Ken Vandermark

Ken Vandermark works as a composer, improviser, tenor saxophonist, and clarinetist, folding an expansive array of stylistic sources into both his written pieces and his performances. Across several hundred recordings, those sources range across jazz, classical, and folk traditions as well as reggae, rock, funk, and various African idioms. Active on the Chicago music scene since the early 1990s, he has drawn consistent critical notice for his instrumental work, arrangements, and compositions, which typically fuse detailed ensemble writing with open improvisation. After forming four improvising trios on the 1995 album Standards, he has fronted ensembles that stretch from duos and octets to full big bands. The Joe Harriot Project’s 1999 release Straight Lines stands as an avant-jazz classic, while the two volumes of Free Jazz Classics issued in 2001 presented radical reinterpretations of pieces by Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman, and Jimmy Giuffre. Two years afterward Spaceways Inc. debuted with drummer Hamid Drake and bassist Nate McBride; the trio initially concentrated on material by Sun Ra and the P-Funk/George Clinton circle before later albums incorporated classic reggae songs alongside Vandermark originals. He has also served as a recurring member of Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet. Fire Room, recorded in 2008 with Lasse Marhaug and Paal Nilssen-Love, appeared on numerous year-end lists, as did the Vandermark 5 album The Horse Jumps and the Ship Is Gone from 2010. A 2016 residency at the Stone in New York City captured Vandermark in settings that included five distinct trios and one quartet; the results were later issued on the six-disc set Momentum 1: Stone.

Vandermark began on trumpet in fourth grade and switched to tenor saxophone during his junior year of high school. He studied at McGill University between 1982 and 1986. After relocating to Boston in 1986 he led the trio Lombard Street and took up bass clarinet. In 1989 he settled in Chicago, where he first gained attention as a member of Hal Russell’s NRG Ensemble. His schedule soon expanded: he began directing multiple groups and, together with critic John Corbett, organized concerts and promoted events. His visibility on the Chicago arts scene grew steadily, and he became linked with an array of ensembles—many of which he has led—including the DKV Trio, Witches & Devils, the Joe Harriot Project, Steam, Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet, Spaceways Inc., and the Vandermark 5. The last of these issued more than ten albums, among them Acoustic Machine in 2001, Color of Memory in 2005, and Free Jazz Classics, Vols. 3 & 4 in 2006; A Discontinuous Line also appeared on Atavistic that same year.

Vandermark’s projects display striking variety in method and outlook. He has collaborated with dancers, poets, painters, and additional artists. His European activities in the twenty-first century have encompassed work with Paal Nilssen-Love, with whom he formed the Territory Band. After receiving the MacArthur Fellowship they released five albums between 2004 and 2007. In 2009 he issued the ten-disc box Resonance on Not Two, documenting a residency at Alchemia in Krakow, Poland, by his big band of the same name. That year also saw releases from the Vandermark 5, from Sonore, two live albums with Lean Left, and two duo sets with Tim Daisy. The following year he took part in El Infierno Musical, a tribute to Alejandra Pizarnik organized by Christof Kurzmann; the album appeared with an accompanying performance video. Besides Vandermark and its conceptualist the ensemble included Martin Brandlmayr, Clayton Thomas, and Eva Reiter.

His output continued at a rapid pace. Over the next five years he reactivated the DKV Trio, joined Brötzmann’s large group the Ex & Brass Unbound, and formed the Margots, a jazz quintet featuring vocalist Adrienne Pierluissi plus cello and viola. He recorded Impressions of Po Music with Ken Vandermark’s Topology Nonet featuring Joe McPhee, issued new material with Fire Music, tracked three dates in Lisbon with Made to Break, and released the duo album Verses with Mats Gustafsson. The year after that brought the six-disc box Nine Ways to Reach the Bridge, a survey of duos with Kurzmann, Agustín Fernández, Joe Morris, and McPhee together with trios involving John Tilbury, Eddie Prevost, Nate Wooley, and Paul Lytton. Not Two released Occasional Poems, his 2015 duo recording with bassist Barry Guy, as one of half a dozen albums that included work by the Chicago Reed Quartet with Nick Mazzarella, Dave Rempis, and Mars Williams. Six further releases appeared in 2016, among them the box set Momentum 1: Stone, which contained additional duos, trios, and quartets, plus the duo albums Close Up (For Abbas Kiarostami) with Lasse Marhaug and Splinters with Terrie Hessels. Early in 2017 Shelter, a new quartet with Wooley, drummer Steve Heather, and bassist and guitarist Jasper Stadhouders, issued its self-titled debut on Audiographic. Altogether Vandermark appeared on fifteen recordings that year. 2018 proved nearly as active; in addition to his own projects such as Noise of Our Time with Sylvie Courvoisier, Tom Rainey, and Nate Wooley and the trio date No-Exit Corner with drummer Klaus Kruger and bassist Mark Tokar, he contributed to Prins Thomas’ Smalltown Supersound 25: The Movement of the Free Spirit. The following year ranked among his most productive: besides leading or participating in more than fifteen recording sessions he released no fewer than three box sets, including the six-disc The Fire Each Time by DKV Trio and Joe McPhee and the five-disc Momentum 4 (Consequent Duos: 2015-2019) with Kris Davis, Hamid Drake, Paul Lytton, Ikue Mori, and William Parker. He also joined the trio date Invitation to a Dream with pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn and McPhee. In March 2020 he collaborated with the classical Ensemble Dal Niente on a live program of music by Roscoe Mitchell, George Lewis, and Katinka Kleijn that included the world premiere of a new Mitchell piece written expressly for the ensemble and Vandermark.