Jay Sanders

Jay Sanders is a guitarist, bassist, composer, producer, and bandleader based in Asheville, N.C. An avid musical explorer with an insatiably curious mind, his music seamlessly fuses jazz, rock, blues, metal, and African influences with years of improvisational study. His compositions range from structured thematic works and soulful grooves to Americana reflections, global soundscapes, and experimental improvisations.

With more than two dozen recordings and performances across 47 U.S. states and six countries, Jay is best known as the longtime bassist for Acoustic Syndicate, widely considered a progenitor of the jam and jamgrass scenes. The North Carolina-bred band has performed at major festivals including Bonnaroo and Farm Aid over their 25-year career. Jay also served as bassist for Americana legends Donna the Buffalo from 2007-2010 and co-leads the avant-garde E.Normus Trio, whose debut Love & Barbiturates earned critical acclaim for its fusion of "jazz-rock, free-jazz and progressive metal-jazz."

Evan Palmer

Evan Palmer (they/them) is an improviser, bassist, multi-instrumentalist, composer and educator based in Brooklyn. They specialize in avant-garde and improvised music.

?Raised in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, Palmer moved to Boston in 2018 to attend Berklee College of Music, where they studied with John Lockwood, Francisco Mela, Bob Gullotti, Bruce Gertz, Bruno Räberg, and Linda May Han Oh. They graduated in 2022 with a Bachelor of Music in Bass Performance.

?Palmer's music draws from a wide variety of influences. These include jazz, Latin, European classical, and folk, but with a focus on improvisation, avant-garde music and experimentation

Billie Davies

Born: December 10, 1955

"Like the best forward-thinking music, Billie Davies' work reminds you of many different things but in the end, it is its own original beast, as powerful as anything more well-known musicians have created this year.” - Jerome Wilson, All About Jazz (Dec 17, 2018)

Mentioned as one of the Iconic Female Jazz Drummers on Jazz Fuel in 2022 all of jazz drummer and composer Billie Davies' music is Free Improvisation. Billie Davies (née Goegebeur, December 10, 1955 in Bruges, Belgium), an American female jazz drummer and composer, is best known for her free improvisation, avant-garde and avant-garde jazz music since the mid-1990s, and her improvisational drumming techniques she has performed in Europe and in the United States.

Patrick Golden

Born: July 4, 1975

Patrick Golden is an American drummer in the jazz, free jazz and free improvisation genres.He is well known for playing in New York City improv and experimental music scenes. Over the past decade, Patrick has had extensive shows in and around NYC as well as a number of Japanese tours. 

Rent Romus

Born: January 6, 1968

Rent Romus is a saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist, composer, bandleader, music producer, and community leader hailed by Downbeat as having "...a bold sound, unmistakable sincerity and conviction". A third generation Finnish American born in Hancock Michigan of the Upper Peninsula and growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, Romus' work on the saxophone has been dubbed “ferocious” by the San Francisco Weekly and “central to the creative music world of the West Coast” by writer jazz critic Frank Rubolino. From his very beginnings as a student of jazz while being exposed to the twilight tutelage of Stan Getz he found himself drawn to the outer realms of Sun Ra and Albert Ayler, as well as Arthur Blythe, Derek Bailey and Merzbow.

He runs the Lords of Outland a free jazz unit since 1994, the Life’s Blood Ensemble a contemporary original ensemble, and works with pianist Thollem McDonas in the Bloom Project, composer bandleader Heikki "Mike" Koskinen, the collective improvisation group The Ruminations and other various projects.

Rent Romus has recorded music exploring improvisation and composition in a wide variety of musical settings both as a leader and sideman which have included Chico Freeman, John Tchicai, Vinny Golia, Thollem McDonas, Heikki "Mike" Koskinen, Stefan Pasborg, James Zitro, Kash Killion, and Jon Bridsong to name a few.

He is the founder of Edgetone Records with over 30 years of independent music production, and performance experience as well as the founder and Executive Director of the non-profit Outsound Presents under which curates the bi-weekly music series known as SIMM at the Musicians Union Hall, the weekly Luggage Store Gallery Creative Music Series, as well as annual Outsound New Music Summit, the Bay Area's creative music festival held every summer in San Francisco.

Clemens Kuratle

Born: March 26, 1991

Born in 1991 in Bern, Switzerland, Clemens started playing the drums at the early age of 6 and by the age of 10 he made his first experiences as a drummer in the band of the reformed church in Meikirch/Berne were his father still preaches. He started taking piano lessons two years later. It was in highschool where he discovered his love for jazz and improvised music.

After High School he studied at the Hochschule Luzern - Musik Jazz Departement.His teachers and mentors included Pierre Favre, Gerry Hemingway, Norbert Pfammatter, Lauren Newton, Christoph Baumann, Ed Partyka, Roberto Domeniconi, Hans Feigenwinter and others.His studies with Gerry Hemingway led to an increasing interest in the music of the world, which led to a growing collection and knowledge of so called world-music, a development that cannot be underestimated.

Sabana Blanca

Phillip Haynes

Born: June 15, 1961

A veteran artist based in New York for 25 years, Phil Haynes is featured on more than 85 LP, CD, and DVD releases by numerous American and European record labels. Haynes’ debut, The Paul Smoker Trio’s QB with Anthony Braxton, was named the #1 recording of 1985 by esteemed critic Kevin Whitehead. The international media have compared his drumming to masters Jack DeJohnette, Roy Haynes and Elvin Jones, and his compositions to Duke Ellington, Charles Ives, Charles Mingus and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. His performances were recently noted to be “The perfect middle between tradition and avant-garde, between power and sophistication, between accessibility and adventure. . . standards with a new sense of drama, dynamics, and true moments of fun.”

Elinor Speirs

Born: September 7

There is something amazing that happens when cultures converge. There is surprise and enchantment, chaos and dispute, but in the end, there is always something new. That is where violinist Elinor Speirs likes to set up residence - at the cusp of the conversation. The progeny of a Viking and a celt, raised at the southern tip of Africa with Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, it was almost inevitable that Elinor would flee the constraints of the orchestra and join the fire and dance of improvised music. Versatility and flair for style have ensured her place in musical genres across the board. Classically trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and jazz and free music trained at New York University and New England Conservatory, Elinor is an experienced orchestral and chamber music performer with a burgeoning career in jazz, world music fusion, free music, new music and interdisciplinary arts

Payton MacDonald

Born: December 16, 1974

As a composer numerous ensembles have performed his music around the world, including Alarm Will Sound, Medeski, Martin, and Wood, Los Angeles Philharmonic, JACK Quartet, New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, So Percussion, To Hit Duo, Young Voices of Colorado, Quintet Mont Royal, Classical Jam, guitarists Mak Grgic and Eliot Fisk, Composers Concordance Ensemble, tabla soloist Shawn Mativetsky, accordionist Bill Schimmel, french hornist John Clark, and many others. He has received grants and awards from ASCAP, Meet the Composer, American Music Center, American Institute of Indian Studies, as well as fellowships from Yaddo and Ragdale