City: Brooklyn

Doors 7pm, Show 7:30pm
$20 adv / $25 dos

Join us for a very special evening of folk music, improvisation, and original compositions by Larkin Grimm, Rowan Katz (Bay Area), and Khomsa (Huda Asfour & Raffi Boden’s oud and cello duo).

Khomsa ﺔﺳﻣﺧ – a call for protection from the evil eye, a hand reaching out across all perceived divides; A new project between Huda Asfour (‘oud) and Raffi Boden (cello), Khomsa is an improvisation journey rooted in curiosity beyond stereotypes, in the commonality of songs & culture, in the intersection between folk musics… In this chapter of genocide & fascism, Khomsa reminds us of the threads that connect us all. Raffi Boden comes from the world of Yiddish music, where he has crafted a new approach to klezmer on the cello. His interests lie in radical yiddish song, improvisation, chamber music, and folk musics from Romanian, Greek and balkan to American old time. Huda Asfour is a Palestinian wanderer who grew up surrounded by North African and Arabic sounds and folk repertoires from Tunis all the way to Iraq. For more visit https://www.hudaasfour.com/

Rowan Katz is a multifaceted vocalist, folklorist, theater artist, composer. educator, and writer exploring diasporism, grief, rematriation, abolition, mysticism, and living tradition through their work in the Bay Area and abroad. Their recent credits include The Weight of Thread: A Jewish Ritual for Palestine at Dance Mission Theater (SF), JetLag Festival (NY), SFJazz at SFMOMA, THEYFRIEND at Brava Theater (SF), As Above So Below at Marin MOCA, Kol: A Retreat for Jewish Music Across the Diaspora (featuring Melanie DeMore and Yoni Battat), as well as various collaborations and bills including Phoebe Vlassis, Kitka, and HBO’s Scavenger’s Reign. Rowan also regularly performs with their chamber ensemble, Ardea. Website: https://www.rowankatz.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rowankatz/

Larkin Grimm is a musician, painter, sculptor, and educator, born in a commune in Memphis and raised in the Blue Ridge foothills of Georgia. Her work spans experimental and traditional folk, outsider art, performance, and a variety of visual mediums. Her intense, ecstatic voice with swirling multi-tracked patterns has made her one of the most singular figures in American independent music — dramatic, Appalachian and Balkan influenced, and consistently moving in its unique power. Bandcamp:https://larkingrimm.bandcamp.com/

Doors 7pm, Show 7:30pm
$20 adv / $25 dos

Anna Webber (tenor saxophone, flute), Yuma Uesaka (soprano saxophone, clarinet), Nate Wooley (trumpet), Lester St. Louis (cello), Max Johnson (double bass), and Jeff Davis (drumset, vibraphone)

Composer, bassist, and improviser Max Johnson presents his brand new sextet in the premiere of “Without Fear,” a new concert-length work performed alongside Anna Webber (tenor saxophone, flute), Yuma Uesaka (soprano saxophone, clarinet), Nate Wooley (trumpet), Lester St. Louis (cello), and Jeff Davis (drumset, vibraphone). The piece is a sprawling, style-blurring composition that explores the many musical worlds Johnson has inhabited over the past fifteen years, weaving together elements of jazz, chamber music, folk music, free improvisation, and progressive rock.

The work draws from Johnson’s experience as an in-demand performer and prolific composer, having performed internationally and recorded with artists such as Anthony Braxton, Geri Allen, the Daedalus Quartet, David Grisman, Tyshawn Sorey, Mary Halvorson, Mivos Quartet, and several alumni of Frank Zappa’s bands. Conceived as a musical ecosystem where diverse influences coexist and interact, “Without Fear” highlights the individual voices and abilities of the ensemble while bringing Johnson’s expansive musical vision into a single personal work.

As a lover of comic books, the piece is inspired by the Green Lantern, whose power ring can create anything imaginable through sheer force of will, so long as its bearer remains without fear. Like the ring itself, the work imagines a creative space where the many musical languages Johnson inhabits can live together within a single composition.