Biography
Rob Mazurek, working as cornetist, composer, and visual artist, counts the Exploding Star Orchestra among the multiple ensembles he has created and directed. Personnel drawn from varied musical backgrounds rotate through the group according to each undertaking. The 2007 suite We Are All from Somewhere Else served as its first recording. Bill Dixon with the Exploding Star Orchestra appeared in 2008 to document an encounter with the trailblazing trumpet master. The Space Between surfaced in 2013 under the Exploding Star Electro Acoustic Ensemble designation, while a 2009 concert with Roscoe Mitchell was documented as Matter Anti-Matter. Dimensional Stardust emerged in 2020 with a revised membership, and Lightning Dreamers followed in 2023 under a different configuration. International Anthem issued Rob Mazurek & Exploding Star Orchestra's Live at Adler Planetarium the subsequent year.
Mazurek formed the Exploding Star Orchestra in 2005 after receiving an invitation from the Chicago Cultural Center and the Jazz Institute to organize a contemporary avant-garde jazz unit for a local performance. He gathered improvising musicians from Chicago, among them several members of Tortoise, conducted rehearsals, and ultimately captured an interlocking suite titled We Are All from Somewhere Else. The work narrates a cosmic tale involving stars, stingrays, electric eels, birds, phoenixes, and rockets, incorporating actual electric eel sounds captured by Mazurek at a research facility; after more than a dozen live performances, John McEntire recorded the piece at his Soma Studio in Chicago, and Chicago-based Thrill Jockey Records released it in 2007.
At the moment of the debut album, the Exploding Star Orchestra roster comprised Mazurek on cornet, Nicole Mitchell on flute, Jim Baker on piano, Corey Wilkes on flügelhorn, Jeff Parker on guitar, Matt Bauder on bass clarinet and tenor saxophone, Jeb Bishop on trombone, Josh Berman on cornet, Jason Adasiewicz on vibraphone, John McEntire on marimba and tubular bells, Matt Lux on electric bass, Jason Ajemian on acoustic bass, Mike Reed on drums, percussion, and saw, and John Herndon on drums.
Thrill Jockey put out Bill Dixon with the Exploding Star Orchestra in 2008, a studio collaboration that became one of the legendary free jazz trumpeter's final documents; Dixon passed away in June 2010 at age 84. The album reflected the exit of Wilkes and McEntire along with the arrival of vocalist Damon Locks from the Eternals. Lineup adjustments continued for Stars Have Shapes, issued by the storied Windy City jazz and blues imprint Delmark in 2010. Baker, Parker, Berman, and Ajemian had left, while Jason Stein on bass clarinet, Greg Ward on alto saxophone, Carrie Biolo on gongs, temple blocks, vibes, and percussion, and Jeff Kowalkowski on piano joined the continuing members Mazurek, Mitchell, Bauder, Bishop, Adasiewicz, Lux, Herndon, and Reed. Various editions of this ensemble toured throughout the United States and Europe.
The group stayed with Delmark for The Space Between in 2013, an audio and video package issued under the Exploding Star Electro Acoustic Ensemble name, with percussionist Mauricio Takara, also of Mazurek's Sao Paulo Underground, and samplist Guilherme Granado joining Herndon, Bauder, Mazurek, Locks, Mitchell, Biolo, and Kowalkowski. Later in the year, France's Rogue Art label released Matter Anti-Matter, a double-length set preserving the 2009 live date with Roscoe Mitchell plus a disc of Mazurek's solo electronic pieces. After these projects, Mazurek moved from Chicago to Marfa, Texas.
In 2015, ESO and Cuneiform issued Galactic Parables, Vol. 1, a double-length live archival recording made in Italy and Chicago two years earlier. Following its release and a handful of concerts, Mazurek entered an intensive phase of solo and small-group collaborative activity. In 2016 he and guitarist/vocalist Emmett Kelly released Angel Flower Sutra on International Anthem; over the ensuing years he recorded the solo albums Chimeric Stoned Horn and Rome plus several duo and septet projects for assorted labels before issuing the unaccompanied synth works Psychotropic Electric Eel Dreams IV, Love Waves Ecstatic Charge, and the quintet album Desert Encrypts, Vol. 1 featuring pianist Kris Davis, bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, and drummer Chad Taylor.
Mazurek came back to Chicago in 2019 to perform, rehearse, and compose. International Anthem encouraged him to undertake several sessions running from August 2019 through March 2020, halting only when pandemic conditions prevented further work. His eleven collaborators included Mitchell, Parker, Jaimie Branch, Joel Ross, and Tomeka Reid. In addition, Mazurek asked longtime lyricist Damon Locks to prepare original texts and record vocals for every piece. After three months of intensive post-production, editing, and assembly, Mazurek and ESO delivered the widely praised Dimensional Stardust.
Although the album received strong acclaim, touring proved impossible, so Mazurek focused on releasing solo and session recordings completed in prior years. In 2018 and 2019 he recorded with a reunited Chicago Underground Quartet alongside Parker, Taylor, and keyboardist Josh Johnson, resulting in Good Days, issued by Astral Spirits in 2020. In January 2021 the digital release Instant Opaque Evening appeared, credited to the Underflow, an improvising power trio with saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and guitarist David Grubbs that had convened in a New York studio exactly one year earlier. That September, the U.K.'s Keroxen label released Saturno Mágico, an archival 2016 live collaboration between Sao Paulo Underground and experimental Spanish electronics trio Tupperware captured inside a disused kerosene tank in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
Over two days in September 2021, Mazurek convened another version of ESO in his Marfa, Texas studio before the musicians performed at the Trans Pecos Festival. The ensemble featured returning members Parker, Mitchell, and Locks together with pianist Angelica Sanchez, Craig Taborn on synth and Wurlitzer, and Gerald Cleaver on drums; Takara and synth bassist Cathlene Pineda also participated. The finished recording, mixed and mastered, appeared as Lightning Dreamers in March 2023 on International Anthem.
The following month, Exploding Star Orchestra, appearing here as a nonet, presented a concert at the Grainger Sky Theater within Chicago's Adler Planetarium. The musicians performed Mazurek's compositions beneath projections of his paintings across the venue's domed ceiling. Brian Ashby, director of Charles Stepney: Out of the Shadows, filmed the full event. International Anthem released Live at Adler Planetarium in September 2024, and Ashby's film premiered the next day at Chicago's Hyde Park Jazz Festival.
Mazurek formed the Exploding Star Orchestra in 2005 after receiving an invitation from the Chicago Cultural Center and the Jazz Institute to organize a contemporary avant-garde jazz unit for a local performance. He gathered improvising musicians from Chicago, among them several members of Tortoise, conducted rehearsals, and ultimately captured an interlocking suite titled We Are All from Somewhere Else. The work narrates a cosmic tale involving stars, stingrays, electric eels, birds, phoenixes, and rockets, incorporating actual electric eel sounds captured by Mazurek at a research facility; after more than a dozen live performances, John McEntire recorded the piece at his Soma Studio in Chicago, and Chicago-based Thrill Jockey Records released it in 2007.
At the moment of the debut album, the Exploding Star Orchestra roster comprised Mazurek on cornet, Nicole Mitchell on flute, Jim Baker on piano, Corey Wilkes on flügelhorn, Jeff Parker on guitar, Matt Bauder on bass clarinet and tenor saxophone, Jeb Bishop on trombone, Josh Berman on cornet, Jason Adasiewicz on vibraphone, John McEntire on marimba and tubular bells, Matt Lux on electric bass, Jason Ajemian on acoustic bass, Mike Reed on drums, percussion, and saw, and John Herndon on drums.
Thrill Jockey put out Bill Dixon with the Exploding Star Orchestra in 2008, a studio collaboration that became one of the legendary free jazz trumpeter's final documents; Dixon passed away in June 2010 at age 84. The album reflected the exit of Wilkes and McEntire along with the arrival of vocalist Damon Locks from the Eternals. Lineup adjustments continued for Stars Have Shapes, issued by the storied Windy City jazz and blues imprint Delmark in 2010. Baker, Parker, Berman, and Ajemian had left, while Jason Stein on bass clarinet, Greg Ward on alto saxophone, Carrie Biolo on gongs, temple blocks, vibes, and percussion, and Jeff Kowalkowski on piano joined the continuing members Mazurek, Mitchell, Bauder, Bishop, Adasiewicz, Lux, Herndon, and Reed. Various editions of this ensemble toured throughout the United States and Europe.
The group stayed with Delmark for The Space Between in 2013, an audio and video package issued under the Exploding Star Electro Acoustic Ensemble name, with percussionist Mauricio Takara, also of Mazurek's Sao Paulo Underground, and samplist Guilherme Granado joining Herndon, Bauder, Mazurek, Locks, Mitchell, Biolo, and Kowalkowski. Later in the year, France's Rogue Art label released Matter Anti-Matter, a double-length set preserving the 2009 live date with Roscoe Mitchell plus a disc of Mazurek's solo electronic pieces. After these projects, Mazurek moved from Chicago to Marfa, Texas.
In 2015, ESO and Cuneiform issued Galactic Parables, Vol. 1, a double-length live archival recording made in Italy and Chicago two years earlier. Following its release and a handful of concerts, Mazurek entered an intensive phase of solo and small-group collaborative activity. In 2016 he and guitarist/vocalist Emmett Kelly released Angel Flower Sutra on International Anthem; over the ensuing years he recorded the solo albums Chimeric Stoned Horn and Rome plus several duo and septet projects for assorted labels before issuing the unaccompanied synth works Psychotropic Electric Eel Dreams IV, Love Waves Ecstatic Charge, and the quintet album Desert Encrypts, Vol. 1 featuring pianist Kris Davis, bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, and drummer Chad Taylor.
Mazurek came back to Chicago in 2019 to perform, rehearse, and compose. International Anthem encouraged him to undertake several sessions running from August 2019 through March 2020, halting only when pandemic conditions prevented further work. His eleven collaborators included Mitchell, Parker, Jaimie Branch, Joel Ross, and Tomeka Reid. In addition, Mazurek asked longtime lyricist Damon Locks to prepare original texts and record vocals for every piece. After three months of intensive post-production, editing, and assembly, Mazurek and ESO delivered the widely praised Dimensional Stardust.
Although the album received strong acclaim, touring proved impossible, so Mazurek focused on releasing solo and session recordings completed in prior years. In 2018 and 2019 he recorded with a reunited Chicago Underground Quartet alongside Parker, Taylor, and keyboardist Josh Johnson, resulting in Good Days, issued by Astral Spirits in 2020. In January 2021 the digital release Instant Opaque Evening appeared, credited to the Underflow, an improvising power trio with saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and guitarist David Grubbs that had convened in a New York studio exactly one year earlier. That September, the U.K.'s Keroxen label released Saturno Mágico, an archival 2016 live collaboration between Sao Paulo Underground and experimental Spanish electronics trio Tupperware captured inside a disused kerosene tank in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
Over two days in September 2021, Mazurek convened another version of ESO in his Marfa, Texas studio before the musicians performed at the Trans Pecos Festival. The ensemble featured returning members Parker, Mitchell, and Locks together with pianist Angelica Sanchez, Craig Taborn on synth and Wurlitzer, and Gerald Cleaver on drums; Takara and synth bassist Cathlene Pineda also participated. The finished recording, mixed and mastered, appeared as Lightning Dreamers in March 2023 on International Anthem.
The following month, Exploding Star Orchestra, appearing here as a nonet, presented a concert at the Grainger Sky Theater within Chicago's Adler Planetarium. The musicians performed Mazurek's compositions beneath projections of his paintings across the venue's domed ceiling. Brian Ashby, director of Charles Stepney: Out of the Shadows, filmed the full event. International Anthem released Live at Adler Planetarium in September 2024, and Ashby's film premiered the next day at Chicago's Hyde Park Jazz Festival.
Albums
Lightning Dreamers
2023
Dimensional Stardust
2020
Stars Have Shapes
2010
Bill Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra
2008
We Are All From Somewhere Else
2007
Live
