Friday March 20 * 8pm * $15

The improvisational duo of English percussionist Paul Lytton and American trumpeter Nate Wooley spans generations and an ocean, but their shared aesthetics have made the decade-long partnership one of the most exciting in contemporary improvisation. Each musician defies his respective instrument’s conventional vocabulary. Lytton is as likely to use his junk-festooned kit to stop time as he is to keep it, and Wooley often incorporates outboard accoutrements and extended techniques to obtain coarse but pliable textures. The duo’s unusual sounds are means, not ends. Their shared appreciation for distressed noise and singular timbres—as well as their willingness to engage with whatever materials are at hand—ensures that the music maintains a singular character even when musicians as stylistically dissimilar as reedist Ken Vandermark or drummer Jim Black join them. No guests have been confirmed at press time, but even if none show up, you can be sure that the music will be mercurial and complete. — Bill Meyer, The Chicago Reader

Paddling around with piano and clarinet as a youth, Jenny Moon Tucker found herself as a college sophomore with a Minitmoog (not sic), a record player that could go 16 RPM, and a four-track tape recorder. After making certain sonic realizations, she soon met some comrades in the Washington DC area, proceeding to record, tour, and release a dozen LPs with Twilight Memories of the Three Suns. Shuffling around the eastern coast of USA and inland to Atlanta, she collaborated with folks young and old, noise and jazz veterans alike. Marshall Allen told her to always follow her dreams and take care of the internal conflicts before the external, Jack Wright told her he was perplexed by the way she hit the keys a way he hadn't seen before. Settling in Baltimore a few years ago she now makes jam and paints pictures for a living, while allowing music and improvisation to guide her along in life, in hopes of bringing the infinite healing light to more humans who need it. Jenny Moon Tucker plays C-Melody Tenor and Alto Saxophones, and anything else that could possibly make a sound. She performs and records by herself, with her partner as Pony Moon, and in various collaborations in the Baltimore and DC area.