ESS presents Moment to Moment, a collective of artists including Hamid Drake, Joshua Abrams, Lisa Alvarado, Michael Zerang, and Zahra Baker.
In case of rain, this event will be canceled.
Moment to Moment is a collective of artists including Hamid Drake, Joshua Abrams, Lisa Alvarado, Michael Zerang, and Zahra Baker. The group will come together for a 60-minute improvisational set that weaves together energetic rhythms and eclectic visual elements alongside voice and vocals.
The group Moment to Moment was created through the artists’ participation in a research project with Dr. Ananda Marin (UCLA). The project aims to better understand the role of relationships and improvisation in teaching and learning. Over the last two years, the group has participated in a series of conversations where they shared their personal and collective experiences with improvisation, creating a shared context for the performance that will take place on July 1. Join us as we explore the relationship between improvisation and learning.
Artist Bios
Hamid Drake is a drummer/percussionist from Chicago who is known for his flowing rhythmic expressions. Born in Monroe, Louisiana, Hamid moved to Evanston, Illinois when he was a child, where his family lived next door to jazz saxophonist Fred Anderson.
Drake has studied drums extensively, including eastern and Caribbean styles, which led to a deep engagement with reggae. He also frequently plays without sticks, using his hands to develop subtly commanding undertones. His tabla playing is also notable for his subtlety and flair.
Drake tours and records all over the world. Throughout the years he has played and/or recorded with Fred Anderson, Don Cherry, Jim Pepper, Adam Rudolph, Foday Musa Suso, Pharoah Sanders, Peter Brötzmann, Marilyn Crispell, Pierre Dorge, Johnny Dyani, Hassan Hakmoun, Herbie Hancock, Joseph Jarman, George Lewis, bassist William Parker (in a large number of lineups), Archie Shepp, David Murray, Sabir Mateen, Joe McPhee, Dewey Redman, John Tchicai, and almost all the members of the AACM. He has also performed a solstice celebration with fellow Chicago percussionist Michael Zerang annually since 1991. With these diverse artists, playing in a broad range of musical settings, Drake comfortably adapts to north and west African and Indian impulses as well as reggae and Latin.
More recently, he has devoted his energies and creativity as band leader and co-leader, focusing on his own groups and projects such as, Turiya: Honoring Alice Coltrane, Bindu, the Indigo Trio (with Nicole Mitchell and Harrison Bankhead), and duet projects with multiple artists including the Italian vibraphone player Pasquale Mirra, as well as duets with Iva Bittova, Paolo Angeli, and Michel Portal.
Joshua Abrams is a composer, multi-instrumentalist & improviser. He has performed and recorded with many artists as a bassist, composed scores for ten documentary films & leads the group Natural Information Society. He currently collaborates with Chad Taylor in the duo Mind Maintenance & is a member of Hamid Drake’s ensemble Turiya Honoring Alice Coltrane.
Lisa Alvarado is a visual artist and harmonium player in the group Natural Information Society. Since 2010, Alvarado has created mobile stage sets for NIS with her free-hanging paintings. Alvarado has recently exhibited her work in the 2022 Whitney Biennial, Quiet as Its Kept, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Bergen Kunsthall, Norway; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Bridget Donahue, New York; and The Modern Institute, Glasgow.
Michael Zerang was born in Chicago, Illinois and is a first generation American of Assyrian decent. He has been an active musician, composer, and producer since 1976, focusing extensively on improvised music, free jazz, contemporary composition, puppet theater, experimental theater, and international musical forms.
He has been a long-standing member of The Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, Friction Brothers, Brötzmann/McPhee/Kessler/Zerang Quartet, and Survival Unit III with Joe McPhee and Fred Lonberg-Holm.
He has collaborated extensively with contemporary theater, dance, and other multidisciplinary forms and has received three Joseph Jefferson Awards for Original Music Composition in Theater, in 1996, 1998, and 2000. He has over one-hundred titles in his discography and has toured nationally and internationally to 34 countries since 1981 with and ever-widening pool of collaborators.
He was the artistic director of the Link's Hall Performance Series from 1985-1989 where he produced over 300 concerts of jazz, traditional ethnic folk music, electronic music, and other forms of forward thinking music. He continued to produce concerts at Cafe Urbus Orbis from 1994-1996, and at his own space, The Candlestick Maker in Chicago's Albany Park neighborhood, from 2001 - 2005.
http://www.michaelzerang.com/
https://pinkpalace.bandcamp.com
Zahra Glenda Baker is a vocalist, ritualist and teaching artist. She is recognized for her performance work as a folk and jazz vocalist, dramatic actor and an engaging storyteller. She has performed at venues such as The Old Town School of Folk, The Chicago Jazz Festival, The National Association of Black Storytelling Festival and The National Storytelling Festival. She is honored to be a part of this phenomenon group of musicians who have met over the past year to reflect on our long-term musical and spiritual relationships
FB: Zahra Glenda Baker
IG: zahramalika