U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Yale University, The Greek Theater, Watts Towers, Lollapalooza! and scores of galleries, clubs and theaters. In 1999, he performed at the Crossing Borders Festival in the Hague, the Sexial Jazz Festival in Lisbon and Portugal, The Alternative Festival in Prague, and the Sonic Logos Festival in Philadelphia. Elliott has received awards from New American Radio (New York), The City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts and the California Endowment for the Humanities. A prolific poet, Eliott’s work has appeared in L.A. Weekly, Blue Beat Jacket (Japan), The Painted Word, Po’ Fly, Vital Pulse, Poets & Prophets, and Intervals: The Poems of Musicians (Beehive & Sisyphus Press).

Weasel Walter (first name, last name) is best known as the drummer and primary composer for the cult punk jazz/no wave/brutal prog band, The Flying Luttenbachers. Between 1991 and 2007, the group recorded 16 full-length albums, toured Europe and the US extensively, and included such musicians as Ken Vandermark, Mick Barr, Ed Rodriguez (Deerhoof), Jeb Bishop, Jonathan Hischke (Hella) and Fred Lonberg-Holm in its ranks. Mr. Walter has also worked with groups like XBXRX, Behold...The Arctopus, Zs, Erase Errata, Bobby Conn, Burmese, Lair of the Minotaur and others. Also known as an improviser, Mr. Walter has performed and/or recorded with Evan Parker, Marshall Allen, Peter Evans, Henry Kaiser, Mary Halvorson, Marc Edwards, Nels Cline, William Hooker, Darius Jones, Jim O'Rourke, John Butcher, Vinny Golia, John Lindberg and members of ROVA among many others. Mr. Walter runs the ugEXPLODE record label which has recently released music by extreme/unclassifiable acts like White Suns, Burmese, Toy Killers, Orthrelm, Henry Kaiser and many others.

Marc Edwards studied  drums while in Junior High School, played with the Manhattan Borough All City Band, All City High School Band, The Warriors Drum & Bugle Corps. He also studied at the Berklee School of Music with teachers Alan Dawson, Gene Roma and Les Harris. In addition, he had worked with David S. Ware in Apogee. This band was later absorbed into the Cecil Taylor Unit. Marc has toured the USA and Europe where the band did the recording, "Dark To Themselves," a record that has withstood the test of time, becoming a template of how to play Free Jazz. Marc continued working with David S. Ware, appearing on some Ware's early recordings, leaving the band after 20 years to strike out on his own. Personnel varies in Marc's band. After doing the album, "Time & Space, Vol. 1," Marc began calling his band, Slipstream Time Travel. The band has been fairly stable in terms of the musicians. Featured are: Tor Snyder, Ernest Anderson III, Takuma Kanaiwa - Electric Guitars; Gene Janas - Bass and Marc Edwards on Drums. Marc connected with Punk Rock musician Weasel Walter, working with him on the album "Firestorm," "Mysteries Beneath The Planet," and their most recent effort, "Blood of the Earth," all released from Ugexplode Record label. Weasel Walter moved to New York City in 2009. He and Marc immediately began working together in earnest. Marc plays in Weasel's "Cellular Chaos" band, and the Marc Edwards Weasel Walter Group with Marcus Cummins and Jeremy Viner. Full interview in All About Jazz: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=20296

Marshall Belford Allen, alto saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, bandleader, and arranger, was born May 25, 1924 in Louisville, KY and started clarinet lessons at age 10. At 18, he enlisted in the Army's 92nd Infantry (the Buffalo Soldiers), playing clarinet and alto saxophone in the 17th Division Special Service Band. Stationed in Paris during World War II, he played with pianist Art Simmons and saxophonist Don Byas, and he toured and recorded with James Moody during the late '40's. Upon honorable discharge, Mr. Allen enrolled in the Paris Conservatory of Music, studying clarinet with Delacluse. Returning to the States in 1951, Marshall settled in Chicago, where he led his own bands, playing in clubs and dance halls, while writing his own music and arrangements, as he continues to do today.
During the mid-'50's, Marshall met Sun Ra and became a student of his precepts. After joining the Sun Ra Arkestra in 1958, Marshall Allen led Sun Ra's formidable reed section for over 40 years (a role akin to the position of Johnny Hodges in the Duke Ellington orchestra). Marshall Allen lived, rehearsed, toured and recorded with Sun Ra almost exclusively for much of his musical career, leading the reed section during the time that the Sun Ra Arkestra won the "Downbeat" polls as number-one big band in 1988 and 1989. As a featured soloist with the Arkestra, Marshall pioneered the avante-garde jazz movement of the early '60's, expanding a style rooted in Johnny Hodges and Don Byas, and influencing all leading avante-garde saxophonists thereafter. During this time, Marshall also invented a woodwind instrument he called the "morrow," utilizing a saxophone mouthpiece attached to an open-hole wooden body. (This instrument is currently being marketed under another name, as Marshall never secured a patent on his invention).
Marshall Allen was one of the first jazz musicians to play traditional African music and what is now called "world music," working frequently with Olatunji and his Drums of Passion. In fact, Marshall is most likely the sole jazz musician who builds and plays the kora (a popular West African multi-stringed instrument), and he has been a major factor in its introduction to American audiences, as well as the world at large.
Marshall Allen is featured on over 200 Sun Ra releases, as well as appearing as special guest soloist in concert and on recordings with such diverse groups as NRBQ, Phish, Sonic Youth, Diggable Planets, Terry Adams, and Medeski, Martin & Wood.
Perhaps most significantly, Marshall Allen assumed the helm of the Sun Ra Arkestra in 1995 after the ascension of Sun Ra in 1993 and John Gilmore in 1995. Mr. Allen continues to reside at the Sun Ra Residence in Philadelphia, composing, writing and arranging for the Arkestra much like his mentor, totally committed to a life of discipline centered totally on the study, research, and further development of Sun Ra's musical precepts.
Marshall maintains the Sun Ra residence as a living museum dedicated to the compilation, restoration and preservation of Sun Ra's music, memorabilia, and artifacts. Marshall has launched the Sun Ra Arkestra into a dimension beyond that of mere "ghost" band by writing fresh arrangements of Sun Ra's music, as well as composing new music for the Arkestra. He works unceasingly to keep the big-band tradition alive, reworking arrangements of the music of Fletcher Henderson and Jimmie Lunceford for the Arkestra to play, along with many other American standards.
Marshall Allen is recognized all over the world as the premier avant-garde saxophonist, appearing in solo concert in London in 1995, duet with Terry Adams in 1997 in Canada, and featured in articles in "JazzTimes" (12/02), "Signal to Noise" Magazine, and innumerable other music magazines and radio and TV interviews. He is frequently called upon to give master classes, lectures, and demonstrations of Sun Ra's musical precepts, and he Keeps himself accessible to all who have an interest in Sun Ra's legacy.
Marshall Allen plays the alto saxophone, flute, clarinet, oboe, kora, and E.V.I. (Electronic Valve Instrument).

Admission is FREE