Ken Vandermark
Ken Vandermark (USA, 1964) is a renowned avant-garde composer, improviser, saxophonist/clarinetist, curator, and writer. He has collaborated and recorded with key figures from the AACM (Fred Anderson), New York’s Downtown scene (Ikue Mori), FMP (Peter Brötzmann), British improvisation (Paul Lytton), post-punk (Terrie Ex), Ethiopian music (Getachew Mekuria), and Japanese free jazz (Akira Sakata). Since 2012, he has directed the Catalytic Sound cooperative and runs Audiographic Records (founded 2014). In 1999, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for his contributions to music.
Calendar
8:00 pm
DKV Trio Night One (Hamid Drake, Kent Kessler, Ken Vandermark): Elastic Arts/Chicago
[photo by John Corbett] The DKV Trio is one of the most exciting ensembles working in contemporary improvised music. Featuring Hamid Drake (drums), Kent Kessler (bass), and Ken […]
8:00 pm
DKV Trio Night Two (Hamid Drake, Kent Kessler, Ken Vandermark): Elastic Arts/Chicago
[photo by John Corbett] The DKV Trio is one of the most exciting ensembles working in contemporary improvised music. Featuring Hamid Drake (drums), Kent Kessler (bass), and Ken […]
Latest Releases
October Flowers for Joe McPhee
Ken Vandermark
El Infierno Musical II
Christof Kurzmann, Katinka Kleijn, Lia Kohl, Dave Rempis, Ken Vandermark
Pivot
Mats Gustafsson, Tomeka Reid, Chad Taylor, Ken Vandermark
Fourth Atlas
Ken Vandermark & Tim Daisy
Broadcast Transformer
Edition Redux
This Is Not A Holiday!
Terrie Ex & Ken Vandermark
Recent Posts
Edition Redux: OCT-LOFT Jazz Festival, Shenzhen, China, October 2025
12/23/25: On the 26th and 27th of December I’ll be playing my last concerts of the year, as always with the DKV Trio at Elastic Arts. Exactly two months ago […]
Update: November 9, 2025
About to embark on a tour in Europe with Paal Nilssen-Love and organized by him. This means lots of intense and inspiring music (13 concerts), lots of traveling (8 […]
IN ROTATION & IN ADDITION: Winter 2024-Summer 2025
I like to keep track of the ideas and work in this journal as a reference to what has influenced and affected me over time. Alongside the collaborations I am […]
Instagram Feed
Musician (improviser/composer) who plays saxophones and clarinets, and works with a variety of styles and artists.
![One week from today the DKV Trio will reconvene to begin our annual two-night run at Elastic Arts, with shows on Friday and Saturday, December 26th and 27th, start time 8pm.
I’ve been playing with Hamid Drake and Kent Kessler longer than any other band I’ve belonged to. When we started to work together during the mid 90’s, we developed a special rapport through repeated gigs at Lunar Cabaret that has only deepened since. The music works with song-form structures that are created spontaneously, everything is improvised, and the creative challenge is high. Melodic and rhythmic materials must not only be generated on the spot, they must also be internalized so that the parts can be turned into indelible forms. This allows the structural components to keep their character with a freedom to be transformed going forward, or achieving utter clarity when returning back to them; a perpetual call and response between new ideas and memory.
Getting together with Hamid and Kent doesn’t happen often enough. The upcoming DKV shows at Elastic are a rare opportunity to see the group in action, not for a slice of history but rather for a dive into right now.
Link to full DKV Trio concert and ticket details in bio.
[photo by John Corbett]
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